Goals - Out of the Strong Sweetness

* Choose to follow the teachings of God.

* Learn.

* Remember the past and use that to do Tikkun Olam.

"Remember that we were slaves."

Why?

To develop a quality of empathy for others (from Rashi)

To take from our collective personal experience to be inspired to do good.


Poem: Out of the Strong Sweetness - 1959
Charles Reznikoff (1894-1976)

Out of the strong, sweetness;
And out of the dead body of the lion of Judah,
The prophecies and psalms;
Out of the slaves in Egypt,
Out of the wandering tribesman of the deserts
And the peasants of Palestine,
Out of the slaves of Babylon and Rome,
Out of the ghettos of Spain and Portugal, Germany and Poland
The Torah and the prophecies,
The Talmud and the sacred studies, the hymns and songs of the Jews;
And out of the Jewish dead
Of Belgium and Holland, of Rumania, Hungary, and Bulgaria,
Of France and Italy and Yugoslavia,
Of Lithuania and Latvia, White Russia and Ukrainia,
Of Czechoslovakia and Austria,
Poland and Germany,
Out of the greatly wronged
A people teaching and doing justice;
Out of the plundered
A generous people;
Out of the wounded a people of physicians;
And out of those who met only with hate,
A people of love, a compassionate people.

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