“What will set the atom bombs bursting in the air is not the natural instinct of man to fight. What may blow us all to smithereens is our failure to deal with the causes of …
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Unless we protect
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Faith and Laughter
“Is God a reality, as real as a truth in science or as reasonable as a conclusion in logic? Can one demonstrate that God is as real as the experiment that H2O is water? In …
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There Is No Compromise With Evil
“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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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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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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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 …
Rabbi Levi A. Olan: The Conscience of the City 