Philip R. Alstat

Philip Reis Alstat was a wellknown American Conservative rabbi, teacher, chaplain, speaker and writer. Born in Kaunas , Lithuania, he came to the United States in 1898, studying at City College of New York , Columbia University , and the Jewish Theological Seminary of America , where he received semikhah, rabbinic ordination, in 1920, and the Doctor of Divinity degree , in 1966.

Perhaps in our generation the counsel of our Talmudic sages may seem superfluous, for today the story of our enslavement in Egypt is kept alive not only by ritualistic symbolism, but even more so by tragic realism. We are the contemporaries and witnesses of its daily reenactment. Are not our hapless brethren in the German Reich eating the bread of affliction Are not their lives embittered by complete disenfranchisement and forced labor Are they not lashed mercilessly by brutal taskmasters behind the walls of concentration camps Are not many of their menfolk being murdered in cold blood Is not the ruthlessness of the Egyptian Pharaoh surpassed by the sadism of the Nazi dictators And yet, even in this hour of disaster and degradation, it is still helpful to visualize oneself among those who had gone forth out of Egypt. It gives stability and equilibrium to the spirit. Only our estranged kinsmen, the assimilated, and the deJudaized, go to pieces under the impact of the blow....But those w

Source: Wikipedia