Find terrific resources at COEJL or Canfei Nesharim
“It is not for you to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.”
–Pirkei Avot 2:21
Upon creating Adam and Eve, God took them around the Garden of Eden,
showing them its marvels and gifts, uses and wonders. Afterward, God
said to them: “Look what I have made – how beautiful it all is.
Everything I have made, I have made for you. Take care, lest you spoil
and destroy my world, because if you do, there is no one after you to
make it right again.”
–(Kohelet Rabbah 7:13)
“Judaism is not a science of nature but a science of what man ought to
do with nature. It is concerned above all with the problem of living.
It takes deeds more seriously than things. Jewish law is, in a sense, a
science of deeds. Its main concern is not only how to worship Him at
certain times, but how to live with Him at all times. Every deed is a
problem; there is a unique task at every moment. All of life at all
moments is the problem and the task.”
–God in Search of Man, Abraham Joshua Heschel, p. 292
BJEN has recently supported the publication of:
DRUID HILL PARK: Jewish Baltimore’s Green Oasis 1920-1960
By Barry Kessler
Today, Baltimore’s Druid Hill Park and the
neighborhoods surrounding it face the great
challenges of an impoverished inner city. But not
long ago, the Park experienced a golden age as the
geographic center and the beloved urban greenspace
of northwest Baltimore’s Jewish community.
From just before 1920 into the 1960s, thousands of
Jewish families lived within walking distance of the
Park, using it intensively throughout the year.
Whether as children riding bikes through leafy
trails or sledding down slopes, teens playing tennis
on its famed clay courts or flirting on Rosh
Hashanah afternoon, or parents pushing strollers
on a family outing to the zoo, they formed deep and
lasting memories of the Park. The history of Druid
Hill Park and Baltimore’s Jewish communities are
profoundly intertwined.
