Rabbi Quotes

Rashi

Abraham Isaac Kook

Leo Baeck

Ovadia Yosef

Ramban

Vilna Gaon

Jonathan Sacks

In Judaism, there are 613 biblical commandments, and the Talmud says that the chief commandment of all is study.

Erring, I wandered in the wilderness,
In passion's grave nigh sinking, powerless;
Now deeply I repent, in sore distress,
That I kept not the statutes of the King!

Genius is inconsiderate, self-relying, and, like unconscious beauty, without any intention to please.

Isaac Mayer Wise

You should know, O man, that the greatest enemy you have in the world is your inclination.

Bahya ibn Paquda

I am as familiar with the paths of heaven as with the streets of Nehardea, with the exception of the comet, about which I am ignorant.

Samuel of Nehardea

Jews will move increasingly to vegetarianism out of their own deepening knowledge of what their tradition commands as they understand it in this age.

Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog

In the coming world they will not ask me—Why were you not Moses? They will ask me—Why were you not Zusya?

Zusha of Hanipol

A major criterion for judging the anxiety level of any society is the loss of its capacity to be playful.

Indeed, Judaism as a way of life, seeks to inculcate in us a consciousness of the Divine Presence in the World and respect for life accordingly. The more we care for life, the closer we are in fact to God. Accordingly, an ethical vegetarian way of life expresses the most noble and sublime values and aspirations of Judaism itself, bringing us closer to its vision for society as a whole.

David Rosen (rabbi)

My parents divorced when I was a boy and I have since devoted my life to healing families, which is what my TV show 'Shalom in the Home' is all about.

Shmuley Boteach

In the killing of animals there is cruelty, rage, and the accustoming of oneself to the bad habit of shedding innocent blood.

Science takes things apart to see how they work. Religion puts things together to see what they mean.

We learn from here the humility of the Holy One, Blessed is He. Since man is in the likeness of the angels, and they would be jealous of him, for this reason, He consulted them.

I do not know what evil is when it comes to art. I only know what is good art and what is bad art.

The object of education is not merely to enable our children to gain their daily bread and to acquire pleasant means of recreation, but that they should know God and serve Him with earnestness and devotion.

Vegetarianism is an ideal way to actualize the Torah's vision of a world in which the divine spark in all creation is respected and revered.

Just as both female doctors and teachers in time have become a necessity from a psychological standpoint, so has the female rabbi.

Would the Holy One, Blessed is he, dispense judgment without justice? But we may say that he whom God loves will be chastised. For since the day the Holy Temple was destroyed, the righteous are seized by death for the iniquities of the generation

Even if one is familiar with the precise meaning of everything one recites, the act of worship can hardly have any significance at all unless it registers the overall message each part of our prayers is meant to convey.

Immanuel Jakobovits

A boor cannot be sin-fearing, an ignoramus cannot be pious, a bashful one cannot learn, a short-tempered person cannot teach, nor does anyone who does much business grow wise.

Hillel the Younger

What is hateful to you do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah. The rest is commentary.

Hillel the Elder

Proximity to the crowd, to the majority view, spells the death of creativity. For a soul can create only when alone, and some are chosen for the flowering that takes place in the dark avenues of night.

Abraham Joshua Heschel

We don't like children much. We tend to fear our young.

Julia Neuberger

The first mystery is simply that there is a mystery, a mystery that can never be explained or understood, only encountered from time to time. Nothing is obvious. Everything conceals something else.

Lawrence Kushner

A spiritual sensibility encourages us to see ourselves as part of the fundamental unity of all being. If the thrust of the market ethos has been to foster a competitive individualism, a major thrust of many traditional religious and spiritual sensibilities has been to help us see our connection with all other human beings.

Michael Lerner (rabbi)