Rabbi Lionel Blue

Categories: uncategorized

Date: 09 August 2007 23:18:29

I have had a really interesting evening. I went to hear Rabbi Lionel Blue speak at Courage tonight. To be honest I didn't know that much about him before this evening but found him to be quite extraordinary. He spoke for over an hour, without notes and then took questions... in fact he said “You can ask me anything; about my sex life, my economic life or my spiritual life. I really don't mind”. On several occasions he just said that he didn't know the answers, and seemed quite unperturbed by not knowing everything. Very refreshing in a spiritual leader!

I was really very taken with him. He was so gentle, compassionate, honest and kind and he struck me as a man with a huge amount of integrity and a wicked sense of humour. At one point he said “humour helps you deal with problems which have no answers” which really resonated with me, especially doing the job that I do. Perhaps my favourite quote from him tonight was this... “God becomes present to me in my love and my imagination.” Yeah. That kind of makes sense to me I think.