TO HEAL A FRACTURED WORLD – THE ETHICS OF RESPONSIBILITY

“One of Judaism’s most distinctive and challenging ideas is its ethics of responsibility, the idea that  G-d invites us to become, in the rabbinic phrase, His ‘partners in the work of creation’.The G-d who created the world in love calls on us to create in love. The G-d who gave us the gift of freedom asks us to use it to honor and enhance the freedom of others. G-d, the ultimate Other, asks us to reach out to the human other.
More than G-d is a strategic intervener, He is a teacher. More than He does our will,
He teaches us how to do His.
Life is G-d’s call to responsibility. That is the theme of this book.”

TO HEAL A FRACTURED WORLD – THE ETHICS OF RESPONSIBILITY
by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks

We live in an all-too-broken world with broken hearts, broken lives, broken homes, brokenrelationships, broken promises… In a world so desperately in need of healing,can one person really make a difference?

This beautifully written, thought-provoking book sends out a clarion call in response to those who are willing to listen. Rabbi Sacks reminds us that G-d not only knows every need of the world, but He also knows intimately each person He calls to partner with Him in His healing work.

There is a task that only you can perform — a need that only you can fill — by using the unique gifts and opportunities that G-d gives you.

“There is no life without a task; no person without a talent; no place without a fragment of G-d’s light waiting to be discovered and redeemed; no situation without its possibility of sanctification; no moment without its call. It may take a lifetime to learn how to find these things, but once we learn, we realize in retrospect that all it ever took was the ability to listen. When G-d calls, He does not do so by way of universal imperatives. Instead, He whispers our name — and the greatest reply, the reply of Abraham, is simply hineni: “Here I am,” ready to heed your call, to mend a fragment of your all-too-broken world.”

Rabbi Sacks reminds us that all of us at one point or another in our own lives will find ourselves in need of healing.

To Heal a Fractured World is divided into three sections:

1. The Call to Responsibility
2. The Theology of Responsibility
3. The Responsible Life

Each section is filled with stories that bring Rabbi Sacks’s message home.

To Heal a Fractured World is not a light read, but it is one that — if taken to heart — may change your world.

“Someone else’s physical needs are my spiritual obligation.”

 Review by Cindy Lou Elliot