Quotes about Understanding

The surest way of misunderstanding revelation is to take it literally, to imagine that God spoke to the prophet on a long-distance telephone. Yet most of us succumb to such fancy, forgetting that the cardinal sin in thinking about ultimate issues is literal-mindedness.

Usually we regard as meaningful that which can be expressed, and as meaningless that which cannot be expressed. Yet, the equation of the meaningful and the expressible ignores a vast realm of human experience, and is refuted by our sense of the ineffable which is an awareness of an allusiveness to meaning without the ability to express it.

Happy is he who is aware of the mysteries of his Lord.

The most incomprehensible fact is that we comprehend at all.

This is the status of the Bible in modern life: it is a sublime answer, but we do not know the question any more. Unless we recover the question, there is no hope of understanding the Bible.

The creatures of the earth think of Him as being on high, declaring, 'His glory is above the heavens' (Psalms 113:4), while the heavenly beings think of Him as being below, declaring, 'His glory is over all the earth? (Psalms 57:12), until they both, in heaven and on earth concur in declaring, Blessed be the glory of the Lord from his place,' because He is unknowable and no one can truly understand Him.

In trying to understand Jewish existence a Jewish philosopher must look for agreement with the men of Sinai as well as with the people of Auschwitz.

We must never forget that there is a higher truth than the one we are able to comprehend at first sight.

Truth is the courage to fathom the facts in order to see how they relate to the Word.

The Bible is to be understood by the spirit that grows with it, wrestles with it, and prays with it.

Thus Judaism is based upon a minimum of revelation and a maximum of interpretation, upon the will of God and upon the understanding of Israel.

The Torah is primarily divine ways rather than divine laws.