Jewish Law Quotes

Jewish Law is like musical notation; it gives meaning to the stuff of life by regulating it in time. The Sabbath is its most sacred interval ~ Judith Shulevitz

I showed that privacy was an implicit right in Jewish law, probably going back to the second or third century, when it was elaborated on in a legal way. ~ Norman Lamm

Since the birth of modern Orthodox Judaism in 19th-century Germany, a central goal of the movement has been to normalize the observance of traditional Jewish law - to make it possible to follow all 613 biblical commandments assiduously while still participating in the reality of the modern world. ~ Noah Feldman

Whoever cannot survive without taking charity, such as an old, sick, or greatly suffering individual, but who stubbornly refuses to accept aid, is guilty of murdering himself…yet one who needs charity but postpones taking it and lives in deprivation so as to not trouble the community, shall live to provide for others." - Rabbi Joseph Karo (1488–1575), Shulkhan Arukh (The Code of Jewish Law), Yoreh Deah 255:2 ~ Joseph Telushkin

It is written in the Jewish law book, the Talmud, that only the Jew is human, that Gentiles are only animals. ~ Julius Streicher

My father left me with his love of Jewish studies and cultural life. To this very day, along with several physicians and scientist colleagues, I take regular periodical lessons taught by a Rabbinical scholar on how the Jewish law views moral and ethical problems related to modern medicine and science. ~ Aaron Ciechanover

What is it to keep kosher? Is it eating kosher potato chips? Kosher is a bigger idea. I think it's about being healthy. But according to some people, it's about not eating this food because it's forbidden by the Jewish law. My view of the halachah changed a little bit. The laws are there hopefully to be a tool. ~ Matisyahu

Little by little over the following decade, the Jewish sect founded by a group of rural Galileans morphed into a religion of urbanized Greek speakers. No longer bound by the confines of the Temple and the Jewish religion, the Hellenist preachers began to gradually shed Jesus's message of its nationalistic concerns, transforming it into a universal calling that would be more appealing to those living in a Graeco-Roman milieu. In doing so, they unchained themselves from the strictures of Jewish law, until it ceased to have any primacy. Jesus did not come to fulfill the law, the Hellenists argued. He came to abolish it. Jesus's condemnation was not of the priests who defiled the Temple with their wealth and hypocrisy. His condemnation was of the Temple itself. ~ Reza Aslan

In the Talmud (a record of discussions of Jewish law and ethics by ancient rabbis) it is said that charity is equal in importance to all the other commandments combined, and that Jews should give at least 10 percent of their income as tzedakah. ~ Peter Singer

Barack Obama is the most Jewish president we've ever had (except for Rutherford B. Hayes). No president, not even Bill Clinton, has traveled so widely in Jewish circles, been taught by so many Jewish law professors, and had so many Jewish mentors, colleagues, and friends, and advisers as Barack Obama. ~ Jeffrey Goldberg

A traditional rabbi is the man to whom the community and its members turn to rule on what Jewish law requires of them, particularly in cases of doubt. ~ David Novak

The Upright congregants looked down on the Slouchers, who seemed willing to sacrifice any Jewish law for the sake of what they feebly termed the great and necessary reconciliation of religion with life. The Uprighters called them names and promised them an eternity of agony in the next world for their eagerness to be comfortable in this one. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

I have often wondered what would have happened if Paul and Matthew had been locked up in a room together and told they could not come out until they had hammered out a consensus statement on how followers of Jesus were to deal with the Jewish law. Would they ever have emerged, or would they still be there, two skeletons locked in a death grip? If ~ Bart D. Ehrman

But from within the carton, Morty's American flag - which I know is folded there, at the very bottom, in the official way - tells me, "It's against some Jewish law," and so, on into the car he went with the carton, and then he drove it down to the beach, to the boardwalk, which was no longer there. The boardwalk was gone. Good-bye, boardwalk. The ocean had finally carried it away. The Atlantic is a powerful ocean. Death is a terrible thing. That's a doctor I never heard of. Remarkable. Yes, that's the word for it. It was all remarkable. Good-bye, remarkable. Egypt and Greece good-bye, and good-bye, Rome! ~ Philip Roth

There is a moment in the tractate Menahot when the Rabbis imagine what takes place when Moses ascends Mount Sinai to receive the Torah. In this account (there are several) Moses ascends to heaven, where he finds God busily adding crownlike ornaments to the letters of the Torah. Moses asks God what He is doing and God explains that in the future there will be a man named Akiva, son of Joseph, who will base a huge mountain of Jewish law on these very orthographic ornaments. Intrigued, Moses asks God to show this man to him. Moses is told to 'go back eighteen rows,' and suddenly, as in a dream, Moses is in a classroom, class is in session and the teacher is none other than Rabbi Akiva. Moses has been told to go to the back of the study house because that is where the youngest and least educated students sit.

Akiva, the great first-century sage, is explaining Torah to his disciples, but Moses is completely unable to follow the lesson. It is far too complicated for him. He is filled with sadness when, suddenly, one of the disciples asks Akiva how he knows something is true and Akiva answers: 'It is derived from a law given to Moses on Mount Sinai.' Upon hearing this answer, Moses is satisfied - though he can't resist asking why, if such brilliant men as Akiva exist, Moses needs to be the one to deliver the Torah. At this point God loses patience and tells Moses, 'Silence, it's my will. ~ Jonathan Rosen

A British lawyer would like to think of himself as part of that mysterious entity called The Law; an American lawyer would like a swimming pool and two houses. ~ Simon Hoggart

When you lived on the wrong side of the law, information, however vague or apparently meaningless, was everything. It gave you leverage. And leverage was power. ~ Dougie Brimson

Those are just platitudes. Everyone has his own idea of "playing fair."
"Does he? Try making up your own idea of what's fair
say, "giving the greatest rewards to the laziest workers"
and see how seriously people take you. ~ J. Budziszewski

No doubt it is an evil to be bound by laws, but it is necessary at the immature stage to be guided by rules; in other words, as the Master used to say that the sapling must be hedged round, and so on. ~ Swami Vivekananda

A foot on the neck is nine points of the law. ~ Terry Pratchett

One to destroy, is murder by the law; and gibbets keep the lifted hand in awe; to murder thousands, takes a specious name, 'War's glorious art', and gives immortal fame. ~ Edward Young

I'm one of the few dumb Jewish doctors. ~ Dorian "Doc" Paskowitz

The events in your life are the result of your past deeds, performed in this lifetime or the ones before. You alone are responsible for it. Such is the law of karma. ~ Devdutt Pattanaik

The Law of Attraction states that you will attract to you those things that match your state of being. If you focus on having gratitude for what you do have, you will feel rich, and you will attract more abundance into your life. If you focus on what you don't have, you will send out a message of lack and you will attract more lack into your life. ~ Jack Canfield

London, black as crows and noisy as ducks, prudish with all the vices in evidence, everlastingly drunk, in spite of ridiculous laws about drunkenness, immense, though it is really basically only a collection of scandal-mongering boroughs, vying with each other, ugly and dull, without any monuments except interminable docks. ~ Paul Verlaine

Nothing, on the other hand, can be more impenetrable to the uninitiated than a legislation founded upon precedents. ~ Alexis De Tocqueville

Look, girls know when they're cute," he said. "You don't have to tell them. All they need to do is look in the mirror. I have one friend out in New York, an attorney. She moved out there after the school year to take the bar. She doesn't have a job. I was like, 'How are you going to get a job there in this market?' And she's like, 'I'll wink and I'll smile.' She's a pretty girl. Whether that works despite her poor grades is yet to be seen. ~ Daniel Amory

Man inhabits a realm half in and half out of nature, his mind reaching forever beyond the tool, the uniformity, the law, into some realm which is that of the mind alone. ~ Loren Eiseley

The supremacy of Parliament and the embedding of property rights in Common Law put political power in the hands of men anxious to exploit the new economic opportunities and provided the framework for a judicial system to protect and encourage productive economic activity ~ Douglass North

The greatest block today in the way of woman's emancipation is the church, the canon law, the Bible and the priesthood. ~ Elizabeth Cady Stanton

We need a new law that owners of SUVs (Sport Utility Vehicles) are automatically in the military reserve. Then they can go get their own goddamn oil. ~ Jello Biafra

The jury has the right to determine both the law and the facts. ~ Samuel Chase

I'm half Jewish, half Scottish. It's hard for me to buy anything. ~ David Duchovny

Whenever a time arises where clarity is desired, it is always wise to reflect on the sage within. ~ Sereda Aleta Dailey

The initial configuration of the universe may have been chosen by God, or it may itself have been determined by the laws of science. In either case, it would seem that everything in the universe would then be determined by evolution according to the laws of science, so it is difficult to see how we can be masters of our fate. ~ Stephen Hawking

Won't it be wonderful when black history and native American history and Jewish history and all of U.S. history is taught from one book. Just U.S. history. ~ Maya Angelou

People say that they like the characters that they believe that I am. But, I don't as much. I like the characters that I believe that I am not. Like my role on 'Law and Order.' That character unnerved people. And I loved every second of it. I want to continue growing as an actress. There are ways that I can reach quicker, or deeper, with acting. ~ Jill Scott

The question at the end of the day was, the courts having found there was no defense, a producer about to go to jail, should CBS in effect tell the producer go to jail even though there is no law at all that we can use to get you out of jail? ~ Floyd Abrams

Passions are no more forgiving than human laws and they reason more justly. Are they not based on a conscience of their own, infallible as an instinct? ~ Honore De Balzac

In Germany, under the law everything is prohibited except that which is permitted. In France, under the law everything is permitted except that which is prohibited. In the Soviet Union, everything is prohibited, including that which is permitted. And in Italy, under the law everything is permitted, especially that which is prohibited. ~ Newton N. Minow

The Law of Man is inferior to the Law of God for the mere fact that man is held responsible if he were to unintentionally breach it even if he were not aware of the existence of such man-made statutes. ~ Ibrahim Ibrahim

To us is given the honor of striking a blow for freedom which will live in history and in the better days that lie ahead men will speak with pride of our doings. ~ Bernard Law Montgomery

If the universe had a beginning, its beginning, by the very condition of the cases, was supernatural; the laws of Nature cannot account for their own origin. ~ John Stuart Mill

No one can defeat destiny,
But everyone can make peace with it.
At the same length:
No one can outsmart destiny,
But everyone can reason with it. ~ Stephan Attia

For me it is an internal law to do good. In my whole life I have endeavored to realize high moral
values; I have always believed in moral ideas, and as a pedagogue and a father I have always
disseminated them. I could not live otherwise than what I profess. Striving for harmony between
words and actions, needing to put ideas into practice, is an integral part of my moral concept
and practice. Because of this every kind of small-souled reaction, vengeance, or trickery is far
from me - for me openness is an internal command. Although I know that this book will "incite"
many to attack, I know that people will criticize and offend me, and I have exposed myself to
hostile action, but nevertheless I am taking this step - not following the counsel of the wise king
Solomon: "Do not be too virtuous, and do not reason too much: why must you confuse
yourself? ~ László Polgár

The irony of the present day is, the more human rights jurisprudence seems to be fortified, the more there are human rights violations in newer and newer forms and some recidivism all due to the conflicting deductions of protecting even human rights of offenders. No doubts offenders deserve their rights to be protected but in cases of serious offenses such as 'rape' where the offender consciously commits the act while being aware of the justice system in his particular country, prefers to cross the precincts of the law. Worst still, is increasing crime rate of offenses such as rape committed against children and infants. ~ Henrietta Newton Martin

The prohibition of L'shon Hara is the Jewish equivalent of the Buddhist practice of Right Speech. ~ Sylvia Boorstein

Learn to leverage the Law of Cause and Effect to your advantage in positive ways! ~ Susan C. Young

Develop an enthusiasm for life, create a need for more life, and you will receive more life. ~ Maxwell Maltz

The 'nations,' as they are called, with whom our pretended ambassadors, secretaries, presidents, and senators profess to make treaties, are as much myths as our own. On general principles of law and reason, there are no such 'nations.' ... Our pretended treaties, then, being made with no legitimate or bona fide nations, or representatives of nations, and being made, on our part, by persons who have no legitimate authority to act for us, have intrinsically no more validity than a pretended treaty made by the Man in the Moon with the king of the Pleiades. ~ Lysander Spooner

Yet, when the boy himself assumes married life, he will honor his mother above his wife, and show her often a real affection and deference. Then it is that the woman comes into her own, ruling indoors with an iron hand, stoutly maintaining the ancient tradition, and, forgetful of her former misery, visiting upon the slender shoulders of her little daughters-in-law all the burdens and the wrath that fell upon her own young back. But one higher step is perhaps reserved for her. With each grandson laid in her arms she is again exalted. The family line is secure. Her husband's soul is protected. Proud is she among women. Blessed be the gods! ~ Katherine Mayo

In both its precepts and penalty, the law of God in its most exacting requirements was fulfilled by Jesus. And He did this in our place as our representative and our substitute. ~ Jerry Bridges

In the mind of Bill Clinton, political considerations outweigh even life-and-death matters of great concern to his own law-enforcement officials, not to mention the nation. ~ Barbara Olson

A title from the1966 movie
"The Russians Are Coming,
The Russians Are Coming,"
gives a new meaning to
a phrase: "wait a minute,
we've seen this movie before ~ Steven Ivy Attorney Entrepreneur

Through the infinite Atonement, God has provided a means whereby we can both overcome our sins and become completely clean again. This is made possible by the eternal law of mercy. Mercy satisfies the claims of justice through our repentance and the power of the Atonement. Without the power of the Atonement and our complete repentance, we are subject to the law of justice. ~ Earl C. Tingey

It is unclear how disarming law-abiding citizens would better protect them from the dangers and threats posed by those who would flout the law. It is at just such times that the constitutional right to self-defense is most precious and must be protected from government overreach. ~ Rick Scott

In Judaism praying for benefits is a very small part of the liturgy. Most of it is commitment of one's fortunes to God, and meditation on sacred writings which put in clear words the few great points of our religion. Its daily aim is a renewal of religious energy through an act which declares one's Jewish identity and one's hope in the Lord. ~ Herman Wouk

Everything Hitler did to the Jews, all the horribly unspeakable misdeeds, had already been done to the smitten people before by the Christian churches ... The isolation of Jews into ghetto camps, the wearing of the yellow spot, the burning of Jewish books, and finally the burning of the people - Hitler learned it all from the church. However, the church burned Jewish women and children alive, while Hitler granted them a quicker death, choking them first with gas. ~ Dagobert D. Runes