SIMON APFEL
“Sinai Indaba is an opportunity to refresh our minds and souls,” says Chief Rabbi Warren Goldstein, who founded the Indaba in 2011.
This year’s line-up of speakers embodied that freshness, relevance and immediacy. Here is what they had to say:
Rabbi Dr Sam Lebens
- “You live in a dream. We’re all being dreamed by G-d. But even if you’re fictional, maybe it’s up to you what type of story you’re in?”
- “There was a man called Abraham. He was a real person. But he was also an expression of an idea that G-d wanted to represent in the world. He was born of a metaphor. What are you a metaphor for? That is up to you.”
Charlie Harary
- “The core of connecting in a relationship is to communicate. And communication is not what you say, but what you hear.”
- “There is no tomorrow. Tomorrow is a gift we may not deserve. We act now. We don’t wait.”
Rabbi Binny Freedman
- “One of the inexplicable, wonderful things about a relationship with Hashem is the realisation that in all of G-d’s greatness, there is still room for me. And that Hashem actually created me, which means I am important enough to be created, and even more, that without me all of creation would be missing something.”
- “Each of us has the opportunity to contribute to making a better world, and everything that we encounter affords us an opportunity to do just that.”
Raquel Kirszenbaum
- “The more you have of what society tells you to want, the less happy you are.”
- “The Jewish question is not ‘why’, it’s ‘for what’ – what do I do with this, how can I make it better?”
- “What you carry is not your choice; your choice is how you carry what G-d gives you.”
Yaakov Katz
- “I am often asked how Israelis can sit in coffee shops in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem when rockets are landing in the South. How can people board a bus down the block from another bus that had just been blown up by a suicide bomber? I think the answer mostly has to do with one word – resilience.”
- “Israel needs to remember that Trump is for Trump. There’s no ideology there. The question Israel is asking is what is Trump after.”
- “In the 1950s, you know what Israel exported? False teeth and oranges. Now, not even 70 years after its creation, 50 per cent of our exports are technology.”
- “In Israel, we innovate and create, not despite the threats along our borders, but because of them.”
Rabbi Dov Greenberg
- “A great lover is a great forgiver.”
- “Neuroses and charoses – both Jewish delicacies.”
- “Celebrate the imperfections of your spouse – this is the message of breaking the glass at the chuppah and shouting ‘mazeltov!’”
- “To bring the world into being, G-d withdrew his presence, and in that space he allowed for otherness. If we want to be G-d-like in love, we too have to create a space for otherness.”
Rabbi Reuven Leuchter
- “The parable of a person being a world is very accurate. There is a surface crust, which is likeable, presentable. But inside there’s a constant raging fire.”
- “People expect a rabbi to explain away their situation, to show them the difficulty is imaginary. This is wrong. This is speaking to a person, where he is not.”
- “Your self-worth is compared to a maze. You have to find your way to the core.”
Nili Couzens
- “Your whole life is setting you up for greatness.”
- “When your kids have a trait, they think everybody has that trait. Our role as a parent is to be able to tell them, ‘this is what’s great about you!’”
- “Don’t be the weak substitute teacher in your own house. You’re the one in charge.”
- “The real you is your soul – your body is just your scuba suit. If you want people to see your soul, you have to turn down the volume on your body.
