Jewish Judaism Quotes

I'm drawn to the Jewish notion of the soul, nephesh, which is not something preexistent but emergent - forming in and through physicality and relational experience. This suggests that we need our bodies to claim our souls. The body is where every virtue lives or dies, but more: our bodies are access points to mystery. And in some way that barely makes sense to me, I'm sure that we have to have feet planted on the ground, literally and metaphysically, to reach towards what is beyond and above us. ~ Krista Tippett

Messianic Judaism is not Christianity. ~ Sipporah Joseph

A Roman came to Rabbi Gimzo the Water Carrier, and asked, "What is this study of the law that you Jews engage in?" and Gimzo replied, "I shall explain. There were two men on a roof, and they climbed down the chimney. One's face became sooty. The other's not. Which one washed his face?" The Roman said, "That's easy, the sooty one, of course." Gimzo said, "No. The man without the soot looked at his friend, saw that the man's face was dirty, assumed that his was too, and washed it." Cried the Roman, "Ah ha! So that's the study of law. Sound reasoning." But Gimzo said, "You foolish man, you don't understand. Let me explain again. Two men on a roof. They climb down a chimney. One's face is sooty, the other's not. Which one washes?" The Roman said, "As you just explained, the man without the soot." Gimzo cried,"No, you foolish one! There was a mirror on the wall and the man with the dirty face saw how sooty it was and washed it." The Roman said, "Ah ha! So that's the study of law! Conforming to the logical." But Rabbi Gimzo said, "No, you foolish one. Two men climbed down the chimney. One's face became sooty? The other's not? That's impossible. You're wasting my time with such a proposition." And the Roman said, "So that's the law! Common sense." And Gimzo said, "You foolish man! Of course it was possible. When the first man climbed down the chimney he brushed the soot away. So the man who followed found none to mar him." And the Roman cried, "That's brilliant, Rabbi Gimzo. Law is ~ James A. Michener

You don't persecute an entire people unless you fear the truth that they are carrying! ~ Celso Cukierkorn

In the Catskills, nostalgia runs backwards. The upwardly mobile Jewish masses of the 1950s and 1960s have been replaced by the Jews of 19th century Poland. ~ Kevin Haworth

But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed? How has it happened that all the fine arts, architecture, painting, sculpture, statuary, music, poetry, and oratory, have been prostituted, from the creation of the world, to the sordid and detestable purposes of superstition and fraud?
[Letter to judge F.A. Van der Kamp, December 27, 1816.] ~ John Adams

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

It's not a pretty world, Papa.'
'I've noticed,' my father said softly. ~ Chaim Potok

Devareux also made mention of finding "angel hair" that melted when touched but was so radioactive as to break a Geiger counter, as well as having been shot with lasers coming from the graves in the Jewish Cemetery. As a lapsed Episcopalian, Jasmine might have been vague as to the details of Jewish burials, but felt confident no Goldstein on record had consented to laser turrets atop their dearly departed Uncle Morrie. ~ Thomm Quackenbush

During the year that the atrocities in the Ukraine occurred, a young Turkish Jew of arresting personality and magnetism announced himself as the Messiah in the city of Salonika. This was the cabalist Sabbatai Zevi. Because the Jews of his day had the will to believe in a supernatural instrumentality that would save them from further disaster, he came as the answer to their prayers. Messianic hysteria swept like a conflagration over all of European Jewry. Tens of thousands liquidated their worldly affairs and readied themselves for the End of Days. ~ Nathan Ausubel

Jewish history turns out not to be an either/or story - as in, either pure Judaism detached from its surroundings or else assimilation - but rather, for the vast majority, the adventure of living in between. ~ Simon Schama

Fidelity is a living, breathing entity. On wobbly footing, it can wander, becoming something different entirely. ~ Kay Goodstadt

I was foreign and Jewish, with a funny name, and was very small and hated sport, a real problem at an English prep school. So the way to get round it was to become the school joker, which I did quite effectively - I was always fooling around to make the people who would otherwise dump me in the loo laugh. ~ Alain De Botton

I had already been a young singer. And once, as a profession, I was a young singer, what you would call a soprano in England, but I was an alto in singing Jewish music in bar mitzvahs and weddings and synagogues throughout New York City because, after Israel, New York is probably the biggest Jewish community in the world. ~ Charlemagne Palestine

We want Israel as a democratic and Jewish state. So you have to maintain a Jewish majority, and you want to do that by legal means, by democratic means. ~ Benjamin Netanyahu

I was raised in an orthodox Jewish home where it was expected that, as a woman, I'd marry an investment banker, raise kids in the suburbs and go to temple. I wasn't raised to set the world on fire. ~ Dani Shapiro

I do understand that America is a predominantly Christian country. A lot of morals and values are based in Christianity as opposed to Buddhism, which it's not, or Judaism, which it's not, or Islam, which it's definitely not. So I'm not going to lie to myself and just be like, 'Well you know, everybody's equal.' Because we're not. ~ Lupe Fiasco

Dig: I'm Jewish. Count Basie's Jewish. Ray Charles is Jewish. Eddie Cantor's goyish. B'nai B'rith is goyish; Hadassah, Jewish.
If you live in New York or any other big city, you are Jewish. It doesn't matter even if you're Catholic; if you live in New York, you're Jewish. If you live in Butte, Montana, you're going to be goyish even if you're Jewish. ~ Lenny Bruce

One of those gated communities where there's one token African-American couple and four token Jewish couples. Children and vegetarians are not allowed. Residents must vote Republican and own small dogs with rhinestone collars, stupid eyes, and names that end in i. Taffi is good, Cassi is better, and something like Rififi is the total shit. ~ Stephen King

Whatever else we may say about it, the atonement fulfills the Jewish principle that only one who has been hurt can forgive. At Calvary, God chose to be hurt. ~ Philip Yancey

I'm Jewish. I've always had a thing where it's okay to dance with the devil, just don't become the devil. ~ Pauly Shore

I was raised in a religious home. It was unreasonable enforced religion that turned me off it. It was a joyless, unpleasant, stupid, barbaric thing when I was a child and I've never gotten over that feeling. If you're talking about religion it's one thing; I don't hold Jewish religion with any more seriousness than I would any other. ~ Woody Allen

We do not build new Jewish communities in Samaria, Judea and Gaza. The United States has never accepted our building of communities or of the fence. Yet, I've managed to develop relations between Israel and the United States even though President Bush never supported settlements. ~ Ariel Sharon

For neo-conservatism is a quintessentially Jewish project: a re-sanctification in everyday life of the core values of western civilisation, and the achievement of human potential through virtuous practice. The neo-cons' crucial insight is that public signals through law, custom and tradition are the key to getting people to behave well. And that is a Jewish insight. ~ Melanie Phillips

Christians must be Jews. The truth of what we believe depends on the truth of Judaism, depends on the first covenant. ~ Michael Novak

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

Fear of anti-Semitism almost is part of our religion. Throughout time Jewish people have experienced traumas that we relive in a lot of the things we celebrate. ~ Jill Soloway

Along with Islam and Christianity, Judaism does insist that some turgid and contradictory and sometimes evil and mad texts, obviously written by fairly unexceptional humans, are in fact the word of god. I think that the indispensable condition of any intellectual liberty is the realisation that there is no such thing. ~ Christopher Hitchens

You know that Moses was spinning like crazy in Exodus XIV through XVII when the Jewish people wanted to go back and become a place again because tramping through the desert was a bit too hard. ~ Joe Klein

If you're from New York and you're Catholic, you're still Jewish. If you're from Butte Montana and you're Jewish, you're still goyisch. The Air Force is Jewish, the Marine Corps dangerous goyisch. Rye Bread is Jewish, instant potatoes, scary goyisch. Eddie Cantor is goyisch, George Jessel is goyisch-Coleman Hawkins is Jewish. ~ Lenny Bruce

This does not, therefore, mean `the gospel reveals justification by faith as the true scheme of salvation, as opposed to Jewish self-help moralism'. When we unpack it fully, in the light of subsequent passages in the letter, it means:
The gospel - the announcement of the lordship of Jesus the Messiah - reveals God's righteousness, his covenant faithfulness, his dealing with the sin of the world through the fulfilment of his covenant in this Lord Jesus Christ. He has done all this righteously, that is, impartially. He has dealt with sin, and rescued the helpless. He has thereby fulfilled his promises. ~ N. T. Wright

'The rise of christianity as the result of impact of iranian religion on judaism', I don't think is entirely false. ~ Bernard Lewis

While the Zionists try to make the rest of the World believe that the national consciousness of the Jew finds its satisfaction in the creation of a Palestinian state, the Jews again slyly dupe the dumb Goyim. It doesn't even enter their heads to build up a Jewish state in Palestine for the purpose of living there; all they want is a central organisation for their international world swindler, endowed with its own sovereign rights and removed from the intervention of other states: a haven for convicted scoundrels and a university for budding crooks.
It is a sign of their rising confidence and sense of security that at a time when one section is still playing the German, French-man, or Englishman, the other with open effrontery comes out as the Jewish race. ~ Adolf Hitler

It's based around a Jewish family but it really is a universal theme about getting along and coming along. ~ Jami Gertz

According to Miller, Pharisee Judaism is not a religion at all, but a secret society posing as a religion, a "sect with Judaism as a rite." She cites Moses Mendelssohn who wrote "Judaism is not a religion but a Law religionized." ~ Edith Starr Miller

We know he [Timothy] never converted to Judaism, since in Acts we learn that young Timothy needed to be circumcised. So I have no idea what led Timothy to follow Paul int the great unknown, other than his deep faith in Jesus and the movement of the Holy Spirit. Paul's faith and leadership must have been contagious for a young man who had all the freedoms of the Greco-Roman culture to trade it in for a painful procedure and life of risk with Paul. ~ Rachel Billups

Slowly, God is opening my eyes to needs all around me. In Scripture, God revisits this issue of caring for the poor- an echo that repeats itself from Genesis to Revelation. The Bible acknowledges that the poor will always be part of society, but God takes on their cause. The Mosaic law of the Old Testament is filled with regulations to prevent and eliminate poverty. The poor were given the right to glean- to take produce from the unharvested edges of the fields, a portion of the tithes, and a daily wage. The law prevented permanent slavery by releasing Jewish bondsmen and women on the sabbatical and Jubilee year and forbade charging interest on loans. In one of his most tender acts, God made sure that the poor- the aliens, widows, and orphans- were all invited to the feasts. ~ Margaret Feinberg

Laughing has always seemed to me to be more Jewish than praying. ~ Sherwin Wine

My identity has always been confused. Born in Edinburgh of a Scottish/Russian/Jewish mother and an English/Irish/Catholic father, there is no form of guilt to which I was not subjected in my childhood. Members of my immediate family live all over the world - a diaspora of cousins, aunts, uncles and more in a dizzying mix. ~ Sara Sheridan

And scars will lighten, they'll pale unless you keep rubbing at them...wait long enough, they'll fade. ~ C.F. Joyce

I am a reformed Taoist, part-time Buddhist, Hindu, animist, pagan, Jewish mystic, and Christian. I always got along great with priests and rabbis and mullahs and gurus, even though I spend most of my life constructively criticizing them. ~ Steven Van Zandt

I believe in Judaism, I was raised a Jew, I'm happy to be one - or proud to be one. ~ Michael Bloomberg

A Libyan rebel has admitted to killing Moammar Gadhafi. He said he shot Gadhafi twice in the temple, to which Michele Bachmann said, I didn't even know the guy was Jewish. ~ Jay Leno

In WASP families, if you don't get along with someone, you have as little to do with them as possible. In Jewish families, you move next door, to make them as miserable as possible. ~ Doreen Orion

Chanukah; It's a miracle anyone can spell it! ~ Cantor Matt Axelrod

Judaism minimizes the distinction between body and soul. ... Judaism rejects that duality. First, it does not see death as liberation from earthly bondage and a graduation to a better world. It sees death as a tragedy. Death puts an end to a person's ability to sanctify the world. The death of a good person diminishes God's presence on earth. Second, Judaism does not see the material world, the world of food and sex and sleep and other bodily needs, as being less worthy than the realm of the spirit. Nothing created by God is vile or useless. Everything can be made holy or made base by the way in which it is used. The Talmud tells of one of the sages seeing workers cleaning and decorating a statue of the emperor and musing, "If that statue, which is an image of a flesh-and-blood king, is worthy of being cared for so carefully, how much more so my body, which is an image of the King of Kinds. ~ Harold S. Kushner

In contrast to earlier textually-focused studies, recent scholarship on worship also highlights diversity and change. Projects to create new rituals and to redesign familiar ones, particularly in ways that make them more fluid and open-ended, have been a hallmark of much Western religious life since the 1960s.7 To take one example within Judaism, some couples now personalize or customize the traditional huppah or canopy beneath which they are married. In some instances, guests decorate a panel of cloth, and meet before the ceremony to offer the bride and groom their encouragement and advice, and join the pieces together. Vanessa Ochs characterizes this as part of a broader, explicit drive 'to personalize and to create community' within contemporary Judaism. ~ Melanie J. Wright

We also have volumes of writings by the "apostolic fathers," who were the earliest Christian writers after the New Testament. They authored the Epistle of Clement of Rome, the Epistles of Ignatius, the Epistle of Polycarp, the Epistle of Barnabas, and others. In many places these writings attest to the basic facts about Jesus, particularly his teachings, his crucifixion, his resurrection, and his divine nature. "Which of these writings do you consider most significant?" I asked. Yamauchi pondered the question. While he didn't name the one he thought was most significant, he did cite the seven letters of Ignatius as being among the most important of the writings of the apostolic fathers. Ignatius, the bishop of Antioch in Syria, was martyred during the reign of Trajan before A.D. 117. "What is significant about Ignatius," said Yamauchi, "is that he emphasized both the deity of Jesus and the humanity of Jesus, as against the docetic heresy, which denied that Jesus was really human. He also stressed the historical underpinnings of Christianity; he wrote in one letter, on his way to being executed, that Jesus was truly persecuted under Pilate, was truly crucified, was truly raised from the dead, and that those who believe in him would be raised, too. Put all this together- Josephus, the Roman historians and officials, the Jewish writings, the letters of Paul and the a ~ Lee Strobel

The foundation of religion is not the affirmation that God is, but that God is concerned with man and the world; that, having created the world, he has not abandoned it, leaving it to its own devices; that he cares for his creation. ~ Eliezer Berkovits

Must recognize that greater knowledge about Islam is not enough to alter people's perceptions of Muslims. Minds are not changed merely through acquiring data or information (if that were the case it would take no effort to convince Americans that Obama is, in fact, a Christian). Rather, it is solely through the slow and steady building of personal relationships that one discovers the fundamental truth that all people everywhere have the same dreams and aspirations, that all people struggle with the same fears and anxieties. Of course, such a process takes time. It may take another generation or so for this era of anti-Muslim frenzy to be looked back upon with the same shame and derision with which the current generation views the anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish hysterics of the past. But that day will no doubt come. Perhaps then we will recognize the intimate connections that bind us all together beyond any cultural, ethnic, or religious affiliations. Inshallah. God willing. ~ Reza Aslan