The mission of this blog is to stimulate interest in the deeply perceptive and still-relevant teachings of Levi A. Olan (1903-1984) by sharing from the Levi A. Olan Sermons and Images at Bridwell Library Digital Collection. The title "Conscience of the City" was applied to Rabbi Olan by a Fortune magazine reporter in 1964. Although Olan's city was Dallas, his thought transcends locality. Our goal is to...
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Will God Keep His Promise?
“What we believe does make a difference.” The title of Rabbi Olan’s November 10, 1963 radio sermon suggested that his listeners would hear an address about the trustworthiness of God. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, the …
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Who Created the World?
“The most insidious aspect of our modern day is the conspiracy which makes of God a convenient fiction and a useful illusion.” Rabbi Olan begins his sermon “Who Created the World?” (November 3, 1963) with …
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Life’s Work Is Never Done
“No one really has enough time to complete the work of life.” People of faith sometimes pray for forgiveness of sins of omission – the good that we have left undone. In his October 20, …
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It is not enough to pray
“It is not enough to pray and to fast so that God will save us. We are called to go out and do justice, act with mercy, and work in humility among men. The Biblical faith is an optimistic one, hope is a duty, but it depends upon men discharging their obligations to justice and love.”
-Rabbi Levi A. Olan. “A Time to Hope.” October 27, 1963.
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A Time to Hope
“Our time is, in the main, alien to Biblical thought and faith. God as a source of hope is recited in formal worship and called upon as a last desperate cry. Very few people really …
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Finding Oneself
“To succeed today, one must project an image, not be oneself.” The Internet and social media have made Rabbi Olan’s statement even more true today than it was when he said it. And so the fundamental …
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Law and Morality
“Laws are for human beings who are often all too human. The philosophic anarchist, or the advocate that men live by spirituality alone are advocating a way of life for angels and not for men.” …
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Our age is very much in need
“Our age is very much in need of a good moral washing and cleansing.”
-Rabbi Levi A. Olan. “The Clean and the Unclean.” April 21, 1963.
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The Clean and the Unclean
“…Our age exhibits two radically opposite attitudes toward morality – one which would prohibit most pleasurable experiences on the theory that they contaminate and defile. The other would unbind all controls and open wide the …
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The achievements of American democracy
“The achievements of American democracy and freedom, even if not perfect, even if disappointing at times, have kept alive man’s hope for a day of brotherhood and peace.”
-Rabbi Levi A. Olan. “The Most Important Event.” April 14, 1963.
