Quotes about Israel

III. Happiness is nowhere else to be had, but in their God, and with their people. There are that are called gods many, and lords many. Some make gods of their pleasures; some choose Mammon for their god; some make gods of their own supposed excellencies, or the outward advantages they have above their neighbors: some choose one thing for their god, and others another. But men can be happy in no other God but the God of Israel: he is the only fountain of happiness.

Our cleaving to them, and having their God for our God and their people for our people, depends on our resolution and choice; and that in two respects. 1. The firmness of resolution in using means in order to it, is the way to have means effectual. There are means appointed in order to our becoming some of the true Israel and having their God for our God; and the thorough use of these means is the way to have success; but not a slack or slighty use of them.

A choosing of their God and their people, with a full determination and with the whole soul, is the condition of an union with them. God gives every man his choice in this matter: as Orpah and Ruth had their choice, whether they would go with Naomi into the land of Israel, or stay in the land of Moab.

Because I know about the Holy Land, I've taught lessons about the Holy Land all my life, and - but you can't bring peace to Israel without giving the Palestinian also peace. And Lebanon and Jordan and Syria as well.

Whether we are reading the Bible for the first time or standing in a field in Israel next to a historian and an archaeologist and a scholar, the Bible meets us where we are. That is what truth does

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 precedence of faith over knowledge. "When at Sinai Israel said we shall do and we shall hear (instead of saying, we shall hear and we shall do), a heavenly voice went forth and exclaimed,"Who has revealed to My children this mystery, which the ministering angels enact, to fulfill His word before they hear the voice."

These three ways correspond in our tradition to the main aspects of religious existence: worship, learning, and action. The three are one, and we must go all three ways to reach the one destination. For this is what Israel discovered: the God of nature is the God of history, and the way to know Him is to do His will.

These are the three pillars on which our prayer rises to God: our own loyalty, the holiness of Israel, the mercy of God.

In its present form the Bible is the only object in the world which is not in need of either praise or sanctification. In its present form the Bible is the only point in the world from which God will never depart. This is the book to which Israel deferred; we must tremble to tamper with it.

The wars of Israel were the only 'holy wars' in history... there can be no more wars of faith. The only way to overcome our enemy is by loving him.

It is in fact more important for us to know what God did to Israel, to His Son Jesus Christ, than to seek what God intends for us today.