“What we need to learn above all else is that by nature we are doers.” In his radio sermon from October 18, 1964, Rabbi Olan debates the contrasting roles of the pessimists and the optimists in understanding man's role in the world. While including many references to the...
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Making Sense Of Nonsense
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Oh No! It Is Not True
Rabbi Olan once again visits the assassination of President John F. Kennedy almost a year later. This time, however, he ponders if death is really the end. He points out that many people believe that …
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Our Need to Experience Life
“Who today experiences the holy, the something more in life which moves us to awe and reverence, and sends us passionately to do God’s work.” Rabbi Olan begins his sermon of October 11, 1964, with …
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You Can Do Better
“The Biblical faith began by asking ‘what is man?’ and then hammered out an answer which may best be described as one of realistic hope. It declares that man can do better.” On October 4, …
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Overcoming Monotony
“What profit has a man of his toil beneath the sun? One generation goes, another comes, but the earth is forever unchanged… All things are tiresome… There is nothing new under the sun.” To Rabbi …
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On Being a Noble Mediocrity
“Our age is bedevilled by a passionate need for all men to reach the top. This is mistaken ambition and self-destruction.” What is a noble mediocrity? Rabbi Olan argues that our dominant human characteristics of …
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What Shall Men Praise?
“What is there to which every living thing can join in one resounding chorus of Hallelujah?” Rabbi Olan’s March 4, 1964 radio sermon explored a deep theological question about the role of God in mid-century …
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When God’s Deputies are Silent
"Indeed, God's deputies are often silent today about the shameful inhumanity right before their eyes." In his sermon from April 12, 1964, Rabbi Olan discusses a Broadway play that was causing great stir and protest for the way it portrayed the Deputy of Christ – Pope Pius XII – and his refusal to speak out against Hitler. Rabbi Olan uses this play to...
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On Not Knowing What To Ask
“Making and doing is important. But love and death, beauty and pain, ideals and despair are the stuff of our existence. Education which fails to open the mind to the meaning of human experience is …
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How Can We Believe in God in a World Like This – II
“God may be in His heaven, but all is not well on earth.” This sermon from April 5, 1964, is a reworking on a message originally broadcast by Rabbi Olan back on January 13, 1963 …
Rabbi Levi A. Olan: The Conscience of the City 