Quotes about Judaism

There are no two hours alike. Every hour is unique and the only one given at the moment, exclusive and endlessly precious. Judaism teaches us to be attached to holiness in time; to learn how to consecrate sanctuaries that emerge from the magnificent stream of a year.

Saul came from a family who knew what that meant. It meant Ioudaïsmos: as we saw, not a "religion" called "Judaism" in the modern Western sense, a system of piety and morality, but the active propagation of the ancestral way of life, defending it against external attacks and internal corruption and urging the traditions of the Torah upon other Jews, especially when they seemed to be compromising.

It is outrageous to utter the name of Jesus Christ and live in Judaism.

He was a Jew who believed in the goodness of the original creation and the intention of the Creator to renew his world. His gospel of "salvation" was about Israel's Messiah "inheriting the world," as had been promised in the Psalms. What God had done in and through Jesus was, from Paul's perspective, the launching of a heaven-and-earth movement, not the offer of a new "otherworldly" hope.

But every step away from the Jewish narrative, in this case the Jewish narrative as reaching its focal point in Israel's Messiah, is a step toward paganism.

For you have heard of my former way of life in Judaism, how severely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it.

Therefore let us avoid these men of blood and not allow them to draw us into Judaism.

When people speak in the same tone of voice about a "personal deodorant," a "personal trainer," and a "personal Savior," I suspect that what they really mean is "private." I've got mine; too bad about you. But Christianity, like its ancestor Judaism, is inescapably communal.

The Jews remain the chosen people of God. The Jewish rejection of Jesus as the Son of God is an affirmation of faith that Christians must respect.

What did the torn curtain mean? For the Jews it meant no more barrier between them and the Holy of Holies. No more priests to go between them and God. No more animal sacrifices to atone for their sins.

The whole teaching of Islam in its inception rested upon the creation of an identity of a people in contradistinction to Judaism and Christianity. A failure to understand the implications of all this leads to enormous misunderstandings when all religions are grouped together.

Wasn't forgetfulness a gift of the gods to the ancient world? Without it. Life would be intolerable, wouldn't it? Yes, but the Jews live by other rules. For a Jew, nothing is more important than memory. He is bound to his origins by memory. It is memory that connects him to Abraham, Moses and Rabbi Akiva.