Jewish Literacy Quotes

“One year, on Yom Kippur eve, Salanter did not show up in synagogue for services. The congregation was extremely worried; they could only imagine that their rabbi had suddenly taken sick or been in an accident. In any case, they would not start the service without him. During the wait, a young woman in the congregation became agitated. She had left her infant child at home asleep in its crib; she was certain she would only be away a short while. Now, because of the delay, she slipped out to make sure that the infant was all right. When she reached her house, she found her child being rocked in the arms of Rabbi Salanter. He had heard the baby crying while walking to the synagogue and, realizing that the mother must have gone off to services, had gone into the house to calm him.”
― Joseph Telushkin, Jewish Literacy

“Ameikh ami, ve’Elo-hai-ikh Elo-hai—Your people shall be my people, and your God my God.”
― Joseph Telushkin, Jewish Literacy

“Spinoza was a pantheist: He believed that God was within nature, not a separate Being with an independent will. “In Spinoza’s system,” Jewish philosopher Louis Jacobs has written, “God and Nature are treated as different names for the same thing. God is not ‘outside’ or apart from Nature. He did not create Nature but is Nature.” This doctrine set Spinoza at loggerheads with both Judaism and Christianity. It was absurd in his view to credit God with attributes such as will or intellect; that was like demanding that Sirius bark, just because people refer to it as the Dog Star. Spinoza tried to posit a system of ethics based on reason, not supernatural revelation.”
― Joseph Telushkin, Jewish Literacy

“life.”
― Joseph Telushkin, Jewish Literacy

“Normally, we worry about our own material well-being and our neighbor’s souls; let us rather worry about our neighbor’s material well-being and our own souls” (Rabbi Israel Salanter).”
― Joseph Telushkin, Jewish Literacy