An Unorthodox Match Quotes

“If you want to change who you are, change what you want.”
― Naomi Ragen, An Unorthodox Match

“So many hypocrites, people busy preaching acceptance and tolerance but hating and rejecting everyone who isn't exactly like them.”
― Naomi Ragen, An Unorthodox Match

“So many mistakes. So many bad choices. So many tragedies and hurts brought to innocent people with the best of intentions or with no intentions at all. It was so hard to be human. It was so hard to be alive.”
― Naomi Ragen, An Unorthodox Match

“I used to think religious people were kinder, nicer, had better characters, but I found out they're just like everybody else, just people. Some are better, some are worse. There are sincere ones . . . but also the opposite . . .”
― Naomi Ragen, An Unorthodox Match

“Of course, everyone had heard of the Ten Commandments, but these things, so much subtler, so embedded in the stuff of everyday human life and human interactions--this was the ultimate goal of all Jewish life: justice, kindness, charity, Holiness.”
― Naomi Ragen, An Unorthodox Match

“sustains us day after day. But the relentless”
― Naomi Ragen, An Unorthodox Match

“Or you could say that human society is denying a basic truth that human beings have verified from the dawn of time, and that in removing themselves from the idea of a Supreme Being, man is moving away from all that is spiritual and moral in the world, all that is spiritual and moral in himself.”
― Naomi Ragen, An Unorthodox Match

“And who wanted to live near that dangerous campus up in Harlem anyway?”
― Naomi Ragen, An Unorthodox Match

“looked”
― Naomi Ragen, An Unorthodox Match

“It is so easy to make mistakes when you are a parent. The easiest thing in the world,” Marsha said. “But you can only do what you think is best at the moment. Maybe you will be smarter the next day, or the next month, or in five years. But it doesn’t help you at the moment. You need to forgive yourself.”
― Naomi Ragen, An Unorthodox Match

“Rabbi Yohonan said in the name of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai that to wound with words is much worse than to cheat in business, because you can give back the money you steal but you can never restore the pride of the person you hurt.”
― Naomi Ragen, An Unorthodox Match

“If you want to change who you are, change what you want,”
― Naomi Ragen, An Unorthodox Match

“This is the deck of cards you’ve been dealt. Now you have to deal with it.”
― Naomi Ragen, An Unorthodox Match

“The only cure for grief, someone had once told her, was love.”
― Naomi Ragen, An Unorthodox Match

“My Torah is also the greatest,’ said the rav, ‘but those who are mean-spirited have yet to use it.”
― Naomi Ragen, An Unorthodox Match

“There are several ways of looking at this. You could say that mankind is getting smarter, removing itself from superstition and irrationality. Or you could say that human society is denying a basic truth that human beings have verified from the dawn of time, and that in removing themselves from the idea of a Supreme Being, man is moving away from all that is spiritual and moral in the world, all that is spiritual and moral in himself.”
― Naomi Ragen, An Unorthodox Match

“Father Joe grinned. “What is good, and what is evil?” People shifted uncomfortably in their chairs. “Islam says good is doing whatever Allah has decreed is good. Evil is the opposite. Hinduism talks about ignorance that causes one to err and those errors are the karma of past lives that hurt one in the present. Not only is evil inevitable in creation, but it is said to be a good thing, a necessary part of the universe, the will of Brahma, the creator. If the gods are responsible for the existence of evil in the world, they either create it willingly—and are thus evil themselves—or are forced to create it by the higher law of karma, which makes them weak. “Buddhism disagrees. In fact, the whole of life for the Buddhist is suffering that stems from the wrong desire to perpetuate the illusion of personal existence. The Noble Truth of Suffering, dukkha, is this: ‘Birth is suffering; aging is suffering; sickness is suffering; death is suffering; sorrow and lamentation, pain, grief, and despair are suffering; association with the unpleasant is suffering; dissociation from the pleasant is suffering; not to get what one wants is suffering—in brief, the five aggregates of attachment are suffering.’ Samyutta Nikaya 56, 11. According to that belief, good is the complete abolition of personhood, because that is what ends suffering. “The monotheistic religions go another route. Now listen to this: “‘When you reap your harvest, leave the corners of your field for the poor. When you pluck the grapes in your vineyard, leave those grapes that fall for the poor and the stranger. Do not steal; don’t lie to one another, or deny a justified accusation against you. Don’t use My name to swear to a lie. Don’t extort your neighbor, or take what is his, or keep the wages of a day laborer overnight. Don’t curse a deaf man or put a stumbling block before a blind man. Don’t misuse the powers of the law to give special consideration to the poor or preferential honor to the great; according to what is right shall you judge your neighbor. Don’t stand by when the blood of your neighbor is spilled. Don’t hate your fellow man in your heart but openly rebuke him. Do not take revenge nor bear a grudge. Love your neighbor’s well-being as if it were your own.’ “And overarching all these commandments is the supreme admonition not to be good but to be holy, ‘because I am holy.’” The class looked stunned. “Pretty specific, no?” He smiled. “Especially in contrast to the detachment from life of the Eastern religions. In this, we find perhaps the greatest piece of moral education and legislation ever given to mankind in all human history. Do any of you recognize the source?” “Gospels?” someone guessed. “It’s from the Old Testament of the Jews. From the book of Leviticus.”
― Naomi Ragen, An Unorthodox Match

“He felt the joy spread down his body like a slow anointing with holy oil, warm and soothing, from head to toe.”
― Naomi Ragen, An Unorthodox Match

“In the secular world, it was impossible to find a man who had not been infected by the worst accomplishments of feminism: the idea that women should be treated as men not only in their paychecks but also in their physical strength. Yes, she could open her own door, carry her own packages, lift heavy objects. But what woman wanted to be treated like that, unless you were a brainwashed Soviet comrade?”
― Naomi Ragen, An Unorthodox Match

“Indeed, there was something hard and unforgiving and almost brutal among those who considered themselves the most piously stringent in their observance, something ugly and positively vicious in their unrelenting persecution of those who deviated from their standards.”
― Naomi Ragen, An Unorthodox Match

“I understand that you are learning new things, seeing a different way of life and because you are you, you're full of enthusiasm. But let the mother you think knows nothing and is pretty much useless tell you this: people are just people. Nobody is a bigger saint than the next one; they just hide their true selves better. Sooner or later, you'll figure out for yourself that this community you're madly in love with and want so much to be a part of is just like the rest of the world.”
― Naomi Ragen, An Unorthodox Match

“. . . wasn't it better to feel that when that chaos engulfed you, there was a benevolent God ready to help you through, rather than the emptiness of an indifferent universe?”
― Naomi Ragen, An Unorthodox Match

“Most people were good, intelligent, responsible human beings struggling to live decent, useful lives. Why was it so many of them found that almost impossible? Was it because there were just no rules anymore, people making them us as the went along? From her own bitter experience, she saw that most good people were simply lost, bobbing around like castaways in a moral wasteland flooded with debris and ugliness, waiting to be rescued and placed on solid ground.”
― Naomi Ragen, An Unorthodox Match

“The Noble Truth of Suffering, dukkha is this: 'Birth is suffering; aging is suffering; sickness is suffering; death is suffering; sorrow and lamentation, pain, grief, and despair are suffering; association with the unpleasant is suffering; dissociation from the pleasant is suffering; not to get what one wants is suffering--in brief, the five aggregates of attachment are suffering.' Samyutta Nikaya 56.11.”
― Naomi Ragen, An Unorthodox Match

“He wrote such profound thoughts in such a deceptively simple way. Right off the bat, first paragraph, he tells you life is hard, that there are no simple answers, and that we should all stop moaning about it and get on with it. Love, he wrote, was action, not emotion.”
― Naomi Ragen, An Unorthodox Match

“Forging peace between people always outweighed the truth.”
― Naomi Ragen, An Unorthodox Match