Hasidic Quotes

I did some acting in college. But then everything stopped when I was a junior, in the fall of 2001, when I started becoming religious. Once I became a full-on Hasidic, I stopped everything. I stopped music. I stopped acting. ~ Matisyahu

There was a time when I was fighting with the decision as to whether or not a Hasidic man could go out and have a music career in the world and be involved in pop culture. For me, I was able to bring those two things together for quite some time. ~ Matisyahu

What's missing is the testosterone. What's missing is the fury. What's missing is the passionate convicted commitment. And I got a lot of mine from my religious background. So y'all best stop imagining the way Dr. Zorba looked, or some defenseless Hasidic Jew with a little yarmulke on his head, 'cause that ain't here for you. ~ David Lee Roth

Tikkun Olam. There is a Jewish legend behind this notion. Sometime early in the life of the world, something happened to shatter the light of the universe into countless pieces. They lodged as sparks inside every part of the creation. The highest human calling is to look for this original light from where we sit, to point to it and gather it up and in so doing to repair the world. This can sound like an idealistic and fanciful tale. But Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen, who told it to me as her Hasidic grandfather told it to her, calls it an important and empowering story for our time. It insists that each one of us, flawed and inadequate as we may feel, has exactly what's needed to help repair the part of the world that we can see and touch. ~ Krista Tippett

The virtue of angels is that they cannot deteriorate;
their flaw is that they cannot improve. Man's
flaw is that he can deteriorate; and his virtue is
that he can improve. - Hasidic saying ~ Cassandra Clare

What Can Be Learned From a Thief

The saintly Rabi Zusya was originally a disciple of the tsaddik Rabbi Dov Baer of Mezritsh. Once he asked his master to teach him the secret of worshipping the Creator. "There's no need for me to teach you," replied Rabbi Dov Baer, "because you can learn it from any child or thief."
"Why, how can I learn it from a child?" asked the astounded disciple.
"In three ways," replied his master. "First, a child needs no reason to be happy. Second, a child always keeps busy. And third, when a child wants something, it screams until it gets it."
"And what," asked Rabbi Zusya, "can I learn from a thief?"
"From a thief," answered Rabbi Dov Baer, "you can learn seven things. First, to apply yourself by night and not just by day. Second, to try again if at first you don't succeed. Third, to love your comrades. Fourth, to be ready to risk your life, even for a small thing. Fifth, to attach so little value to what you have that you will sell it for a pittance. Sixth, not to be put off by hardship and blows. And seventh, to be glad you are what you are instead of wanting to be something else. ~ Pinhas Sadeh

People who follow their religion to the letter of the law are just silly. I mean, I want to tell Hasidic Jews I promise you, God will not mind if you wear a nice cotton blend in the summer. ~ Sarah Silverman

There's a lovely Hasidic story of a rabbi who always told his people that if they studied the Torah, it would put Scripture on their hearts. One of them asked, "Why on our hearts, and not in them?" The rabbi answered, "Only God can put Scripture inside. But reading sacred text can put it on your heart, and then when your hearts break, the holy words will fall inside. ~ Anne Lamott

In 2004, when I started recording my first CD, I was coming right out of yeshiva. So I had spent two years completely immersed in the Hasidic culture, disconnected completely from the secular world - movies, music, people. ~ Matisyahu

My childhood was pretty colorful; I like to use the word turbulent. But it was a great time to grow up, the '70s and '80s in Brooklyn, East Flatbush. It was culturally diverse: You had Italian culture, American culture, the Caribbean West Indian culture, the Hasidic Jewish culture. Everything was kind of like right there in your face. A lot of violence, you know, especially toward the '80s the neighborhood got really violent, but it made me who I am, it made me strong. ~ Michael K. Williams

In addition to public housing, South Williamsburg is home to shabby artists' lofts like mine, apartments of Hasidic Jews, and one extremely tall, high-priced condo. ~ Jami Attenberg

I haven't only been offered Hasidic roles. ~ Rachel Weisz

I come from a Hasidic background; I am only one generation removed. ~ Jason Fuchs

A Hasidic teaching says, "If your child has a talent to be a baker, don't tell him to be a doctor." Judaism holds that every child is made in the divine image. When we ignore a child's intrinsic strengths in an effort to push him toward our notion of extraordinary achievement, we are undermining God's plan. ~ Wendy Mogel

Shockingly (to maybe only me), being in a relationship has done the opposite of limiting me. It's emboldened me to try something much scarier than I would have tried if I were alone. Maybe Rachel the Hasidic journalist was right: love frees you to be the person you actually are. ~ Kristin Newman

An old Hasidic rabbi asked his pupils how they could tell when the night had ended and day begun, for daybreak is the time for certain holy prayers. "Is it," proposed one student, "when you can see an animal in the distance and tell whether it is a sheep or a dog?" "No," answered the rabbi. "Is it when you can clearly see the lines on your own palm?" "Is it when you can look at a tree in the distance and tell if it is a fig or a pear tree?" "No," answered the rabbi each time. "Then what is it?" the pupils demanded. "It is when you can look on the face of any man or woman and see that they are your sister or brother. Until then it is still night. ~ Jack Kornfield

I don't really know if I would consider myself anything in particular. I would say I'm inspired in a Hasidic way, but I certainly don't keep all the customs and rules I once did. ~ Matisyahu

and pleasure? What is it that I am tasting?' The most eloquent rabbi and writer of Hasidic mysticism, Abraham Joshua Heschel, left Warsaw in 1939 to become an important ~ Diane Ackerman

The doer cannot apprehend who the powers are whose emissary and acting agent he is; he must nevertheless be aware that the fullness of the world's destiny, namelessly interwoven, passes through his hands. It is said in the Mishnah, "Every man shall say: 'It is for me that the world was created.' "16 And again, "Every man shall say: 'The world rests on me,' " which is corroborated by the hasidic text: "Yes, he is the only one in the world, and its continued existence depends on his deed. ~ Martin Buber

I am sitting under a sycamore by Tinker Creek. I am really here, alive on the intricate earth under trees. But under me, directly under the weight of my body on the grass, are other creatures, just as real, for whom also this moment, this tree, is "it"… in the top inch of soil, biologists found "an average of 1,356 living creatures in each square foot… I might as well include these creatures in this moment, as best as I can. My ignoring them won't strip them of their reality, and admitting them, one by one, into my consciousness might heighten mine, might add their dim awareness to my human consciousness, such as it is, and set up a buzz, a vibration…Hasidism has a tradition that one of man's purposes is to assist God in the work of "hallowing" the things of Creation. By a tremendous heave of the spirit, the devout man frees the divine sparks trapped in the mute things of time; he uplifts the forms and moments of creation, bearing them aloft into the rare air and hallowing fire in which all clays must shatter and burst. ~ Annie Dillard

Chaim Potok wrote two novels that I think are indispensable to understanding the Hasidic and Orthodox American Jewish communities following the Holocaust: The Chosen and My Name Is Asher Lev. ~ Nancy Pearl

In my lifetime I was to write only one book, this would be the one. Just as the past Lingers in the present, all my writings after night, including those that deal with biblical, Talmudic, or Hasidic themes, profoundly bear it's stamp, and cannot be understood if one has not read this very first of my works. Why did I write it? Did I write it so as not to go mad or, on the contrary, to go mad in order to understand the nature of the madness, the immense, terrifying madness that had erupted in history and in the conscience of mankind? ~ Elie Wiesel

There's a Hasidic proverb: 'While we pursue happiness, we flee from contentment.'" Jacob ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

Every year before the Days of Awe, the Ba-al Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidic Judaism, held a competition to see who would blow the shofar for him on Rosh Hashanah. Now if you wanted to blow the shofar for the Ba-al Shem Tov, not only did you have to blow the shofar like a virtuoso, but you also had to learn an elaborate system of kavanot - secret prayers that were said just before you blew the shofar to direct the shofar blasts and to see that they had the proper effect in the supernal realms.

All the prospective shofar blowers practiced these kavanot for months. They were difficult and complex. There was one fellow who wanted to blow the shofar for the Ba-al Shem Tov so badly that he had been practicing these kavanot for years. But when his time came to audition before the Ba-al Shem, he realized that nothing he had done had prepared him adequately for the experience of standing before this great and holy man, and he choked. His mind froze completely. He couldn't remember one of the kavanot he had practiced for all those years. He couldn't even remember what he was supposed to be doing at all. He just stood before the Ba-al Shem in utter silence, and then, when he realized how egregiously - how utterly - he had failed this great test, his heart just broke in two and he began to weep, sobbing loudly, his shoulders heaving and his whole body wracking as he wept.

All right, you're hired, the Ba-al Shem said.

But I don't understand, the ma ~ Alan Lew

For all the pain you suffered, my mama. For all the torment of your past and future years, my mama. For all the anguish this picture of pain will cause you. For the unspeakable mystery that brings good fathers and sons into the world and lets a mother watch them tear at each other's throats. For the Master of the Universe, whose suffering world I do not comprehend. For dreams of horror, for nights of waiting, for memories of death, for the love I have for you, for all the things I remember, and for all the things I should remember but have forgotten, for all these I created this painting - an observant Jew working on a crucifixion because there was no aesthetic mold in his own religious tradition into which he could pour a painting of ultimate anguish and torment. ~ Chaim Potok

I got a sense of the amazingness of ordinary life, and I became aware of the marvel that we're around to begin with. I visited a lot of extreme communities, like the Amish, Hasidic Jews, and serpent-handlers. And I was proud, because I think I'm the first person to ever out-Bible-talk a Jehovah's Witness. After four hours, he said, "Okay, I have to go." ~ A. J. Jacobs

The same point is made by the Hasidic Rabbi, Susya, who shortly before his death said, "When I get to heaven they will not ask me, 'Why were you not Moses?' Instead they will ask 'Why were you not Susya? Why did you not become what only you could become? ~ Irvin D. Yalom

I have one talent, and that is the capacity to be tremendously surprised, surprised at life, at ideas. This is to me the supreme Hasidic imperative: Don't be old. Don't be stale. ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel

I don't know much about any of the Hasidim because the men won't talk to me because I'm a woman, and the women won't talk to me because, while I am Jewish, I'm not Hasidic. ~ Jami Attenberg