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SYNAGOGUE GUIDE
Profound Mixture Enhances Torah Text
word, to many of us.
Since Rabbi Goodman’s retirement and aliyah to Israel, he has
remained an active student of our rich
textual tradition and has conveyed his
learning, experience and wisdom in
weekly columns, “Ma Nishma From
Jerusalem.” Now he has compiled a
significant portion of these columns in
a book titled “Ma Nishma From Jerusa-
Book Review
By Rabbi Neil Sandler
lem: A Weekly Touch of Torah.”
All of us desire to learn, gain new
perspectives and receive replenishing
uplift, and many of us appreciate these
things in small doses with which we
might begin or end our day.
In “Ma Nishma From Jerusalem,”
Rabbi Goodman offers one or two brief
(two or three pages) divrei Torah on
the weekly Torah portion. He begins
with quoting a small section of the
Torah reading, perhaps adding a comment from a biblical commentator
or from our midrashic tradition, and
then shares his own thoughts.
I have known Rabbi Goodman
since I was 9 years old. Truth be told,
50 years ago I probably didn’t marvel
at his outstanding ability to share a
message. But by adolescence I was
already taking note of this ability, and
later, as a colleague, I positively marveled at Rabbi Goodman’s ability to
share a message rooted in Torah that
jumps off the pages of our holy yet
ancient text into our lives today.
In “Ma Nishma From Jerusalem,”
Rabbi Goodman draws on sources of
wisdom from outside the Jewish community, from Johann Wolfgang von
Goethe to Navaho proverbs, to enrich
our understanding of our own tradition. Ultimately, as any spiritual leader
does, Rabbi Goodman moves beyond
providing perspective; he urges us to
act in a world that is sorely in need of
our reparative acts.
In “Ma Nishma From Jerusalem,”
Rabbi Arnold Goodman “mixes a
powerful formula” of his vast knowl-
edge of traditional Jewish sources with
other literary sources. To that mixture
he adds the experiences of 50 years in
the rabbinate and healthy amounts
of personal wisdom gained from that
experience. The result is a book worth
reading once or twice a week.
In Pirkei Avot 2:4, Hillel teaches us
a practical lesson: “Do not say, ‘When
I free myself of concerns, I will study,’
for perhaps you will never free yourself.” Time is precious. Rabbi Goodman’s “Ma Nishma From Jerusalem:
A Weekly Touch of Torah” reminds
us and enables us to study Torah, to
learn from it and to apply its timeless
wisdom to our own lives and world. ■
Ma Nishma From Jerusalem: A Weekly
Touch of Torah
By Rabbi Arnold M.
Goodman
Dog Ear Publishing,
380 pages, $24.95
(hardcover), $14.95
(paperback)
Available at Amazon
and arnoldgoodman.
com
AUGUST 21 ▪ 2015
M
any people in our community enjoyed and learned much
from the spoken and written
words of Rabbi Arnold M. Goodman,
my immediate predecessor as senior
rabbi of Ahavath Achim Synagogue
and, at present, senior scholar of our
congregation.
Not infrequently do I hear someone say, “I remember one of Rabbi
Goodman’s sermons when
he said …” I remember
some of Rabbi Goodman’s
sermons too, and I probably heard his wise and
uplifting words before
anyone in Atlanta did.
I grew up at the Adath
Jeshurun Congregation in Minneapolis, where Rabbi Goodman served as
senior rabbi during my youth, adolescence and early adulthood. His words
had a profound impact on me. In fact,
after I enrolled at the Jewish Theological Seminary, it was Rabbi Goodman
who persuaded me to stay at JTS and
enter rabbinical school.
He has made a difference, again
through both spoken and written
AJT
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