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In Memory of Alfred Shasha, A”H, Baghdad-born American Patriot, Global Entrepreneur, and Sephardi Philanthropist
10 March 2015
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This month’s featured essay
is an original, never-before-published translation of one the most moving documents in the Zionist tradition in general, and the Religious Zionist tradition in particular: Rav Meir Ben-Zion Hai Ouziel’s “Spiritual Will to the Jewish People,” written a few weeks before his death in 1953.
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Rabbi Meir Ben-Zion Hai Ouziel
Rav Ouziel’s intense love of the Jewish people and his passionate devotion to Jewish unity was highlighted in last month’s essay, “To Unite, Not to Divide: Rav Ouziel’s Big Sephardic Ideas,” by Rabbi Daniel Bouskila. The first Rishon LeZion (Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel), Rav Ouziel takes leave of the Jewish people by recalling the two goals that constituted “my heart’s desire and my life’s purpose”: teaching Jews to love the Torah of Israel, the land of Israel and the nation of Israel, and bringing peace to the Jewish people, “the entire congregation of Israel, with all its branches and parties.” |
Rav Ouziel’s intense love of the Jewish people and his passionate devotion to Jewish unity was highlighted in last month’s essay, “To Unite, Not to Divide: Rav Ouziel’s Big Sephardic Ideas,” by Rabbi Daniel Bouskila. The first Rishon LeZion (Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel), Rav Ouziel takes leave of the Jewish people by recalling the two goals that constituted “my heart’s desire and my life’s purpose”: teaching Jews to love the Torah of Israel, the land of Israel and the nation of Israel, and bringing peace to the Jewish people, “the entire congregation of Israel, with all its branches and parties.”
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Acutely aware of the all-too-human tendency to take miraculous changes in fortune for granted, Rav Ouziel further exhorts the Jewish people to continually recall “the great and wondrous merit (that) has become manifest in our present generation… when (God) gathered us in from our scattered state and brought us up to the land that is the heritage of our ancestors.”
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Today, Rav Ouziel’s “Spiritual Will” is an important and visceral reminder that loving one’s nation can serve as an ennobling force, a helpful corrective to the “sophisticated” predilection to look down upon unbridled love for one’s own people. What’s more, Rav Ouziel’s call to remember the magnitude of the in-gathering of the exiles is as necessary now as it was then, and perhaps even more so, for the state of Israel is often treated as a given, a fact-of-life, and it’s difficult to imagine that 100 years ago the Jewish people were stateless and scattered across the globe. In order to grasp the greatness both of Rav Ouziel’s personality and the times in which we live, Sephardi Ideas Monthly is proud to present, for the first time ever in English Rav Meir Ben-Zion Hai Ouziel’s, “Spiritual Will to the Jewish People.” |
In order to grasp the greatness both of Rav Ouziel’s personality and the times in which we live, Sephardi Ideas Monthly is proud to present, for the first time ever in English Rav Meir Ben-Zion Hai Ouziel’s, “Spiritual Will to the Jewish People.”
To RSVP, please click here or call (212) 868-4444.
The American Sephardi Federation is co-sponsoring Andrée Aelion Brooks’ “Spain, Maimonides, and His Turbulent Times,” a midday, mini-course from April 14th-May 5th at the Jewish Community Center (West 76th Street – Amsterdam Avenue). The course will provide background on Jewish life in Spain during the Middle Ages, the itinerant years of Maimonides’ early life, his works in Jewish thought and medicine, a sampling of his remedies, and the controversies that erupted over his ideas after his death.
Please click here to register (tuition required).
Contact us by email or phone (212-294-8350) to learn about opportunities to underwrite our newly designated office spaces and publications in honor or memory of loved ones.
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Copyright © 2015 American Sephardi Federation, All rights reserved. Thank you for opting (on our websites, at an event, or by email) to receive American Sephardi Federation Programming Updates and Publications. We apologize if this message was sent in error. The American Sephardi Federation’s Sephardi House is an integral part of the Center for Jewish History (15 West 16th St., New York, NY., 10011). American Sephardi Federation | http://www.Sephardi.House | info@Sephardi.House | (212) 294-8350
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Copyright © 2015 American Sephardi Federation, All rights reserved.
Thank you for opting (on our websites, at an event, or by email) to receive American Sephardi Federation Programming Updates and Publications. We apologize if this message was sent in error.
The American Sephardi Federation’s Sephardi House is an integral part of the Center for Jewish History (15 West 16th St., New York, NY., 10011).
American Sephardi Federation | http://www.Sephardi.House | info@Sephardi.House | (212) 294-8350
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