Individual Responsibility

Found 8 Search results

1. Mizmor 14

   A Poetic Sermon

   Rabbi Avi Baumol

   Mizmor 14 carries a complex, almost contradictory message. The first half of Mizmor 14 demands of the individuals to unite with the community at large, and makes them responsible for detachment from the community. The second half of the Mizmor praises distinctness and dissociation.

2. Yehezkel’s Prophetic Mission

   Dr. Tova Ganzel

   Yehezkel is told at the outset that he is being sent to the nation to convey God’s word, for them to know that a prophet was among them before the Destruction. But the people dwelling in Jerusalem – like those in Babylon – will not change their ways. The role of the prophet is not to bring about repentance but rather to convey God’s word and thereby justify the imminent punishment. Therefore when he is commanded to eat the scroll, he is ambivalent. Just as the scroll contains lamentations, with no hint of redemption, so too Yehezkel’s prophecy includes, initially, only the coming of the Destruction.

   Nonetheless, there is a message that the prophet addresses to each individual in his generation: the Temple is going to be destroyed, and the nation will be exiled from its land, but every person bears personal responsibility for his own fate, because even at this most bitter time there will be those who will die and those who will be saved. Every individual is responsible for his own actions. Yehezkel must therefore carry out his mission even if the nation’s fate is already sealed.

3. The Soul that Sins – It Shall Die

   Dr. Tova Ganzel

   The people of Yehezkel’s generation claimed that since the destruction was inevitable, their individual actions no longer had any importance and it made no difference whether they remained loyal to God’s commandments or not. Others believed that “The way of the Lord is unfair”.  Therefore Yehezkel repeats and emphasizes the responsibility of every individual for his actions and the life-and-death consequences that follow. Yehezkel concludes by stating that the people’s claim – that the son dies because of the sins of the father – is simply incorrect.

   The prophet also declares that the gates of repentance remain open to the individual. These verses are quite unusual given that nowhere in the book is there any call for the people to mend their ways so that God will not destroy His Temple. Although the prophet here calls upon the people to repent, he offers no promise that this will prevent the destruction; he only speaks of deliverance from the death for the sinners when the destruction comes.

   The sins brought about the imminent destruction of the city according to Yehezkel are idolatry, sexual immorality and bloodshed. Yehezkel does not seem to attribute the destruction of the First Temple to the social transgressions of the nation as a whole – in neither the prophecies before nor after the Destruction.

    

   In Chapter 22 as the Destruction of Jerusalem draws nearer the prophet appears to place more of an emphasis on the personal responsibility that the leaders of the people bear for their actions, along with the dire consequences of their corrupt leadership for the nation as a whole. This chapter attributes sins both social and religious in nature to the office-bearers in leadership positions. Thus, the fate of the city is sealed because of idolatry, sexual immorality, bloodshed, and – finally – the deeds of the leadership.

4. Human Suffering in Eikha

   Dr. Yael Ziegler

5. Ramban vs. Ralbag: Escaping the Famine - Sin or Responsibility?

   Rabbi David Silverberg

6. What has God Done to Us - or Were We Responsible

   Rabbi David Silverberg

7. Leket and Pe'ah for the Poor: Everyone is Involved

   Rabbi David Silverberg

8. Shelach: Leadership and Individual Responsibility

   Rabbi Jonathan Snowbell | 17 minutes

   What happened in Parashat Shelach that led to the Sin of the Spies - and the sin and punishment of the people? Where was there room for confusion- why did people worry that God couldn’t help them? How could they allow ten spies to convince them?