To Be Continued...: Teachings of Rabbi Ben Hollander on Parashat HaShavua

Rabbi Benjamin J. Hollander, of blessed memory, was an impassioned teacher of Torah both in Israel and in North America to an entire generation of rabbis, university students, synagogue congregants, campers at Ramah summer camp, rabbinical colleagues and friends. He was a long-time teaching assistant and disciple of Nechama Leibowitz. During the fateful year 5754 (1993-94), he served as the weekly Torah commentator on Kol Yisrael radio. Many of those Torah commentaries are included in this book, together with additional writings by Rabbi Hollander and contributions from friends, family, and colleagues that commemorate his teaching.

Rabbi Hollander’s selection of themes from each weekly Torah portion are as particularly relevant to Jewish spiritual life today as they were in 1993-1994. The dramatic events on which the Torah scroll unrolled that year provide historical background of great interest while catalyzing Rabbi Hollander’s exploration of more general issues confronting the State of Israel and the Jewish people during this pivotal period of its history. Rabbi Hollander writes: “The juxtaposition of these events with the Torah text provides the reader with a glimpse of one of the most exciting but controversial aspects of living in Israel today. This is the attempt to live Torah in the concreteness of its return with its People to the holy but conflicted Land; to live a Torah ever-forged in the dialectic between the demands of the Eternal and the needs and circumstances of the times.”

In these commentaries, Rabbi Hollander articulates “…the Torah values which ought to guide us as we seek – in our disparate ways – to apply them practically to the complex problems and dilemmas confronting our society…[and] the need for a Jewishness rooted in our sources and collective modes of expression, but with this special particularity also informed by a sensitivity to all people being “created in the image of God” and a commitment to our becoming a “blessing for all the families of the earth.”