Meir Soloveichik Quotes

When the Temple was destroyed, the Jewish people faced a crisis unlike any other in its history. For centuries, the sacrificial system had served as the primary medium of atonement before the Almighty.

To Catholic, Orthodox, and some Protestant Christians, communion involves partaking of the physical real presence of God in the bread and wine of the Eucharist. By contrast, the Torah draws the Jew into engagement with God's infinite mind. Torah learning is the definitive Jewish mode of communion with God.

As with the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock, the origins of Shearith Israel trace back to a small group of religious freedom-seekers and a treacherous ocean passage to the New World.

Judaism, I would argue, does demand love for our fellow human beings, but only to an extent. 'Hate' is not always synonymous with the terribly sinful.

Rather than forgive, we can wish ill; rather than hope for repentance, we can instead hope that our enemies experience the wrath of God.

The election of the Jewish people is the result of God's falling in love with Abraham and founding a family with him.

Religious relativism is not the answer to disagreement between faiths; yet relativism, and a blurring of religious distinctions, all too often result when two deeply believing faith communities engage each other in the public arena on theological issues.

I do work a lot on arguing that things which people assume are always wrong are not necessarily so and, indeed, can often be right.

Stanley Hauerwas is correct that Judaism insists on the bearing of children because it is essential to Jewish continuity. But to end the matter there is to miss an essential point: if we are to learn to love others, Judaism says, we must begin by loving those who are closest to us.

Europe is no longer a Christian continent; few Europeans attend religious services on Sunday, and the European Union recently refused to refer to Europe's religious heritage in its fledgling constitution.

The Hebrew Bible, while firmly opposing pagan sexual practices, nevertheless celebrates man's and woman's desire for each other as divinely designed.

Humanity was created in the image of God; our love is a reflection of his.

Religions, by definition, disagree as to the truth - a reality that cannot be overcome by demanding that one or the other faith repudiate its claim to truth.

How can finite man commune with an infinite God? To both Christians and Jews, God himself has made that possible by irrupting into the temporal world. To Christians, God became man in the Incarnation; to Jews, the God that spoke out of the fire on Mount Sinai gave his Torah.

I am humbled and deeply honored to have been asked to serve the congregants of Shearith Israel, a congregation with an incomparable history, where some of America's most distinguished rabbis have pastored and preached.

To the Christian Church, the destruction of the Temple served as an ultimate sign that the Jews were no longer God's chosen people, divine favor having now been transferred to a newer and better Israel.

The essence of a religion can be discovered by asking its adherents one question: 'What, to your mind, was the seminal moment in the history of the world?'

The eternal link between Lincoln's life and Passover - the fact that Lincoln's death, marked in the Hebrew calendar, coincides with Passover every year - is certainly fitting, and perhaps even part of the providence that Lincoln began to see in his own life and the life of his nation.

Bride and groom are not just two contracting parties but two loving and beloved companions, joined in establishing a home that will be nothing less than a source of immortality.

If Christians see Mormonism as a dramatic deviation from a millennia-old, biblically-based faith, Jews see Christianity in the same light.

Either Jesus is the son of God, or he is not.

If R. Akiva was perhaps overly generous in judging his generation, it can perhaps be ascribed to the belief, based on his own experience, that everyone is capable of a dramatic life change.

For Jews, the paradigmatic convert is the biblical Ruth, who sought not only a new relationship with God but also a new nationality.

Not only were the Jewish people beloved, but God himself had taken pains to let them know it. Could there be any clearer sign that he continued to believe in their potential, even without the Temple, to achieve forgiveness and ultimately merit the Temple's rebuilding?

In both Israel and America, Jews have experienced unparalleled freedoms, achieved great economic success, and exercised appropriate degrees of political power.

Traditional Judaism has always embraced the doctrine of the immortality of the soul and the ultimate resurrection of the dead.

Of all the rabbinic sages of antiquity, perhaps none was more influential or famous than Rabbi Akiva.

Over the course of history, many Jews have ultimately embraced Christianity - some forcibly, some in order to advance in non-Jewish society, some out of wholehearted belief.

Marriage is about love, but it is not first and foremost about love. First and foremost, marriage is about continuity and transmission.

Corresponding to the image of a monotheistic God is monogamous marriage. Marriage based on exclusive and definitive love becomes the icon of the relationship between God and his people and vice versa.

God can desire to enter into a relationship with us; he can be drawn to some aspect of our identity.

The moment that one person in an argument claims to be God, dialogue and debate become impossible.

For both Protestants and Catholics, and whether or not absolute continence is demanded of the clergy, celibacy remains a blessed spiritual state.

Jews bear children not only because the carnal election of Abraham must continue. For Jews, raising children is essential to living a rounded ethical life.

While Jews and Christians both agree on many religious issues, we disagree, and believe each other profoundly wrong, about others.

Throughout its history, the members of Shearith Israel have observed Thanksgiving by reciting in synagogue the same psalms of praise and gratitude sung by Jews all over the world on festive days like Hanukkah.