Rabbi Quotes - Page 3

• I'm not a practicing kabbalist. I'm not a spiritual master. I'm not a rabbi. I don't - but it's part of who I am.

  John Zorn

  Spiritual, Who I Am, Masters

  "At 60, 'Challenges Are Opportunities' For John Zorn". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. September 3, 2013.

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• I can hope that this long sad story, this progression of priests and ministers and rabbis and ulamas and imams and bonzes and bodhisattvas, will come to an end. I hope this is something to which science can contribute ... it may be the most important contribution that we can make.

  Steven Weinberg

  Long, Important, Atheism

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• Human excellence, parted from God, is like a fable flower, which, according to Rabbis, Eve plucked when passing out of paradise--severed from its native root, it is only the touching memorial of a lost Eden; sad, while charming--beautiful, but dead.

  Charles Villiers Stanford

  Beautiful, Flower, Roots

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• We want to create, never mind the leaders or the bishops or chief rabbis or imams, or Popes. We want to create a grassroots movement where people will become attuned to uncompassionate discourse in the same way as we are now attuned to sort of gender imbalance in our speech.

  Karen Armstrong

  People, Leader, Mind

  Interview with Austin Allen, bigthink.com. November 16, 2009.

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• A Catholic priest, a Jewish rabbi, and a Muslim mullah all walk into a bar, and the bartender says:
  - What is this, a joke?
  - Сhurch is the only organization that exists primarily for the benefit of non-members.

  C. S. Lewis

  Organization, Catholic, Bars

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• Everyone needs a spiritual guide: a minister, rabbi, counselor, wise friend, or therapist. My own wise friend is my dog. He has deep knowledge to impart. He makes friends easily and doesn't hold a grudge. He enjoys simple pleasures and takes each day as it comes. Like a true Zen master he eats when he is hungry and sleeps when he is tired. He's not hung up about sex. Best of all, he befriends me with an unconditional love that human beings would do well to imitate.

  Gary A. Kowalski

  Wise, Spiritual, Dog

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• The rabbis paled. I’d managed to terrify holy men. Maybe I could beat up a nun for an encore.

  Ilona Andrews

  Men, Holy, Beats

  Ilona Andrews (2010). “Magic Bleeds”, p.170, Penguin

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• I would like now to shed light in your heart on the truth of things, for it was not my will, but that of the Father and my Rabbi, which was done that faithful night.

  Judas Iscariot

  Truth, Father, Heart

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• I believe it is in the national interest that government stand side-by-side with people of faith who work to change lives for the better. I understand in the past, some in government have said government cannot stand side-by-side with people of faith. Let me put it more bluntly, government can't spend money on religious programs simply because there's a rabbi on the board, cross on the wall, or a crescent on the door. I viewed this as not only bad social policy - because policy by-passed the great works of compassion and healing that take place - I viewed it as discrimination.

  George W. Bush

  Faith, Religious, Wall

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• I would become a priest or a rabbi or a monk or whatever the hell was necessary to perform miracles such as taking money from someone else's pocket and putting it into mine, still remaining within the confines of the law.

  Lenny Bruce

  Funny, Money, Law

  Lenny Bruce (1992). “How to Talk Dirty and Influence People”, p.53, Simon and Schuster

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• Each generation of rabbis is necessarily less perfect than the rabbis that came before, since each generation is more removed from the perfection of the Garden. Therefore, no rabbi is allowed to overturn any of his forebears' wisdom, since they are all, by definition, smarter than him.

  Cory Doctorow

  Garden, Perfection, Generations

  Cory Doctorow (2008). “Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity, Copyright, and the Future of the Future”

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• I got a imam, I got a rabbi, I got a priest, I got a reverend - I got 'em all. But I don't want to be holier-than-thou. I want to help everybody and still get some (sex).

  Mike Tyson

  Sex, Ems, Want

  "Tyson: 'My whole life has been a waste'". Interview with Jon Saraceno, usatoday30.usatoday.com. June 2, 2005.

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• You will reply that reality hasn't the slightest need to be of interest. And I'll answer you that reality may avoid the obligation to be interesting, but that hypotheses may not. In the hypothesis you have postulated, chance intervenes largely. Here lies a dead rabbi; I should prefer a purely rabbinical explanation; not the imaginary mischances of an imaginary robber.

  Jorge Luis Borges

  Lying, Reality, Interesting

  Jorge Luis Borges, Anthony Kerrigan (1968). “A Personal Anthology”, p.2, Grove Press

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• A rabbi told me that when you have two problems - one near, one not so near - concentrate on the immediate one.

  Ariel Sharon

  Two, Problem

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• (When asked merely if they accept evolution, 45 percent of Americans say yes. The figure is 70 percent in China.) When the movie Jurassic Park was shown in Israel, it was condemned by some Orthodox rabbis because it accepted evolution and because it taught that dinosaurs lived a hundred million years ago-when, as is plainly stated at every Rosh Hashonhan and every Jewish wedding ceremony, the Universe is less than 6,000 years old.

  Carl Sagan

  Atheist, Israel, Years

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.416, Ballantine Books

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• This is what the Sabbath should feel like. A pause. Not just a minor pause, but a major pause. Not just lowering the volume, but a muting. As the famous rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel put it, the Sabbath is a sanctuary in time.

  A. J. Jacobs

  Sanctuary, Volume, Should

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• The illusion of the seventh veil was the illusion that you could get somebody else to do it for you. To think for you. To hang on your cross. The priest, the rabbi, the imam, the swami, the philosophical novelist were traffic cops, at best. They might direct you through a busy intersection, but they wouldn't follow you home and park your car.

  Tom Robbins

  Philosophical, Home, Thinking

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• In the high school classroom you are a drill sergent, a rabbi, a shoulder to cry on, a disciplinarian, a singer, a low-level scholar, a clerk, a referee, a clown, a counselor, a dress-code enforcer, a conductor, an apologist, a philosopher, a collaborator, a tap dancer, a politician, a therapist, a fool, a traffic cop, a priest, a mother-father-brother-sister-uncle-aunt, a bookeeper, a critic, a psychologist, the last straw.

  Frank McCourt

  Mother, Brother, Uncles

  Frank McCourt (2005). “Teacher Man: A Memoir”, p.19, Simon and Schuster

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• Historically, the rabbis are split on the question of dreams. None of them denied their power.

  Rodger Kamenetz

  Dream, Splits, Denied

  Source: content.time.com

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• Before his death, Rabbi Zusya said "In the coming world, they will not ask me: 'Why were you not Moses?' They will ask me: 'Why were you not Zusya?

  Martin Buber

  World, Moses, Said

  Martin Buber (2013). “Tales of the Hasidim”, p.339, Schocken

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• I have ended as a Reform Rabbi, grateful to Christianity for so many good things.

  Lionel Blue

  Grateful, Reform, Christianity

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• My wife and I are affiliated with a temple here in Los Angeles. We feel very close to the congregation and to the rabbi, who happens to be my wife's cousin and who I admire greatly. I talk to him regularly but I consider myself more spiritual than religious.

  Leonard Nimoy

  Spiritual, Religious, Cousin

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• Every universe, our own included, begins in conversation. Every golem in the history of the world, from Rabbi Hanina's delectable goat to the river-clay Frankenstein of Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel, was summoned into existence through language, through murmuring, recital, and kabbalistic chitchat -- was, literally, talked into life.

  Michael Chabon

  Rivers, World, Goats

  Michael Chabon (2012). “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (with bonus content): A Novel”, p.119, Random House

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• Think about that: at a time when it was inconceivable to have a woman rabbi or a woman scholar of Christian theology or canon law, the Islamic civilization boasted hundreds of women who were authorities in Islamic law and Islamic theology and that taught some of the most famous male jurists and left behind a remarkable corpus of writings.

  Khaled Abou El Fadl

  Christian, Islamic, Writing

  Source: www.motherjones.com

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• I read about the Trinity. I found something - Jesus was Jewish, he was a rabbi! - and I read a lot of stories about Jesus in Israel. And it's interesting that they picked me for this part in The Snack, and I'm Jewish, I'm kind of religious Jewish from Israel, and I don't look like the traditional Jesus with the long blonde hair and blue eyes.

  Aviv Alush

  Religious, Jesus, Eye

  Source: www.patheos.com

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