"I love this quote, not just because it is from the great English novelist Charles Dickens, at the opening of a Tale of Two Cities and not just because it could so easily be describing our world, our country today, but also because of the acknowledgement of the paradox of it all; hope and despair dancing together obliviously. It reminds me in a bizarre way of this scene from Fiddler on the Roof:

‘Mordcha: Why should I break my head about the outside world? Let them break their own heads.
Tevye: He's right. As the Good Book says, ‘If you spit in the air, it lands in your face.’
Perchik: That’s nonsense. You can’t close your eyes to what’s happening in the world.
Tevye: He’s right.
Avram: He’s right and he’s right? How can they both be right?
Tevye: You know, you’re also right.’
Judaism has no problem in two opposing views both being right. The answer to the question ‘is it x or y?’ is often ‘yes.’ Indeed, holding different, apparently paradoxical positions is an actual stated value....quot;

Read more...
By Rabbi Marc Soloway, a Rabbis Without Borders Fellow, from his sermon at
Congregation Bonai Shalom, 9/19/12