Some Quotables
“The first job of a teacher is to tell the student, ‘Focus on this; this is important. Do not focus on this—this is only the background.’” Tzivi Freeman
“A simple faith that asks no questions and admits no anxieties is not the most religious faith. A relationship that can articulate anxiety about the beloved’s distance is ultimately stronger.”[1]
“Blaming others is the suicide of liberty.”[2]
“A nation that sees itself as responsible for the evils that befall it is also a nation that has an inextinguishable power of recovery and return.”[3]
“It is rather that we need to be pure if we are to open ourselves to the Divine Presence. The act of purification is an act of preparation for coming into contact with the Divine.”[4]
“Like the prophets, Hosea knew that Israel’s destiny depended on its sense of mission.”[5]
“Although optimism may drive risk-taking and innovation, choices need a reality check to help ensure against tumbling naively into a pit.”[6]
“ . . . a joy is not really a joy until and unless we share it with others, at least not in Judaism.”[7]
“To believe is to put into action what God did in the past in order that it may change today and tomorrow.” Skip Moen
“The entitlement mentality has eroded the once common belief that you earned things, including respect, instead of being given them.”[8]
“Nothing is easier than for people living in peace and safety in Paris or Rome to call for a ‘cease fire’ after the Israelis retaliate against people who are firing rockets into their country. The time to cease fire was before the rockets were fired. What do calls for ‘cease fire’ and ‘negotiations’ do? They lower the price of launching attacks. This is true not only in the Middle East but in other parts of the world as well.”[9]
“If members of Congress can’t be bothered to read the laws they pass, then they have no basis for whipping up lynch mob outrage against people who did read the law and acted within the law.”[10]
“Truth is simple, it has no clothes, no neat little box to contain it. But we cannot grasp that which has no box. We cannot perceive Truth without clothing.
So Truth dresses up for us, in a story, in sage advice, in a blueprint of the cosmos—in clothes woven from the fabric of Truth itself. And then, when we have finally come to a firm grasp of that teaching, Truth switches clothes. It tells us another story—entirely at odds with the first. It tells us new advice—to go in a different direction. It provides another model of how things are—in which each thing has changed its place.
The fool is confused. He exclaims, ‘Truth has lied!’
The wise person listens, he is patient, and through his labor he hears a third voice, one that brings harmony to these opposites he has learned. Until he discovers that Truth is simple, pure light no box can contain. And so, it belongs in all places, at all times.”[11]
“To be a Jew is to be a witness to the transcendent dimension of human existence.”[12]
Topical Index: quotations, Sacks, Sowell, Riemer, Spiltz, Sommer, Sefer Hasichot
[1] Benjamin Sommer, “A Faith Includes Doubt—Psalm 27,” cited in Jack Riemer and Elie Spitz, Duets on Psalms: Drawing New Meaning from Ancient Words (Ben Yehuda Press, 2023), p.
[2] Jonathan Sacks Covenant & Conversation: A Weekly Reading of the Jewish Bible: Leviticus: The Book of Holiness (Maggid Books & The Orthodox Union, 2015), p. 421.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid., p. 233.
[5] Ibid., p. 176.
[6] Rabbi Spitz in Jack Riemer, in Jack Riemer and Elie Spitz, Duets on Psalms: Drawing New Meaning from Ancient Words (Ben Yehuda Press, 2023), p. 100.
[7] Ibid., p. 124.
[8] Thomas Sowell, Dismantling America and other controversial essays (RENA, 2010), p. 9.
[9] Ibid., p. 15.
[10] Ibid., p. 36.
[11] Sefer Hasichot 5749, vol. 2, pp. 509-511; Likkutei Sichot, vol. 22, p. 10.
[12] Jonathan Sacks, Morality: Restoring the Common Good in Divided Times (Hodder & Stoughton, 2021), p. 127.
