To Life Quotes

“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, To Life: A Celebration of Jewish Being and Thinking

“He [Franz Rosenzweig] came up with the "two covenant" theory, a way of affirming the religious validity of both Judaism and Christianity.

Judaism and Christianity, he taught, needed each other, and God's plan for humanity needs them both.

Christianity needs Judaism to remind it of what pure, uncompromised ethical monotheism looks like.........But Judaism needs Christianity to remind us that the Word of God is not meant to be kept for ourselves alone. We are called on not merely to live by God's ways, but to do it in such a manner that the world will be persuaded to turn to God.”
― Harold S. Kushner, To Life: A Celebration of Jewish Being and Thinking

“For Judaism, sin is a deed, not a condition.”
― Harold S. Kushner, To Life: A Celebration of Jewish Being and Thinking

“In that way, we Jews can see Christianity as God's chosen instrument for redeeming the world from paganism, and Christians can recognize their obligation to preach the message of Christianity to the world, but not to the Jewish people, who had that message before they did.”
― Harold S. Kushner, To Life: A Celebration of Jewish Being and Thinking

“My position would be to see Jesus and Paul as people used by God to bring the monotheism and the moral message of Judaism to the world, and to teach the world that the God discovered and worshiped by the Jews was the only true God.”
― Harold S. Kushner, To Life: A Celebration of Jewish Being and Thinking

“But it is a historical fact that the Jews, and no one else, gave the world the Bible. It is a historical fact that the Jews introduced to the pagan world the idea of a God who demanded righteousness......Even most of the books of the New Testament were written by Jews.”
― Harold S. Kushner, To Life: A Celebration of Jewish Being and Thinking