{"id":107321,"date":"2016-09-20T12:19:33","date_gmt":"2016-09-20T20:19:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=107321"},"modified":"2016-09-20T12:19:33","modified_gmt":"2016-09-20T20:19:33","slug":"the-ellul-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=107321","title":{"rendered":"The Ellul Challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><A HREF=\"http:\/\/www.cross-currents.com\/archives\/2016\/09\/05\/for-whom-the-bell-doth-not-toll-the-new-pew-and-an-elul-challenge\/\">Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein writes<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf they understood the effect the chiming of the church bells had on the Jewish soul, they would never stop them.\u201d So observed a Torah sage of a different generation, when the grandeur and power of the Church further demoralized an impoverished and persecuted European Jewry. If the Pew Research Center is correct, today\u2019s worry should be the growing silence of those bells. In this we find a challenge as Elul is upon us, and as we look towards the yemei ha-din&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Not so long ago, Jews would pithily observe, \u201cVi es christelt zich, azoy yidelt zich.\u201d The translation loses all of the flavor, but the meaning is something like \u201cwhatever is happening in the Christian world, is going to happen in the Jewish world.\u201d We would not be amiss if we modernized that to \u201cVi es un-christelt zich, azoy yidelt zich\u201d \u2013 whichever way Christianity is unraveling, Jews will follow suit. And follow suit we certainly will, unless we act less like the Fiddler on the Roof shouting one word slogans at questions, and more like the am chacham v\u2019navon we are supposed to be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein writes: \u201cIf they understood the effect the chiming of the church bells had on the Jewish soul, they would never stop them.\u201d So observed a Torah sage of a different generation, when the grandeur and power of &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=107321\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-107321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jews"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=107321"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107321\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":107322,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107321\/revisions\/107322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=107321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=107321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=107321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}