But what if someone from another faith won't recognize yours? Or wants you dead for it?That is not faith. That is hate. He sighed. And if you ask me, God sits up there and cries when that happens.
Timing is everything. That´s right. Which is why our sages tell us to repent exactly one day before we die." But how do you know it´s the day before you die? I asked. He raised his eyebrows....
One, as in the singular God. One, as in the Lord's creation, Adam.
Mitch, that's what faith is. If they spit in your face, you say it must be raining. But you still come back tomorrow.
In any conversation, I was taught, there are at least three parties: you, the other person, and the Lord.
How do we say good-bye to you without saying good-bye to apiece of ourselves? Where do we look for you now?
A eulogy is no more than a summation of memories, and we will never forget you, because we cannot forget you, because we will miss you every day. To imagine a world without you in it is to imagine a...
There are different forms of seduction, and the kind I have witnessed in Persian dancers is so unique, such a mixture of subtlety and brazenness, I cannot find a Western equivalent to compare it to. I...
The Reb once did a sermon on how the same things in life can be good or evil, depending on what, with free will, we do with them. Speech can bless or curse. Money can save or destroy. Science can heal...
Napoleon once dismissed religion as 'what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.' Meaning, without the fear of God--or literally the hell we might have to pay--the rest of us would just take what we...
We all had to pay, but not for the crimes we were accused of. There were other scores to settle.
All right. In that final minute, I would say, 'Look, Lord, I've done X amount of good stuff on earth. I have tried to follow your teachings and to pass them on. I have loved my family. I've been part...
Some of our greatest problems in ministering to people is that they knew us back before we came to the Lord
How nice would that be today if when a job was lost, a Man of God sat at the dinner table and encouraged you?
Soon we had tumbled into a most fundamental debate. How can different religions coexist?
In the beginning, there was a question. In the end, the question gets answered. God sings, we hum along, and there are many melodies, but it's all one song-one same, wonderful, human song. I am in...
He had recorded a message to be played upon his death. He had told no one-except Teela, his shopping companion and health care worker, who delivered the tape to his family. It was brief. But in it,...
And then he understands. 'He sleeps in a storm.'My friends, if we tend to the things that are important in life, if we are right with those we love and behave in line with our faith, our lives will...
But I realized something as I drove home that night: that I am neither better nor smarter, only luckier. And I should be ashamed of thinking I knew everything, because you can know the whole world and...
Getting old we can deal with. Being old is the problem
Withdrawal to our dreams may be dangerous
Back in the sanctuary, the Reb concluded his taped message by saying, Please love one another, talk to one another, don't let trivialities dissolve friendships… Then he sang a simple tune, which...
You loved to teach. In time, you tried the rabbinate. And you failed. But a great Jewish scholar said two words you would later invoke many times with many of us: "try again." And you did. Thank God...
There was a sermon where he brought a squash and a piece of wood, then slammed each with a knife to show that things which grow quickly are often more easily destroyed than those which take a long...
simplicity and surrender to the universe.
from the beginning, God said, 'I'm gonna put this world into your hands. If I run everything, then that's not you.' So we were created with a piece of divinity inside us, but with this thing called...
Did you ever hear a sermon that felt as if it were being screamed into your ear alone? When that happens, it usually has more to do with you than the preacher.
Hear, oh Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.
Now. My turn. Look, if you say that science will eventually prove there is no God, on that I must differ. No matter how small they take it back, to a tadpole, to an atom, there is always something...
When a Catholic priest from across the street insulted one of our members, you demanded he apologize. When he did, you accepted, as his penance, a gesture. You waited until the Catholic schoolkids...
Then why, I asked, is the world so fractured? Well, you can look at it this way. Would you want the world to all look alike? No. The genius of life is its variety. Even in our own faith, we have...
Faith isn't about doing. You are how you act not just how you believe.
By the way, Reb, about the singing. What gives? Walt Whitman sang the body electric. Billie Holiday sang the blues. You sang…everything. You could sing the phone book. I would call and say how are...
The Red Lion was a four-ale bar with a handful of lowbrowed sons of toil who looked as though they...
What could you do? Major Major asked himself again. What could you do with a man who looked you...
Why are they going to disappear him? I don't know. It doesn't make sense. It isn't even good...
Havermeyer was a lead bombardier who never missed. Yossarian was a lead bombardier who had been...
Keep in mind that when we talk of a great painting we are not really talking about anything great....
Read me back the last line. 'Read me back the last line,' read back the corporal who could take...
Inscribed on the back was a line from Virgil in Latin: Audentes fortuna juvat. Fortune favors the...
It isn't even good grammar. What the hell does it mean when they disappear somebody?
The rain was pattering hypnotically on the plane's exterior.