Jephte's Daughter Quotes

“So you see, we are not free to choose our fate. There is a yoke to be borne and freedom is only an illusion. I am not free. God has put me here on earth for a reason.”
― Naomi Ragen, Jephte's Daughter

“Books were like old friends, with their worn covers and well-thumbed pages..”
― Naomi Ragen, Jephte's Daughter

“The coming together of a man and woman was a holy thing, after all. God had chosen this way of replenishing the earth. God did everything so elegantly, with such an exquisite attention to detail. She knew this from studying the flowers in the garden and watching the morning sky, all mauve and pink and orange. So beautiful. But God had looked at all this, His ideas, His wonderful sense of color and design put into action, and had said merely that it was good. Not great. Not fantastic. Just good. But when He had looked at man and woman together, He had said it was "very good".”
― Naomi Ragen, Jephte's Daughter

“He, the man, had seen her, touched her, and had not validated her beauty, her womanliness. He had turned away and gone to his own bed. Like Eve after the fall, her nakedness was obscene to her now.”
― Naomi Ragen, Jephte's Daughter

“When a man and woman married, nothing they did together had any shame or immodesty. It was all in the name of God. There was fruitfulness and joy in it, and it followed the Creator's own plan for continuing the human race.”
― Naomi Ragen, Jephte's Daughter

“Women were naturally pure souls, on so much higher a spiritual plane to begin with than men.”
― Naomi Ragen, Jephte's Daughter

“Rather a sincere insult than a false compliment.”
― Naomi Ragen, Jephte's Daughter

“Orthodox Jews believe that each human being is possessed of a good and an evil inclination that stand like close friends beside one every minute of one’s life. At every crossroad in life, they are there, pushing in one direction or another, advocating the long difficult road to heaven or the short, pleasant one to hell.”
― Naomi Ragen, Jephte's Daughter

“tantalizing possibilities. She hesitated, feeling trapped by a combination of her own desire to try everything, and a”
― Naomi Ragen, Jephte's Daughter