“Is there any basic law of morality?” When President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in downtown Dallas on November 22, 1963, Rabbi Olan was one of approximately 2,600 community leaders awaiting the president’s arrival at …
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There Is No Compromise With Evil
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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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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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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 Most Important Event
The sermon entitled “The Most Important Event” was broadcast on April 14, 1963, in the middle of Passover week. In it Rabbi Olan maintains that the key event in Jewish history was the Exodus from …
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Religion Has Come a Long Way
“Historically, religion tends to ignore the changes which transform the world and the lives of men.” Some people criticize religious communities for not keeping up with the times. Others complain that their churches or synagogues …
