Judaism

"When a poor man eats a chicken, one of them is sick."

"If you steal from a thief, you also have a taste of it."

"Rabbi Levitas of Yavneh said: Be exceedingly humble in spirit, for the hope of earthly man is but decay."

"Let your home be a meeting place for the wise; dust yourself in the soil of their feet, and drink thirstily of their words. -Yossei ben Yoezer"

"Love work, loath mastery over others, and avoid intimacy with the government. -Shmaayah"

"Who is wise? He who learns from all men -Ben Zoma"

"Youth is a crown of roses, old age a crown of willows."

"In old men there is no taste, in young no insight."

"I do not want a shoe larger than my foot."

"Don't boast of tomorrow, for you know not what a day will bring."

"Whoever seeks cake loses his bread."

"Whoever argues for the sake of argument is a boor."

"Any home not built for hot days or rains is not a home."

"Happy is the man who has not followed the counsel of the wicked, or taken the path of sinners, or joined the company of the insolent; rather, the teaching of the is his delight, and he studies that teaching day and night. He is like a tree planted beside streams of water, which yields its fruit in season, whose foliage never fades, and whatever it produces thrives. Not so the wicked; rather, they are like chaff that wind blows away. Therefore the wicked will not survive judgment, nor will sinners, in the assembly of the righteous. For the cherishes the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked is doomed."

"Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the ; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish."

"Happy is the man that hath not walked in the counsel of the wicked, nor stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the ; and in His law doth he meditate day and night. And he will certainly become like a tree planted by streams of water, That gives its own fruit in its season And the foliage of which does not wither, And everything he does will succeed. The wicked are not like that, But are like the chaff that the wind drives away. That is why the wicked ones will not stand up in the judgment, Nor sinners in the assembly of righteous ones. For Jehovah is taking knowledge of the way of righteous ones, But the very way of wicked ones will perish."

"LORD, how are they increased that trouble me! many are they that rise up against me. Many there be which say of my soul, There is no help for him in God. Selah. But thou, O LORD, art a shield for me; my glory, and the lifter up of mine head. I cried unto the LORD with my voice, and he heard me out of his holy hill. Selah."

"I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for thou, LORD, only makest me dwell in safety."

"For you are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness; No one bad may remain with you."

"For there is no faithfulness in their mouth; their inward part is very wickedness; their throat is an open sepulcher; they flatter with their tongue. Destroy thou them, O God; let them fall by their own counsels; cast them out in the multitude of their transgressions; for they have rebelled against thee."

"O LORD my God, if I have done this and there is guilt on my hands-- if I have done evil to him who is at peace with me or without cause have robbed my foe-- then let my enemy pursue and overtake me; let him trample my life to the ground and make me sleep in the dust. "Selah""

"Arise, O LORD, in your anger; rise up against the rage of my enemies. Awake, my God; decree justice."

"The LORD shall judge the people: judge me, O LORD, according to my righteousness, and according to mine integrity that is in me."

"Behold, he travaileth with iniquity, and hath conceived mischief, and brought forth falsehood. He made a pit, and digged it, and is fallen into the ditch which he made."

"O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens. Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger. When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet: All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas."

"O Jehovah our Lord, how majestic your name is throughout the earth!"

"When mine enemies are turned back, they shall fall and perish at thy presence. For thou hast maintained my right and my cause; thou satest in the throne judging right. Thou hast rebuked the heathen, thou hast destroyed the wicked, thou hast put out their name for ever and ever. O thou enemy, destructions are come to a perpetual end: and thou hast destroyed cities; their memorial is perished with them."

"Have mercy upon me, O LORD; consider my trouble which I suffer of them that hate me, thou that liftest me up from the gates of death."

"In his pride the wicked does not seek him; in all his thoughts there is no room for God. His ways are always prosperous; he is haughty and your laws are far from him; he sneers at all his enemies. He says to himself, "Nothing will shake me; I'll always be happy and never have trouble." His mouth is full of curses and lies and threats; trouble and evil are under his tongue. He lies in wait near the villages; from ambush he murders the innocent, watching in secret for his victims. He lies in wait like a lion in cover; he lies in wait to catch the helpless; he catches the helpless and drags them off in his net. His victims are crushed, they collapse; they fall under his strength. He says to himself, "God has forgotten; he covers his face and never sees." Arise, LORD! Lift up your hand, O God. Do not forget the helpless. Why does the wicked man revile God? Why does he say to himself, "He won't call me to account"? But you, O God, do see trouble and grief; you consider it to take it in hand. The victim commits himself to you; you are the helper of the fatherless. Break the arm of the wicked and evil man; call him to account for his wickedness that would not be found out. The LORD is King for ever and ever; the nations will perish from his land. You hear, O LORD, the desire of the afflicted; you encourage them, and you listen to their cry, defending the fatherless and the oppressed, in order that man, who is of the earth, may terrify no more."

"Jehovah examines the righteous one as well as the wicked one; He hates anyone who loves violence."

"תֹּֽודִיעֵנִי֮ אֹ֤רַח חַ֫יִּ֥ים שֹׂ֣בַע מָחֹות אֶת־פָּנֶ֑יךָ נְעִמֹ֖ות בִּימִינְךָ֣ נֶֽצַח"

"How long wilt thou forget me, O LORD? for ever? how long wilt thou hide thy face from me? How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily? how long shall mine enemy be exalted over me? Consider and hear me, O LORD my God: lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death; Lest mine enemy say, I have prevailed against him; and those that trouble me rejoice when I am moved. But I have trusted in thy mercy; my heart shall rejoice in thy salvation. I will sing unto the LORD, because he hath dealt bountifully with me."

"Long enough, God - you've ignored me long enough. I've looked at the back of your head Long enough I've carried this ton of trouble, lived with a stomach full of pain. Long enough my arrogant enemies have looked down their noses at me. Take a good look at me, God, my God; I want to look life in the eye, So no enemy can get the best of me or laugh when I fall on my face. I've thrown myself headlong into your arms - I'm celebrating your rescue. I'm singing at the top of my lungs, I'm so full of answered prayers."

"The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good. The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people as they eat bread, and call not upon the LORD."

"He rejects anyone who is contemptible, But he honors those fearing Jehovah. He does not go back on his promise, even when it is bad for him. He does not lend his money on interest, And he does not accept a bribe against the innocent. Whoever does these things will never be shaken."

"Preserve me, O God: for in thee do I put my trust. O my soul, thou hast said unto the LORD, Thou art my Lord: my goodness extendeth not to thee;; But to the saints that are in the earth, and to the excellent, in whom is all my delight."

"Their sorrows will be increased who go after another god: I will not take drink offerings from their hands, or take their names on my lips."

"The wise counsel God gives when I'm awake is confirmed by my sleeping heart. Day and night I'll stick with God; I've got a good thing going and I'm not letting go."

"I have set the LORD always before me: because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth: my flesh also shall rest in hope. For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore."

"Hear the right, O LORD, attend unto my cry, give ear unto my prayer, that goeth not out of feigned lips."

"I have called upon thee, for thou wilt hear me, O God: incline thine ear unto me, and hear my speech. Shew thy marvellous lovingkindness, O thou that savest by thy right hand them which put their trust in thee from those that rise up against them."

"The LORD rewarded me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands hath he recompensed me."

"As for God, his way is perfect: the word of the Lord is tried: he is a buckler to all those that trust in him. For who is God save the Lord? or who is a rock save our God? It is God that girdeth me with strength, and maketh my way perfect. He maketh my feet like hinds' feet, and setteth me upon my high places."

"I have pursued mine enemies, and overtaken them: neither did I turn again till they were consumed. I have wounded them that they were not able to rise: they are fallen under my feet. For thou hast girded me with strength unto the battle: thou hast subdued under me those that rose up against me. Thou hast also given me the necks of mine enemies; that I might destroy them that hate me. They cried, but there was none to save them: even unto the LORD, but he answered them not. Then did I beat them small as the dust before the wind: I did cast them out as the dirt in the streets."

"The heavens are declaring the glory of God; The skies above proclaim the work of his hands."

"Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge."

"The law of Jehovah is perfect, restoring the soul: The testimony of Jehovah is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of Jehovah are right, rejoicing the heart: The commandment of Jehovah is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of Jehovah is clean, enduring for ever: The ordinances of Jehovah are true, and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold; Sweeter also than honey and the droppings of the honeycomb."

"Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer."

"My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?"

"But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people."

"But thou art he that took me out of the womb: thou didst make me hope when I was upon my mother’s breasts. I was cast upon thee from the womb: thou art my God from my mother’s belly."

"I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint."

"The assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet."

"Deliver my soul from the sword; my darling from the power of the dog."

"For he hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; neither hath he hid his face from him; but when he cried unto him, he heard."

"All they that be fat upon earth shall eat and worship: all they that go down to the dust shall bow before him: and none can keep alive his own soul."

"The is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the for ever."

"Who shall ascend into the hill of the LORD? or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully."

"Deliver me not over unto the will of mine enemies: for false witnesses are risen up against me, and such as breathe out cruelty."

"Do not drag me away with the wicked, with those who do evil, who speak cordially with their neighbors but harbor malice in their hearts."

"The LORD will give strength unto his people; the LORD will bless his people with peace."

"O LORD, thou hast brought up my soul from the grave: thou hast kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit. Sing unto the LORD, O ye saints of his, and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness. For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favour is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning."

"I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye."

"Rejoice in Jehovah and be joyful, you righteous ones; Shout joyfully, all you who are upright in heart."

"He loveth righteousness and justice: The earth is full of the lovingkindness of Jehovah."

"אֹ֭הֵב צְדָקָ֣ה וּמִשְׁפָּ֑ט חֶ֥סֶד יְ֝הוָ֗ה מָלְאָ֥ה הָאָֽרֶץ׃"

"גֹּ֣ול עַל־יְהוָ֣ה דַּרְכֶּ֑ךָ וּבְטַ֥ח עָ֝לָ֗יו וְה֣וּא יַעֲשֶֽׂה׃ וְהֹוצִ֣יא כָאֹ֣ור צִדְקֶ֑ךָ וּ֝מִשְׁפָּטֶ֗ךָ כַּֽצָּהֳרָֽיִם׃"

"Just a little while longer, and the wicked will be no more; You will look at where they were, And they will not be there. But the meek will possess the earth, And they will find exquisite delight in the abundance of peace."

"For my errors loom over my head; Like a heavy burden, they are too much for me to bear. My wounds stink and fester Because of my foolishness. I am distressed and extremely downcast; I walk around sad all day long. There is a burning within me; My whole body is sick. I have grown numb and become completely crushed; My anguished heart makes me groan aloud."

"Just like a deer that craves streams of water, my whole being craves you, God. My whole being thirsts for God, for the living God. When will I come and see God's face?"

"My tears have been my food day and night, while men say to me all day long, "Where is your God?""

"God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Selah."

"There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High. God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved: God shall help her, and that right early. The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved: he uttered his voice, the earth melted. The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah."

"Come, behold the works of Jehovah, What desolations he hath made in the earth. He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; He breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; He burneth the chariots in the fire. Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth."

"Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions. Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me."

"Create pure thoughts in me and make me faithful again."

"The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise."

"The fool says in his heart, "There is no God." They are corrupt, and their ways are vile; there is no one who does good. God looks down from heaven on the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God. Everyone has turned away, they have together become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one. Will the evildoers never learn-- those who devour my people as men eat bread and who do not call on God?"

"And I said, Oh that I had wings like a dove! for then would I fly away, and be at rest."

"I am on fire with passion for your house; and the hard things which are said about you have come on me."

"For the zeal of thy house hath eaten me up: and the reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me."

"In thee, O Jehovah, do I take refuge: Let me never be put to shame."

"1. God standeth in the congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the gods. 2. How long will ye judge unjustly, and accept the persons of the wicked? Selah. 3. Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy. 4. Deliver the poor and needy: rid them out of the hand of the wicked. 5. They know not, neither will they understand; they walk on in darkness: all the foundations of the earth are out of course. 6. I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High."

"O God, do not be silent; Do not keep quiet* or still, O Divine One. For look! your enemies are in an uproar; Those who hate you act arrogantly.With cunning they secretly plot against your people; They conspire against your treasured ones. They say: “Come, let us annihilate them as a nation, So that the name of Israel may be remembered no more.”"

"That men may know that thou, whose name alone is JEHOVAH, art the most high over all the earth."

"God said: “Because he has affection for me,* I will rescue him. I will protect him because he knows* my name. He will call on me, and I will answer him. I will be with him in distress. I will rescue him and glorify him. I will satisfy him with long life, And I will cause him to see my acts of salvation."

"O sing unto the LORD a new song: sing unto the LORD, all the earth. Sing unto the LORD, bless his name; shew forth his salvation from day to day. Declare his glory among the heathen, his wonders among all people. For the LORD is great, and greatly to be praised: he is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the nations are idols: but the LORD made the heavens. Honour and majesty are before him: strength and beauty are in his sanctuary. Give unto the LORD, O ye kindreds of the people, give unto the LORD glory and strength. Give unto the LORD the glory due unto his name: bring an offering, and come into his courts. O worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness: fear before him, all the earth. Say among the heathen that the LORD reigneth: the world also shall be established that it shall not be moved: he shall judge the people righteously. Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad; let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof. Let the field be joyful, and all that is therein: then shall all the trees of the wood rejoice Before the LORD: for he cometh, for he cometh to judge the earth: he shall judge the world with righteousness, and the people with his truth."

"For Jehovah is good; His loyal love endures forever, And his faithfulness through all generations."

"Jehovah will be at your right hand; He will crush kings on the day of his anger."

"Hallelujah. O servants of the , give praise; praise the name of the ."

"The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner."

"119:134 Redeem me from the oppression of men, that I may obey your precepts."

"119:163 I hate and detest falsehood, but I love your law."

"119:166 I wait for your salvation, O Lord, and I follow your commands."

"119:175 Let me live that I may praise you, and may your laws sustain me."

"I shall raise my eyes to the mountains. From where will my help come? My help is from Jehovah, The Maker of heaven and earth."

"I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth. He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber. Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is thy keeper: the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand. The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul. The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore."

"Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O LORD. Lord, hear my voice: let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications. If thou, LORD, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?"

"Let Israel hope in the LORD: for with the LORD there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption. And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities."

"By the rivers of Babylon, There we sat down, yea, we wept, When we remembered Zion. Upon the willows in the midst thereof We hanged up our harps. For there they that led us captive required of us songs, And they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How shall we sing the LORD'S song in a strange land? If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, Let my right hand forget her skill. Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, If I remember thee not; If I prefer not Jerusalem Above my chief joy."

"For there is not a word on my tongue, But behold, O Lord, You know it altogether. You have hedged me behind and before, And laid Your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is high, I cannot attain it. How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with thee."

"Surely thou wilt slay the wicked, O God: depart from me therefore, ye bloody men. For they speak against thee wickedly, and thine enemies take thy name in vain. Do not I hate them, O LORD, that hate thee? and am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee? I hate them with perfect hatred: I count them mine enemies. Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."

"Blessed be the LORD my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight: My goodness, and my fortress; my high tower, and my deliverer; my shield, and he in whom I trust; who subdueth my people under me. LORD, what is man, that thou takest knowledge of him! or the son of man, that thou makest account of him! Man is like to vanity: his days are as a shadow that passeth away. Bow thy heavens, O LORD, and come down: touch the mountains, and they shall smoke. Cast forth lightning, and scatter them: shoot out thine arrows, and destroy them."

"Jehovah guards all those who love him, But all the wicked he will annihilate."

"The restores sight to the blind; the makes those who are bent stand straight; the loves the righteous."

"A monk ... will take in to himself all the thoughts of the Psalms and will begin to sing them in such a way that he will utter them with the deepest emotion of heart not as if they were the compositions of the Psalmist, but rather as if they were his own utterances and his very own prayer."

"And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. (KJV)"

"And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. (KJV)"

"And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. (KJV)"

"And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day. (KJV)"

"And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. (KJV)"

"And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the third day. (KJV)"

"And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. (KJV)"

"And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day. (KJV)"

"And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. (KJV)"

"And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day. (KJV)"

"And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good. (KJV)"

"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. (KJV)"

"And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. (KJV)"

"And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so. (KJV)"

"And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. (KJV)"

"Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his Work which he made and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made. (KJV)"

"And the God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. (KJV)"

"And the God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. (KJV)"

"And out of the ground made the God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. (KJV)"

"And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads. The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone. And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia. And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates. (KJV)"

"And the God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. (KJV)"

"But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. (KJV)"

"It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. (KJV)"

"And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him. (KJV)"

"And the God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof: and the rib, which the God had taken from the man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. (KJV)"

"Then the man said: "This is at last bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. This one will be called Woman, because from man this one was taken." That is why a man will leave his father and his mother and he must stick to his wife and they must become one flesh. And both of them continued to be naked, the man and his wife, and yet they did not become ashamed. (NWT)"

"Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field. (KJV)"

"Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. (NIV)"

"Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil."

"And they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons. (KJV)"

"So they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. (NIV)"

"And they heard the voice of the God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. (KJV)"

"The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. (KJV)"

"And the God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. And the God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. (KJV)"

"And I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring. He will crush your head, and you will strike him in the heel. (NWT)"

"And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. (KJV)"

"And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living. (KJV)"

"Therefore the God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life. (KJV)"

"Now the man knew his wife Eve. (NRSV)"

"And the said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother’s keeper? (KJV)"

"I do not know; am I my brother's keeper? (NRSV)"

"The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground. (KJV)"

"Your brother's blood is crying out to me from the ground! (NRSV)"

"And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand; When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth. (KJV)"

"My punishment is greater than I can bear. (KJV)"

"And the set a mark upon Cain. (KJV)"

"And the Lord put a mark on Cain. (NRSV)"

"And Cain went out from the presence of the , and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden. (KJV)"

"When God created humankind, he made them in the likeness of God. Male and female he created them. (NRSV)"

"And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him. (KJV)"

"Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him. (NRSV)"

"And all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years: and he died. (KJV)"

"Thus all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred and sixty-nine years; and he died. (NRSV)"

"And Noah begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth. (KJV)"

"And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. And the said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years. There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown. (KJV)"

"Now it came about, when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose. Then the said, "My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years." The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown. (NASB)"

"Consequently, Jehovah saw that man’s wickedness was great on the earth and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only bad all the time. Jehovah regretted that he had made men on the earth, and his heart was saddened. So Jehovah said: “I am going to wipe men whom I have created off the surface of the ground, man together with domestic animals, creeping animals, and flying creatures of the heavens, for I regret that I have made them.” But Noah found favor in the eyes of Jehovah. (NWT)"

"These are the records of the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his time; Noah walked with God. (NWT)"

"Yes, God looked upon the earth, and it was ruined; all flesh had ruined its way on the earth. (NWT)"

"Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood; you shall make the ark with rooms, and shall cover it inside and out with pitch. (NASB)"

"And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every kind into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female. Of the birds after their kind, and of the animals after their kind, of every creeping thing of the ground after its kind, two of every kind will come to you to keep them alive. (NASB)"

"And the said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation. Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female. (KJV)"

"For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth. (KJV)"

"There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded Noah. (KJV)"

"And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights. (KJV)"

"And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark. (KJV)"

"And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat. (KJV)"

"But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot. (KJV)"

"And the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf pluckt off. (KJV)"

"And the smelled a sweet savour; and the said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done. (KJV)"

"While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease. (KJV)"

"Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things. But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat. And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man. (KJV)"

"I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud: And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. (KJV)"

"And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the : wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the . (KJV)"

"And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. And the came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. And the said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth. (KJV)"

"Now the had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee: And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. (KJV)"

"Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between thee and me...for we be brethren. (KJV)"

"But the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the exceedingly. (KJV)"

"For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever. And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth: so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered. Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it; for I will give it unto thee. (KJV)"

"And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the most high God. (KJV)"

"And the king of Sodom said unto Abram, Give me the persons, and take the goods to thyself. And Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have lift up mine hand unto the , the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth, That I will not take from a thread even to a shoelatchet, and that I will not take any thing that is thine, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich. (KJV)"

"And Abram said, God, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus? (KJV)"

"And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be. And he believed in the ; and he counted it to him for righteousness. (KJV)"

"And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and, lo, an horror of great darkness fell upon him. And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years; And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance. (KJV)"

"Thou shalt be buried in a good old age. (KJV)"

"In the same day the made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates. (KJV)"

"Now Sarai Abram's wife bare him no children: and she had an handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar. (KJV)"

"Then Jehovah’s angel said: “I will greatly multiply your offspring, so that they will be too numerous to count.” Jehovah’s angel added: “Here you are pregnant, and you will give birth to a son, and you must name him Ish′ma·el.” (NWT)"

"And the angel of the said unto her, Behold, thou art with child and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael; because the hath heard thy affliction. And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren. (KJV)"

"Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee. (KJV)"

"This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; Every man child among you shall be circumcised. And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you. And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man child in your generations, he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any stranger, which is not of thy seed. (KJV)"

"And God said unto Abraham, As for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be. (KJV)"

"Now Abraham and Sarah were old and well stricken in age; and it ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. (KJV)"

"And the said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous; I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know. (KJV)"

"And Abraham drew near, and said, Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked? Peradventure there be fifty righteous within the city: wilt thou also destroy and not spare the place for the fifty righteous that are therein? That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? (KJV)"

"Now the two angels arrived at Sod′om by evening, and Lot was sitting in the gate of Sod′om. When Lot caught sight of them, then he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the earth. (NWT)"

"But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt."

"After these things, God tempted Abraham, and said to him: Abraham, Abraham. And he answered: Here I am. He said to him: Take thy only begotten son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and go into the land of vision; and there thou shalt offer him for an holocaust upon one of the mountains which I will show thee. So Abraham rising up in the night, saddled his ass, and took with him two young men, and Isaac his son: and when he had cut wood for the holocaust, he went his way to the place which God had commanded him. And on the third day, lifting up his eyes, he saw the place afar off. And he said to his young men: Stay you here with the ass; I and the boy will go with speed as far as yonder, and after we have worshipped, will return to you. And he took the wood for the holocaust, and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he himself carried in his hands fire and a sword. And as they two went on together, Isaac said to his father: My father. And he answered: What wilt thou, son? Behold, saith he, fire and wood: where is the victim for the holocaust? And Abraham said: God will provide himself a victim for an holocaust, my son. So they went on together. And they came to the place which God had shown him, where he built an altar, and laid the wood in order upon it; and when he had bound Isaac his son, he laid him on the altar upon the pile of wood. And he put forth his hand, and took the sword, to sacrifice his son. And behold, an angel of the Lord from heaven called to him, saying: Abraham, Abraham. And he answered: Here I am. And he said to him: Lay not thy hand upon the boy, neither do thou any thing to him: now I know that thou fearest God, and hast not spared thy only begotten son for my sake. Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw behind his back a ram, amongst the briers, sticking fast by the horns, which he took and offered for a holocaust instead of his son. (Douay–Rheims)"

"Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest. (KJV)"

"My son, God will provide himself a lamb. (KJV)"

"Behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns. (KJV)"

"And Jehovah’s angel called to Abraham a second time from the heavens, saying: “‘By myself I swear,’ declares Jehovah, ‘that because you have done this and you have not withheld your son, your only one, I will surely bless you and I will surely multiply your offspring like the stars of the heavens and like the grains of sand on the seashore, and your offspring will take possession of the gate of his enemies. And by means of your offspring all nations of the earth will obtain a blessing for themselves because you have listened to my voice.’” (NWT)"

"Esau selleth his birthright for a mess of potage."

"Esau was a cunning hunter, a man of the field; and Jacob was a plain man, dwelling in tents. (KJV)"

"And he sold his birthright unto Jacob. (KJV)"

"Behold, Esau my brother is a hairy man, and I am a smooth man. (KJV)"

"The voice is Jacob’s voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau. (KJV)"

"Thy brother came with subtilty, and hath taken away thy blessing. (KJV)"

"And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. (KJV)"

"Surely the is in this place; and I knew it not. (KJV)"

"This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. (KJV)"

"And Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had to her. (KJV)"

"The watch between me and thee, when we are absent one from another. (KJV)"

"There wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob’s thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him. (KJV)"

"I will not let thee go, except thou bless me. (KJV)"

"For I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved. (KJV)"

"Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age; and he made him a coat of many colours. (KJV)"

"Behold, your sheaves stood round about, and made obeisance to my sheaf. (KJV)"

"Behold, this dreamer cometh. (KJV)"

"Some evil beast hath devoured him. (KJV)"

"And she caught him by his garment, saying, Lie with me; and he left his garment in her hand, and fled. (KJV)"

"And the lean and the ill favoured kine did eat up the first seven fat kine. (KJV)"

"And the thin ears devoured the seven good ears. (KJV)"

"Jacob saw that there was corn in Egypt. (KJV)"

"Ye are spies; to see the nakedness of the land ye are come. (KJV)"

"Ye shall eat the fat of the land. (KJV)"

"See that ye fall not out by the way. (KJV)"

"Few and evil have the days of the years of my life been. (KJV)"

"Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel. (KJV)"

"The god is depicted... on his potter wheel... creating the body of the Pharaoh and his ka and his eternal soul by petrifying, by using clay. ...[H]e kneads humanity and the gods with clay and silt. ...[T]his is the Genesis that we are accustomed to read in the Bible, and it is also the type of Genesis that is depicted in the Quran. ...The ka is the soul in eternal stone."

"As the Mishnah records, the Rabbis of the House of Hillel and later Jewish law interpreted Genesis 1:28 to require a minimum of two children – specifically a boy and a girl, so that human creation would mirror divine creation. Couples who were able to have more children, however, were supposed to have as many as they could, based on the verse, “Sow your seed in the morning, and do not refrain from doing so in the evening,” interpreted to mean the beginning and later stages of life (Ecclesiastes 11:6). This undoubtedly reflected the reality of a time when fewer children survived to adulthood."

"The Biblical words about the genesis of heaven and earth are not words of information but words of appreciation. The story of creation is not a description of how the world came into being but a song about the glory of the world's having come into being."

"Certain portions of the text of the Bible, if taken literally, cannot possibly be regarded as in any way conducive to a high moral standard. In Genesis XII:10-20, for example, Abraham passes his wife off as his sister that Pharaoh may possess her. His motive in doing so was that his life might be spared and he be greatly rewarded. Isaac transgresses similarly and for the same reason, as stated in Genesis XXVI:6-11. In this latter case the Lord God blessed Isaac and he becomes rich and prospers. Genesis XXVII:1-45, recounts a most deplorable example of deliberate deceit by Jacob, who later becomes a favoured patriarch under the inspiration of the Lord."

"...the great Book of Genesis—a marvellous cup filled with the “wine” of the esoteric knowledge of the Sanctuaries of ancient days. Temples of the Ageless Wisdom exist to-day, even if less easily discoverable, and in them are to be found the selfsame teachings, laws, successions, Initiations and radiations of the light of Truth. World changes are not reflected in the Mysteries, which are repositories and conveyors of eternal and unchanging Ideas. A sack of corn containing a silver cup awaits every Benjamin who finds himself called by a Hierophant (Joseph) from the “famine-stricken” outer world to the “storehouse” from which an elder brother (a Master) Who has already attained will, in prodigal abundance, supply a gift of the golden grain of eternal verities."

"Genesis 1:28 is not a commandment, but a blessing. It does not refer to what humans must do to please God, but to what God does for and through humankind. The text says, "God blessed them, and God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply'" (RSV). Fertility is not a command but a blessing that God gives to his creatures, to animals as well as humans (Gen. 1:22). The filling of the Earth is a gift of God's wisdom and shows forth his glory as Creator (Ps. 104:24, 31; Isa. 6:3)."

"If Genesis 1:28 were a ‘command’ that applied to every individual, then Paul would have been disobedient in his apostolic singleness. Paul and everyone else would be obligated to pursue marriage and to order their marriages to produce many descendants."

"Who that has understanding will sup­pose that the first, and second, and third day, and the evening and the morning, ex­isted without a sun, and moon, and stars? and that the first day was, as it were, also without a sky? And who is so foolish as to suppose that God, after the manner of a husbandman, planted a paradise in Eden, towards the east, and placed in it a tree of life, visible and palpable, so that one tasting of the fruit by the bodily teeth obtained life? and again, that one was a partaker of good and evil by masticating what was taken from the tree? And if God is said to walk in the paradise in the evening, and Adam to hide himself under a tree, I do not suppose that anyone doubts that these things figuratively indi­cate certain mysteries, the history having taken place in appearance, and not literally. Cain also, when going forth from the presence of God, certainly appears to thoughtful men as likely to lead the reader to inquire what is the presence of God, and what is the meaning of going out from Him."

"[F]or all this reverence, the Bible is one long celebration of violence. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. And the Lord God took one of Adam’s ribs, and made he a woman. And Adam called his wife’s name Eve; because she was the mother of all living. And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain. And she again bare his brother Abel. And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him. With a world population of exactly four, that works out to a homicide rate of 25 per cent, which is about a thousand times higher than the equivalent rates in Western countries today. No sooner do men and women begin to multiply than God decides they are sinful and that the suitable punishment is genocide. (In Bill Cosby’s comedy sketch, a neighbor begs Noah for a hint as to why he is building an ark. Noah replies, “How long can you tread water?”) When the flood recedes, God instructs Noah in its moral lesson, namely the code of vendetta: “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.”"

"Abraham has a nephew, Lot, who settles in Sodom. Because the residents engage in anal sex and comparable sins, God immolates every man, woman, and child in a divine napalm attack. Lot’s wife, for the crime of turning around to look at the inferno, is put to death as well. Abraham undergoes a test of his moral values when God orders him to take his son Isaac to a mountaintop, tie him up, cut his throat, and burn his body as a gift to the Lord. Isaac is spared only because at the last moment an angel stays his father’s hand. For millennia readers have puzzled over why God insisted on this horrifying trial. One interpretation is that God intervened not because Abraham had passed the test but because he had failed it, but that is anachronistic: obedience to divine authority, not reverence for human life, was the cardinal virtue. Isaac’s son Jacob has a daughter, Dinah. Dinah is kidnapped and raped—apparently a customary form of courtship at the time, since the rapist’s family then offers to purchase her from her own family as a wife for the rapist. Dinah’s brothers explain that an important moral principle stands in the way of this transaction: the rapist is uncircumcised. So they make a counteroffer: if all the men in the rapist’s hometown cut off their foreskins, Dinah will be theirs. While the men are incapacitated with bleeding penises, the brothers invade the city, plunder and destroy it, massacre the men, and carry off the women and children. When Jacob worries that neighboring tribes may attack them in revenge, his sons explain that it was worth the risk: “Should our sister be treated like a whore?” Soon afterward they reiterate their commitment to family values by selling their brother Joseph into slavery."

"The first chapter of Genesis... is a hymn to an orderly and bountiful cosmos. ... It is obvious to everyone except creationists that this chapter was never, not even when it was first written, intended as a historical description of the history of the cosmos. It described the work of creation as categories, not as a timeline."

"A Merry Christmas & Happy New Year compliments of Elizabeth Cady Stanton Genesis Chap I says Man & Woman were a simultaneous creation Chap II says Woman was an afterthought Which is true?"

"The sun is a type of God, and the moon of man. And as the sun far surpasses the moon in power and glory, so far does God surpass man. And as the sun remains ever full, never becoming less, so does God always abide perfect... But the moon wanes monthly, and in a manner dies, being a type of man; then it is born again, and is crescent, for a pattern of the future resurrection. In like manner also the three days which were before the luminaries, are types of the Trinity, of God, and His Word, and His wisdom. And the fourth is the type of man, who needs light."

"The tree of knowledge itself was good, and its fruit was good. For it was not the tree, as some think, but the disobedience, which had death in it. For there was nothing else in the fruit than only knowledge; but knowledge is good when one uses it discreetly. But Adam, being yet an infant in age, was on this account as yet unable to receive knowledge worthily."

"And God showed great kindness to man in this, that He did not suffer him to remain in sin for ever; but, as it were, by a kind of banishment, cast him out of Paradise, in order that, having by punishment expiated, within an appointed time, the sin, and having been disciplined, he should afterwards be restored. Wherefore also, when man had been formed in this world, it is mystically written in Genesis, as if he had been twice placed in Paradise; so that the one was fulfilled when he was placed there, and the second will be fulfilled after the resurrection and judgment... And as to God’s calling, and saying, Where art thou, Adam? God did this, not as if ignorant of this; but, being long-suffering, He gave him an opportunity of repentance and confession."

"The Genesis story of the reason why Adam and Eve were driven out of the Garden of Eden was not that they had tasted of the Tree of Knowledge, as is popularly conceived, but the fear lest they should disobey a second time and eat of the Tree of Life and live forever."

"I rather think that the Genesis story of the Creation needs to be rewritten all over again. In the Chinese novel Red Chamber Dream, the boy hero, a sentimental mollycoddle very fond of female company and admiring his beautiful female cousins intensely and all but sorry for himself for being a boy, says that, "Woman is made of water and man is made of clay," the reason being that he thinks his female cousins are sweet and pure and clever, while he himself and his boy companions are ugly and muddle-headed and bad-tempered. If the writer of the Genesis story had been a Paoyü and knew what he was talking about, he would have written a different story. God took a handful of mud, molded it into human shape and breathed into its nostrils a breath, and there was Adam. But Adam began to crack and fall to pieces, and so He took some water, and with the water He molded the clay, and this water which entered into Adam's being was called Eve, and only in having Eve in his being was Adam's life complete. At least that seems to me to be the symbolic significance of marriage. Woman is water and man is clay, and water permeates and molds the clay, and the clay holds the water and gives its substance, in which water moves and lives and has its full being."

"And she bare him a son, and he called his name Gershom: for he said, I have been a stranger in a strange land."

"I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt."

"Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt?"

"Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them?"

"But for this very reason I have kept you in existence: to show you my power and to have my name declared in all the earth."

"O my LORD, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant: but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue."

"Jehovah will rule as king forever and ever."

"What shall I do unto this people? they be almost ready to stone me."

"Fear not: for God is come to prove you, and that his fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not."

"I pray thee, if I have found grace in thy sight, shew me now thy way, that I may know thee, that I may find grace in thy sight: and consider that this nation is thy people."

"If thou meet thine enemy's ox or his ass going astray, thou shalt surely bring it back to him again."

"And he said, Hear now my words: If there be a prophet among you, I the LORD will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream. My servant Moses is not so, who is faithful in all mine house. With him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches; and the similitude of the LORD shall he behold: wherefore then were ye not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?"

"And Moses cried unto the LORD, saying: 'Heal her now, O God, I beseech Thee."

"‘The Lord is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.’"

"“O God, the God who gives breath to all living things, will you be angry with the entire assembly when only one man sins?”"

"And Moses, and Eleazar the priest, and all the princes of the congregation, went forth to meet them without the camp; and Moses was wroth with the officers of the host, with the captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, which came from the battle; and Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive? behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the Lord in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the Lord. Now, therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known a man by lying with him; but all the women-children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves."

"Behold, I have set the land before you: go in and possess the land which the LORD sware unto your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give unto them and to their seed after them. And I spake unto you at that time, saying, I am not able to bear you myself alone: The LORD your God hath multiplied you, and, behold, ye are this day as the stars of heaven for multitude. How can I myself alone bear your cumbrance, and your burden, and your strife? Take you wise men, and understanding, and known among your tribes, and I will make them rulers over you. And ye answered me, and said, The thing which thou hast spoken is good for us to do. So I took the chief of your tribes, wise men, and known, and made them heads over you, captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, and captains over fifties, and captains over tens, and officers among your tribes. And I charged your judges at that time, saying, Hear the causes between your brethren, and judge righteously between every man and his brother, and the stranger that is with him. Ye shall not respect persons in judgment; but ye shall hear the small as well as the great; ye shall not be afraid of the face of man; for the judgment is God's: and the cause that is too hard for you, bring it unto me, and I will hear it. And I commanded you at that time all the things which ye should do."

"Ask now of the days that are past which were before thee, since the day God created man upon earth."

"You yourselves have been shown these things so you will know that Jehovah is the true God; there is no other besides him. Know, therefore, on this day, and take it to heart that Jehovah is the true God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath. There is no other."

"Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart, And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates."

"But now mine own eyes have beheld God; but not my natural, but my spiritual eyes, for my natural eyes could not have beheld; for I should have withered and died in his presence; but his glory was upon me; and I beheld his face, for I was transfigured before him."

"God gave you the Torah and wrought marvels for you, in order, through this and through the observances of the laws which He imposed upon you, to distinguish you before all other nations on earth. Consider, however, that whereas up to this time you have been ignorant, and your ignorance served as your excuse, you now know exactly what to do and what not to do. Until now you did not know that the righteous are to be rewarded and the godless to be punished in the future world, but now you know it. But as long as you will have a feeling of shame, you will not lightly commit sins."

"O Lord of the world! Let me see by what law Thou dost govern the world; for I see that many a just man is lucky, but many a one is not; many a wicked man is lucky, but many a one is not; many a rich man is happy, but many a one is not; many a poor man is happy, but many a one is not"

"Dost thou not know that I am the son of Amram, that came circumcised out of my mother's womb, that at the age of three days not only walked, but even talked with my parents, that took no milk from my mother until she received her pay from Pharaoh's daughter? When I was three months old, my wisdom was so great that I made prophecies and said, 'I shall hereafter from God's right hand receive the Torah.' At the age of six months I entered Pharaoh's palace and took off the crown from his head. When I was eighty years old, I brought the ten plagues upon Pharaoh and the Egyptians, slew their guardian angel, and led the sixty myriads of Israel out of Egypt. I then clove the sea into twelve parts, led Israel through the midst of them, and drowned the Egyptians in the same, and it was not thou that took their souls, but I. It was I, too, that turned the bitter water into sweet, that mounted into heaven, and there spoke face to face with God! I hewed out two tables of stone, upon which God at my request wrote the Torah. One hundred and twenty days and as many nights did I dwell in heaven, where I dwelled under the Throne of Glory; like an angel during all this time I ate no bread and drank no water. I conquered the inhabitants of heaven, made known there secrets to mankind, received the Torah from God's right hand, and at His command wrote six hundred and thirteen commandments, which I then taught to Israel. I furthermore waged war against the heroes of Sihon and Og, that had been created before the flood and were so tall that the waters of the flood did not even reach their ankles. In battle with them I bade sun and moon to stand still, and with my staff slew the two heroes. Where, perchance, is there in the world a mortal who could do all this? How darest thou, wicked one, presume to wish to seize my pure soul that was given me in holiness and purity by the Lord of holiness and purity? Thou hast no power to sit where I sit, or to stand where I stand. Get thee hence, I will not give thee my soul."

"In the last heaven Moses saw two angels, each five hundred parasangs in height, forged out of chains of black fire and red fire, the angels Af, "Anger," and Hemah, "Wrath," whom God created at the beginning of the world, to execute His will. Moses was disquieted when he looked upon them, but Metatron embraced him, and said, "Moses, Moses, thou favorite of God, fear not, and be not terrified," and Moses became calm. There was another angel in the seventh heaven, different in appearance from all the others, and of frightful mien. His height was so great, it would have taken five hundred years to cover a distance equal to it, and from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet he was studded with glaring eyes. "This one," said Metatron, addressing Moses, "is Samael, who takes the soul away from man." "Whither goes he now?" asked Moses, and Metatron replied, "To fetch the soul of Job the pious." Thereupon Moses prayed to God in these words, "O may it be Thy will, my God and the God of my fathers, not to let me fall into the hands of this angel.""

"And has the story of Moses come to thee?"

"Has not there come to thee the story of Moses,"

"We recite to thee the story of Moses and Pharaoh with truth, for a people who believe."

"He said: My Lord, expand my breast for me: And ease my affair for me: And loose the knot from my tongue, (That) they may understand my word. And give to me an aide from my family: Aaron, my brother; Add to my strength by him, And make him share my task -- So that we may glorify Thee much, And much remember Thee. Surely, Thou art ever Seeing us."

"(Pharaoh) said: Who is your Lord, O Moses? He said: Our Lord is He Who gives to everything its creation, then guides (it). He said: What then is the state of the former generations? He said: The knowledge thereof is with my Lord in a book; my Lord neither errs nor forgets --"

"Pharaoh said: And what is the Lord of the worlds? He said: The Lord of the heavens and the earth and what is between them, if you would be sure. (Pharaoh) said to those around him: Do you not hear? He said: Your Lord and the Lord of your fathers of old. (Pharaoh) said: Surely your messenger, who is sent to you, is mad. He said: The Lord of the East and the West and what is between them, if you have any sense. (Pharaoh) said: If thou takest a god besides me, I will certainly put thee in prison. He said: Even if I show thee something plain? (Pharaoh) said: Show it, then, if thou art of the truthful. So he cast down his rod, and lo! it was an obvious serpent; And he drew forth his hand, and lo! it appeared white to the beholders."

"Moses said to his people: Ask help from Allah and be patient. Surely the land is Allah's -- He gives it for an inheritance to such of His servants as He pleases. And the end is for those who keep their duty. They said: We were persecuted before thou camest to us and since thou hast come to us. He said: It may be that your Lord will destroy your enemy and make you rulers in the land, then He will see how you act."

"But, on account of the fear of Pharaoh and their chiefs persecuting them, none believed in Moses except a few of his people. And Pharaoh was truly high-handed in the land; and surely he was extravagant. And Moses said: O my people, if you believe in Allah, then rely on Him if you submit (to Him). They said: On Allah we rely; our Lord, make us not a trial for the unjust people. And deliver us by Thy mercy from the disbelieving people."

"And Moses said: Our Lord, surely Thou hast given Pharaoh and his chiefs finery and riches in this world's life, our Lord, that they may lead (people) astray from Thy way. Our Lord, destroy their riches and harden their hearts, so that they believe not till they see the painful chastisement."

"And certainly We overtook Pharaoh's people with droughts and diminution of fruits that they might be mindful. But when good befell them they said: This is due to us. And when evil afflicted them, they attributed it to the ill-luck of Moses and those with him. Surely their evil fortune is only from Allah, but most of them know not. And they said: Whatever sign thou mayest bring to us to charm us therewith we shall not believe in thee. So We sent upon them widespread death, and the locusts and the lice and the frogs and the blood -- clear signs. But they behaved haughtily and they were a guilty people. And when the plague fell upon them, they said: O Moses, pray for us to thy Lord as He has made promise with thee. If thou remove the plague from us, we will certainly believe in thee and will let the Children of Israel go with thee. But when We removed the plague from them till a term which they should attain, lo they broke (their promise)."

"And certainly We gave Moses nine clear signs; so ask the Children of Israel. When he came to them, Pharaoh said to him: Surely I deem thee, O Moses, to be one bewitched."

"And when Moses came at Our appointed time and his Lord spoke to him, he said: My Lord, show me (Thyself) so that I may look at Thee. He said: Thou canst not see Me; but look at the mountain; if it remains firm in its place, then wilt thou see Me. So when his Lord manifested His glory to the mountain, He made it crumble and Moses fell down in a swoon. Then when he recovered, he said.: Glory be to Thee! I turn to Thee, and I am the first of the believers."

"And when We gave Moses the Book and the Discernment that you might walk aright."

"And We gave Moses the Book and made it a guidance to the Children of Israel (saying): Take no guardian beside Me -- The offspring of those whom We bore with Noah. Surely he was a grateful servant."

"And certainly We gave Moses the Book that they might go aright."

"And certainly We gave Moses the Book and We appointed with him his brother Aaron, an aide."

"And certainly We gave Moses the Book after We had destroyed the former generations clear arguments for men and a guidance and a mercy, that they may be mindful."

"And We gave them both the clear Book. And We guided them on the right way. And We granted them among the later generations (the salutation), Peace be to Moses and Aaron! Thus do We reward the doers of good. Surely they were both of Our believing servants."

"But they became divided into sects, each party rejoicing in that which was with them. So leave them in their ignorance till a time."

"Moses said to him: "May I follow thee, on the footing that thou teach me something of the (Higher) Truth which thou hast been taught?" (The other) said: "Verily thou wilt not be able to have patience with me!" And how canst thou have patience about things about which thy understanding is not complete?" Moses said: "Thou wilt find me, if Allah so will, (truly) patient: nor shall I disobey thee in aught." He said: If you would follow me, then do not question me about any thing until I myself speak to you about it. So they both proceeded: until, when they were in the boat, he scuttled it. Said Moses: "Hast thou scuttled it in order to drown those in it? Truly a strange thing hast thou done!" He answered: "Did I not tell thee that thou canst have no patience with me?" Moses said: "Rebuke me not for forgetting, nor grieve me by raising difficulties in my case." Then they proceeded: until, when they met a young man, he slew him. Moses said: "Hast thou slain an innocent person who had slain none? Truly a foul (unheard of) thing hast thou done!" He answered: "Did I not tell thee that thou canst have no patience with me? (Moses) said: "If ever I ask thee about anything after this, keep me not in thy company: then wouldst thou have received (full) excuse from my side." Then they proceeded: until, when they came to the inhabitants of a town, they asked them for food, but they refused them hospitality. They found there a wall on the point of falling down, but he set it up straight. (Moses) said: "If thou hadst wished, surely thou couldst have exacted some recompense for it!" He answered: "This is the parting between me and thee: now will I tell thee the interpretation of (those things) over which thou wast unable to hold patience. "As for the boat, it belonged to certain men in dire want: they plied on the water: I but wished to render it unserviceable, for there was after them a certain king who seized on every boat by force. "As for the youth, his parents were people of Faith, and we feared that he would grieve them by obstinate rebellion and ingratitude (to Allah and man). So we desired that their Lord would give them in exchange (a son) better in purity (of conduct) and closer in affection. As for the wall, it belonged to two youths, orphans, in the Town; there was, beneath it, a buried treasure, to which they were entitled: their father had been a righteous man: So thy Lord desired that they should attain their age of full strength and get out their treasure - a mercy (and favour) from thy Lord. I did it not of my own accord. Such is the interpretation of (those things) over which thou wast unable to hold patience.""

"And mention in the Book, Moses. Indeed, he was chosen, and he was a messenger and a prophet. And We called him from the side of the mount at [his] right and brought him near, confiding [to him]. And We gave him out of Our mercy his brother Aaron as a prophet."

"And Pharaoh's wife said: A refreshment of the eye to me and to thee – slay him not; maybe he will be useful to us, or we may take him for a son. And they perceived not."

"my first childhood memory of the name Moses came from hearing Paul Robeson singing of him, in the unmistakable deep bass that was his voice alone: "Go down Moses/Way down in Egypt land/Tell ol' Pharaoh/To let my people go""

"The supreme law-giver, who received from God that remarkable code upon which the religious, moral, and social life of the nation was so securely founded… [and] one of the greatest human beings with the most decisive leap forward ever discernable in the human story."

"And Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died: his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated. … And there has not arisen a prophet since in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face, in all the signs and the wonders, which the LORD sent him to do in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh, and to all his servants, and to all his land, and in all that mighty hand, and in all the great terror which Moses shewed in the sight of all Israel."

"I am firmly convinced that the passionate will for justice and truth has done more to improve man's condition than calculating political shrewdness which in the long run only breeds general distrust. Who can doubt that Moses was a better leader of humanity than Machiavelli?"

"Even the man Moses, the meekest of men, was wrathful sometimes."

"Familiar as the voice of the mind is to each, the highest merit we ascribe to Moses, Plato and Milton is that they set at naught books and traditions, and spoke not what men, but what they thought. A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages."

"And she called his name Moses: and she said, Because I drew him out of the water."

"Who made thee a prince and a judge over us? intendest thou to kill me, as thou killedst the Egyptian?"

"And it came to pass, when Moses came down from mount Sinai with the two tables of testimony in Moses' hand, when he came down from the mount, that Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone while he talked with him. And when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone; and they were afraid to come nigh him."

"In calling his two sons by the names of Gershom and Eliezer, Moses, like Joseph and other righteous men, intended to have the fact of God's help constantly before him. Since his sons would be with him, and he would often address them or call them by name, he would remember his gratitude to God."

"Moses, when tending Jethro's flock in the wilderness, proved himself a tender shepherd. He was not above carrying a little lamb, becoming footsore in its search for water, on his shoulder back to the flock. God said, 'This tender shepherd of man's flock shall be the shepherd of my own flock.'"

"Moses, leading Jethro's flock into the wilderness, was typical of his leading God's flock in the wilderness. Sheltering, feeding, and getting drink for the sheep were the forerunners of his obtaining for Israel the sheltering protection of the pillars of fire and cloud, and a supply of manna, quails, and water in the wilderness."

"I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people: Let me alone, that I may destroy them, and blot out their name from under heaven: and I will make of thee a nation mightier and greater than they."

"By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompence of the reward. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible."

"The divine authority of Moses and the prophets was admitted, and even established, as the firmest basis of Christianity."

"Who through deserts and wanderings guided the emigrant nations. Yea, I could even believe I were speaking with Joshua or Moses."

"the greatest leaders the world has known were never charismatic or dependent on their public's falling in love with them. Moses, the greatest leader of all generations, who led the Hebrews out of Egypt, wandered with them in the desert for forty years, made them into a nation, and gave them the Torah, the law whose principles bind us to this very day, was not a charismatic personality. He was the most humble of men, a stutterer, inelegant of speech, who needed an interpreter; he was a man with whom the people were most certainly not enthralled, calling him "that man Moses," complaining without cease, barely accepting his rule over them."

"Here he had studied and written; here gone through fast and vigil, and come forth half alive; here striven to pray; here borne a hundred thousand agonies! There was the Bible, in its rich old Hebrew, with Moses and the Prophets speaking to him, and God’s voice through all!"

"After the establishment of settled life in Egypt in early times, which took place, according to the mythical account, in the period of the gods and heroes, the first... to persuade the multitudes to use written laws was Mneves [Moses], a man not only great of soul but also in his life the most public-spirited of all lawgivers whose names are recorded."

"The true God may be personated. As He was, first, by Moses, who governed the Israelites, that were not his, but God’s people, not in his own name, with hoc dicit Moses, but in God’s name, with hoc dicit Dominus."

"The shamir was the seventh of the ten marvels created in the evening twilight of the first Friday (Ab. v. 6; comp. Pes. 54a; Sifre, Deut. 355; Mek., Beshallaḥ, 5 [ed. Weiss, p. 59b; ed. Friedmann, p. 51a]), and it was followed, significantly enough, by the creation of writing, the stylus, and the two tables of stone. Its size was that of a grain of barley; it was created after the six days of creation. Nothing was sufficiently hard to withstand it; when it was placed on stones they split in the manner in which the leaves of a book open; and iron was broken by its mere presence. The shamir was wrapped for preservation in spongy balls of wool and laid in a leaden box filled with barley bran."

"Whoever speaks of his own originality is seeking his own glory; but whoever seeks the glory of the one who sent him, this one is true and there is no unrighteousness in him. Moses gave you the Law, did he not? But not one of you obeys the Law. Why are you seeking to kill me?” The crowd answered: “You have a demon. Who is seeking to kill you?” In answer Jesus said to them: “One deed I performed, and you are all surprised."

"What is this? Eighth and ninth book of Moses. Secret of all secrets. Seal of King David."

"Whitman, the one man breaking a way ahead. Whitman, the one pioneer. And only Whitman. No English pioneers, no French. . . The same in America. . . Whitman, like a strange, modern, American Moses."

"And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead."

"Looking first to those who have become Princes by their merit, and not by their good fortune, I say that the most excellent among them were Moses, Cyrus, Romulus, Theseus, and the like … And if their actions and the particular institutions of which they were the authors be studied, they will be found not to differ from those of Moses, instructed though he was by so great a teacher."

"Riley: Yo, Huey, look at this! You talk about how bad the NRA is, well check out who’s down… It’s that Moses guy from that movie –"

"Let us therefore be more considerate builders, more wise in spiritual architecture, when great reformation is expected. For now the time seems come, wherein Moses the great prophet may sit in heaven rejoicing to see that memorable and glorious wish of his fulfilled, when not only our seventy elders, but all the Lord’s people are become prophets."

"The next remove must be to the study of politics; to know the beginning, end, and reasons of political societies; … After this they are to dive into the ground of law and legal justice; delivered first, and with best warrant by Moses."

"I do not understand the request of Moses, 'Show me thy glory,' but if he were here . . . after allowing him time to drink the glories of flower, mountain, and sky, I would ask him how they compared with those of the Valley of the Nile . . . and I would inquire how he had the conscience to ask for more glory, when such oceans and atmospheres were about him."

"Moses, I believe, was too good a judge of such subjects to put his name to that account. He had been educated among The Egyptians, who were a people as well skilled in science, and particularly in astronomy, as any people of their day; and the silence and caution that Moses observes in not authenticating the account, is a good negative evidence that he neither told it nor believed it The case is, that every nation of people has been world-makers, and the Israelites had as much right to set up the trade of world-making as any of the rest; and as Moses was not an Israelite, he might not choose to contradict the tradition.."

"It is somewhat curious that the three persons whose names are the most universally recorded were of very obscure parentage. Moses was a foundling; Jesus Christ was born in a stable; and Mahomet was a mule driver."

"Jacob’s descendants, the Israelites, find their way to Egypt and become too numerous for the Pharaoh’s liking, so he enslaves them and orders that all the boys be killed at birth. Moses escapes the mass infanticide and grows up to challenge the Pharaoh to let his people go. God, who is omnipotent, could have softened Pharaoh’s heart, but he hardens it instead, which gives him a reason to afflict every Egyptian with painful boils and other miseries before killing every one of their firstborn sons. (The word Passover alludes to the executioner angel’s passing over the households with Israelite firstborns.) God follows this massacre with another one when he drowns the Egyptian army as they pursue the Israelites across the Red Sea. The Israelites assemble at Mount Sinai and hear the Ten Commandments, the great moral code that outlaws engraved images and the coveting of livestock but gives a pass to slavery, rape, torture, mutilation, and genocide of neighboring tribes. The Israelites become impatient while waiting for Moses to return with an expanded set of laws, which will prescribe the death penalty for blasphemy, homosexuality, adultery, talking back to parents, and working on the Sabbath. To pass the time, they worship a statue of a calf, for which the punishment turns out to be, you guessed it, death. Following orders from God, Moses and his brother Aaron kill three thousand of their companions."

"The Bible depicts a world that, seen through modern eyes, is staggering in its savagery. People enslave, rape, and murder members of their immediate families. Warlords slaughter civilians indiscriminately, including the children. Women are bought, sold, and plundered like sex toys. And Yahweh tortures and massacres people by the hundreds of thousands for trivial disobedience or for no reason at all. These atrocities are neither isolated nor obscure. They implicate all the major characters of the Old Testament, the ones that Sunday-school children draw with crayons. And they fall into a continuous plotline that stretches for millennia, from Adam and Eve through Noah, the patriarchs, Moses, Joshua, the judges, Saul, David, Solomon, and beyond. According to the biblical scholar Raymund Schwager, the Hebrew Bible “contains over six hundred passages that explicitly talk about nations, kings, or individuals attacking, destroying, and killing others. . . . Aside from the approximately one thousand verses in which Yahweh himself appears as the direct executioner of violent punishments, and the many texts in which the Lord delivers the criminal to the punisher’s sword, in over one hundred other passages Yahweh expressly gives the command to kill people.” Matthew White, a self-described atrocitologist who keeps a database with the estimated death tolls of history’s major wars, massacres, and genocides, counts about 1.2 million deaths from mass killing that are specifically enumerated in the Bible. (He excludes the half million casualties in the war between Judah and Israel described in 2 Chronicles 13 because he considers the body count historically implausible.) The victims of the Noachian flood would add another 20 million or so to the total. The good news, of course, is that most of it never happened. Not only is there no evidence that Yahweh inundated the planet and incinerated its cities, but the patriarchs, exodus, conquest, and Jewish empire are almost certainly fictions. Historians have found no mention in Egyptian writings of the departure of a million slaves (which could hardly have escaped the Egyptians’ notice); nor have archaeologists found evidence in the ruins of Jericho or neighboring cities of a sacking around 1200 BCE. And if there was a Davidic empire stretching from the Euphrates to the Red Sea around the turn of the 1st millennium BCE, no one else at the time seemed to have noticed it."

"Now let us imagine the situation of Moses if he had not resisted evil and had allowed the worst and crudest elements to destroy the best—the one which was able to assimilate the ideas of morality and order. What would have happened to his task? His duty as a leader and an earthly lawgiver was to protect his people and to maintain order. Therefore, the resistance to evil was basically necessary. All teachings of antiquity declare active resistance to evil. Thus, the well-known sage and lawgiver of China, Confucius, used to say, "God for good, but for evil—justice.""

"However weak, foolish, and even criminal parents may be, a child ought to honour them as Moses commanded, for the injunction is, and should be, entirely unconditional."

"It has been estimated that one third of our Western civilization bears the mark of its Jewish ancestry."

"An Egyptian priest named Moses, who possessed a portion of the country called the Lower Egypt, being dissatisfied with the established institutions there, left it and came to Judaea with a large body of people who worshipped the Divinity. He declared and taught that the Egyptians and Africans entertained erroneous sentiments, in representing the Divinity under the likeness of wild beasts and cattle of the field; that the Greeks also were in error in making images of their gods after the human form. For God [said he] may be this one thing which encompasses us all, land and sea, which we call heaven, or the universe, or the nature of things.... By such doctrine Moses persuaded a large body of right-minded persons to accompany him to the place where Jerusalem now stands.."

"A motley crowd was thus collected and abandoned in the desert. While all the other outcasts lay idly lamenting, one of them, named Moses, advised them not to look for help to gods or men, since both had deserted them, but to trust rather in themselves, and accept as divine the guidance of the first being, by whose aid they should get out of their present plight."

"Life is not hurrying on to a receding future, nor hankering after an imagined past. It is the turning aside like Moses to the miracle of the lit bush, to a brightness that seemed as transitory as your youth once, but is the eternity that awaits you."

"After supper she got out her book and learned me about Moses and the Bulrushers, and I was in a sweat to find out all about him; but by and by she let it out that Moses had been dead a considerable long time; so then I didn't care no more about him because I don't take no stock in dead people."

"While Moses on the top of Mount Sinai conversed with God, the rebellious people on the plain below adored the golden calf. Notwithstanding my youth, my spirit has no fears of falling into a like rebelliousness. I might commune with God in full security, if the enemy did not come to attack me in the sanctuary itself."

"Voltaire, for example, glossing a famous passage in Exodus, where Moses commands that 24,000 of his countrymen be executed as a result of one Jew’s dallying with a Midian woman, writes: “We must acknowledge, humanly speaking, that these horrid deeds revolt against reason and nature. But if we consider Moses as the minister of God’s designs and vengeance, the aspect is entirely changed. He is not a man who acts as a man; he is the instrument of the divinity, whom we should not call to account. We should offer up silent adoration.”"

"Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herdmen and thy herdmen; for we be brethren. Is not the whole land before thee? separate thyself, I pray thee, from me: if thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left."

"I have lifted up mine hand unto the LORD, the highest God, the possessor of heaven and earth, That I will not take from a thread even to a shoe latchet, and that I will not take anything that is thine, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich…"

"Wilt Thou indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Peradventure there are fifty righteous within the city; wilt Thou indeed sweep away and not forgive the place for the fifty righteous that are therein? That be far from Thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked, that so the righteous should be as the wicked; that be far from Thee; shall not the Judge of all the earth do justly? … Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the LORD, who am but dust and ashes. Peradventure there shall lack five of the fifty righteous; wilt Thou destroy all the city for lack of five? … Oh, let not the LORD be angry, and I will speak yet but this once. Peradventure ten shall be found there?"

"Will you really sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are 50 righteous men within the city. Will you, then, sweep them away and not pardon the place for the sake of the 50 righteous who are inside it? It is unthinkable that you would act in this manner by putting the righteous man to death with the wicked one so that the outcome for the righteous man and the wicked is the same! It is unthinkable of you. Will the Judge of all the earth not do what is right?"

"I thought: Surely the fear of God is not in this place; and they will slay me for my wife's sake. And moreover she is indeed my sister, the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and so she became my wife. And it came to pass, when God caused me to wander from my father's house, that I said unto her: This is thy kindness which thou shalt show unto me; at every place whither we shall come, say of me: He is my brother."

"And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead."

"And when Abraham said (unto his Lord): My Lord! Show me how Thou givest life to the dead, He said: Dost thou not believe? Abraham said: Yea, but (I ask) in order that my heart may be at ease. (His Lord) said: Take four of the birds and cause them to incline unto thee, then place a part of them on each hill, then call them, they will come to thee in haste, and know that Allah is Mighty, Wise."

"Thus did We show Abraham the kingdom of the heavens and the earth that he might be of those possessing certainty: So when the night over-shadowed him, he saw a star; said he: Is this my Lord? So when it set, he said: I do not love the setting ones. When he saw the moon rising in splendour, he said: "This is my Lord." But when the moon set, He said: "unless my Lord guide me, I shall surely be among those who go astray." When he saw the sun rising in splendour, he said: "This is my Lord; this is the greatest (of all)." But when the sun set, he said: "O my people! I am indeed free from your (guilt) of giving partners to Allah. Lo! I have turned my face toward Him Who created the heavens and the earth, as one by nature upright, and I am not of the idolaters."

"Say: "Verily, my Lord hath guided me to a way that is straight,— a religion of right— way of Abraham the faithful, and he joined not deities with God." Say: "Truly, my prayer, my sacrifice, my life and my death, are (all) for The God, the Lord of the Worlds""

"He said: Do you then understand what you worship -- You and your forefathers? -- Surely they are an enemy to me, except the Lord of the worlds, Who created me, then He shows me the way, And Who gives me to eat and to drink, And when I am sick, He heals me, And Who will cause me to die, then give me life, And Who, I hope, will forgive me my mistakes on the day of Judgment."

"O our Lord ! Accept (this service) from us, Verily, You are the All-Hearing, the All-Knowing."

"Now I, Abraham, built an altar in the land of Jershon, and made an offering unto the Lord, and prayed that the famine might be turned away from my father’s house, that they might not perish."

"You are fifty years old and would worship a day[old statue!"

"Terah, the father of Abraham and Haran, was a dealer in images as well as a worshipper of them. Once when he was away he gave Abraham his stock of graven images to sell in his absence. In the course of the day an elderly man came to make a purchase. Abraham asked him his age, and the man gave it as between fifty and sixty years. Abraham taunted him with want of sound sense in calling the work of another man's hand, produced perhaps in a few hours, his god; the man laid the words of Abraham to heart and gave up idol worship. Again a woman came with a handful of fine flour to offer to Terah's idols, which were now in charge of Abraham. He took a stick and broke all the images except the largest one, in the hand of which he placed the stick which had worked this wholesale destruction. When his father returned and saw the havoc committed on his 'gods' and property he demanded an explanation from his son whom he had left in charge. Abraham mockingly explained that when an offering of fine flour was brought to these divinities they quarrelled with each other as to who should be the recipient, when at last the biggest of them, being angry at the altercation, took up a stick to chastise the offenders, and in so doing broke them all up. Terah, so far from being satisfied with this explanation, understood it as a piece of mockery, and when he learnt also of the customers whom Abraham had lost him during his management he became very incensed, and drove Abraham out of his house and handed him over to Nimrod. Nimrod suggested to Abraham that since he had refused to worship his father's idols because of their want of power, he should worship fire, which is very powerful: Abraham pointed out that water has power over fire. 'But,' replied Abraham,' the clouds absorb the water and even they are dispersed by the wind.' 'Then let us declare the wind our god.' 'Bear in mind,' continued Abraham, 'that man is stronger than wind, and can resist it and stand against it.' Nimrod, becoming weary of arguing with Abraham, decided to cast him before his god--fire--and challenged Abraham's deliverance by the God of Abraham, but God saved him out of the fiery furnace."

"The coins of Abraham had the figure of an old man and an old woman on the face of the coin, and those of a youth and a maiden on the obverse, signifying that after Abraham and Sarah had grown old their youth was renewed and they begat a son."

"And the unclean bird spoke to me and said, "What are you doing, Abraham, on the holy heights, where no one eats or drinks, nor is there upon them food for men? But these all will be consumed by fire and ascend to the height, they will destroy you." And it came to pass when I saw the bird speaking I said this to the angel: "What is this, my lord?" And he said, "This is disgrace – this is Azazel!" And he said to him, "Shame on you, Azazel! For Abraham's portion is in heaven, and yours is on earth, for you have selected here, [and] become enamored of the dwelling place of your blemish. Therefore the Eternal Ruler, the Mighty One, has given you a dwelling on earth. Through you the all-evil spirit [was] a liar, and through you [come] wrath and trials on the generations of men who live impiously."

"May you be the firebrand of the furnace of the earth! Go, Azazel, into the untrodden parts of the earth. For your heritage is over those who are with you."

"[P]utrefy in the belly of the crafty worm Azazel, and be burned by the fire of Azazel's tongue."

"You who build these altars now to sacrifice these children, you must not do it anymore. A scheme is not a vision and you never have been tempted by a demon or a god."

"Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son's son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram's wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there."

"Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will show thee: And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed."

"And it came to pass, when he was come near to enter into Egypt, that he said unto Sarai his wife, Behold now, I know that thou art a fair woman to look upon: Therefore it shall come to pass, when the Egyptians shall see thee, that they shall say, This is his wife: and they will kill me, but they will save thee alive. Say, I pray thee, thou art my sister: that it may be well with me for thy sake; and my soul shall live because of thee."

"And the LORD said unto Abram, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward: For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever. And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth: so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered. Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it; for I will give it unto thee. Then Abram removed his tent, and came and dwelt in the plain of Mamre, which is in Hebron, and built there an altar unto the LORD."

"Birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away."

"And Hagar bare Abram a son: and Abram called his son's name, which Hagar bare, Ishmael. And Abram was fourscore and six years old, when Hagar bare Ishmael to Abram"

"And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the LORD appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect. And I will make my covenant between me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly. And Abram fell on his face: and God talked with him, saying, As for me, behold, my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations. Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee. And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee. And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee. And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God."

"And the LORD said, Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do; Seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the LORD, to do justice and judgment; that the LORD may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him."

"And Abraham was an hundred years old, when his son Isaac was born unto him. And Sarah said, God hath made me to laugh, so that all that hear will laugh with me. And she said, Who would have said unto Abraham, that Sarah should have given children suck? for I have born him a son in his old age."

"And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am. And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of. And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him."

"I will surely bless you and I will surely multiply your offspring like the stars of the heavens and like the grains of sand on the seashore, and your offspring will take possession of the gate of his enemies. And by means of your offspring all nations of the earth will obtain a blessing for themselves because you have listened to my voice."

"After a long time the great and awful Name was forgotten and the people, men, women and children, only recognized an image of wood or stone and the temple of wood or stone which they had been brought up from infancy to serve by bowing down. ... Abraham ... knew that all were mistaken and that what caused them to err was worship of the images which drove the Truth out of their minds."

"Camels as a means of transportation abound in the Old Testament. When Abraham sends a servant to look for a bride for his son Isaac, that servant chooses Rebecca. And why? Because of her kindness in offering to water the camels. That's just one of dozens of camel cameos in the Bible, mostly in the book of Genesis, but scholars have long suspected that those camel caravans are a literary anachronism."

"It is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman. But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise. Now this may be interpreted allegorically: these women are two covenants."

"The next major figure in the Bible is Abraham, the spiritual ancestor of Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Abraham has a nephew, Lot, who settles in Sodom. Because the residents engage in anal sex and comparable sins, God immolates every man, woman, and child in a divine napalm attack. Lot’s wife, for the crime of turning around to look at the inferno, is put to death as well. Abraham undergoes a test of his moral values when God orders him to take his son Isaac to a mountaintop, tie him up, cut his throat, and burn his body as a gift to the Lord. Isaac is spared only because at the last moment an angel stays his father’s hand. For millennia readers have puzzled over why God insisted on this horrifying trial. One interpretation is that God intervened not because Abraham had passed the test but because he had failed it, but that is anachronistic: obedience to divine authority, not reverence for human life, was the cardinal virtue."

"In short, as well as being as big a son of a bitch as the lord, Abraham was a consummate liar, ready to deceive anyone with his forked tongue, which in this case, according to the personal dictionary belonging to the narrator of this story, means treacherous, perfidious, false, disloyal and other similarly fine qualities. When he reached the place of which the lord had spoken, Abraham built an alter and placed the wood on it. He then tied up his son and lifted him on to the altar, on top of the wood. Without pausing, he took up his knife in order to sacrifice the poor boy and was just about to slit his throat when he felt a hand grip his arm and heard a voice in his ear shouting, What are you doing, you wretch, killing your own son, burning him, it's the same old story it starts with a lamb and ends with the murder of the very person you should love most, But the lord told me to do it, said Abraham, struggling, Keep still, or I'll be the one who does the killing."

"And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son. And the angel of the LORD called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I. And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me. And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son. And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovahjireh: as it is said to this day, In the mount of the LORD it shall be seen."

"O People of the Book, why do you dispute about Abraham, when the Torah and the Gospel were not revealed till after him? Do you not understand? Behold! You are they who disputed about that of which you had knowledge; why then do you dispute about that of which you have no knowledge? And Allah knows while you know not. Abraham was not a Jew nor a Christian, but he was an upright (man), a Muslim; and he was not one of the polytheists. The nearest of people to Abraham are surely those who follow him and this Prophet and those who believe. And Allah is the Friend of the believers."

"Who can be better in religion than one who submits his whole self to Allah, does good, and follows the way of Abraham the true in Faith? For Allah did take Abraham for a friend."

"We said, "O Fire! be thou cool, and (a means of) safety for Abraham!""

"Then, when (the son) reached (the age of) (serious) work with him, he said: "O my son! I see in vision that I offer thee in sacrifice: Now see what is thy view!" (The son) said: "O my father! Do as thou art commanded: thou will find me, if Allah so wills one practising Patience and Constancy!" So when they had both submitted their wills (to Allah), and he had laid him prostrate on his forehead (for sacrifice), We called out to him "O Abraham! "Thou hast already fulfilled the vision!" - thus indeed do We reward those who do right. For this was obviously a trial- And We ransomed him with a momentous sacrifice: And We left (this blessing) for him among generations (to come) in later times: "Peace and salutation to Abraham!" Thus indeed do We reward those who do right. For he was one of our believing Servants."

"Iblis, who had talent on the form of a man, said: "Where are you going, O Shaikh?" He replied: " I am going to these mountains because I must do something there'. Iblis said: "By God, I have seen that Shaytan has come to you in a dream and ordered you to slaughter this little son of yours. And you intend to do that slaughtering!" Thereupon Abraham recognised him and said: "Get away from me, enemy of God! By God, I will most certainly continue to do what my Lord has commanded". Iblis, the enemy of God, gave up on Abraham but then he encountered Ishmael, who was behind Abraham carrying the wood and the large knife. He said to him: "O young man, do you realise where your father is taking you?" He said: "To gather wood for our family from the mountains". He relied: "By God, his actual intention is to sacrifice you!" He said: "Why?!" Iblis replied: "He claims that his Lord has ordered him to do so!" Ishmael replied: "He must do what his Lord commands, absolutely!" When the young man had rebuffed him, Iblis went to Hagar, the mother of Ishmael who was still at home. Iblis said to her: "Oh mother of Ishmael! Do you realise where Abraham is going with Ishmael?" She replied: "They have gone to gather wood for us in the mountains". He said: "He has actually gone in order to sacrifice him!" She replied: "It cannot be! He is too kind and too loving towards him to do that!" Iblis said: "He claims that God has ordered him to do that!" Hagar said: "If his Lord has ordered him to do that then he must submit to the command of God!" So the enemy of God returned exasperated at not being able to influence the family of Abraham as he wished."

"When Isaac was grown, someone appeared to Abraham in a dream and said to him: "Keep your vow which you made! God bestowed upon you a boy by Sarah so that you may sacrifice him" So he said to Isaac: "Let us go offer a sacrifice to God!" So he tool a knife and some rope and went with him until they reached a place in the mountains. The boy said to him: "Oh father! Where is your sacrifice?" He replied: "Oh my son, I saw in a dream, that I will slaughter you. So pay attention to what you see". He said "Oh my father, do what you have been commanded; you will find me, if God wills, one of the patient". Isaac then said to him: "Make tight my bonds, so that I will not struggle to pull back your clothes so that none of my blood will be shed on them for Sarah will see it and be grieved. Hurry! Pass the knife over my throat so that death will be easy for me. When you come to Sarah, greet her'. Abraham began to approach him and, while crying, tied him up. Isaac too was crying such that the tears gathered by cheek of Isaac. He then drew the knife along his throat but the knife did not cut, for God had placed a sheet of copper on the throat of Isaac. When he saw that, he turned him on his forehead and nicked him on the back of the head just as God has said in Quran 37:103: When they had both submitted and he flung on his forehead, that is they had submitted the affair to God. A voice called out: 'Abraham, you have fulfilled the vision!" He turned around and behold, there was a ram. He took it and released his son and he bent over his son saying: "Oh my son, today you have been given to me". That comes in God's saying in Quran 37:107: We ransomed him with a great sacrifice."

"What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun? One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever. The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose."

"All things are full of weariness beyond uttering. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing."

"The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us."

"There is no remembrance of the former generations; neither shall there be any remembrance of the latter generations that are to come, among those that shall come after."

"I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. I devoted myself to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under heaven. What a heavy burden God has laid on men! I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind. What is twisted cannot be straightened; what is lacking cannot be counted."

"I communed with mine own heart, saying, Lo, I am come to great estate, and have gotten more wisdom than all they that have been before me in Jerusalem: yea, my heart had great experience of wisdom and knowledge. And I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly: I perceived that this also is vexation of spirit. For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow."

"I said in my heart: I will go, and abound with delights, and enjoy good things. And I saw that this also was vanity."

"Laughter," I said, "is foolish. And what does pleasure accomplish?"

"Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do: and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun."

"I saw that wisdom is better than folly, just as light is better than darkness. The wise man has eyes in his head, while the fool walks in the darkness; but I came to realize that the same fate overtakes them both. Then I thought in my heart, "The fate of the fool will overtake me also. What then do I gain by being wise?" I said in my heart, "This too is meaningless." For the wise man, like the fool, will not be long remembered; in days to come both will be forgotten. Like the fool, the wise man too must die!"

"For what profit comes to mortals from all the toil and anxiety of heart with which they toil under the sun? Every day sorrow and grief are their occupation; even at night their hearts are not at rest. This also is vanity."

"There is nothing better for a man, than that he should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labour. This also I saw, that it was from the hand of God."

"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace."

"He hath made everything beautiful in its time."

"I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil--this is the gift of God."

"I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere him."

"That which is was long ago, and that which is to be hath already been; and God bringeth back again that which is past."

"And moreover I saw under the sun, in the place of justice, that wickedness was there; and in the place of righteousness, that wickedness was there."

"For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all is vanity. All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again."

"Again I looked and saw all the oppression that was taking place under the sun: I saw the tears of the oppressed-- and they have no comforter; power was on the side of their oppressors-- and they have no comforter. And I declared that the dead, who had already died, are happier than the living, who are still alive. But better than both is he who has not yet been, who has not seen the evil that is done under the sun."

"Better is an handful with quietness, than both the hands full with travail and vexation of spirit."

"Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up! Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken."

"Better a poor but wise youth than an old but foolish king who no longer knows how to take warning."

"Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God: for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few."

"When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it; for he hath no pleasure in fools: pay that which thou hast vowed. Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay."

"If thou seest the oppression of the poor, and violent perverting of judgment and justice in a province, marvel not at the matter: for he that is higher than the highest regardeth; and there be higher than they. Moreover the profit of the earth is for all: the king himself is served by the field."

"Whoever loves money never has money enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income. This too is meaningless."

"The sleep of a labouring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much: but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep."

"As he came forth from his mother's womb, naked shall he go again as he came, and shall take nothing for his labor, which he may carry away in his hand."

"Moreover, when God gives any man wealth and possessions, and enables him to enjoy them, to accept his lot and be happy in his work--this is a gift of God. He seldom reflects on the days of his life, because God keeps him occupied with gladness of heart."

"A man may have a hundred children and live many years; yet no matter how long he lives, if he cannot enjoy his prosperity and does not receive proper burial, I say that a stillborn child is better off than he. It comes without meaning, it departs in darkness, and in darkness its name is shrouded. Though it never saw the sun or knew anything, it has more rest than does that man."

"Do not all go to one place?"

"All the labour of man is for his mouth, and yet the appetite is not filled."

"A good name is better than fine perfume, and the day of death better than the day of birth."

"It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, for death is the destiny of every man; the living should take this to heart."

"It is better to heed a wise man's rebuke than to listen to the song of fools."

"Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof: and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit."

"Be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry: for anger resteth in the bosom of fools."

"Consider the work of God: for who can make that straight, which he hath made crooked?"

"All things have I seen in the days of my vanity: there is a just man that perisheth in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man that prolongeth his life in his wickedness."

"Be not righteous over much; neither make thyself over wise: why shouldest thou destroy thyself? Be not over much wicked, neither be thou foolish: why shouldest thou die before thy time?"

"Wisdom makes one wise man more powerful than ten rulers in a city."

"There is not a righteous man on earth who does what is right and never sins."

"Who is like the wise man? Who knows the explanation of things? Wisdom brightens a man's face and changes its hard appearance."

"Whoso keepeth the commandment shall feel no evil thing: and a wise man's heart discerneth both time and judgment."

"There is no man that hath power over the spirit to retain the spirit; neither hath he power in the day of death: and there is no discharge in that war; neither shall wickedness deliver those that are given to it."

"All of this I have seen, and I applied my heart to every work that has been done under the sun, during the time that man has dominated man to his harm."

"Because sentence against a bad deed has not been executed speedily, the heart of men becomes emboldened to do bad."

"Although a wicked man commits a hundred crimes and still lives a long time, I know that it will go better with God-fearing men, who are reverent before God."

"There is something else meaningless that occurs on earth: righteous men who get what the wicked deserve, and wicked men who get what the righteous deserve. This too, I say, is meaningless."

"Then I saw all that God has done. No one can comprehend what goes on under the sun. Despite all his efforts to search it out, man cannot discover its meaning. Even if a wise man claims he knows, he cannot really comprehend it."

"So I reflected on all this and concluded that the righteous and the wise and what they do are in God's hands, but no man knows whether love or hate awaits him."

"All things come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous, and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean, and to the unclean; to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not: as is the good, so is the sinner; and he that sweareth, as he that feareth an oath. This is an evil among all things that are done under the sun, that there is one event unto all: yea, also the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live, and after that they go to the dead."

"Anyone who is among the living has hope--even a live dog is better off than a dead lion!"

"For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing at all, nor do they have any more reward, because all memory of them is forgotten. Also, their love and their hate and their jealousy have already perished, and they no longer have any share in what is done under the sun."

"Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity: for that is thy portion in this life, and in thy labour which thou takest under the sun."

"Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest."

"I have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all. Moreover, no man knows when his hour will come: As fish are caught in a cruel net, or birds are taken in a snare, so men are trapped by evil times that fall unexpectedly upon them."

"The quiet words of the wise are more to be heeded than the shouts of a ruler of fools."

"Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savour: so doth a little folly him that is in reputation for wisdom and honour."

"There is an evil I have seen under the sun, the sort of error that arises from a ruler: Fools are put in many high positions, while the rich occupy the low ones. I have seen slaves on horseback, while princes go on foot like slaves."

"By slothfulness the roof sinketh in; and through idleness of the hands the house leaketh."

"Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days."

"As thou knowest not what is the way of the spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child: even so thou knowest not the works of God who maketh all."

"Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun: But if a man live many years, and rejoice in them all; yet let him remember the days of darkness; for they shall be many. All that cometh is vanity."

"Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment. Therefore remove sorrow from thy heart, and put away evil from thy flesh: for childhood and youth are vanity."

"Remember also thy Creator in the days of thy youth, before the evil days come, and the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them; While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened"

"Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it."

"Not only was the Teacher wise, but also he imparted knowledge to the people. He pondered and searched out and set in order many proverbs. The Teacher searched to find just the right words, and what he wrote was upright and true."

"Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every work into judgment, with every hidden thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil."

"The first existentialist was not Sartre, though he coined the term. Nor was it Kierkegaard or Nietzsche, though most of the textbooks say so. Nor was it even Pascal, though he foreshadowed half of Kierkegaard and was the first to write about the fundamental existential experience of cosmic anxiety and meaninglessness. It was not even Saint Augustine, whose Confessions stands out as the profoundest example of depth psychology and existential autobiography ever written. It was not even Socrates, who alone among philosophers totally existed his philosophy. Rather, the first existentialist was Solomon, or whoever wrote Ecclesiastes."

"The truest of all men was the Man of Sorrows, and the truest of all books is Solomon's, and Ecclesiastes is the fine hammered steel of woe. "All is vanity." ALL."

"Now that I have made this catalogue of swindles and perversions, let me give another example of the kind of writing that they lead to. This time it must of its nature be an imaginary one. I am going to translate a passage of good English into modern English of the worst sort. Here is a well-known verse from Ecclesiastes:I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.Here it is in modern English:Objective considerations of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account."

"For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: it hath no stalk; the bud shall yield no meal: if so be it yield, the strangers shall swallow it up."

"The days of visitation are come, the days of recompence are come; Israel shall know it: the prophet is a fool, the spiritual man is mad."

"In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil."

"There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil. And there were born unto him seven sons and three daughters. His substance also was seven thousand sheep, and three thousand camels, and five hundred yoke of oxen, and five hundred she asses, and a very great household; so that this man was the greatest of all the men of the east."

"Now it came to be the day when the sons of the true God entered to take their station before Jehovah, and even Satan proceeded to enter right among them. Then Jehovah said to Satan: “Where do you come from?” At that Satan answered Jehovah and said: “From roving about in the earth and from walking about in it.”"

"And Jehovah said to Satan: “Have you taken note of my servant Job? There is no one like him on the earth. He is an upright man of integrity, fearing God and shunning what is bad.” At that Satan answered Jehovah: “Is it for nothing that Job has feared God? Have you not put up a protective hedge around him and his house and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his livestock has spread out in the land. But, for a change, stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your very face.” Then Jehovah said to Satan: “Look! Everything that he has is in your hand. Only do not lay your hand on the man himself!” So Satan went out from the presence of Jehovah."

"Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped, And said, Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD."

"With nothing I came out of my mother's body, and with nothing I will go back there; the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; let the Lord's name be praised."

"Finally his wife said to him: “Are you still holding firmly to your integrity? Curse God and die!” But he said to her: “thouh speakest as one of the foolish women. Should we accept only what is good from the true God and not accept also what is bad?” In all of this, Job did not sin with his lips."

"Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived."

"Why did I not perish at birth, and die as I came from the womb? Why were there knees to receive me and breasts that I might be nursed? For now I would be lying down in peace; I would be asleep and at rest."

"Or as a child dead at birth I might never have come into existence; like young children who have not seen the light. There the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary be at rest."

"Why giveth He to the miserable light, and life to the bitter soul? Who are waiting for death, and it is not, And they seek it above hid treasures."

"Behold, thou hast instructed many, And thou hast strengthened the weak hands. Thy words have upholden him that was falling, And thou hast made firm the feeble knees. But now it is come unto thee, and thou faintest; It toucheth thee, and thou art troubled. Is not thy fear of God thy confidence, And the integrity of thy ways thy hope? Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished, being innocent? Or where were the upright cut off?"

"Even as I have seen, they that plow iniquity, and sow wickedness, reap the same."

"Yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward."

"Yet man is born to trouble as surely as sparks fly upward."

"To the One doing great and unsearchable things, Wonderful things without number. He gives rain to the earth And sends waters upon the fields. He raises the lowly up high, And he raises up the dejected one to salvation. He frustrates the schemes of the crafty, So that the work of their hands does not succeed. He catches the wise in their own cunning, So that the plans of the shrewd are thwarted."

"Then Job answered and said, Oh that my vexation were but weighed, And all my calamity laid in the balances! For now it would be heavier than the sand of the seas: Therefore have my words been rash. For the arrows of the Almighty are within me, The poison whereof my spirit drinketh up: The terrors of God do set themselves in array against me."

"If only he would be pleased to put an end to me; and would let loose his hand, so that I might be cut off!"

"Have I strength to go on waiting, or have I any end to be looking forward to?"

"He commands the sun not to shine And seals off the light of the stars; He spreads out the heavens by himself, And he treads upon the high waves of the sea. He made the Ash, the Ke′sil, and the Ki′mah constellations, And the constellations of the southern sky; He does great and unsearchable things, Wonderful things that cannot be counted."

"Yet if you devote your heart to him and stretch out your hands to him, if you put away the sin that is in your hand and allow no evil to dwell in your tent, then you will lift up your face without shame; you will stand firm and without fear. You will surely forget your trouble, recalling it only as waters gone by. Life will be brighter than noonday, and darkness will become like morning. You will be secure, because there is hope; you will look about you and take your rest in safety. You will lie down, with no one to make you afraid, and many will court your favor."

"...and their hope shall be as the giving up of the ghost."

"But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee; and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee: Or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee: and the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee. Who knoweth not in all these that the hand of the LORD hath wrought this? In whose hand is the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind."

"With God is wisdom and might; He hath counsel and understanding."

"Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him"

"Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble."

"For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease. Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in the ground; Yet through the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant. But man dieth, and wasteth away: yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he? As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up: So man lieth down, and riseth not."

"But as a mountain erodes and crumbles and as a rock is moved from its place, as water wears away stones and torrents wash away the soil, so you destroy man's hope."

"Yea, the light of the wicked shall be put out, and the spark of his fire shall not shine."

"His roots shall be dried up beneath, and above shall his branch be cut off. His remembrance shall perish from the earth, and he shall have no name in the street. He shall be driven from light into darkness, and chased out of the world. He shall neither have son nor nephew among his people, nor any remaining in his dwellings. They that come after him shall be astonied at his day, as they that went before were affrighted. Surely such are the dwellings of the wicked."

"For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God."

"Be ye afraid of the sword: for wrath bringeth the punishments of the sword, that ye may know there is a judgment."

"Knowest thou not this of old, since man was placed upon earth, That the triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the hypocrite but for a moment?"

"But he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold."

"All the while my breath is in me, and the spirit of God is in my nostrils; My lips shall not speak wickedness, nor my tongue utter deceit."

"Till I die I will not put away mine integrity from me."

"My righteousness I hold fast, and will not let it go: my heart shall not reproach me so long as I live."

""Here is the fate God allots to the wicked, the heritage a ruthless man receives from the Almighty: However many his children, their fate is the sword; his offspring will never have enough to eat. The plague will bury those who survive him, and their widows will not weep for them. Though he heaps up silver like dust and clothes like piles of clay, what he lays up the righteous will wear, and the innocent will divide his silver. The house he builds is like a moth's cocoon, like a hut made by a watchman. He lies down wealthy, but will do so no more; when he opens his eyes, all is gone. Terrors overtake him like a flood; a tempest snatches him away in the night. The east wind carries him off, and he is gone; it sweeps him out of his place. It hurls itself against him without mercy as he flees headlong from its power. It claps its hands in derision and hisses him out of his place."

"But where shall wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding? Man knoweth not the price thereof; neither is it found in the land of the living. The depth saith, It is not in me: and the sea saith, It is not with me. It cannot be gotten for gold, neither shall silver be weighed for the price thereof. It cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir, with the precious onyx, or the sapphire. The gold and the crystal cannot equal it: and the exchange of it shall not be for jewels of fine gold. No mention shall be made of coral, or of pearls: for the price of wisdom is above rubies."

"Oh that I were as in months past, as in the days when God preserved me; When his candle shined upon my head, and when by his light I walked through darkness;"

"Whoever heard me spoke well of me, and those who saw me commended me, because I rescued the poor who cried for help, and the fatherless who had none to assist him. The man who was dying blessed me; I made the widow's heart sing. I put on righteousness as my clothing; justice was my robe and my turban. I was eyes to the blind and feet to the lame. I was a father to the needy; I took up the case of the stranger. I broke the fangs of the wicked and snatched the victims from their teeth. "I thought, 'I will die in my own house, my days as numerous as the grains of sand. My roots will reach to the water, and the dew will lie all night on my branches. My glory will remain fresh in me, the bow ever new in my hand.' "Men listened to me expectantly, waiting in silence for my counsel. After I had spoken, they spoke no more; my words fell gently on their ears. They waited for me as for showers and drank in my words as the spring rain. When I smiled at them, they scarcely believed it; the light of my face was precious to them. I chose the way for them and sat as their chief; I dwelt as a king among his troops; I was like one who comforts mourners."

"Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgment."

"It is not only the old who are wise, not only the aged who understand what is right."

"Let me not, I pray you, respect any man`s person; Neither will I give flattering titles unto any man. For I know not to give flattering titles; Else would my Maker soon take me away."

"I will show partiality to no one, nor will I flatter any man; for if I were skilled in flattery, my Maker would soon take me away."

"God is greater than we can know; The number of his years is beyond comprehension. He draws up the drops of water; They condense into rain from his mist; Then the clouds pour it down; They shower down upon mankind. Can anyone understand the layers of clouds, The thundering from his tent? See how he spreads his lightning over it And covers the depths of the sea. By these he sustains the peoples; He gives them food in abundance."

"Do you know how God controls the clouds And how he causes the lightning to flash from his cloud? Do you know how the clouds float? These are the wonderful works of the One perfect in knowledge."

"Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said, Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me. Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. Who hast laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it? Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof; When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?"

"Then the LORD answered Job out of the storm. He said: "Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me. "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Tell me, if you understand."

"Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further: and here shall thy proud waves be stayed[.]"

"In which direction does the light reside? And where is the place of darkness?"

"The LORD said to Job: "Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him? Let him who accuses God answer him!" Then Job answered the LORD: "I am unworthy--how can I reply to you? I put my hand over my mouth."

"Dost thou also make void My judgment? Dost thou condemn Me, That thou mayest be righteous?"

"I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes."

"So the LORD blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning: for he had fourteen thousand sheep, and six thousand camels, and a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand she asses. He had also seven sons and three daughters."

"And in all the land were no women found so fair as the daughters of Job: and their father gave them inheritance among their brethren. After this lived Job an hundred and forty years, and saw his sons, and his sons' sons, even four generations. So Job died, being old and full of days."

"Nathless the sacred shrine is holy yet, With its lone floors where reverent feet once trod. Take off your shoes as by the burning bush, Before the mystery of death and God."

"To go to the synagogue with one's father on the Passover eve - is there in the world a greater pleasure than that? What is it worth to be dressed in new clothes from head to foot, and to show off before one's friends? Then the prayers themselves - the first Festival evening prayer and blessing."

"Once on a time, years ago, I was happy in the little old synagogue; I remember that I felt happy without an end—without a limit! Here, in the little synagogue, years ago, my childish soul swept about with the angels I imagined were flying around the carved wings of the Holy Ark. Here, in the little synagogue, once on a time, with my father and all the other Jews, I prayed earnestly. And it gave me great pleasure, great satisfaction."

"One of the profoundest religious changes effected by the synagogue almost immediately upon its establishment twenty-five centuries ago was to bring communion with God directly and easily to the the individual worshiper."

"I love going to synagogue on Friday night and being swept in the melodies. Everyone seems more friendly and unburdened by the week and ready to be taken elsewhere."

"One day, a leopard stalked into the synagogue, roaring and lashing its tail. Three weeks later, it had become part of the liturgy."

"CHRISTUS, reading in the Synagogue. The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me. He hath anointed me to preach good tidings Unto the poor; to heal the broken-hearted; To comfort those that mourn, and to throw open The prison doors of captives, and proclaim The Year Acceptable of the Lord, our God!"

"There are occasions when non-Jews visit a synagogue. They may be invited to the service by Jewish friends celebrating a Bar-Mitzvah or some other special event in their lives. They may be part of a church group studying Judaism, who wish to experience a synagogue service. Or they may simply be individuals who are curious about Judaism and wish to learn more about it. Whatever the reason for the visit, a non-Jew is always welcome to attend a synagogue service. He may come only to observe the service or to join in the prayers if he so wishes."

"They have burned up all the synagogues of God in the land."

"Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth: that thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly."

"I spake openly to the world; I ever taught in the synagogue, and in the Temple, whither the Jews always resort."

"I know your works, oppression, and your poverty (but you are rich), and the blasphemy of those who say they are Jews, and they are not, but are a synagogue of Satan."

"I am no more messiah than you The river delights to lift us free, if only we dare let go. Our true work is this voyage, this adventure. Your only obligation in any lifetime is to be true to yourself. Being true to anyone else or anything else is... the mark of a fake messiah."

"Our Christian conviction is that Christ is also the messiah of Israel. Certainly it is in the hands of God how and when the unification of Jews and Christians into the people of God will take place."

"Everywhere in the world people were expecting the latter coming of one or another kickshaw messiah who would remove the discomforts which they themselves were either too lazy or too incompetent to deal with; and nobody had anything whatever to gain with electing for peculiarity among one's fellow creatures and a gloomier outlook."

"Whether it be a lamb having its throat cut ritually, or a Messiah nailed to a cross and "dying for your sins". Somebody should tell all of Yahweh's followers, Jews and Christians, that there is no such thing as a free lunch."

"Again, the next day, John stood with two of his disciples. And looking at Jesus as He walked, he said, “Behold the Lamb of God!” The two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus. Then Jesus turned, and seeing them following, said to them, “What do you seek?” They said to Him, “Rabbi” (which is to say, when translated, Teacher), “where are You staying?” He said to them, “Come and see.” They came and saw where He was staying, and remained with Him that day (now it was about the tenth hour). One of the two who heard John speak, and followed Him, was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his own brother Simon, and said to him, “We have found the [a]Messiah” (which is translated, the Christ)."

"The real crazies who are looking for a messiah... after an hour or so they realize I'm not it and go off and look somewhere else."

"I forgot to tell you — the spice exists on only one planet in the entire universe. A desolate, dry planet with vast deserts. Hidden away within the rocks of these deserts are a people known as the Fremen, who have long held a prophecy that a man would come, a messiah who would lead them to true freedom. The planet is Arrakis, also known as Dune."

"Even on important issues, like Moon's claiming to be the messiah, there are church members whom I met, including a close aide to Moon, who demur. A religious leader whom they respect and whose theology they believe, yes; the messiah, perhaps not."

"I fancy that this moment Shakspeare in heaven ranks with Gabriel, Raphael and Michael. And if another Messiah ever comes twill be in Shakesper's person."

"Having lived all my life in a country swarming with messiahs, I have been mistaken, perhaps quite naturally, for one myself, especially by the others. It would be hard to imagine anything more preposterous. I am, in fact, the complete anti-Messiah, and detest converts almost as much as I detest missionaries. My writings, such as they are, have had only one purpose: to attain for H. L. Mencken that feeling of tension relieved and function achieved which a cow enjoys on giving milk. Further than that, I have had no interest in the matter whatsoever. <!-- It has never given me any satisfaction to encounter one who said my notions had pleased him. My preference has always been for people with notions of their own. I have believed all my life in free thought and free speech—up to and including the utmost limits of the endurable."

"Now, you listen here: 'e's not the Messiah, 'e's a very naughty boy! Now, go away!... Brian: I'm not the Messiah! Arthur: I say you are, lord, and I should know, I've followed a few! ...Brian: ...Will you please listen? I'm not the Messiah! Do you understand? Honestly! Woman: Only the true Messiah denies his divinity! Brian: What? Well, what sort of chance does that give me? All right, I am the Messiah! Crowd: He is! He is the Messiah! Brian: Now, F.O."

"A person has not attained his ultimate end until natural desire comes to rest. Therefore, for human happiness which is the ultimate end it is not enough to have merely any kind of intelligible knowledge; there must be divine knowledge, as an ultimate end, to terminate the natural desire."

"Fasting cleanses the soul, raises the mind, subjects one’s flesh to the spirit, renders the heart contrite and humble, scatters the clouds of concupiscence, quenches the fire of lust, and kindles the true light of chastity."

"Fasting is the key which unlocks the Nature's storehouse of Energy.. Fasting rewards you with increased Energy. Each time you fast, you will make your mind stronger, and more positive. you will eliminate fear and worry... Fasting helps you to a higher life. Fasting elevates the soul, the mind, and body... By fasting you can create the person you have always longed to be. That is, if you demand only the best life can offer... When your body is cleansed by fasting and you are living a natural health life, you will discover that you feel wonderful all the time. This is because Nature intended man to be a happy, well-balanced person, free of fears, of frustrations, stresses and strains."

"The experience of knowing the power of God that comes through the fasting. Fasting and prayer have been a gateway through which God has done supernatural things."

"Fasting is, without any doubt, the most effective biological method of treatment. It is the operation without surgery."

"We were with the Prophet while we were young and had no wealth whatever. So Allah's Apostle said, "O young people! Whoever among you can marry, should marry...and whoever is not able to marry, should fast, as fasting diminishes his sexual power."

"Many people are already deficient as well as toxic. The longer they do without food, the greater becomes the deficiency. The Master Cleanse lemonade diet can more than match all the possible good obtained from fasting and at the same time will rebuild any possible deficiency. Ordinarily with fasting it is necessary to take it easy by resting or staying in bed. On the contrary, with the lemonade diet there is no need to become a useless member of society--you may live an active, normal life. Many workers at hard labor have found they are able to do more and harder work while on the lemonade diet than on their normal diet. After one has attained a clean, healthy body, and then desires to fast for purely spiritual reasons, thirty or even forty days can cause no harm."

"On the manner of fasting a uniform rule cannot easily be observed, because everybody has not the same strength; nor is it like the rest of the virtues, acquired by steadfastness of mind alone. And therefore, because it does not depend only on mental firmness, since it has to do with the possibilities of the body, we have received this explanation concerning it which has been handed down to us, viz.: that there is a difference of time, manner, and quality of the refreshment in proportion to the difference of condition of the body, the age, and sex: but that there is one and the same rule of restraint to everybody as regards continence of mind, and the virtue of the spirit."

"The belly when filled with all kinds of food gives birth to seeds of wantonness, nor can the mind, when choked with the weight of food, keep the guidance and government of the thoughts. For not only is drunkenness with wine wont to intoxicate the mind, but excess of all kinds of food makes it weak and uncertain, and robs it of all its power of pure and clear contemplation."

"Bodily weakness is no hindrance to purity of heart, if only so much food is taken as the bodily weakness requires, and not what pleasure asks for."

"Let us not believe that that external fast from visible food alone can possibly be sufficient for perfection of heart and purity of body unless with it there has also been united a fast of the soul. For the soul also has its foods which are harmful, fattened on which, even without superfluity of meats, it is involved in a downfall of wantonness. Slander is its food, and indeed one that is very dear to it. A burst of anger also is its food, even if it be a very slight one; yet supplying it with miserable food for an hour, and destroying it as well with its deadly savour. Envy is a food of the mind, corrupting it with its poisonous juices and never ceasing to make it wretched and miserable at the prosperity and success of another. Kenodoxia, i.e., vainglory is its food, which gratifies it with a delicious meal for a time; but afterwards strips it clear and bare of all virtue, and dismisses it barren and void of all spiritual fruit, so that it makes it not only lose the rewards of huge labours, but also makes it incur heavier punishments. All lust and shifty wanderings of heart are a sort of food for the soul, nourishing it on harmful meats, but leaving it afterwards without share of the heavenly bread and of really solid food. If then, with all the powers we have, we abstain from these in a most holy fast, our observance of the bodily fast will be both useful and profitable. For labour of the flesh, when joined with contrition of the spirit, will produce a sacrifice that is most acceptable to God, and a worthy shrine of holiness in the pure and undefiled inmost chambers of the heart."

"Do you know what I mean by fasting? It is not easy. But easy ways do not come from God."

"The goal of fasting is inner unity. This means hearing, but not with the ear; hearing, but not with the understanding; it is hearing with the spirit, with your whole being. The hearing that is only in the ears is one thing. The hearing of the understanding is another, but the hearing of the spirit is not limited to any one faculty, to the ear, or to the mind. Hence, it demands the emptiness of the faculties, and when the faculties are empty, then your whole being listens. There is then a direct grasp of what is right before you that can never be heard with the ear or understood with the mind. Fasting of the heart empties the faculties, frees you from limitations and from preoccupations."

"I can prove to anybody on his own body there can exist one natural remedy, i.e. fasting and fruit-diet.. Fasting is the master key to mental and spiritual unfoldment and evolution."

"Do not forget that every seventh day is holy and consecrated to God. On six days feed your body with the gifts of the Earthly Mother, but on the seventh day sanctify your body for your Heavenly Father. On the seventh day do not eat any earthly food [...] Renew yourself and fast.. Go by yourself and fast alone and show your fast to no man. The living God shall see it and great shall be your reward. Fast till Beelzebub and all his evils depart from you, and all the angels of our Earthly Mother come and serve you [...] If you will that the living God's word and his power may enter you, defile not your body and your spirit, for the body is the temple of God."

"A feature of all spiritual traditions is the encouragement – sometimes requirement – that their adherents should undergo periods of fasting. Two examples are Ramadan in Islam, and Lent in Christianity. The great eastern religions also have their traditional times of fasting. There are several reasons for this. One of them is that it helps us demonstrate to ourselves that we can control our desires and appetites. Another is that consciously abstaining from food helps to atone for mistakes and sins."

"I can think. I can wait. I can fast."

"When the Great Lord was on Earth, He told His disciples that successful spiritual effort of a healing nature went not forth except by prayer and fasting."

"When I began to think about the work you commanded I guarded my spirit, did not expend it On trifles, that were not to the point. I fasted in order to set My heart at rest. After three days fasting, I had forgotten gain and success. After five days I had forgotten praise or criticism. After seven days I had forgotten my body With all its limbs."

"Nevertheless the children of God were commanded that they should gather themselves together oft, and join in fasting and mighty prayer in behalf of the welfare of the souls of those who knew not God."

"Dietary energy restriction (DER), either by limited daily feeding (sustained caloric restriction) or intermittent energy restriction (IER) (e.g., alternate day fasting), significantly extends health span and life span in rats and mice. DER can improve cognitive function and delay age-related cognitive impairment in rodents... Recent findings have also demonstrated significant improvement in cognitive performance of nonhuman primates and humans maintained on caloric restriction diets... Neurogenesis is increased in mice maintained on an alternate-day fasting diet, by a mechanism involving BDNF signaling, and increased survival of newly generated neurons."

"Gluttony would prevent any of us from being interested in philosophy and culture, as a result of being incapable of attending to the most divine part of us."

"Prescribed for you is the Fast, as it was prescribed for those before you, so that you may deserve God's protection (against the temptations of your carnal soul) and attain piety."

"It is much easier to go to extremes and to start exhaustive fasting, to encumber oneself with fetters—in general, to practise austerities—than to achieve vigilance and self-control together with complete preservation of strength. But without self-control nothing is possible."

"Fasting kills the desire of the self and the appetite of greed, and from it comes purity of the heart, purification of the limbs, cultivation of the inner and the outer being, thankfulness for blessings, charity to the poor, increase of humble supplication, humility, weeping and most of the ways of seeking refuge in Allah."

"I have not only found good health, but perfect health; I have found a new state of being, a potentiality of life; a sense of lightness and cleanness and joyfulness, such as I did not know could exist in the human body."

"Since the days of Jesus Christ, who fasted for 40 days, men and women have abstained from food for many reasons; for health, for political ends, an for spiritual enlightenment. However, the average person, not familiar with fasting, believes he will certainly die if he misses a meal... Most people in fairly good health can go for many days without food but the body must have water. Missing a meal won’t hurt!"

"They took all my drugs and threw them away and put me to bed to start my fast. I never dreamt I would go without food so long, but my fast lasted for 21 days on just distilled water. It is during the fast that conditions a person may have, but is not yet aware of, show up, as the body begins throwing off the poisons."

"Fasting possesses great power. If practiced with the right intention, it makes one a friend of God."

"I think that fasting is not only a religious rite, but also a symbol of human rights, as there are many places in the world that are going through rough times, and fasting shows our devotion."

"... For the next week-end ... I ordained for myself a fast on lines ; that is, no food of any kind and only water to drink. Realising the probability and also the inadvisability of hoarding my fæces for the prescribed three days, I took a grain of grey powder on the Friday night and a dose of on the following morning. Then I fasted, secundem artem, until Tuesday morning. On Saturday I felt well but I am told that my conversation was terse in matter and staccato in manner. On Sunday I felt very well, and endured my trial in the spirit of a Christian martyr. I was resigned. On Monday I felt very well indeed, and did my work at home and at the hospital with zest and vigour. ... Since that time, now many years ago, I have frequently repeated the experience, and always with the same result. The first day, craving ; the second, resignation ; the third, rejoicing and rejuvenescence. The result is that I can cordially recommend the exercise to anyone who is obliged to lead a sedentary life."

"I found that religious visionaries such as St John of the Cross, St Augustine, Hildegard of Bingen and Julian of Norwich all recommended fasting as a way to clear the head and concentrate. Gandhi fasted in order to focus his mind. Pythagoras refused to accept anyone into his school who did not know how to fast. The Greeks intrigued me. Our religions are imports from the east where ascetic practice is normal, so I would expect to find a tradition of fasting there, but the Greeks were rationalists, the founders of western medicine. But here are Plato and Socrates fasting for mental efficiency, Plutarch advocating a day of fasting for any minor disorder, and Hippocrates saying that “to eat when you are sick is to feed your sickness”."

"It’s important to say that fasting is not starvation. The anxiety and fear that attend lack of food in critical circumstances of famine or enforced deprivation are not present if you are fasting voluntarily. Nor are you beating up your body to get it in line. You are in control, but this is a partnership – your body and you. When I began reading about fasting, before it was my turn to try it, I found that religious visionaries such as St John of the Cross, St Augustine, Hildegard of Bingen and Julian of Norwich all recommended fasting as a way to clear the head and concentrate. Gandhi fasted in order to focus his mind. Pythagoras refused to accept anyone into his school who did not know how to fast."

"So what happens when we stop eating? The body first uses up the glycogen stores in the liver. That might take 12 hours, or 24 hours. Afterwards, the body will have to use proteins (muscles) or lipids (fats) to produce the energy (glucose) it needs. The body is programmed to avoid breaking down muscle, and so the liver turns into a factory to manufacture ketones for fuel... But you don’t need to buy anything; just stop eating and your body will do the work for you... Sick cells, old cells, decomposed tissues, are burned away. This is the ultimate spring clean. It allows the body to eliminate toxins and metabolic waste at the same time as turning them into heat and energy... Next, the body will go for its fat reserves. Most of us have plenty of fat for the body to get busy on – and belly fat is an easy target... the process of ketosis is more than the body eating itself. While fasting, the body goes into repair mode... There is an impressive documentary available on YouTube called The Science of Fasting...the problem: fasting is free. Well, it’s not free, because you need to be medically supervised, at least to begin with, but there’s no money in it for Big Pharma."

"So we fasted and petitioned our God about this, and He answered our prayer."

"Even now - declares the LORD - return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning. Rend your heart and not your garments."

"Is this the fast I have chosen? A day for a person to afflict the soul, to bow the head like a reed and be covered in sackcloth and ashes&mdash;Do you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the Eternal? Is not this the fast I have chosen: To loosen the chains of evil, to undo the bonds of oppression, to free the oppressed, to break every yoke. Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, to bring the homeless poor into your home? When you see the naked, clothe him and from your own flesh never hide. Then shall your light burst out like the dawn..."

"God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men. . .. I fast twice a week, I give tithes of all that I possess."

"Then was Jesus led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He had fasted forty days and forty nights."

"When you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you."

"But this kind (demon) does not go out except by prayer and fasting"

"Unless ye fast from the world, ye shall not find the Sovereignty; unless ye keep the entire week as Sabbath, ye shall not behold the Father."

"And God spake unto Moses, and said unto him, I am the : And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty, but by my name JEHOVAH was I not known to them."

"You cannot see my face, for no man can see me and live." Jehovah said further: "Here is a place near me. Station yourself on the rock. When my glory is passing by, I will place you in a crevice of the rock, and I will shield you with my hand until I have passed by. After that I will take my hand away, and you will see my back. But my face may not be seen."

"And Jehovah proceeded to answer Job out of the windstorm and say: "Who is this that is obscuring counsel By words without knowledge? Gird up your loins, please, like an able-bodied man, And let me question you, and you inform me. Where did you happen to be when I founded the earth? Tell [me], if you do know understanding.""

"are my witnesses," is the utterance of Jehovah, "and I am God."

"I, Jehovah, am searching the heart,"

"Therefore say to the house of Israel, "This is what the Sovereign Lord Jehovah says: 'Not for your sakes am I acting, O house of Israel, but for my holy name, which you profaned among the nations where you have gone.'" "I will certainly sanctify my great name, which was profaned among the nations, which you profaned among them; and the nations will have to know that I am Jehovah," declares the Sovereign Lord Jehovah, "when I am sanctified among you before their eyes.""

"My name is Jehovah, and I know the end from the beginning."

"Jehovah will rule as king forever and ever."

"That men may know that thou, whose name alone is JEHOVAH, art the most high over all the earth."

"For you, O Jehovah, are good and ready to forgive; You abound in loyal love for all those who call on you."

"Anyone dwelling in the secret place of the Most High Will lodge under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to Jehovah: "You are my refuge and my stronghold, My God in whom I trust.""

"For you, O Jehovah, are the Most High over all the earth; You are exalted far above all other gods."

"Jehovah has become King ... He sits enthroned above the cherubs."

"Jehovah is merciful and compassionate, Slow to anger and abundant in loyal love. He will not always find fault, Nor will he stay resentful forever. He has not dealt with us according to our sins, Nor has he repaid us what our errors deserve. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So great is his loyal love toward those who fear him. As far off as the sunrise is from the sunset, So far off from us he has put our transgressions. As a father shows mercy to his sons, Jehovah has shown mercy to those who fear him. For he well knows how we are formed, Remembering that we are dust."

"Jehovah is compassionate and merciful, Slow to anger and great in loyal love. [Teth] Jehovah is good to all, And his mercy is evident in all his works. [Yod]"

"O Jehovah, you have searched through me, and you know [me]. You yourself have come to know my sitting down and my rising up. You have considered my thought from far off."

"The fear of Jehovah is the beginning of knowledge. Wisdom and discipline are what mere fools have despised."

"He is a shield for those walking in integrity."

"He will guard the way of his loyal ones."

"The name of Jehovah is a strong tower. Into it the righteous runs and is given protection."

"The one showing favor to the lowly is lending to Jehovah, And He will repay him for what he does."

"Jehovah, the Creator of the extremities of the earth, is a God to time indefinite. He does not tire out or grow weary. There is no searching out of his understanding."

"O the depth of God's riches and wisdom and knowledge! How unsearchable his judgments are and beyond tracing out his ways are! For "who has come to know Jehovah's mind, or who has become his adviser?" Or, "who has first given to him, so that it must be repaid to him?" Because from him and by him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen."

"And the 24 elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshipped God who sits on the throne and said: "Amen! Praise Jah!" Also, a voice came from the throne and said: "Be praising our God, all you his slaves, who fear him, the small ones and the great.""

"What a joy it is to know that Jehovah cares for the spiritual needs of all his people—even those on isolated islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean! Yes, as the psalmist says, "Jehovah has become King! Let the earth be joyful. Let the many islands rejoice" &lbrack;Psalms 97:1&rbrack;."

"Give Him thanks, all ye His works so wondrous! Sing His honor, sing His glory, bless and magnify His Name! Jehovah's praise endures forevermore, Amen, Amen!"

"In the name of the great Jehovah, and the Continental Congress!"

"Jehovah and the Christian version of God brought about a direct conflict between the so-called forces of good and the so-called forces of evil by largely cutting out all of the intermediary gods, and therefore destroying the subtle psychological give-and-take that occurred between them – among them – and polarizing man's own view of his inner psychological reality."

"Jehovah, it seems clear, was once regarded as a devoted son of the Great Goddess, who obeyed her in all things and by her favor swallowed up a number of variously named rival gods and godlings—the Terebinth-god, the Thunder-god, the Pomegranate-god, the Bull-god, the Goat-god, the Antelope-god, the Calf-god, the Porpoise-god, the Ram-god, the Ass-god, the Barley-god, the god of Healing, the Moon-god, the god of the Dog-star, the Sun-god. Later (if it is permitted to write in this style) he did exactly what his Roman counterpart, Capitoline Jove, has done: he formed a supernal Trinity in conjunction with two of the Goddess's three persons, namely, Anatha of the Lions and Ashima of the Doves, the counterparts of Juno and Minerva; the remaining person, a sort of Hecate named Sheol, retiring to rule the infernal regions."

""Elohim", the name for the creative power in Genesis, is a female plural, a fact that generations of learned rabbis and Christian theologians have all explained as merely grammatical convention. The King James and most other Bibles translate it as "God", but if you take the grammar literally, it seems to mean "goddesses". Al Shaddai, god of battles, appears later, and YHWH, mispronounced Jehovah, later still."

"If YHWH promised a holy land to his chosen people, they should expect more damnation than paradise. That would be consistent with the Bible's blood-stained stories, and that's the way we've always seen it on the news in my country."

"If you like, your Jehovah may reign in heaven, but here upon earth it is we who rule! We'll show you who will endure longer, you or we!"

"The Song of Songs, which is Solomon's."

"Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine."

"Because of the savour of thy good ointments thy name is as ointment poured forth, therefore do the virgins love thee. Draw me, we will run after thee: the king hath brought me into his chambers: we will be glad and rejoice in thee, we will remember thy love more than wine: the upright love thee."

"I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon."

"O thou fairest among women."

"I have compared thee, O my love, to a company of horses in Pharaoh' chariots. Thy cheeks are comely with rows of jewels, thy neck with chains of gold. We will make thee borders of gold with studs of silver."

"A bundle of myrrh is my well-beloved unto me; he shall lie all night betwixt my breasts."

"Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves' eyes. Behold, thou art fair, my beloved, yea, pleasant: also our bed is green. The beams of our house are cedar, and our rafters of fir."

"I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys. As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters. As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste. He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love. Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples: for I am sick of love. His left hand is under my head, and his right hand doth embrace me."

"The voice of my beloved! behold, he cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills. My beloved is like a roe or a young hart: behold, he standeth behind our wall, he looketh forth at the windows, shewing himself through the lattice. My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land; The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away. O my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs, let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice; for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely. Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes. My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the lilies. Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, turn, my beloved, and be thou like a roe or a young hart upon the mountains of Bether."

"By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth."

"I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him, and would not let him go, until I had brought him into my mother's house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me."

"Who is this that cometh out of the wilderness like pillars of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, with all powders of the merchant?"

"Behold his bed, which is Solomon's; threescore valiant men are about it, of the valiant of Israel. They all hold swords, being expert in war: every man hath his sword upon his thigh because of fear in the night."

"King Solomon made himself a chariot of the wood of Lebanon. He made the pillars thereof of silver, the bottom thereof of gold, the covering of it of purple, the midst thereof being paved with love, for the daughters of Jerusalem."

"Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves’ eyes within thy locks: thy hair is as a flock of goats, that appear from mount Gilead. Thy teeth are like a flock of sheep that are even shorn, which came up from the washing; whereof every one bear twins, and none is barren among them. Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet, and thy speech is comely: thy temples are like a piece of a pomegranate within thy locks. Thy neck is like the tower of David builded for an armoury, whereon there hang a thousand bucklers, all shields of mighty men. Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins, which feed among the lilies. Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, I will get me to the mountain of myrrh, and to the hill of frankincense. Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee."

"Thou hast ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse; thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes, with one chain of thy neck. How fair is thy love, my sister, my spouse! how much better is thy love than wine! and the smell of thine ointments than all spices! Thy lips, O my spouse, drop as the honeycomb: honey and milk are under thy tongue; and the smell of thy garments is like the smell of Lebanon. A garden inclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed. Thy plants are an orchard of pomegranates, with pleasant fruits; camphire, with spikenard, Spikenard and saffron; calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense; myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices: A fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, and streams from Lebanon. Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out. Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits."

"I am come into my garden, my sister, my spouse: I have gathered my myrrh with my spice; I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey; I have drunk my wine with my milk: eat, O friends; drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved."

"I sleep, but my heart waketh: it is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying, Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled: for my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night. I have put off my coat; how shall I put it on? I have washed my feet; how shall I defile them? 5:4 My beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door, and my bowels were moved for him. I rose up to open to my beloved; and my hands dropped with myrrh, and my fingers with sweet smelling myrrh, upon the handles of the lock. I opened to my beloved; but my beloved had withdrawn himself, and was gone: my soul failed when he spake: I sought him, but I could not find him; I called him, but he gave me no answer. The watchmen that went about the city found me, they smote me, they wounded me; the keepers of the walls took away my veil from me. I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find my beloved, that ye tell him, that I am sick of love. What is thy beloved more than another beloved, O thou fairest among women?"

"My beloved is white and ruddy, the chiefest among ten thousand. His head is as the most fine gold, his locks are bushy, and black as a raven. His eyes are as the eyes of doves by the rivers of waters, washed with milk, and fitly set. His cheeks are as a bed of spices, as sweet flowers: his lips like lilies, dropping sweet smelling myrrh. His hands are as gold rings set with the beryl: his belly is as bright ivory overlaid with sapphires. His legs are as pillars of marble, set upon sockets of fine gold: his countenance is as Lebanon, excellent as the cedars. His mouth is most sweet: yea, he is altogether lovely. This is my beloved, and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem."

"I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine: he feedeth among the lilies."

"Thou art beautiful, O my love, as Tirzah, comely as Jerusalem, terrible as an army with banners. Turn away thine eyes from me, for they have overcome me: thy hair is as a flock of goats that appear from Gilead. Thy teeth are as a flock of sheep which go up from the washing, whereof every one beareth twins, and there is not one barren among them. As a piece of a pomegranate are thy temples within thy locks. There are threescore queens, and fourscore concubines, and virgins without number. My dove, my undefiled is but one; she is the only one of her mother, she is the choice one of her that bare her. The daughters saw her, and blessed her; yea, the queens and the concubines, and they praised her."

"Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners?"

"Return, return, O Shulamite; return, return, that we may look upon thee."

"How beautiful are thy feet with shoes, O prince’s daughter! the joints of thy thighs are like jewels, the work of the hands of a cunning workman. Thy navel is like a round goblet, which wanteth not liquor: thy belly is like an heap of wheat set about with lilies. Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins. Thy neck is as a tower of ivory; thine eyes like the fishpools in Heshbon, by the gate of Bathrabbim: thy nose is as the tower of Lebanon which looketh toward Damascus. Thine head upon thee is like Carmel, and the hair of thine head like purple; the king is held in the galleries. How fair and how pleasant art thou, O love, for delights! This thy stature is like to a palm tree, and thy breasts to clusters of grapes. I said, I will go up to the palm tree, I will take hold of the boughs thereof: now also thy breasts shall be as clusters of the vine, and the smell of thy nose like apples; And the roof of thy mouth like the best wine for my beloved, that goeth down sweetly, causing the lips of those that are asleep to speak."

"Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field; let us lodge in the villages. Let us get up early to the vineyards; let us see if the vine flourish, whether the tender grape appear, and the pomegranates bud forth: there will I give thee my loves. The mandrakes give a smell, and at our gates are all manner of pleasant fruits, new and old, which I have laid up for thee, O my beloved."

"O that thou wert as my brother, that sucked the breasts of my mother! when I should find thee without, I would kiss thee; yea, I should not be despised."

"O that thou wert as my brother, that sucked the breasts of my mother! when I should find thee without, I would kiss thee; yea, I should not be despised. I would lead thee, and bring thee into my mother’s house, who would instruct me: I would cause thee to drink of spiced wine of the juice of my pomegranate."

"Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned."

"We have a little sister, and she hath no breasts: what shall we do for our sister in the day when she shall be spoken for? If she be a wall, we will build upon her a palace of silver: and if she be a door, we will inclose her with boards of cedar."

"I am a wall, and my breasts like towers: then was I in his eyes as one that found favour."

"Make haste, my beloved, and be thou like to a roe or to a young hart upon the mountains of spices."

"It is human love, not that of a god, which is glorified in the Song, and that with a wealth of detail, which rules out an allegorical interpretation."

"The fundamental principle of the Hebraic commonwealth was that there are great moral laws not dependent on the will of monarch, oligarchy, aristocracy or public assembly."

"I will insist that the Hebrews have done more to civilize men than any other nation. If I were an atheist, and believed in blind eternal fate, I should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations. If I were an atheist of the other sect, who believe, or pretend to believe that all is ordered by chance, I should believe that chance had ordered the Jews to preserve and propagate to all mankind the doctrine of a supreme, intelligent, wise, almighty sovereign of the universe, which I believe to be the great essential principle of all morality, and consequently of all civilization."

"Among Jews, there is an absence of drunkenness, always a fruitful source of domestic strife and misconduct."

"Some of the students that come to me who are pro-Palestine – I say… don’t demonize Israelis and don’t demonize the Jewish people."

"The Jews have played an all-important role in history. They are pre-eminently an historical people and their destiny reflects the indestructibility of the divine decrees. Their destiny is too imbued with the "metaphysical" to be explained either in material or positive historical terms. I remember how the materialist interpretation of history, when I attempted in my youth to verify it by applying it to the destinies of peoples, broke down in the case of the Jew, where destiny seemed absolutely inexplicable from the materialistic standpoint. And, indeed, according to the materialistic and positivist criterion, this people ought long ago to have perished. Its survival is a mysterious and wonderful phenomenon demonstrating that the life of this people is governed by a special predetermination, transcending the processes of adaptation expounded by the materialistic interpretation of history. The survival of the Jews, their resistance to destruction, their endurance under absolutely peculiar conditions and the fateful role played by them in history; all these point to the particular and mysterious foundations of their destiny... The historical not only represented man's external relations, but that it might also reveal the very noumenon and essence of his being. The peculiarity of Jewish destiny consists in its incommensurability with either the pre-Christian or the Christian era. Scientific criticism applied to traditional Biblical history can neither discredit the universal role played by the Jews nor offer a satisfactory explanation of their mysterious destiny. Nor does this criticism grapple with the absolutely peculiar tie existing between the Jews and the 'historical,' and their extraordinarily intense feeling for history."

"We should fully understand our religion. Fighting is a part of our religion and our Shari'a. Those who love God and his Prophet and this religion cannot deny that. Whoever denies even a minor tenet of our religion commits the gravest sin in Islam. Those who sympathize with the infidels-such as the PLO in Palestine or the so-called Palestinian Authority--have been trying for tens of years to get back some of their rights. They laid down arms and abandoned what is called violence and tried peaceful bargaining. What did the Jews give them? They did not give them even 1% of their rights."

"The Jews started it all — and by "it" I mean so many of the things we care about, the underlying values that make all of us, Jew and Gentile, believer and atheist, tick. Without the Jews, we would see the world through different eyes, hear with different ears, even feel with different feelings … we would think with a different mind, interpret all our experience differently, draw different conclusions from the things that befall us. And we would set a different course for our lives."

"The Grand Lodge Masonry of the present day is wholly Jewish."

"Judaism recognized the home as being a co-partner with the synagogue in the nurturing of spirituality, and accorded the woman, as primary home-maker, the greatest consideration."

"The effect of Judaism's vigorous promotion of monotheism, and the dignity that this doctrine conferred on all humankind, as created in God's image, coupled with the discipline, warnth and security offered by the Jewish way of life, cannot be overestimated as a powerful catalyst for the undermining and eventual destruction of Graeco-Roman paganism."

"Jews abused and attacked on the streets... Mobs attacking synagogues... Nobody gives a damn about Jews and they never have, which is why the Holocaust was allowed to happen in the first place."

"Well I do hate myself, but it has nothing to do with being Jewish."

"I took the chief of your tribes, wise men, and known, and made them heads over you, captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, and captains over fifties, and captains over tens, and officers among your tribes. And I charged your judges at that time, saying, Hear the causes between your brethren, and judge righteously between every man and his brother, and the stranger that is with him. Ye shall not respect persons in judgment; but ye shall hear the small as well as the great; ye shall not be afraid of the face of man; for the judgment is God's: and the cause that is too hard for you, bring it unto me, and I will hear it. And I commanded you at that time all the things which ye should do."

"When thou shalt beget children, and children's children, and ye shall have remained long in the land, and shall corrupt yourselves, and make a graven image, or the likeness of any thing, and shall do evil in the sight of the LORD thy God, to provoke him to anger: I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that ye shall soon utterly perish from off the land whereunto ye go over Jordan to possess it; ye shall not prolong your days upon it, but shall utterly be destroyed."

"There has been no tragedy in modern times equal in its awful effects to the fight on the Jew in Germany. It is an attack on civilization, comparable only to such horrors as the and the African slave trade. It has set civilization back a hundred years, and in particular has it made the settlement and understanding of race problems more difficult and more doubtful. It is widely believed by many that the Jewish problem in Germany was episodic, and is already passing. Visitor to the Olympic Games are apt to have gotten that impression. They saw no Jewish oppression. Just as Northern visitors to Mississippi see no Negro oppression."

"I am by heritage a Jew, by citizenship a Swiss, and by makeup a human being, and only a human being, without any special attachment to any state or national entity whatsoever."

"By an application of the theory of relativity to the taste of readers, today in Germany I am called a German man of science, and in England I am represented as a Swiss Jew. If I come to be represented as a bête noire, the descriptions will be reversed, and I shall become a Swiss Jew for the Germans and a German man of science for the English!"

"I am neither a German citizen, nor do I believe in anything that can be described as a "Jewish faith." But I am a Jew and glad to belong to the Jewish people, though I do not regard it in any way as chosen."

"In my opinion, condemning the Zionist movement as "nationalistic" is unjustified. Consider the path by which Herzl came to his mission. Initially he had been completely cosmopolitan. But during the Dreyfus trial in Paris he suddenly realized with great clarity how precarious was the situation of the Jews in the western world. And courageously he drew the conclusion that we are discriminated against or murdered not because we are Germans, Frenchmen, Americans, etc. of the "Jewish faith" but simply because we are Jews. Thus already our precarious situation forces us to stand together irrespective of our citizenship. Zionism gave the German Jews no great protection against annihilation. But it did give the survivors the inner strength to endure the debacle with dignity and without losing their healthy self respect. Keep in mind that perhaps a similar fate could be lying in wait for your children."

"The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this. … For me the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything 'chosen' about them."

"To this city the governor Firmillianus went, and took thither the whole assembly of those hundred confessors. And this was a great sight which well deserves to be recorded in writing. And the Jews were spectators of this marvellous contest, having surrounded the place of judgment on all sides; and as if it were for a rebuke to themselves, they looked on with their own eyes at what took place, while the whole company of the confessors, with much confidence and immense courage, made their confession of belief in God's Christ. And they being Jews, to whom the coming of that Christ had been foretold by their prophets, whose coming their fathers looked for, had not received him when he was come; but these Egyptians, who had been of old the enemies of God, confessed, even in the midst of persecutions, their faith in God, the Lord of all, and in the Manifestation from him. And these Egyptians, who had been taught by their fathers to worship idols only, were at that time, from the conviction of their reason, undergoing this conflict, in order that they might avoid the worship of idols; while those Jews, who had always been accused by their prophets on account of their worship of idols, were surrounding them, standing and looking on, and listening as the Egyptians repudiated the gods of their own fathers, and confessed their faith in the same God as they also did; and bare witness for Him whom they had many times denied."

"And Moses went up unto God, and the Lord called unto him out of the mountain, saying, Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel; Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles' wings, and brought you unto myself. Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar dtreasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine: And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel."

"Even now they are turned away from the rule I gave them, and have made themselves a metal ox and given worship to it and offerings, saying, This is your god, O Israel, who took you up out of the land of Egypt. And the Lord said to Moses, I have been watching this people, and I see that they are a stiff-necked people. Now do not get in my way, for my wrath is burning against them; I will send destruction on them, but of you I will make a great nation."

"After all, Jews invented psychiatry to help other Jews become Gentiles."

"It was … declared improper to follow the custom of the Jews in the celebration of this holy festival, because, their hands having been stained with crime, the minds of these wretched men are necessarily blinded. … Let us, then, have nothing in common with the Jews, who are our adversaries. … avoiding all contact with that evil way. … who, after having compassed the death of the Lord, being out of their minds, are guided not by sound reason, but by an unrestrained passion, wherever their innate madness carries them. … a people so utterly depraved. … Therefore, this irregularity must be corrected, in order that we may no more have any thing in common with those parricides and the murderers of our Lord. … no single point in common with the perjury of the Jews."

"Jews and Saracens of both sexes in every Christian province must be distinguished from the Christian by a difference of dress. On Passion Sunday and the last three days of Holy Week they may not appear in public."

"Jews are not to be given public offices. Anyone instrumental in doing this is to be punished. A Jewish official is to be denied all intercourse with Christians."

"Israel's great achievement, so apparent that mention of it is almost trite, was Monotheism. It was an achievement that transformed subsequent history....One may raise the question whether any other single contribution from whatever source since human culture emerged from the stone age has had the far reaching effect upon history that Israel in this regard has exerted both through the mediums of Christianity and Islam and directly through the world of Jewish thinkers themselves""

"Most firmly hold and never doubt that not only pagans, but also all Jews, all heretics, and all schismatics who finish this life outside of the Catholic Church, will go into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels."

"They have been the untouchables of Christianity. The parallel between their treatment by Christians and the treatment of untouchables by Hindus is very close. Religious sanction has been invoked in both cases for the justification of the inhuman treatment meted out to them."

"The will to live is indestructible, particularly in the Jew; otherwise centuries of persecution and slaughter would long since have destroyed the race."

"No ancient people have had a stranger history than the Jews. … [T]he history of no ancient people should be so valuable, if we could only recover it and understand it. … Stranger still, the ancient religion of the Jews survives, when all the religions of every ancient race of the pre-Christian world have disappeared. … Again it is strange that the living religions of the world all build on religious ideas derived from the Jews. … [T]he great matter is not “What happened?” but “Why did it happen?” Why does Judaism live?"

"Mankind, East and West, Christian and Muslim, accepted the Jewish conviction that there is only One God. Today it is polytheism that is so difficult to understand, that is so unthinkable."

"The influence of the Jewish Sanhedrin is today more powerful than ever in Freemasonry."

"Oh, we Jews have a special kind of jokes. They consist in happy little anecdotes founded on absolute despair."

"Judaism had little to offer other nations, and throughout most of its existence it has not been not been a missionary religion. This stage can be called a 'local monotheism"."

"The question we must answer is whether it is possible to raise a generation on nothing but traumas that were caused by others, exclusively on a sense of perpetual destruction and deterministic hatred, or whether there are some other things about Judaism, not necessarily related to victimization, that define us both as a people and as individuals. Does being a Jew only mean being a victim, defined by the actions of others? Or does it also mean being a people that established an elaborate judicial system, created a language to be proud of, built a state and established a social order (not only fought for their existence!), and developed demands and expectations for perfecting the world and the individual, expressed in various phenomena throughout history, that no other people did? In other words, are we willing to accept Jean-Paul Sartre's definition of Judaism, "anti-semitism makes Jews" (that is, he even denies us the right of self-definition)? Or are there also things about us that have nothing whatsoever to do with the acts and attitudes of others?...The uniqueness of a Jew is not in his being a victim. It is in his being a Jew, a proud son of a people at least four thousand years old, who built a humane present and ask for an attainable future. Not a future of messianic proportions, but one of human dimensions."

"The discourse in the Muslim world about Jews is utterly shocking. Not only is there Holocaust denial—there’s Holocaust denial that then asserts that we will do it for real if given the chance. The only thing more obnoxious than denying the Holocaust is to say that it should have happened; it didn’t happen, but if we get the chance, we will accomplish it. There are children’s shows in the Palestinian territories and elsewhere that teach five-year-olds about the glories of martyrdom and about the necessity of killing Jews."

"The fate of the Jewish people is the fate of Macbeth who stepped out of nature itself, clung to alien beings, and so in their service had to trample and slay everything holy in human nature."

"The immemorial ingratitude of rulers and commonwealths is proverbial. Especially common is ingratitude to Israel — the People that has achieved so much of eternal worth, but has rarely succeeded in winning gratitude."

"Judaism has some advantages over Christianity in that, for example, it does not proselytise—except among Jews—and it does not make the cretinous mistake of saying that the Messiah has already made his appearance. … However, along with Islam and Christianity, it does insist that some turgid and contradictory and sometimes evil and mad texts, obviously written by fairly unexceptional humans, are in fact the word of god. I think that the indispensable condition of any intellectual liberty is the realisation that there is no such thing."

"The god of Moses would call for other tribes, including his favorite one, to suffer massacre and plague and even extirpation, but when the grave closed over his victims he was essentially finished with them unless he remembered to curse their succeeding progeny. Not until the advent of the Prince of Peace do we hear of the ghastly idea of further punishing and torturing the dead."

"The catastrophe which recently befell the Jewish people - the massacre of millions of Jews in Europe - was another clear demonstration of the urgency of solving the problem of its homelessness by re-establishing in Eretz-Israel the Jewish State, which would open the gates of the homeland wide to every Jew and confer upon the Jewish people the status of a fully privileged member of the comity of nations. Survivors of the Nazi holocaust in Europe, as well as Jews from other parts of the world, continued to migrate to Eretz-Israel, undaunted by difficulties, restrictions and dangers, and never ceased to assert their right to a life of dignity, freedom and honest toil in their national homeland."

"Masonry is based on Judaism. Eliminate the teachings of Judaism from the Masonic ritual and what is left?"

"His [Jesus'] object was the reformation of some articles in the religion of the Jews, as taught by Moses. That sect had presented for the object of their worship, a being of terrific character, cruel, vindictive, capricious and unjust."

"Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God."

"Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him. Jesus answered them, Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me? The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God."

"Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you."

"The dispersion of the Jews was both a boon and a bane; their nation was disjoined, but their culture was enormously enhanced. Whereas a unique omneitic outlook set the Jews apart from other peoples, a common language, literacy and learning bound the disparate Jewish communities together and provided a firm foundation for further creativity. The exercise of this multifaceted creative propensity rebounded to benefit not only the societies that harbored the Jews, but all humankind."

"the nature of the Jewish people on the face of this earth has been totally transformed in the past 45 years"

"gentiles persecuted the Jews for thousands of years before the Nazis got efficient at it"

"not only does Jewish oppression elude conventional categories, Jewish stereotypes prove that anti-Semitism does not exist. Jews are rich, powerful, privileged, control the media, the schools, the business world, international banking: the Zionist conspiracy rides again. How could such powerhouses ever be in trouble? These stereotypes, I've realized, prevent recognition of how we are threatened or demeaned as Jews."

"Particularly for those of us who are not religiously observant, much confusion attends our grasping - through anti-Semitism and often prodded by anti-Semitism - for something beyond common danger. We need to figure out how to undo assimilation without being nostalgic or xenophobic: how to reach in and out at the same time."

"Why have so many radicals been impermeable to a pro-Jewish analysis and activity? Why are we getting the message that many of our erstwhile political comrades and sisters-including Jews-think it contradictory to be a radical Jew?"

"They tried to kill us, we won, let's eat."

"We Jews are living in a strange historical period in which our sense of history is often quite warped. For many American Jews, the Holocaust and Israel have reduced Jewish history to the years 1939-1945, or 1948 to the present. This extremely limited view of Jewish history naturally narrows the concept of Jewish identity and that narrowness is one which we as progressives ought to be countering."

"The word "secularism" is simply not part of this generation of Jewish students' vocabulary. With few exceptions, they define their Jewishness solely in relationship to Zionism (whose secular origins they don't even consider) and/or to the synagogue. Extremely conscious of the Holocaust, they commemorate Yom Hashoah, but are ignorant of Jewish European history before 1939. They've heard of Yiddish and know the word shtetl and are familiar with the names Sholem Aleykhem and I. B. Singer, but know nothing of the extensive cultural or political history associated with any of these. Born in the late 1960s and early 1970s, this next generation is, of course, the product of its upbringing, which almost never included Jewish secular culture and history. Raised in assimilated or semiobservant homes, educated till their bar or bat mitsve in Sunday Hebrew schools (which most of them disparage), contemporary Jewish college students are totally cut off from a Jewish heritage which was thriving just forty years ago."

"The evidence from anthropology concurs with history in refuting the popular belief in a Jewish race descended from the biblical tribe. From the anthropologist's point of view, two groups of facts militate against this belief: the wide diversity of Jews with regard to physical characteristics, and their similarity to the Gentile population amidst whom they live. Both are reflected in the statistics about bodily height, cranial index, blood-groups, hair and eye colour, etc. Whichever of these anthropological criteria is taken as an indicator, it shows a greater similarity between Jews and their Gentile host-nation than between Jews living in different countries. … The obvious biological explanation for both phenomena is miscegenation, which took different forms in different historical situations: intermarriage, large-scale proselytizing, rape as a constant (legalized or tolerated) accompaniment of war and pogrom"

"I do not for a moment hesitate to say it right here and in the face of the entire Jewish world that… circumcision is a barbarous cruelty which disfigures and disgraces our ancestral heirloom and our holy mission as priests among mankind. The rite is a national remnant of savage African life… Nor should children born of intermarriage be viewed any longer exclusively by the primitive national standard which determines the racial character of the child only by the blood of the mother… I can no longer accept the fanciful and twisted syllogisms of Talmudic law as binding for us… I think, if anywhere, here we ought to have the courage to emancipate ourselves from the thralldom of Rabbinical legality."

"Far from having become 1900 years ago a stagnant or dried-up religion, as Christian theology declares, Judaism has ever remained "a river of God full of living waters," which, while running within the river-bed of a single nation, has continued to feed anew the great streams of human civilization."

"Next to God's unity the most essential and characteristic doctrine of Judaism is that concerning God's relation to man. Heathenism degraded man by making him kneel before brutes and the works of his hand: Judaism declared man to be made in the image of God, the crown and culmination of God's creation, the appointed ruler of the earth, and vicegerent of God"

"The natural, romantic man, regardless of whether he liked or disliked the Jews, saw in them the representants of an interesting and ancient race, blood brothers of our Lord. Yet the true herdist resented the baptized or unbaptized sons of Abraham violently, and for the identitarian National Socialist, with his latent inferiority complex and his petit bourgeois lack of worldly experience, they were the worst offenders against the sacred law of uniformity."

"To me you can wrap all of Judaism up in one sentence, and that is, 'Do not do unto others...' All I tried to do in my stories was show that there's some innate goodness in the human condition. And there's always going to be evil; we should always be fighting evil."

"What is left to a Jew who refuses the religious community? Antisemitism and history."

"The history of the Jews is a history of one holocaust after another with short intervals of peaceful assimilation or acculturation. Most of us never study this long and bitter history and yet we live with it and it shapes our lives. We live from pogrom to pogrom, one of my friends recently said. What it means to be a Jew-having to look over your shoulder and have your bags packed."

"What shall I do unto this people? they be almost ready to stone me."

"And it shall be, if thou do at all forget the LORD thy God, and walk after other gods, and serve them, and worship them, I testify against you this day that ye shall surely perish. As the nations which the LORD destroyeth before your face, so shall ye perish; because ye would not be obedient unto the voice of the LORD your God."

"And at Taberah, and at Massah, and at Kibroth-hattaavah, ye provoked the LORD to wrath. Likewise when the LORD sent you from Kadesh-barnea, saying, Go up and possess the land which I have given you; then ye rebelled against the commandment of the LORD your God, and ye believed him not, nor hearkened to his voice. Ye have been rebellious against the LORD from the day that I knew you. Thus I fell down before the LORD forty days and forty nights, as I fell down at the first; because the LORD had said he would destroy you. I prayed therefore unto the LORD, and said, O Lord GOD, destroy not thy people and thine inheritance, which thou hast redeemed through thy greatness, which thou hast brought forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand. Remember thy servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; look not unto the stubbornness of this people, nor to their wickedness, nor to their sin:"

"Any discussion of anti-Semitism is frequently lost in a misunderstanding of the distinction between Hebrews, Jews, and Zionists. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language describes a Hebrew as a member of the Semitic people, a race descended from Abraham of the Old Testament which, ironically enough, also includes most Arabs. A Jew, on the other hand, is a adherent of Judaism, a religion handed down by the Israelites. A Zionist is a member of a political movement concerned with preserving and furthering the aims of the state of Israel. These constitute three separate issues: race, religion, and politics."

"We look in vain among their poets for excellence in epic and dramatic composition. Painting and plastic arts never more than at the decorative stage. Politics patriarchal and despotic, and their inability to organize on a large scale has deprived them of the means of military success. Perhaps the most general feature of their character is a negative one,—their inability to perceive the general and abstract whether in thought, language, poetry or politics; and, on the other hand, a strong attraction towards the individual and personal, which makes them monotheistic in religion, lyrical in poetry, monarchical in politics, abrupt in style and useless for speculation."

"I am very troubled by this horrible issue of "who is a Jew?" I'm very simplistic about it. I ask, if Hitler were here, would he consider me a Jew? And of course he'd say yes, and that's the end of that. If we were all in line to go to Auschwitz, would the Orthodox pull us out of line and say, "You're not a Jew"?"

"I think many non-Jews don't realise the tremendous emotional heat that is involved here in the second half of the twentieth century. A heat that derives from the Holocaust. That is to say the destruction, the mass murder of the Jews in Eastern Europe where most of the Jews were. That both the Israelis and the Jews of the United States are the bereaved children of that population who were murdered. And the bond between the Jews of the United States and the people of Israel has the emotional intensity derived from that common bereavement. And that is what gives. I do understand that people resent the power of the pro-Israel lobby in this country [the US], but that power derives from that elemental basic bond of the common bereavement and the horror that is there in the background. Therefore, Jews in the United States do react strongly – and that's what makes this a very powerful lobby, and it is – they do react strongly to anything that seems to them to threaten the connection of the United States in Israel, which is Israel's lifeline. They see this as threatening. This may be an exaggerated fear, but always there is the shadow there of a possible new Holocaust. Israel overrun. The people of Israel massacred again."

"We regard Judaism as a civilization, not just as a religion. I think there are many, many ways to be a Jew. And one of those ways to be a Jew is to be a nonreligious Jew. The heritage contains, first and foremost, books, texts, spiritual creativity. And religion is only one of the components of this magnificent heritage...For thousands of years, we Jews had nothing but books. We had no lands, we had no holy sites, we had no magnificent architecture, we had no heroes. We had books, we had texts, and those texts were always discussed around the family table. They became part of the family life, and they traveled from one generation to the next — not unchanged, not unchallenged, but reinterpreted in each generation and reread by each generation."

"Every national church or religion has established itself by pretending some special mission from God, communicated to certain individuals. The Jews have their Moses; the Christians their Jesus Christ, their apostles and saints; and the Turks their Mahomet; as if the way to God was not open to every man alike. Each of those churches shows certain books, which they call revelation, or the Word of God. The Jews say that their Word of God was given by God to Moses face to face; the Christians say, that their Word of God came by divine inspiration; and the Turks say, that their Word of God (the Koran) was brought by an angel from heaven. Each of those churches accuses the other of unbelief; and, for my own part, I disbelieve them all."

"(What was your sense of what it meant to be Jewish when you were growing up?) Well, it meant to be a socialist. Well, not really. But it meant to have social consciousness. It also meant that we were related to those generations of the Jewish Bible. We had common history."

"What bothers me about say my own family or a lot of Jewish people I know who are really open-minded. People think that the persecution of Jewish people started with the Holocaust."

"Indeed I am a man, a Jew having been born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but having been brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, having been trained according to the exactness of the ancestral law, being a zealot of God, even as you all are today. I persecuted this Way as far as death, binding and giving over both men and women to prisons"

"And I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my own age; in my race being much more a zealot of the ancestral traditions of my fathers."

"This people are not eminent solely by their antiquity, but are also singular by their duration, which has always continued from their origin till now. For, whereas the nations of Greece and of Italy, of Lacedaemon, of Athens and of Rome, and others who came long after, have long since perished, these ever remain, and in spite of the endeavors of many powerful kings who have a hundred times tried to destroy them, as their historians testify, and as it is easy to conjecture from the natural order of things during so long a space of years, they have nevertheless been preserved (and this preservation has been foretold); and extending from the earliest times to the latest, their history comprehends in its duration all our histories (which it preceded by a long time)."

"The Jews are those who profess the Law of Moses; have not received baptism; and do not believe in Jesus Christ."

"In all of nature, a male belongs to a female that he fancies and who fancies him. And so among the animals there are no idiots. But with us!... I'm a Jew, so I musn't love a Christian woman... He's a merchant, so he's got no right to a countess... And you who've got no money, you've no rights to any woman at all..."

"80-85 percent of First Soviet Government was Jewish."

"Thou wilt certainly find the most violent of people in enmity against the believers to be the Jews and the idolaters; and thou wilt find the nearest in friendship to the believers to be those who say, We are Christians. That is because there are priests and monks among them and because they are not proud."

"It is against their own insoluble problem of being human that the dull and base in humanity are in revolt in anti-Semitism. Judaism, nevertheless, together with Hellenism and Christianity is an inalienable component of our Christian Western civilization, the eternal "call to Sinai" against which humanity again and again rebels."

"The nature of the Jew is governed by the same laws as human nature in general…In England, France, Germany and in the rest of Europe (except Spain), in spite of the barbarous treatment and deadly persecution they suffered, they have lived and spread and outlived much of the poisonous rancor and prejudice against them, and Europe has been none the worse on their account. Of course, where they are still under the Christian lash, as in Rome, where for the glory of God, their children even are stolen from them, self-preservation forces them to be narrow and exclusive. In other countries more civilized and just, they are so too; they progress just as fast as the world they live in will permit them."

"Throughout our history there have been weaker elements who have shirked the sacrifices which Judaism entailed. They have been swallowed, long since, in the great majority; only the more stalwart have carried on the traditions of their ancestors, and can now look back with pride upon their superb heritage. Are we to be numbered with the weak majority, or with the stalwart minority? It is for ourselves to decide."

"The preservation of the Jew was certainly not casual. He has endured through the power of a certain ideal, based on the recognition of a Higher Power in human affairs. Time after time in his history, moreover, he has been saved from disaster in a manner, which cannot be described excepting as 'providential.' The author has deliberately attempted to write this book in a secular spirit; he does not think that his readers can fail to see in it, on every page, a higher immanence."

"Knowing what we do of our past, no Jew can be an optimist."

"It is not American Jews who have betrayed their Israeli cousins. It is the Netanyahu-led Israeli government that has betrayed Jews outside Israel, by aligning itself with nationalist parties in countries like Poland and Hungary, who are hostile to the ideals that make it possible for Jews in the diaspora to live free of persecution. (p 205 "The Jewish Divide")"

"American religious pluralism, however imperfectly practiced, is centuries older than the European commitment to purging anti-Semitism, which is younger than Israel itself. (p 222 "The Jewish Divide")"

"To some extent, leaving the (Hasidic) community was even harder than transitioning. I had no idea what I was getting into. I didn't know anyone, couldn't speak the language, and didn't have an education. I didn't know how to dress. I didn't know how to talk. I remember the first time walking into a Starbucks, I was like, 'OK, what's happening here?' The culture shock is just in every level, every way. ... It's like being an immigrant in your own country."

"Having a ham sandwich on the afternoon of Yom Kippur doesn't make you less Jewish."

"Still have I borne it with a patient shrug, (For sufferance is the badge of all our tribe.) You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog."

"I am a Jew: Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is?"

"There was once among men a shining light of the sun when the harmonious ray of the prophets was being spread abroad, a tongue dripping a beautiful drink for all mortals with honeyed sweetness; it made manifest, offered and effected gentle things for all."

"Capitalism was born from the money loan. Money lending contains the root idea of capitalism. Turn to the pages of the Talmud and you will find that the Jews made an art of lending money. They were taught early to look for their chief happiness in the possession of money. They fathomed all the secrets that lay hid in money. They became Lords of Money and Lords of the World."

"What is the Jew?...What kind of unique creature is this whom all the rulers of all the nations of the world have disgraced and crushed and expelled and destroyed; persecuted, burned and drowned, and who, despite their anger and their fury, continues to live and to flourish. What is this Jew whom they have never succeeded in enticing with all the enticements in the world, whose oppressors and persecutors only suggested that he deny (and disown) his religion and cast aside the faithfulness of his ancestors?! "The Jew — is the symbol of eternity. … He is the one who for so long had guarded the prophetic message and transmitted it to all mankind. A people such as this can never disappear. The Jew is eternal. He is the embodiment of eternity."

"Democracy means that people can say what they want to. All the people. It means that they can vote as they wish. All the people. It means that they can worship God in any way they feel right, and that includes Christians and Jews and voodoo doctors as well."

"If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one percent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of star dust lost in the blaze of the Milky Way. Properly the Jew ought hardly to be heard of, but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his commercial importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk. His contributions to the world's list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine, and abstruse learning are also away out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers. He has made a marvellous fight in the world, in all the ages; and has done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself, and be excused for it. The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed, and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?"

"May the children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and figtree, and there shall be none to make him afraid. May the father of all mercies scatter light and not darkness in our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in his own due time and way everlastingly happy."

"Judaism is communism, internationalism, the universal brotherhood of man, the emancipation of the working class and the human society. It is with these spiritual weapons that the Jews will conquer the world and the human race. The races and the nations will cheerfully submit to the spiritual power of Judaism, and all will become Jews."

"It is not an accident that Judaism gave birth to Marxism, and it is not an accident that the Jews readily took up Marxism; all this was in perfect accord with the progress of Judaism and the Jews."

"Judaism does not know Jesus Christ. Judaism hates Jesus Christ. When St. Paul was in Judaism, before he was converted to Christianity, he hated Jesus Christ and persecuted Christians and Christianity."

"Masonry is a Jewish institution whose history, degrees, charges, passwords and explanations are Jewish from the beginning to the end."

"No Jew was ever fool enough to turn Christian unless he was a clever man."

"Born during this era of Islamic rule, the famous Golden Age of Spanish Jewry (circa 900-1200) produced such luminaries as: statesman and diplomat Hasdai ibn Shaprut, vizier and army commander Shmuel ha-Nagid, poet-philosophers Solomon Ibn Gabirol and Judah Halevi, and at the apex of them all, Moses Ben Maimon, also known among the Spaniards as Maimonides."

"Thus, when Muslims crossed the straits of Gibraltar from North Africa in 711 CE and invaded the Iberian Peninsula, Jews welcomed them as liberators from Christian Persecution."

"Frederick the Great (1712-1786) once asked his personal physician, Dr. Zimmermann, "Can you name me a single proof of the existence of God?" Zimmermann replied, "Your Majesty, the Jews!" By that he meant that if one wanted to ask for a proof of God, for something visible and tangible, that no one could contest, which is unfolded before the eyes of all men, then we should have to turn to the Jews. Quite simply, there they are to the present day. Hundreds of little nations in the Near East... have dissolved and disappeared in the huge sea of nations; [only] this one tiny nation has maintained itself.... If the question of a proof of God is raised, one need merely point to this simple historical fact. For in the person of the Jew there stands before our eyes the witness of God's covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and in that way with us all. Even one who does not understand Holy Scripture can see this reminder."

"Judaism is something more than a badge, something more than a birth-mark; it is a life."

"Salvation is attained not by subscription to metaphysical dogmas, but solely by love of God that fulfils itself in action. This is a cardinal truth in Judaism."

"When sometimes our own unchristian prejudices flame out against the Jewish people, let us remember that all that we have and all that we are we owe, under God, to what Judaism gave us."

"Israel has given the world true humanitarianism, just as it has given the world the true God."

"None of the resplendent names in history - Egypt, Athens, Rome - can compare in eternal grandeur with Jerusalem. For Israel has given to mankind the category of holiness. Israel alone has known the thirst for social justice, and that inner saintliness which is the source of justice."

"The Jews are among the aristocracy of every land; if a literature is called rich in the possession of a few classic tragedies, what shall we say to a national tragedy lasting for fifteen hundred years, in which the poets and the actors were also the heroes."

"The Jews spend at Easter."

"A Hebrew knelt in the dying light, His eye was dim and cold; The hairs on his brow were silver white, And his blood was thin and old."

"Who hateth me but for my happiness? Or who is honored now but for his wealth? Rather had I, a Jew, be hated thus, Than pitied in a Christian poverty."

"To undo a Jew is charity, and not sin."

"This is the Jew that Shakespeare drew."

"The day will come when all nations amidst which the Jews are dwelling will have to raise the question of their wholesale expulsion, a question which will be one of life or death, good health or chronic disease, peaceful existence or perpetual social fever."

"They (the Jews) work more effectively against us, than the enemy's armies. They are a hundred times more dangerous to our liberties and the great cause we are engaged in... It is much to be lamented that each state, long ago, has not hunted them down as pest to society and the greatest enemies we have to the happiness of America."

"I fully agree with General Washington, that we must protect this young nation from an insidious influence and impenetration. The menace, gentlemen, is the Jews. In whatever country Jews have settled in any great number, they have lowered its moral tone; depreciated its commercial integrity; have segregated themselves and have not been assimilated; have sneered at and tried to undermine the Christian religion upon which that nation is founded, by objecting to its restrictions; have built up a state within the state; and when opposed have tried to strangle that country to death financially, as in the case of Spain and Portugal. For over 1,700 years, the Jews have been bewailing their sad fate in that they have been exiled from their homeland, as they call Palestine. But gentlemen, did the world give it to them in fee simple, they would at once find some reason for not returning. Why? Because they are vampires, and vampires do not live on vampires. They cannot live only among themselves. They must subsist on Christians and other people not of their race. If you do not exclude them from these United States, in their Constitution, in less than 200 years they will have swarmed here in such great numbers that they will dominate and devour the land and change our form of government, for which we Americans have shed our blood, given our lives our substance and jeopardized our liberty. If you do not exclude them, in less than 200 years our descendants will be working in the fields to furnish them substance, while they will be in the counting houses rubbing their hands. I warn you, gentlemen, if you do not exclude Jews for all time, your children will curse you in your graves. Jews, gentlemen, are Asiatics, let them be born where they will nor how many generations they are away from Asia, they will never be otherwise. Their ideas do not conform to an American's, and will not even thou they live among us ten generations. A leopard cannot change its spots. Jews are Asiatics, are a menace to this country if permitted entrance, and should be excluded by this Constitutional Convention."

"But the child who is born on the Sabbath day Is fair and wise and good in every way."

"SABBATH, n. A weekly festival having its origin in the fact that God made the world in six days and was arrested on the seventh. Among the Jews observance of the day was enforced by a Commandment of which this is the Christian version: "Remember the seventh day to make thy neighbor keep it wholly." To the Creator it seemed fit and expedient that the Sabbath should be the last day of the week, but the Early Fathers of the Church held other views."

"Thou art my single day, God lends to leaven What were all earth else, with a feel of heaven."

"We believe that the Lord’s Day, celebrated on Sunday, the first day of the week, throughout the Christian church, is the Christian sabbath, which we reverently observe as a day of rest and worship and as the continuing memorial of our Savior’s resurrection. For this reason, we abstain from secular work and from all merchandising on this holy day, except that required by mercy or necessity."

"'The Christian Sabbath' is not in the Scripture, and was not by the primitive church called the Sabbath."

"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy."

"Moses, before he left Egypt, succeeded in securing for the Israelites the observance of rest on the Sabbath, by pointing out to Pharaoh the necessity--in his own interest--of granting his slaves one day every week freedom from labour, and thereby invigorating them for the renewal of labour after their rest."

"That Saturday is the Sabbath proclaimed on Sinai was fully demonstrated to the Israelites in the wilderness. When, contrary to God's ordinance, they went out on that day to gather manna and found none, Moses told them 'See,'--he did not say 'Know' but See--that God has given you the Sabbath, pointing out to them visibly the Sabbath day."

"The observance of the Sabbath proclaimed on Sinai by an Israelite outweighs all other commandments. And from the point of view that the Sabbath was established as a token between God and his people (Exod. 31. 13) one is justified in saying that it is not right and proper for a non-Jew to observe that Sabbath; it is the expression of a relation so intimate that the intrusion of a stranger would be resented."

"The Sabbath, as now recognized and enforced, is one of the main pillars of Priestcraft and Superstition, and the stronghold of a merely ceremonial Religion."

"Reason and sense demand the acceptance of one or the other of these alternatives: either Protestantism and the keeping holy of Saturday, or Catholicity and the keeping holy of Sunday. Compromise is impossible."

"You may read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and you will not find a single line authorizing the sanctification of Sunday. The Scriptures enforce the religious observance of Saturday, a day which we never sanctify."

"We did everything to save lives, despite Shabbat. People asked, 'Why are you here? There are no Jews here', but we are here because the Torah orders us to save lives… We are desecrating Shabbat with pride…"

"God did not sanctify to himself the heaven nor the earth nor any other creature. But God did sanctify to himself the seventh day. This was especially designed of God, to cause us to understand the seventh day is to be especially devoted to divine worship. For that which is appropriated to God and exclusively separated from all profane uses is sanctified or holy... It follows therefore from this passage, that if Adam had stood in his innocence and had not fallen he would yet have observed the "seventh day" as sanctified, holy and sacred; that is, he would have taught his children and posterity on that day concerning the will and worship of God. Further by this sanctification of the Sabbath it is also plainly shown that man was especially created for the knowledge and worship of God. For the Sabbath was not instituted on account of sheep or oxen, but for the sake of men, that the knowledge of God might be exercised and increased by them on that sacred day. Although therefore man lost the knowledge of God by sin, yet God willed that his command concerning the sanctifying of the Sabbath should remain. He willed that on the seventh day both the Word should be preached, and also those other parts of his worship performed, which he himself instituted; so the end that by those appointed means we should first of all think solemnly on our condition in the world as men; that this nature of ours was created ...for the knowledge and the glorifying of God; and also that by these same sacred means we might hold fast in our minds the same hope of a future and eternal life."

"At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, "Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath." He answered, "Haven't you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread—which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests. Or haven't you read in the Law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple desecrate the day and yet are innocent? I tell you that one greater than the temple is here. If you had known what these words mean, 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the innocent. For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath." Going on from that place, he went into their synagogue, and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, they asked him, "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?" He said to them, "If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable is a man than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath." Then he said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." So he stretched it out and it was completely restored, just as sound as the other. But the Pharisees went out and plotted how they might kill Jesus."

"So sang they, and the empyrean rung With Hallelujahs. Thus was Sabbath kept."

"See Christians, Jews, one heavy sabbath keep, And all the western world believe and sleep."

"E'en Sunday shines no Sabbath day to me."

"Thus the Sabbath is a remembrance of the exodus from Egypt, and the exodus is a remembrance of the Sabbath, for on it [the Sabbath] they remember and say that it is Elohim who ... created everything at the beginning of creation ... Now he did not explain here [in Deuteronomy] that the reason for the rest [on the Sabbath] is that in six days the Eternal made heaven since this has already been mentioned many times in the Torah. Instead...he explained to them that from the Exodus from Egypt they will know that it was He who spoke and the world came into existence, and He ceased from work thereon."

"YHWH commanded us to abstain from work on the Sabbath, and to rest, for two purposes; namely, (1) That we might confirm the true theory, that of the Creation, which at once and clearly leads to the theory of the existence of God. (2) That we might remember how kind God had been in freeing us from the burden of the Egyptians - The Sabbath is therefore a double blessing: it gives us correct notions, and also promotes the well-being of our bodies."

"Unless ye fast from the world, ye shall not find the Sovereignty; unless ye keep the entire week as Sabbath, ye shall not behold the Father."

"VI. Neither prayer, nor any other part of religious worship, is now, under the Gospel, either tied unto, or made more acceptable by any place in which it is performed, or towards which it is directed: [John 4:21] but God is to be worshipped everywhere,[Malachi 1:11, 1 Timothy 2:8] in spirit and truth;[John 4:23] as, in private families[Jeremiah 10:25, Deuteronomy 6:6-7, 1 Peter 3:7, Acts 10:2] daily,[Matthew 6:11] and in secret, each one by himself;[Matthew 6:6, Ephesians 6:18] so, more solemnly in the public assemblies, which are not carelessly or wilfully to be neglected, or forsaken, when God, by His Word or providence, calls thereunto.[Isaiah 56:6-7, Hebrews 10:25, Acts 13:42, Luke 4:16, Acts 2:42] VII. As it is the law of nature, that, in general, a due proportion of time be set apart for the worship of God; so, in His Word, by a positive, moral, and perpetual commandment binding all men in all ages, He has particularly appointed one day in seven, for a Sabbath, to be kept holy unto him:[Exodus 20:8-11, Isaiah 56:2-11] which, from the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ, was the last day of the week: and, from the resurrection of Christ, was changed into the first day of the week,[Genesis 2:2, 1 Corinthians 16:1-2, Acts 20:7] which, in Scripture, is called the Lord's Day,[Revelation 1:10] and is to be continued to the end of the world, as the Christian Sabbath.[Exodus 20:8,10, Matthew 5:17-18] VIII. This Sabbath is to be kept holy unto the Lord when men, after a due preparing of their hearts, and ordering of their common affairs beforehand, do not only observe an holy rest all the day from their own works, words, and thoughts about their worldly employments and recreations,[Exodus 20:8, Exodus 16:23-30, Exodus 31:15-17, Isaiah 58:13, Nehemiah 13:15-22] but also are taken up the whole time in the public and private exercises of His worship, and in the duties of necessity and mercy.[Isaiah 58:13]"

"Surah ii. 61: "Ye know, too, those of you who transgressed on the Sabbath., and to whom We (God) said, Become scouted apes.""

"Surah iv. 50: "Or curse you as We (God) cursed the Sabbath breakers.""

"Surah iv. 158: "We (God) said to them (Israel), Break not the Sabbath.""

"Surah vii. 168: "And ask them (the Jews) about the city that stood by the sea when it's inhabitants broke the Sabbath; when their fish came to them appearing openly on their Sabbath-day, but not to them en the day when they kept no Sabbath.""

"Surah xvi. 125: "The Sabbath was only ordained for those who differed about it.""

"On Sundays, at the matin-chime, The Alpine peasants, two and three, Climb up here to pray; Burghers and dames, at summer's prime, Ride out to church from Chamberry, Dight with mantles gay, But else it is a lonely time Round the Church of Brou."

"Of all the days that's in the week, I dearly love but one day, And that's the day that comes betwixt A Saturday and Monday."

"How still the morning of the hallow'd day! Mute is the voice of rural labour, hush'd The ploughboy's whistle, and the milkmaid's song."

"Gently on tiptoe Sunday creeps, Cheerfully from the stars he peeps, Mortals are all asleep below, None in the village hears him go; E'en chanticleer keeps very still, For Sunday whispered, 'twas his will."

"Sundaies observe: think when the bells do chime, 'Tis angel's musick; therefore come not late."

"The Sundaies of man's life, Thredded together on time's string, Make bracelets to adorn the wife Of the eternal, glorious King. On Sunday heaven's gates stand ope; Blessings are plentiful and rife. More plentiful than hope."

"Now, really, this appears the common case Of putting too much Sabbath into Sunday— But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy?"

"O day of rest! How beautiful, how fair, How welcome to the weary and the old! Day of the Lord! and truce to earthly care! Day of the Lord, as all our days should be."

"The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath."

"For, bless the gude mon, gin he had his ain way, He'd na let a cat on the Sabbath say "mew;" Nae birdie maun whistle, nae lambie maun play, An' Phœbus himsel' could na travel that day, As he'd find a new Joshua in Andie Agnew."

"The sabbaths of Eternity, One sabbath deep and wide."

"There are many persons who think Sunday is a sponge with which to wipe out the sins of the week."

"There is a Sunday conscience as well as a Sunday coat; and those who make religion a secondary concern put the coat and conscience carefully by to put on only once a week."

"I have, by long and sound experience, found that the due observance of the Sabbath day, and of the duties of it, have been of singular comfort and advantage to me. The observance of the day hath ever had joined to it, a blessing upon the rest of my time; and the week that hath so begun hath been blessed and prosperous to me."

"Nothing draws along with it such a glory as the Sabbath. Never has it unfolded without some witness and welcome, some song and salutation. It has been the coronation day of martyrs — the first day of saints. It has been from the first day till now the sublime day of the church of God; still the outgoings of its morning and evening rejoice. Let us then remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy."

"Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright, The bridal of the earth and sky."

"Tell me how a professor spends his Sabbaths, and I will tell you in what state his soul is spiritually considered."

"Sunday is the golden clasp that binds together the volume of the week."

"The longer I live the more highly do I estimate the Christian Sabbath, and the more grateful do I feel towards those who impress its importance on the community."

"As I was looking, I saw a tempestuous wind coming from the north, and there was a huge cloud and flashing fire surrounded by a bright light, and from the midst of the fire was something that looked like electrum. Within it were what looked like four living creatures, and the appearance of each one was like that of a human. Each one had four faces and four wings. Their feet were straight, and the soles of their feet were like those of a calf, and they were shining like the glow of burnished copper. They had human hands under their wings on all four sides, and the four of them had faces and wings. Their wings were touching one another. They would not turn when they went; they would each go straight forward."

"Their faces had this appearance: Each of the four had a man’s face with a lion’s face on the right, a bull’s face on the left, and each of the four had an eagle’s face. That is how their faces were. Their wings were spread out above them. Each had two wings that were touching one another and two wings covering their bodies."

"They would each go straight forward, going wherever the spirit would incline them to go. They would not turn as they went. And the living creatures had the appearance of burning coals of fire, and something that looked like torches of bright fire was moving back and forth between the living creatures, and lightning was flashing out from the fire. And when the living creatures would go forth and return, their movement had the appearance of flashes of lightning."

"As I was watching the living creatures, I saw one wheel on the earth beside each of the living creatures with four faces. The wheels and their structure appeared to glow like chrysolite, and the four of them looked alike. Their appearance and structure looked as though a wheel were within a wheel. When they moved, they could go in any of the four directions without turning as they went. Their rims were so high that they inspired awe, and the rims of all four were full of eyes all around. Whenever the living creatures moved, the wheels would move along with them, and when the living creatures were lifted up from the earth, the wheels would also be lifted up. They would go where the spirit inclined them to go, wherever the spirit went. The wheels would be lifted up together with them, for the spirit operating on the living creatures was also in the wheels. When they moved, these would move; and when they stood still, these would stand still; and when they were lifted up from the earth, the wheels would be lifted up together with them, for the spirit operating on the living creatures was also in the wheels."

"Over the heads of the living creatures was the likeness of an expanse that sparkled like awesome ice, stretched out above their heads. Under the expanse their wings were straight, one to the other. Each one had two wings for covering one side of their bodies and two for covering the other side. When I heard the sound of their wings, it was like a sound of rushing waters, like the sound of the Almighty. When they moved, it was like the sound of an army. When they stood still, they would let their wings down."

"There was a voice above the expanse over their heads. (When they stood still, they would let their wings down.) Above the expanse that was over their heads was what looked like a sapphire stone, and it resembled a throne. Sitting on the throne up above was someone whose appearance resembled that of a human. I saw something glowing like electrum that was like a fire radiating from what appeared to be his waist and upward; and from his waist down, I saw something that resembled fire. There was a brilliance all around him like that of a rainbow in a cloud on a rainy day. That was how the surrounding brilliant light appeared. It was like the appearance of the glory of Jehovah. When I saw it, I fell facedown and began to hear the voice of someone speaking."

"Then I looked, and, behold, in the firmament that was above the head of the cherubims there appeared over them as it were a sapphire stone, as the appearance of the likeness of a throne. And he spake unto the man clothed with linen, and said, Go in between the wheels, even under the cherub, and fill thine hand with coals of fire from between the cherubims, and scatter them over the city.And he went in in my sight. Now the cherubims stood on the right side of the house, when the man went in; and the cloud filled the inner court. Then the glory of the Lord went up from the cherub, and stood over the threshold of the house; and the house was filled with the cloud, and the court was full of the brightness of the Lord's glory. And the sound of the cherubims' wings was heard even to the outer court, as the voice of the Almighty God when he speaketh.And it came to pass, that when he had commanded the man clothed with linen, saying, Take fire from between the wheels, from between the cherubims; then he went in, and stood beside the wheels. And one cherub stretched forth his hand from between the cherubims unto the fire that was between the cherubims, and took thereof, and put it into the hands of him that was clothed with linen: who took it, and went out.And there appeared in the cherubims the form of a man's hand under their wings. And when I looked, behold the four wheels by the cherubims, one wheel by one cherub, and another wheel by another cherub: and the appearance of the wheels was as the colour of a beryl stone. And as for their appearances, they four had one likeness, as if a wheel had been in the midst of a wheel.When they went, they went upon their four sides; they turned not as they went, but to the place whither the head looked they followed it; they turned not as they went."

"These were the living creatures that I had seen under the God of Israel at the river Chebar, so I came to know that they were cherubs. All four had four faces, four wings, and what appeared to be human hands under their wings. And the appearances of their faces were like the faces I had seen by the river Chebar. They would each go straight forward."

"Now, thou son of man, take up a lamentation for Tyrus; And say unto Tyrus, O thou that art situate at the entry of the sea, which art a merchant of the people for many isles, ... O Tyrus, thou hast said, I am of perfect beauty. Thy borders are in the midst of the seas, thy builders have perfected thy beauty. They have made all thy ship boards of fir trees of Senir: they have taken cedars from Lebanon to make masts for thee. Of the oaks of Bashan have they made thine oars; the company of the Ashurites have made thy benches of ivory, brought out of the isles of Chittim. Fine linen with broidered work from Egypt was that which thou spreadest forth to be thy sail; blue and purple from the isles of Elishah was that which covered thee."

"And I will execute great vengeance upon them with furious rebukes; and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall lay my vengeance upon them."

"Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee. By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire."

"Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.’”"

"So prophesy, son of man, and say to Gog, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord Jehovah says: “On that day when my people Israel are dwelling in security, will you not know it? You will come from your place, from the remotest parts of the north, you and many peoples with you, all of them riding on horses, a great assembly, a vast army. Like clouds covering the land, you will come against my people Israel. In the final part of the days I will bring you against my land so that the nations may know me when I sanctify myself through you before their eyes, O Gog."

"בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה', אֱ-לֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, אֲשֶׁר קִדְּשָׁנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתָיו, וְצִוָּנוּ לְהַדְלִיק נֵר חֲנֻכָּה. Barukh Atta Adonay Eloheynu Melekh Ha-olam Asher Kiddeshanu Be-mitsvotav Ve-tsivanu Lehadlik Ner Shel khanuka."

"בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה' אֱ-לֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, שֶׁעָשָׂה נִסִּים לַאֲבוֹתֵֽינוּ בַּיָּמִים הָהֵם בַּזְּמַן הַזֶּה.‬ Barukh Atta Adonay Eloheynu Melekh Ha-olam She-asa Nissim La-avoteynu Ba-yyamim Ha-hem Ba-zzman Ha-zze."

"In the old days, it was not called the Holiday Season; the Christians called it "Christmas" and went to church; the Jews called it "Hanukka" and went to synagogue; the atheists went to parties and drank. People passing each other on the street would say "Merry Christmas!" or "Happy Hanukka!" or (to the atheists) "Look out for the wall!""

"We thank You also for the miraculous deeds and for the redemption and for the mighty deeds and the saving acts wrought by You, as well as for the wars which You waged for our ancestors in ancient days at this season. In the days of the Hasmonean Mattathias, son of Johanan the high priest, and his sons, when the iniquitous Greco-Syrian kingdom rose up against Your people Israel, to make them forget Your Torah and to turn them away from the ordinances of Your will, then You in your abundant mercy rose up for them in the time of their trouble, pled their cause, executed judgment, avenged their wrong, and delivered the strong into the hands of the weak, the many into the hands of few, the impure into the hands of the pure, the wicked into the hands of the righteous, and insolent ones into the hands of those occupied with Your Torah. Both unto Yourself did you make a great and holy name in Thy world, and unto Your people did You achieve a great deliverance and redemption. Whereupon your children entered the sanctuary of Your house, cleansed Your temple, purified Your sanctuary, kindled lights in Your holy courts, and appointed these eight days of Hanukkah in order to give thanks and praises unto Your holy name.""

"Everyone thinks I'm Jewish. I'm not. Last year I got a call: "Happy Hanukkah." I said "Ma, I'm not Jewish.""

"The Feast of Lights: Still ours the dance, the feast, the glorious Psalm, The mystic lights of emblem, and the Word. Where is our Judas?Where our-five branched palm? Where are the lion-warriors of the Lord?"

"Christmas brings enormous electric bills. Candles are used for Hanukkah. Not only are we spared enormous electric bills, but we get to feel good about not contributing to the energy crisis."

"So have a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Krazy Kwanzaa, a Tip-Top Tet, and a solemn, dignified Ramadan. And now, a word from my god, our sponsor..."

"Just as Hanukkah candles are lighted one by one from a single flame, so the tale of the miracle is passed from one man to another, from one house to another, and to the whole House of Israel throughout the generations."

"I feel like a spinning top or a Dreidel The spinning don't stop when you leave the cradle You just slow down Round and around this world you go Spinning through the lives of the people you know We all slow down."

"The miracle, of course, was not that the oil for the sacred light in a little cruse - lasted as long as they say; but that the courage of the Maccabees lasted to this day: let that nourish my flickering spirit."

"You can see religion as a battle, a holy war, in which you win a victory for your faith by force or fear. Or you can see it as a candle you light to drive away some of the darkness of the world. The difference is that the first sees other religions as the enemy. The second sees them as other candles, not threatening mine, but adding to the light we share. What Jews remembered from that victory over the Greeks twenty-two centuries ago was not a God of war but the God of light. And it’s only the God of light who can defeat the darkness in the human soul"

"The Pharisees went out, and held a council against him, how they might destroy him. But when Jesus knew it, he withdrew himself from thence."

"The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat: All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not. For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers."

"The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus and saw some of his disciples eating food with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed. … So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, "Why don't your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with defiled hands?" … Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, "Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.""

"But the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the counsel of God against themselves, being not baptized of him."

"When Jesus had finished speaking, a Pharisee invited him to eat with him; so he went in and reclined at the table. But the Pharisee was surprised when he noticed that Jesus did not first wash before the meal. Then the Lord said to him, "Now then, you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You foolish people! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? But now as for what is inside you—be generous to the poor, and everything will be clean for you.""

"The scribes and the Pharisees began to urge him vehemently, and to provoke him to speak of many things: Laying wait for him, and seeking to catch something out of his mouth, that they might accuse him."

"οὐδεὶς οἰκέτης δύναται δυσὶ κυρίοις δουλεύειν· ἢ γὰρ τὸν ἕνα μισήσει καὶ τὸν ἕτερον ἀγαπήσει, ἢ ἑνὸς ἀνθέξεται καὶ τοῦ ἑτέρου καταφρονήσει. οὐ δύνασθε θεῷ δουλεύειν καὶ μαμωνᾷ. Ἤκουον δὲ ταῦτα πάντα οἱ Φαρισαῖοι φιλάργυροι ὑπάρχοντες, καὶ ἐξεμυκτήριζον αὐτόν."

"Then gathered the chief priests and the Pharisees a council, and said, What do we? for this man doeth many miracles. If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him: and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation. … Then from that day forth they took counsel together for to put him to death."

"Nevertheless among the chief rulers also many believed on him; but because of the Pharisees they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue."

"The sinners would have included those who did not pay their tithes (one tenth of their income) to the priests, and those who were negligent about the sabbath rest and about ritual cleanliness. The laws and customs on these matters were so complicated that the uneducated were quite incapable of understanding what was expected of them. Education is those days [Biblical times] was a matter of knowing … the law and all its ramifications. The illiterate and uneducated were inevitably lawless and immoral. The ‘am ha-arez, or uneducated peasants, ‘the rabble who know nothing of the law’ (John 7:49) were regarded by even the most enlightened Pharisees, like Hillel, as incapable of virtue and piety."

"Who were the men who wrote the Talmud? They were members of that political/religious formation reviled by Jesus and his followers, the Pharisees. … The rule-based Judaism that developed in the post-biblical period, in the writing of the Mishnah and Gemara, was the product, in part, of thought often associated with the Pharisees. To better understand Rabbinic Judaism, it is necessary to understand them."

"Now these are the names of the children of Israel, which came into Egypt; every man and his household came with Jacob. Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin, Dan, and Naphtali, Gad, and Asher."

"Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph."

"And when she could not longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein; and she laid it in the flags by the river’s brink."

"Who made thee a prince and a judge over us?"

"I have been a stranger in a strange land."

"The angel of the appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed."

"Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground."

"And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God."

"I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows."

"I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites."

"And God said to Moses, "I AM THAT I AM." And He said, "Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you.'""

"Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations."

"But I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue."

"And afterward Moses and Aaron went in, and told Pharaoh, Thus saith the God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness."

"And Pharaoh said, Who is the , that I should obey his voice to let Israel go? I know not the , neither will I let Israel go."

"Ye shall no more give the people straw to make brick, as heretofore: let them go and gather straw for themselves."

"And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt."

"When Pharaoh shall speak unto you, saying, Shew a miracle for you: then thou shalt say unto Aaron, Take thy rod, and cast it before Pharaoh, and it shall become a serpent."

"Now the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their enchantments. For they cast down every man his rod, and they became serpents: but Aaron’s rod swallowed up their rods. And he hardened Pharaoh’s heart, that he hearkened not."

"This is the finger of God."

"Else, if thou wilt not let my people go, behold, I will send swarms of flies upon thee."

"It will become fine dust over all the land of Egypt, and it will become boils breaking out with sores on man and beast through all the land of Egypt."

"Stretch out thine hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, even darkness which may be felt."

"Yet will I bring one plague more upon Pharaoh, and upon Egypt."

"Your lamb shall be without blemish."

"And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread; and with bitter herbs they shall eat it. Eat not of it raw, nor sodden at all with water, but roast with fire; his head with his legs, and with the purtenance thereof."

"And thus shall ye eat it; with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and ye shall eat it in haste: it is the ’s passover. For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the ."

"This day shall be unto you for a memorial; and ye shall keep it a feast to the throughout your generations."

"Seven days shall ye eat unleavened bread."

"And there was a great cry in Egypt; for there was not a house where there was not one dead."

"And they spoiled the Egyptians."

"Remember this day, in which ye came out from Egypt, out of the house of bondage."

"And the went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light; to go by day and night."

"And the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea upon the dry ground: and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left."

"I will sing unto the , for he hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea. The is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation."

"The is a man of war."

"Thy right hand, O , is become glorious in power: thy right hand, O , hath dashed in pieces the enemy."

"Thou sentest forth thy wrath, which consumed them as stubble. And with the blast of thy nostrils the waters were gathered together, the floods stood upright as an heap, and the depths were congealed in the heart of the sea."

"Would to God we had died by the hand of the in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots, and when we did eat bread to the full; for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness, to kill this whole assembly with hunger."

"And when the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another, It is manna: for they wist not what it was."

"But let not God speak with us, lest we die."

"I am the thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage."

"Thou shalt have no other gods before me."

"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth."

"For I the thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments."

"Thou shalt not take the name of the thy God in vain; for the will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain."

"Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy."

"Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the thy God giveth thee."

"Thou shalt do no murder."

"Thou shalt not commit adultery."

"Thou shalt not steal."

"Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour."

"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s."

"He that smiteth a man, so that he die, shall be surely put to death."

"Life for life, Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe."

"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live."

"You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt."

"Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk."

"Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared."

"And thou shalt put in the breastplate of judgment the Urim and the Thummim; and they shall be upon Aaron’s heart, when he goeth in before the ."

"Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him."

"And all the people brake off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron. And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf."

"And the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play."

"A stiffnecked people."

"Who is on the ’s side? let him come unto me."

"And the spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend."

"Joshua, the son of Nun."

"Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live."

"And he was there with the forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments."

"Tell them, I AM, Jehovah said To Moses; while earth heard in dread, And, smitten to the heart, At once above, beneath, around, All Nature, without voice or sound, Replied, "O Lord, THOU ART.""

"Jacob’s descendants, the Israelites, find their way to Egypt and become too numerous for the Pharaoh’s liking, so he enslaves them and orders that all the boys be killed at birth. Moses escapes the mass infanticide and grows up to challenge the Pharaoh to let his people go. God, who is omnipotent, could have softened Pharaoh’s heart, but he hardens it instead, which gives him a reason to afflict every Egyptian with painful boils and other miseries before killing every one of their firstborn sons. (The word Passover alludes to the executioner angel’s passing over the households with Israelite firstborns.) God follows this massacre with another one when he drowns the Egyptian army as they pursue the Israelites across the Red Sea. The Israelites assemble at Mount Sinai and hear the Ten Commandments, the great moral code that outlaws engraved images and the coveting of livestock but gives a pass to slavery, rape, torture, mutilation, and genocide of neighboring tribes. The Israelites become impatient while waiting for Moses to return with an expanded set of laws, which will prescribe the death penalty for blasphemy, homosexuality, adultery, talking back to parents, and working on the Sabbath. To pass the time, they worship a statue of a calf, for which the punishment turns out to be, you guessed it, death. Following orders from God, Moses and his brother Aaron kill three thousand of their companions."

"[H]istoricity is not important! What's important is what the text means, what is the text trying to say."

"I couldn’t help but go to the Book of Exodus, where it talked about where God said, “If you don’t let my people go, I’m going to cause flies to come as a sign of what’s wrong. But I won’t let the flies be on the people, but the fly will be a symbol that you’re just wrong. You’re lying. Let my people go.”"

"And when Abraham and Ishmael were raising the foundations of the House, (Abraham prayed): Our Lord! Accept from us (this duty). Lo! Thou, only Thou, art the Hearer, the Knower."

"Say (O Muslims): We believe in Allah and that which is revealed unto us and that which was revealed unto Abraham, and Ishmael, and Isaac, and Jacob, and the tribes, and that which Moses and Jesus received, and that which the prophets received from their Lord. We make no distinction between any of them, and unto Him we have surrendered."

"The angel of the LORD said to her further, "Behold, you are with child, And you will bear a son; And you shall call his name Ishmael, Because the LORD has given heed to your affliction. 12"He will be a wild donkey of a man, His hand will be against everyone, And everyone's hand will be against him; And he will live to the east of all his brothers.""

"As for Ishmael, I have heard you; behold, I will bless him, and will make him fruitful and will multiply him exceedingly. He shall become the father of twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation."

"The your God hath multiplied you, and, behold, ye are this day as the stars of heaven for multitude."

"I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day."

"Remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm."

"Hear, O Israel: The our God is one : And thou shalt love the thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might."

"Ye shall not go after other gods, of the gods of the people which are round about you; (For the thy God is a jealous God among you)."

"And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with Manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might thee know what man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the doth man live."

"If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, And the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them; Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the your God with all your heart and with all your soul."

"If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers; Namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth; Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him: But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people."

"Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn."

"Cursed be he that removeth his neighbour’s landmark."

"In the morning thou shalt say, Would God it were even! and at even thou shalt say, Would God it were morning!"

"The secret things belong unto the our God."

"I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life that both thou and thy seed may live."

"He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye."

"For they are a very froward generation, children in whom is no faith."

"I will heap mischiefs upon them; I will spend mine arrows upon them."

"The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms."

"So Moses the servant of the died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the . And he buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Bethpeor: but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day."

"Deuteronomy prohibits cult prostitution because the Hebrews were adopting the practice from their neighbors."

"Josiah “broke down the houses of the qdeshim, that were in the house of Yahweh, where the women were weaving coverings for the Asherah.” It was during his reign that a book of the Law, thought by most scholars to have been Deuteronomy, was conveniently discovered in the Temple. Although some of the manuscript may have been written earlier, many scholars think it was forged during Josiah’s reign in order to legitimate his reforms. It is in Deuteronomy that the prohibition of cult prostitution appears."

"Among the earliest proponents of the northern-origin theory were A. C. Welch and Albrecht Alt. The latter saw in Deuteronomy a restoration programme drawn up in the northern kingdom some time after the catastrophe of 721 BC, i.e., the destruction of the kingdom by the Assyrians. However, Alt had shed no light on how the book arrived at the Jerusalem temple in Josiah's reign. This is the question that Nicholson wishes to answer in a very interesting monograph. Nicholson's view is that the ancient core of the Deuteronomic traditions was preserved at the major shrine in the North in the period of the judges. 'Behold there is the feast of Yahweh from year to year in Shiloh' (Judges 21.19) may be a reference to an annual covenant festival. Shechem, Gilgal and Bethel were perhaps other such centers of covenant traditions."

"In Deuteronomy 20 and 21, God gives the Israelites a blanket policy for dealing with cities that don’t accept them as overlords: smite the males with the edge of the sword and abduct the cattle, women, and children. Of course, a man with a beautiful new captive faces a problem: since he has just murdered her parents and brothers, she may not be in the mood for love. God anticipates this nuisance and offers the following solution: the captor should shave her head, pare her nails, and imprison her in his house for a month while she cries her eyes out. Then he may go in and rape her. With a designated list of other enemies (Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites), the genocide has to be total: “Thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth: But thou shalt utterly destroy them ... as the Lord thy God has commanded thee.” Joshua puts this directive into practice when he invades Canaan and sacks the city of Jericho. After the walls came tumbling down, his soldiers “utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword.” More earth is scorched as Joshua “smote all the country of the hills, and of the south, and of the vale, and of the springs, and all their kings: he left none remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the Lord God of Israel commanded.”"

"Speak to the Israelites and say to them: "When you bring an offering to the , bring as your offering an animal from either the herd or the flock.""

"You are to lay your hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it will be accepted on your behalf to make atonement for you."

"And he shall kill the bullock before the : and the priests, Aaron's sons, shall bring the blood, and sprinkle the blood round about upon the altar that is by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation."

"You are to skin the burnt offering and cut it into pieces."

"The sons of Aaron the priest are to put fire on the altar and arrange wood on the fire."

"Then Aaron's sons the priests shall arrange the pieces, including the head and the fat, on the wood that is burning on the altar."

"You are to wash the internal organs and the legs with water, and the priest is to burn all of it on the altar. It is a burnt offering, a food offering, an aroma pleasing to the ."

"If the offering is a burnt offering from the flock, from either the sheep or the goats, you are to offer a male without defect."

"You are to slaughter it at the north side of the altar before the , and Aaron’s sons the priests shall splash its blood against the sides of the altar."

"He shall tear it open by the wings, not dividing it completely, and then the priest shall burn it on the wood that is burning on the altar. It is a burnt offering, a food offering, an aroma pleasing to the ."

"The rest of the grain offering belongs to Aaron and his sons; it is a most holy part of the food offerings presented to the ."

"From the fellowship offering you are to bring a food offering to the : the internal organs and all the fat that is connected to them, both kidneys with the fat on them near the loins, and the long lobe of the liver, which you will remove with the kidneys. Then Aaron’s sons are to burn it on the altar on top of the burnt offering that is lying on the burning wood; it is a food offering, an aroma pleasing to the ."

"Then the anointed priest shall take some of the bull’s blood and carry it into the tent of meeting."

"He is to dip his finger into the blood and sprinkle some of it seven times before the , in front of the curtain of the sanctuary."

"And he shall bring his trespass offering unto the for his sin which he hath sinned, a female from the flock, a lamb or a kid of the goats, for a sin offering; and the priest shall make an atonement for him concerning his sin. And if he be not able to bring a lamb, then he shall bring for his trespass, which he hath committed, two turtledoves, or two young pigeons, unto the ; one for a sin offering, and the other for a burnt offering. And he shall bring them unto the priest, who shall offer that which is for the sin offering first, and wring off his head from his neck, but shall not divide it asunder: And he shall sprinkle of the blood of the sin offering upon the side of the altar; and the rest of the blood shall be wrung out at the bottom of the altar: it is a sin offering."

"In this way the priest will make atonement for them before the , and they will be forgiven for any of the things they did that made them guilty."

"The fire must be kept burning on the altar continuously; it must not go out."

"Then he placed the turban on Aaron’s head and set the gold plate, the sacred emblem, on the front of it, as the commanded Moses. Then Moses took the anointing oil and anointed the tabernacle and everything in it, and so consecrated them."

"He poured some of the anointing oil on Aaron's head and anointed him to consecrate him."

"Moses said to Aaron and his remaining sons, Eleazar and Ithamar, "Take the grain offering left over from the food offerings prepared without yeast and presented to the and eat it beside the altar, for it is most holy.""

"And the swine, though he divide the hoof, and be cloven-footed, yet he cheweth not the cud; he is unclean to you."

"Anything living in the water that does not have fins and scales is to be regarded as unclean by you."

"Do not approach a woman to have sexual relations during the uncleanness of her monthly period."

"All flying insects that walk on all fours are to be regarded as unclean by you."

"There are, however, some flying insects that walk on all fours that you may eat: those that have jointed legs for hopping on the ground."

"Of all the animals that walk on all fours, those that walk on their paws are unclean for you; whoever touches their carcasses will be unclean till evening."

"The priest shall then take some of the log of oil, pour it in the palm of his own left hand, dip his right forefinger into the oil in his palm, and with his finger sprinkle some of it before the seven times."

"The said to Moses and Aaron, “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘When any man has an unusual bodily discharge, such a discharge is unclean. Whether it continues flowing from his body or is blocked, it will make him unclean. This is how his discharge will bring about uncleanness: Any bed the man with a discharge lies on will be unclean, and anything he sits on will be unclean. Anyone who touches his bed must wash their clothes and bathe with water, and they will be unclean till evening. Whoever sits on anything that the man with a discharge sat on must wash their clothes and bathe with water, and they will be unclean till evening. Whoever touches the man who has a discharge must wash their clothes and bathe with water, and they will be unclean till evening. If the man with the discharge spits on anyone who is clean, they must wash their clothes and bathe with water, and they will be unclean till evening. Everything the man sits on when riding will be unclean, and whoever touches any of the things that were under him will be unclean till evening; whoever picks up those things must wash their clothes and bathe with water, and they will be unclean till evening. Anyone the man with a discharge touches without rinsing his hands with water must wash their clothes and bathe with water, and they will be unclean till evening. A clay pot that the man touches must be broken, and any wooden article is to be rinsed with water. When a man is cleansed from his discharge, he is to count off seven days for his ceremonial cleansing; he must wash his clothes and bathe himself with fresh water, and he will be clean. On the eighth day he must take two doves or two young pigeons and come before the to the entrance to the tent of meeting and give them to the priest. The priest is to sacrifice them, the one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering. In this way he will make atonement before the for the man because of his discharge."

"When a man has an emission of semen, he must bathe his whole body with water, and he will be unclean till evening. Any clothing or leather that has semen on it must be washed with water, and it will be unclean till evening. When a man has sexual relations with a woman and there is an emission of semen, both of them must bathe with water, and they will be unclean till evening."

"When a woman has her regular flow of blood, the impurity of her monthly period will last seven days, and anyone who touches her will be unclean till evening. Anything she lies on during her period will be unclean, and anything she sits on will be unclean. Anyone who touches her bed will be unclean; they must wash their clothes and bathe with water, and they will be unclean till evening. Anyone who touches anything she sits on will be unclean; they must wash their clothes and bathe with water, and they will be unclean till evening. Whether it is the bed or anything she was sitting on, when anyone touches it, they will be unclean till evening. If a man has sexual relations with her and her monthly flow touches him, he will be unclean for seven days; any bed he lies on will be unclean. When a woman has a discharge of blood for many days at a time other than her monthly period or has a discharge that continues beyond her period, she will be unclean as long as she has the discharge, just as in the days of her period. Any bed she lies on while her discharge continues will be unclean, as is her bed during her monthly period, and anything she sits on will be unclean, as during her period. Anyone who touches them will be unclean; they must wash their clothes and bathe with water, and they will be unclean till evening. When she is cleansed from her discharge, she must count off seven days, and after that she will be ceremonially clean. On the eighth day she must take two doves or two young pigeons and bring them to the priest at the entrance to the tent of meeting. The priest is to sacrifice one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering. In this way he will make atonement for her before the for the uncleanness of her discharge."

"And the spake unto Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron, when they offered before the , and died; and the said unto Moses, Speak unto Aaron thy brother, that he come not at all times into the holy place within the vail before the mercy seat, which is upon the ark; that he die not: for I will appear in the cloud upon the mercy seat."

"But the goat, on which the lot fell to be the scapegoat, shall be presented alive before the , to make an atonement with him, and to let him go for a scapegoat into the wilderness."

"No one is to be in the tent of meeting from the time Aaron goes in to make atonement in the Most Holy Place until he comes out, having made atonement for himself, his household and the whole community of Israel."

"He is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites – all their sins – and put them on the goat's head. He shall send the goat away into the wilderness in the care of someone appointed for the task."

"And this shall be a statute for ever unto you: that in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, ye shall afflict your souls, and do no work at all, whether it be one of your own country, or a stranger that sojourneth among you: For on that day shall the priest make an atonement for you, to cleanse you, that ye may be clean from all your sins before the . It shall be a sabbath of rest unto you, and ye shall afflict your souls, by a statute for ever. And the priest, whom he shall anoint, and whom he shall consecrate to minister in the priest’s office in his father’s stead, shall make the atonement, and shall put on the linen clothes, even the holy garments: And he shall make an atonement for the holy sanctuary, and he shall make an atonement for the tabernacle of the congregation, and for the altar, and he shall make an atonement for the priests, and for all the people of the congregation. And this shall be an everlasting statute unto you, to make an atonement for the children of Israel for all their sins once a year."

"The life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one's life."

"Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination. Neither shalt thou lie with any beast to defile thyself therewith: neither shall any woman stand before a beast to lie down thereto: it is confusion."

"Even the land was defiled; so I punished it for its sin, and the land vomited out its inhabitants."

"Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself."

"Keep my decrees. Do not mate different kinds of animals. Do not plant your field with two kinds of seed. Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material."

"If a man sleeps with a female slave who is promised to another man but who has not been ransomed or given her freedom, there must be due punishment. Yet they are not to be put to death, because she had not been freed."

"The man, however, must bring a ram to the entrance to the tent of meeting for a guilt offering to the ."

"Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves."

"The stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt."

"If a man commits adultery with another man's wife – with the wife of his neighbor – both the adulterer and the adulteress are to be put to death."

"If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads"

"If a man marries his brother’s wife, it is an act of impurity; he has dishonored his brother. They will be childless."

"Keep all my decrees and laws and follow them, so that the land where I am bringing you to live may not vomit you out."

"He may eat the most holy food of his God, as well as the holy food."

"You may, however, present as a freewill offering an ox[a] or a sheep that is deformed or stunted, but it will not be accepted in fulfillment of a vow."

"Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. You can bequeath them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly."

"If in spite of this you still do not listen to me but continue to be hostile toward me, then in my anger I will be hostile toward you, and I myself will punish you for your sins seven times over. You will eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters. I will destroy your high places, cut down your incense altars and pile your dead bodies on the lifeless forms of your idols, and I will abhor you."

"A tithe of everything from the land, whether grain from the soil or fruit from the trees, belongs to the ; it is holy to the ."

"Anal intercourse between men (Isur Mishkav Zachar) is what is forbidden in the Torah, and not the homosexual orientation."

"The Israelites assemble at Mount Sinai and hear the Ten Commandments, the great moral code that outlaws engraved images and the coveting of livestock but gives a pass to slavery, rape, torture, mutilation, and genocide of neighboring tribes. The Israelites become impatient while waiting for Moses to return with an expanded set of laws, which will prescribe the [death penalty for blasphemy, homosexuality, adultery, talking back to parents, and working on the Sabbath. To pass the time, they worship a statue of a calf, for which the punishment turns out to be, you guessed it, death. Following orders from God, Moses and his brother Aaron kill three thousand of their companions. God then spends seven chapters of Leviticus instructing the Israelites on how to slaughter the steady stream of animals he demands of them. Aaron and his two sons prepare the tabernacle for the first service, but the sons slip up and use the wrong incense. So God burns them to death."

"Returning to the Levitical list of sexual taboos, curiously missing from the list is any mention of masturbation."

"Though all the nations that are under the king's dominin obey him, and fall away every one from the religion of their fathers, and give consent to his commandments: Yet will I and my sons and my brethren walk in the covenant of our fathers. God forbid that we should forsake the law and the ordinances. We will not harken to the king's words, to go from our religion, either on the right hand, or on the left."

"The Torah is the method of achieving hope—in effect it embodies the principles and pathways that sustain hope."

"The origins of Rabbinic literature go at least as far back as the second century BCE. Some of the books Misrash of Rabbinic interpretations of the Bible, or misrash although based on materials dating earlier than the sixth century CE, were not committed to writing and edited together until the eleventh or twelfth century CE. The scholars of the Bible from the time of Ezra on are first called “scribes,” because their first job was to make copies of the Torah. They are then called “sages” (‘’hakhamim’’), because in copying the Torah they came to know it and to interpret and apply it. The title “rabbi”, meaning master and teacher of the tradition, appears in the first century CE. The title persists to this day, but it is the classical Rabbis of the second century BCE through the sixth century CE to whose words we refer when we speak of Rabbinic literature."

"That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation."

"The Pharisees have delivered to the people a great many observances by succession from their fathers which are not written in the law of Moses; and for that reason it is that the Sadducees reject them, and say that we are to esteem those observances to be obligatory which are in the Written Word, but are not to observe what are derived from the tradition of our forefathers."

"The entire oral law in the wider sense, namely, the entire material of the Mishnah, the Tosefta, and the halakic midrashim, was preserved only orally, and was not reduced to writing until the beginning of the third century C.E., because there was a prejudice against recording halakot. The origin of this objection is unknown. There has never been any formal interdiction against recording halakot, nor are there any references to any date of such a prohibition or to any person who issued one. Even the two Talmudic passages which allude to the custom of not recording halakot do not mention a formal interdiction. One of these passages, the comment of Judah b. Naḥmani, "What has been said orally thou mayest not say in writing, and vice versa" (Giṭ. 60b and parallel passages), is merely a haggadic explanation of the prevailing custom. If this interpretation had been taken literally, the Prophets would not have been allowed to commit their prophecies to writing (comp. Weiss, "Dor," i. 92 et seq.). The second passage, which is by R. Johanan and reads as follows: "He who records halakot is like him who burns the Torah; and whosoever studies these written collections has no reward" (Tem. 14b), is merely a reproof directed against those who make such compilations for public use. As the Mishnah had been committed to writing by the time of R. Johanan (199-279), there could be no question of a prohibition against recording halakot."

"Every Israelite has a duty to study whether he is poor or rich, whether healthy or suffering, whether young or very old and in failing strength, even if he is poor and supported by charity or begs from door to door."

"For how long is it a duty to study the Law? To the day of death."

"An artisan busies himself with his work for three hours each day and spends nine hours in study."

"I do not care if they insult me or Aaron, but I insist that the insult of the Torah be avenged. 'If these men die the common death of all men,' I shall myself become a disbeliever and declare the Torah was not given by God."

"&#91;A Jew&#93; should make Torah his principal occupation and his work his casual one. He should minimize his business pursuits and occupy himself with Torah. And he should remove fleeting pleasures from his heart, and work each day enough to maintain himself. ... The rest of the day and night, he should occupy himself with Torah."

"A learned mamzer takes precedence over an ignorant High Priest."

"Had they observed Torah and Gospel and what is revealed to them from their Lord, they would certainly have been rewarded from above and from beneath their feet. Among them are people who are keeping to the moderate course; but evil is what most of them do!"

"Make the study of the Torah your chief occupation; speak little, but accomplish much; and receive every man with a friendly countenance."

"I hardly remember reading the Torah in school. On the rare occasion we did, it was always as a series of mythical stories: a plotline with characters, good and evil, who behave all the time like the rest of us, trying to find meaning in life when none is available. Years later, when I was already an adult, I remember feeling struck by the religious emphasis in just about every episode. How could I have missed it? My gut feeling is that our teachers were ambivalent about it, too. They liked storytelling, and that's what they stressed. Today I'm grateful to them for introducing me to the Bible not as a Halakhic (legal) manual but as a depository of collective memory. For that reason, my relationship with it isn't tyrannical."

"The Oral Law is a legal commentary on the Torah, explaining how its commandments are to be carried out. Common sense suggests that some sort of oral tradition was always needed to accompany the Written Law, because the Torah alone, even with its 613 commandments, is an insufficient guide to Jewish life. For example, the fourth of the Ten Commandments, ordains, "Remember the Sabbath day to make it holy" (Exodus 20:8). From the Sabbath's inclusion in the Ten Commandments, it is clear that the Torah regards it as an important holiday. Yet when one looks for the specific biblical laws regulating how to observe the day, one finds only injunctions against lighting a fire, going away from one's dwelling, cutting down a tree, plowing and harvesting. Would merely refraining from these few activities fulfill the biblical command to make the Sabbath holy? Indeed, the Sabbath rituals that are most commonly associated with holiness-lighting of candles, reciting the kiddush, and the reading of the weekly Torah portion are found not in the Torah, but in the Oral Law. Without an oral tradition, some of the Torah's laws would be incomprehensible. In the Shema's first paragraph, the Bible instructs: "And these words which I command you this day shall be upon your heart. And you shall teach them diligently to your children, and you shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk on the road, when you lie down and when you rise up. And you shall bind them for a sign upon your hand, and they shall be for frontlets between your eyes." "Bind them for a sign upon your hand," the last verse instructs. Bind what? The Torah doesn't say. "And they shall be for frontlets between your eyes." What are frontlets? The Hebrew word for frontlets, totafot is used three times in the Torah — always in this context (Exodus 13:16; Deuteronomy 6:8, 11:18) — and is as obscure as is the English. Only in the Oral Law do we learn that what a Jewish male should bind upon his hand and between his eyes are tefillin ( phylacteries)."

"When the Sages went to Yavneh they said: The time will come that a man will seek a matter in the Torah but will not find it. He will seek a matter from the Scribes but will not find it. … They said: Let us begin [to record] with Hillel and Shammai."

"A man of valor is one who is mighty of heart with perfect trust to perform mitzvot at all times and to meditate upon the Torah day and night, even though there is no food or clothing in his house, and his children and the members of his household cry out to him: Provide us with our support and maintenance. And he does not heed them at all, or listen to their cries."

"Wilt Thou indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Peradventure there are fifty righteous within the city; wilt Thou indeed sweep away and not forgive the place for the fifty righteous that are therein? That be far from Thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked, that so the righteous should be as the wicked; that be far from Thee; shall not the Judge of all the earth do justly? … Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the LORD, who am but dust and ashes. Peradventure there shall lack five of the fifty righteous; wilt Thou destroy all the city for lack of five? … Oh, let not the LORD be angry, and I will speak yet but this once. Peradventure ten shall be found there?"

"God tells us men fucking men is a terrible thing, but a father offering his two daughters, vestal virgins no less, to a horde of horny buggers is heroic. Now that's straight. … God destroys the faggots with fire and brimstone. He turns a disobedient wife into salt. But he asks us to idolize drunks who sleep with their daughters or offer them to a horny, unruly mob."

"As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, your sister Sodom and her daughters never did what you and your daughters have done. Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen."

"But before they lay down, the men of the city, [even] the men of Sodom, compassed the house round, both old and young, all the people from every quarter:"

"And among the prophets of Jerusalem I have seen something horrible: They commit adultery and live a lie. They strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that no one turns from his wickedness. They are all like Sodom to me; the people of Jerusalem are like Gomorrah."

"The bible never links the story of Sodom with homosexuality. To use the Sodom story as evidence that the Bible condemns homosexuality is totally inaccurate. It is an anachronism, projecting later Church interpretation onto the biblical text, which is essentially about hospitality… Even if the story were about lust, it is about rape, not homosexuality. The Sodomites were not “gay”. They were rapists. This is why Lot could offer his daughters in replacement, why the Judges version of the tale actually has a female substitute, and why those few Biblical references to Sodom as being sexually-related speak in general terms rather than specific ones."

"About this time the Sodomites grew proud, on account of their riches and great wealth; they became unjust towards men, and impious towards God, in so much that they did not call to mind the advantages they received from him: they hated strangers, and abused themselves with Sodomitical practices” "Now when the Sodomites saw the young men to be of beautiful countenances, and this to an extraordinary degree, and that they took up their lodgings with Lot, they resolved themselves to enjoy these beautiful boys by force and violence; and when Lot exhorted them to sobriety, and not to offer any thing immodest to the strangers, but to have regard to their lodging in his house; and promised that if their inclinations could not be governed, he would expose his daughters to their lust, instead of these strangers; neither thus were they made ashamed."

"Elizabeth: Some men dream of money, some men dream of love. My father dreamt of a flood of fire. We were given Eden, and we turned it into Sodom."

"Elizabeth: I am here to finish my father's work. As he baptized me with water, I shall baptize the Sodom Below with fire...and prepare for the coming of the Lord."

"Your children who follow you in later generations and foreigners who come from distant lands will see the calamities that have fallen on the land and the diseases with which the LORD has afflicted it. The whole land will be a burning waste of salt and sulfur—nothing planted, nothing sprouting, no vegetation growing on it. It will be like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboyim, which the LORD overthrew in fierce anger."

"As men, being unable to bear discreetly a satiety of these things, get restive like cattle, and become stiff-necked, and discard the laws of nature, pursuing a great and intemperate indulgence of gluttony, and drinking, and unlawful connections; for not only did they go mad after other women, and defile the marriage bed of others, but also those who were men lusted after one another, doing unseemly things, and not regarding or respecting their common nature, and though eager for children, they were convicted by having only an abortive offspring; but the conviction produced no advantage, since they were overcome by violent desire; and so by degrees, the men became accustomed to be treated like women, and in this way engendered among themselves the disease of females, and intolerable evil; for they not only, as to effeminacy and delicacy, became like women in their persons, but they also made their souls most ignoble, corrupting in this way the whole race of men, as far as depended on them"

"The old man … received the Sabbath with sweet song and chanted the hallowing tunefully over raisin wine; while it was still day he hallowed and the sun came to gaze at his glass. … The table was well spread with all manner of fruit, beans, greenstuffs and good pies, plum water tasting like wine, but of flesh and of fish there was never a sign. … in truth it is in no way obligatory to eat flesh and fish … He and she, meaning the old man and the old woman, had never tasted flesh since growing to maturity."

"There is a strong wave of Jewish vegetarians and there is a pretty large movement, if you’re in a progressive synagogue and an environmental-friendly community, to only serve vegetarian. That’s happening more and more. You know in the Old Testament Adam and Eve are vegetarians, and in Judaism there is a strong indication that we are responsible for each other and for our planet. So some of us also make the choice to be vegan as an environmental statement. … We have a tradition that goes back thousands of years about how to treat animals as best we can. Factory farming didn’t exist thousands of years ago, much less a hundred years ago. So I think it’s very interesting that as archaic as some people think traditional Judaism is, we are still trying to stay current with what is going on."

"In the perfect world originally designed by God, man was meant to be a vegetarian."

"Eating kosher meat is a sort of compromise…. Ideally people should not eat meat, because to obtain it, an animal must be put to death."

"Vegetarianism: a kashrut for our age."

"We Jews in this century have been victims of destruction and mass slaughter on an unprecedented scale. We have seen every norm of humanity violated as we were treated like cattle rather than human beings. Our response to this memory is surely a complex and multitextured one. But as we overcome the understandable first reactions to the events, some of us feel our abhorrence of violence and bloodshed growing so strong that it reaches even beyond the borders of the human and into the animal kingdom. We Jews, who always looked upon killing for sport or pleasure as something alien and repulsive, should now, out of our own experience, be reaching the point where we find even the slaughter of animals for food morally beyond the range of the acceptable. If Jews have to be associated with killing at all in our time, let it be only for the defense of human life. Life has become too precious in this era for us to be involved in the shedding of blood, even that of animals, when we can survive without it. This is not an ascetic choice, we should note, but rather a life-affirming one. A vegetarian Judaism would be more whole in its ability to embrace the presence of God in all of Creation."

"Man's carnivorous nature is not taken for granted, or praised in the fundamental teachings of Judaism. The rabbis of the told that men were vegetarians in earliest times, between Creation and the generation of Noah. In the twelfth century Maimonides, the greatest of all rabbinic scholars, explained that animal sacrifices had been instituted in ancient Judaism as a concession to the prevalent ancient practice of making such offerings to the pagan gods ( 111:32). The implication is clear, that Judaism was engaged in weaning men from such practices. Judaism as a religion offers the option of eating animal flesh, and most Jews do, but in our own country there has been a movement towards vegetarianism among very pious Jews. A whole galaxy of central rabbinic and spiritual teachers including several past and present Chief Rabbis of the Holy Land, have been affirming vegetarianism as the ultimate meaning of Jewish moral teaching. They have been proclaiming the autonomy of all living creatures as the value which our religious tradition must now teach to all of its believers."

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

"One should eat meat only if one has a special craving for it, and even then occasionally and sparingly."

"Central to Jewish mysticism is the role that vegetarianism plays in messianic expectations: here vegetarianism functions in the concept of Jewish mystical time which chronicles human development from the vegetarian state in the Garden of Eden to the Messianic age when it is believed we will be vegetarians again. … in Judaism the laws governing responsibility to animals derive from the animal's place in the divine economy, assured by the covenantal statements, by the Jewish view of creation, and the Jewish view of a just and compassionate Creator. The stress of these laws with respect to the Jew is summed up in the question: How should the righteous (just) Jew behave toward animals, and the answer lies in the concept of the “imitatio Dei.” The just and merciful human behaves toward animals as a just and merciful Creator behaves toward humans."

"The free movement of the moral impulse to establish justice for animals generally and the claim of their rights from mankind are hidden in a natural psychic sensibility in the deeper layers of the . In the ancient value system of humanity … the moral sense had risen to a point of demanding justice for animals. … Just as the democratic aspiration will reach outward through the general intellectual and moral perfection … so will the hidden yearning to act justly towards animals emerge at the proper time. What prepares the ground for this state is the commandments, those intended specifically for this area of concern. There is indeed a hidden reprimand between the lines of the Torah in the sanction to eat meat."

"The mixing of meat and milk is a grave offense, an act that is pervaded altogether with the oppression of life, an oppression of a living being—and of property. Milk, which serves so naturally to feed the tender child, that he might enjoy the mother's breast, was not created so as to stuff with it the stomach, when you are so hard and cruel as to eat meat. The tender child has a prior and more natural right than you."

"With the possible exception of sex, there is no more basic human activity than eating, rendering it an appropriate candidate for Jewish rituals designed to maintain our focus on Godliness. The table is seen as an altar, and the concern with Kashrut extends to removing knives, instruments of war, from the table during the Birkat HaMazon (blessing after the meal). Tsaar baalei khayim, the concern for the pain of all living things and the reverence for life, is another essential aspect of kashrut. Vegetarianism is clearly the Torah's ideal; the is a vegetarian society."

"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."

"What was the necessity for the entire procedure of ritual slaughter? For the sake of self discipline. It is far more appropriate for man not to eat meat; only if he has a strong desire for meat does the Torah permit it, and even this only after the trouble and inconvenience necessary to satisfy his desire. Perhaps because of the bother and annoyance of the whole procedure, he will be restrained from such a strong and uncontrollable desire for meat."

"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."

"We must clearly advocate dietary practices that are truly in consonance with the sublimest values of the Torah, and today more than ever before these are overwhelmingly incompatible with carnivorous indulgence."

"The first man had not been allowed to eat meat."

"One respectful question will be addressed to Jews who plan to continue to eat meat: In view of strong Jewish mandates to be compassionate to animals, preserve our health, help feed the hungry, preserve and protect the environment, conserve resources, and seek and pursue peace, and the very negative effects animal-centered diets have in each of these areas, will you now become a vegetarian, or at least sharply reduce your consumption of animal products?"

"My own view is that a vegetarian diet may in fact hasten the coming of Moshiach (the Messiah). The more we live as if this were the messianic age the closer we are to it."

"When a human kills an animal for food, he is neglecting his own hunger for justice. Man prays for mercy, but is unwilling to extend it to others. Why should man then expect mercy from God? It's unfair to expect something that you are not willing to give."

"There is a distinct reluctance, almost an unwillingness, on the part of Torah to grant man the privilege to consume meat. Man as an animal-eater is looked at askance by the Torah. There are definitive vegetarian tendencies in the Bible."

"Animal hunters and flesh-eaters are people that lust. Of course it is legalized, approved. Yet it is classified Num. 11:34] as ta'avah, lust, repulsive and brutish."

"And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him."

"This Enoch, whose flesh was turned to flame, his veins to fire, his eye-lashes to flashes of lightning, his eye-balls to flaming torches, and whom God placed on a throne next to the throne of glory, received after this heavenly transformation the name Metatron."

"The Talmud states, it was proved to Elisha that Metatron could not be a second deity by the fact that Metatron received 60 "strokes with fiery rods" to demonstrate that Metatron was not a god, but an angel, and could be punished."

"Everyone is Jewish, it’s just that not everyone has admitted it yet."

"Why did G-d exile the Jewish people? To make converts of the world."

"יברכך יהוה וישמרך יאר יהוה פניו אליך ויחנך ישא יהוה פניו אליך וישם לך שלום ושמו את שמי על בני ישראל ואני אברכם"

"The LORD bless thee, and keep thee; the Lord make His face to shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee; the Lord lift up His countenance upon thee, and give thee peace."

"וידבר יהוה אל משה במדבר סיני בשנה השנית לצאתם מארץ מצרים בחדש הראשון לאמר ויעשו בני ישראל את הפסח במועדו בארבעה עשר יום בחדש הזה בין הערבים תעשו אתו במעדו ככל חקתיו וככל משפטיו תעשו אתו"

"וכי יגור אתכם גר ועשה פסח ליהוה כחקת הפסח וכמשפטו כן יעשה חקה אחת יהיה לכם ולגר ולאזרח הארץ"

"And if a stranger dwells among you, and would keep the LORD's Passover, he must do so according to the rite of the Passover and according to its ceremony; you shall have one ordinance, both for the stranger and the native of the land."

"ושם ראינו את הנפילים בני ענק מן הנפלים ונהי בעינינו כחגבים וכן היינו בעיניהם"

"ויעש משה נחש נחשת וישמהו על הנס והיה אם נשך הנחש את איש והביט אל נחש הנחשת וחי"

"ויפתח יהוה את פי האתון ותאמר לבלעם מה עשיתי לך כי הכיתני זה שלש רגלים"

"לא איש אל ויכזב ובן אדם ויתנחם ההוא אמר ולא יעשה ודבר ולא יקימנה"

"כי לא נחש ביעקב ולא קסם בישראל כעת יאמר ליעקב ולישראל מה פעל אל"

"וְנִסְכּוֹ֙ רְבִיעִ֣ת הַהִ֔ין לַכֶּ֖בֶשׂ הָאֶחָ֑ד בַּקֹּ֗דֶשׁ הַסֵּ֛ךְ נֶ֥סֶךְ שֵׁכָ֖ר לַיהוָֽה׃"

"ואם לא תעשון כן הנה חטאתם ליהוה ודעו חטאתכם אשר תמצא אתכם"

"Chesed is a covenantal love, a profound and committed and long-term love, a kind love—but not a romantic love. Among people, it can take the form of charity; from God to human, chesed has qualities of mercy, of grace, and of long-suffering. This kind of love so confounded Miles Coverdale, a sixteenth-century Bible translator in England, that as he worked to translate the Hebrew Scriptures into English, he felt compelled to coin a new word to describe it: loving-kindness."

"God is described over two hundred times in the Old Testament as being "hesed/chesed," a quality God also desires from us: "For I delight in loyalty &lbrack;hesed&rbrack; rather than sacrifice" (Hosea 6:6). The Hebrew word hesed is translated as "devoted," "faithful," and "unchanging love.""

"The Zealots ... want to initiate a holy war and to establish within a human framework a Kingdom of God which is an earthly kingdom and which at the same time takes the place of the Roman Empire. Jesus sees that use of this method places one on exactly the same plane as every other totalitarian State. This is also an abandonment of the New Testament expectation of a kingdom which is really God's, and not a human kingdom. If the Zealots succeed in realising their ideal, it will be a totalitarian State of the most extreme form; one making divine claims."

"I cannot live with God and with men. The thousands and ten thousands of the heavenly hosts have but one will, while men have many. So I cannot leave God to be with men."

"O Glorious Archangel St. Michael, Prince of the heavenly host, be our defense in the terrible warfare which we carry on against principalities and Powers, against the rulers of this world of darkness, spirits of evil."

"And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it his brethren: and they hated him yet the more. And he said unto them, Hear, I pray you, this dream which I have dreamed: For, behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and, lo, my sheaf arose, and also stood upright; and, behold, your sheaves stood round about, and made obeisance to my sheaf."

"And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and, behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me. And he told it to his father, and to his brethren: and his father rebuked him, and said unto him, What is this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth?"

"And he left all that he had in Joseph's hand; and, having him, he knew not aught save the bread which he did eat. And Joseph was of beautiful form, and fair to look upon. And it came to pass after these things, that his master's wife cast her eyes upon Joseph; and she said: 'Lie with me.' But he refused, and said unto his master's wife: 'Behold, my master, having me, knoweth not what is in the house, and he hath put all that he hath into my hand; he is not greater in this house than I; neither hath he kept back any thing from me but thee, because thou art his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?' And it came to pass, as she spoke to Joseph day by day, that he hearkened not unto her, to lie by her, or to be with her. And it came to pass on a certain day, when he went into the house to do his work, and there was none of the men of the house there within, that she caught him by his garment, saying: 'Lie with me.' And he left his garment in her hand, and fled, and got him out. [...] And she laid up his garment by her, until his master came home. And she spoke unto him according to these words, saying: 'The Hebrew servant, whom thou hast brought unto us, came in unto me to mock me. And it came to pass, as I lifted up my voice and cried, that he left his garment by me, and fled out.' And it came to pass, when his master heard the words of his wife, which she spoke unto him, saying: 'After this manner did thy servant to me'; that his wrath was kindled. And Joseph's master took him, and put him into the prison, the place where the king's prisoners were bound; and he was there in the prison."

"When Joseph said to his father: O my father, I saw eleven stars and the sun and the moon -- I saw them making obeisance to me. He said: O my son, relate not thy dream to thy brethren, lest they devise a plan against thee. The devil indeed is an open enemy to man."

"The whole course of the son's life is but a repetition of the father's. As the mother of Jacob remained childless for a long time after her marriage, so also the mother of Joseph. As Rebekah had undergone severe suffering in giving birth to Jacob, so Rachel in giving birth to Joseph. As Jacob's mother bore two sons, so also Joseph's mother. Like Jacob, Joseph was born circumcised. As the father was a shepherd, so the son. As the father served for the sake of a woman, so the son served under a woman. Like the father, the son appropriated his older brother's birthright. The father was hated by his brother, and the son was hated by his brethren. The father was the favorite son as compared with his brother, so was the son as compared with his brethren. Both the father and the son lived in the land of the stranger. The father became a servant to a master, also the son. The master whom the father served was blessed by God, so was the master whom the son served. The father and the son were both accompanied by angels, and both married their wives outside of the Holy Land. The father and the son were both blessed with wealth. Great things were announced to the father in a dream, so also to the son. As the father went to Egypt and put an end to famine, so the son. As the father exacted the promise from his sons to bury him in the Holy Land, so also the son. The father died in Egypt, there died also the son. The body of the father was embalmed, also the body of the son. As the father's remains were carried to the Holy Land for interment, so also the remains of the son. Jacob the father provided for the sustenance of his son Joseph during a period of seventeen years, so Joseph the son provided for his father Jacob during a period of seventeen years."

"Zuleika saying, "If it be thy wish that I forsake idol worship, then fulfil my desire, and I will persuade that Egyptian husband of mine to abjure the idols, and we shall walk in the law of thy God." Joseph replied, "The Lord desireth not that those who fear Him shall walk in impurity, nor hath He pleasure in the adulterer.""

"Another time she came to him, and said, "If thou wilt not do my desire, I will murder the Egyptian and wed with thee according to the law." Whereat Joseph rent his garment, and he said, "O woman, fear the Lord, and do not execute this evil deed, that thou mayest not bring destruction down upon thyself, for I will proclaim thy impious purposes to all in public.""

"His mistress, or, as she was called, Zuleika, pursued him day after day with her amorous talk and her flattery, saying: "How fair is thy appearance, how comely thy form! Never have I seen so well-favored a slave as thou art." Joseph would reply: "God, who formed me in my mother's womb, hath created all men." Zuleika: "How beautiful are thine eyes, with which thou hast charmed all Egyptians, both men and women!" Joseph: "Beautiful as they may be while I am alive, so ghastly they will be to look upon in the grave." Zuleika: "How lovely and pleasant are thy words! I pray thee, take thy harp, play and also sing, that I may hear thy words." Joseph: "Lovely and pleasant are my words when I proclaim the praise of my God.""

"She would say, "I will bring false accusations against thee before thy master," and Joseph would reply, "The Lord executeth judgment for the oppressed." Or, "I will deprive thee of food;" whereupon Joseph, "The Lord giveth food to the hungry." Or, "I will have thee thrown into prison;" whereupon Joseph, "The Lord looseth the prisoners." Or, "I will put heavy labor upon thee that will bend thee double;" whereupon Joseph, "The Lord raiseth up them that are bowed down." Or, "I will blind thine eyes;" whereupon Joseph, "The Lord openeth the eyes of the blind.""

"Joseph said: "Though thou coverest up the eyes of the idol, remember, the eyes of the Lord run to and fro through the whole earth. Yes," continued Joseph, "I have many reasons not to do this thing for the sake of God. Adam was banished from Paradise on account of violating a light command; how much more should I have to fear the punishment of God, were I to commit so grave a sin as adultery! The Lord is in the habit of choosing a favorite member of our family as a sacrifice unto Himself. Perhaps He desireth to make choice of me, but if I do thy will, I make myself unfit to be a sacrifice unto God. Also the Lord is in the habit of appearing suddenly, in visions of the night, unto those that love Him. Thus did He appear unto Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I fear that He may appear unto me at the very moment while I am defiling myself with thee. And as I fear God, so I fear my father, who withdrew the birthright from his first-born son Reuben, on account of an immoral act, and gave it to me. Were I to fulfil thy desire, I would share the fate of my brother Reuben.""

"she said to Joseph: "Why dost thou refuse to fulfil my wish? Am I not a married woman? None will find out what thou hast done." Joseph replied: "If the unmarried women of the heathen are prohibited unto us, how much more their married women? As the Lord liveth, I will not commit the crime thou biddest me do.""

"When he was on the point of complying with the wish of his mistress, the image of his mother Rachel appeared before him, and that of his aunt Leah, and the image of his father Jacob. The last addressed him thus: "In time to come the names of thy brethren will be graven upon the breastplate of the high priest. Dost thou desire to have thy name appear with theirs? Or wilt thou forfeit this honor through sinful conduct? For know, he that keepeth company with harlots wasteth his substance." Astonished at the swift change in his countenance, Zuleika said, "My friend and true-love, why art thou so affrighted that thou art near to swooning? Joseph: "I see my father!" Zuleika: "Where is he? Why, there is none in the house." Joseph: "Thou belongest to a people that is like unto the ass, it perceiveth nothing. But I belong to those who can see things.""

"By way of punishment for having traduced his ten brethren before his father, Joseph had to languish for ten years in the prison to which the wiles of traducers had in turn condemned him. But, on the other hand, as he had sanctified the Name of God before the world by his chastity and his steadfastness, he was rewarded. The letter He, which occurs twice in the Name of God, was added to his name. He had been called Joseph, but now he was called also Jehoseph."

"This and that outrage have I executed against thee, but, as thou livest, I will put yet other outrages upon thee if thou dost not obey me." But Joseph replied, "The Lord executeth judgment for the oppressed." Zuleika: "I will push matters so far that all men will hate thee." Joseph: "The Lord loveth the righteous." Zuleika: "I will sell thee into a strange land." Joseph: "The Lord preserveth the strangers."

"Then she would resort to enticements in order to obtain her desire. She would promise to release him from prison, if he would but grant her wish. But he would say, "Better it is to remain here than be with thee and commit a trespass against God.""

"And she [ Rachel ] conceived, and bare a son; and said, God hath taken away my reproach: And she called his name Joseph; and said, The LORD shall add to me another son."

"Some people asked the Prophet: "Who is the most honorable amongst the people?" He replied, "The most honorable among them is the one who is the most Allah-fearing." They said, "O Prophet of Allah! We do not ask about this." He said, "Then the most honorable person is Yusuf, Nabiyyullah (Arabic: نَـبِيُّ الله‎, Prophet of Allah), the son of a Nabiyyillah, the son of a Nabiyyillah, the son of Khalilillah (Arabic: خَـلـيـلِ الله‎, "Friend of Allah").""

"For we are strangers before thee, and sojourners, as were all our fathers: our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding."

"And he died in a good old age, full of days, riches, and honour: and Solomon his son reigned in his stead."

"And king Solomon gave to the queen of Sheba all her desire, whatsoever she asked, beside that which she had brought unto the king."

"For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him. Herein thou hast done foolishly: therefore from henceforth thou shalt have wars."

"Be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of this great multitude; for the battle is not yours, but God's."

"Their Hindoo complexion, and their very imperfect resemblance to the European Jews, indicate that they have been detached from the parent stock, in Judea, many ages before the Jews in the west, and that there have been intermarriages with families not Israelitish. — I had heard that those tribes, which had passed the Indus, had assimilated so much to the customs and habits of the countries in which they live, that they sometimes may be seen by a traveller without being recognised as Jews. In the interior towns of Malabar, I was not always able to distinguish the Jew from the Hindoo. I hence perceived how easy it may be to mistake the tribes of Jewish descent among the Afghans and other nations, in the northern parts of Hindostan. The white Jews look upon the black Jews as an inferior race, and as not of pure caste, which plainly demonstrates that they do not spring from a common stock in India."

"Who is not curious as to how the Jews of India survived for so long in an atmosphere of tolerance when other Jewish communities such as that in China, benefiting from similar toleration, assimilated so thoroughly. Their argument is that India as a host society combined tolerance with culturally enforced diversity which made the difference. Indian society, with its several major religions and further division within Hinduism into four major castes, a fifth of outcasts, and over 3,000 subcastes, tolerates wide diversity but does not permit people born into one group to cross over into another or even to associate with the others beyond the public square, since the food taboos of every religious community, caste and subcaste mean that they cannot eat with one another. Nothing separates more than that. The Jewish community could fit into India as another caste and even developed its own subcastes, as the authors explain, properly denoting this as the Cochin Jews' one great (and sad) departure from halakhic Judaism."

"Jews navigated the eddies and shoals of Indian culture very well. They never experienced anti-Semitism or discrimination."

"Indians Jews lived as all Jews should have been allowed to live: free, proud, observant, creative and prosperous, self-realized, full contributors to the host country."

"Hail Prosperity! This is the gift that His majesty, King of Kings, Sri Bhaskara Ravi Varman, who is to wield sceptre for several thousand years, was pleased to make during the thirty sixth year opposite to the second year of his reign [according to Narayanan, 1000 C.E.], on the day when he was pleased to reside at Muyirkkode. We have granted to Joseph Rabban, Ancuvannam, tolls by the boat and by carts, Ancuvannam dues, the right to employ day lamp, decorative cloth, palanquin, umbrella, kettledrum, trumpet, arch, arched roof, weapon and the rest of the seventy-two privileges. We have remitted duty and weighing fee. Moreover, according to this copper-plate grant given to him, he shall be exempted from payments made by other settlers in the town to the king, but he shall enjoy what they enjoy. To Joseph Rabban, proprietor of Ancuvannam, his male and female issues, nephews and sons-in-law, Ancuvannam shall belong by hereditary succession. Ancuvannam shall belong to them by hereditary succession as long as the world, sun and moon endure. Prosperity!"

"The question is all the more poignant when we consider that the idea of a Jewish-Brahmin connection was already quite ancient. In his plea Contra Apionem (1.179) the Jewish-Roman historian Flavius Josephus quotes Aristotle’s pupil Clearchos of Soli as having claimed that Aristotle had been very impressed once with the discourses of a Jewish visitor, and more so with the steadfastness of his dietary discipline, and had concluded that in origin the Jews had been Indian philosophers. A similar claim is found in the Hellenistic-Jewish philosopher Aristoboulos. So, two millennia before Nietzsche, an Indian origin was already ascribed to the Jews."

"As far as I have been able to discover these differences are usually caused by the Black Jews constantly pressing for equality with the White Jews. The latter would not allow this, because they did not look upon the Black Jews as original Jews, but considered the majority of them to be either the issue of their released slaves, or of the natives of Malabar, who had been proselytes. It is related that the Black Jews always wanted to mix with the white by intermarrying; also that instead of behaving humbly towards the whites, they laid themselves out to be discourteous in greetings and salutations in the street; also that they were so bold as to take the first places in the synagogues, at public meetings and on other occasions; so that they always aimed, if not at superiority, at least at equality."

"Some very intelligent thinkers say that the brahmin sect is incontestably older that that of the Jews . . . they say that the Indians were always inventors and the Jews always imitators, the Indians always clever and the Jews always coarse."

"Did they get this from the Jews? Did the Jews copy the Indians, were both original? The Jews are not allowed to think that their writers took (ont puisé) anything from the brahmins, of whom they have never heard. It is not permitted to think about Adam in another way than do the Jews. I will be quiet and I will not think."

"But only in the early Islamic caliphate the Jews began to develop an important ‘trade diaspora’, and it was only then that the an­cient Jewish communities in India succeeded in re-establishing links with the Middle East and emerged from obscurity. We will also see that the fate of most Jewish communities in India remained intimately linked to that of the Middle-Eastern Jews and that their fortune followed the political vicissitudes of Islam. The eighth to twelfth centuries, in sum­mary, were the palmy age of the Jews in India, but Jewish success in India was dependent on the presence of Jews in the Islamic Middle East and Egypt and hence did not survive the latter’s migration to Europe."

"Other historical factors which affected the position of the Jews in Islam were the revival of Greek learning and especially the development of the India trade. The new Jewish prominence in medicine and phar­macy was probably due to their deep involvement in both the transmis­sion of Greek science and the trade with India and the Far East simulta­neously.77 In the ninth-century Abbasid caliphate, as we have seen, the India trade became the foundation of the international economy, con­tributing also to a tremendous upsurge of internal commerce and, sub­sequently, the shift towards a unified bi-metallic currency system which encompassed the eastern and western caliphates. At this point, the cen­tral and hegemonic position of the Babylonian Jewry gave them a head­ start not only in the long-distace trade with India but in the organization of finance and also state finance generally.... The great Jewish banking houses of Baghdad also financed the Jewish radhanlya trade which extended - both overland and by sea - from Western Europe to the Middle East and to Sind and Hind and China."

"Fatimid Egypt (with North Africa) by the tenth century took over an important part of the India trade from their rivals in Iraq. The result was a vast migration of Jews to Cairo. When Baghdad declined and the Abbasids began to lose more and more power in the east and in the west, from the late tenth century and especially after the Seljuq invasion and the beginning of the Cru­sades (1096), an even larger portion of the India trade was redirected to Egypt. In Egypt the Jews again obtained a disproportionate share in this trade in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, when it became one of their main pursuits. Jewish trading stations, linked to Egypt and the Red Sea termini, can be located in over twenty different places on the westcoast of India, to the south of Broach, and further in Indonesia. And in Egypt too the Jews sometimes attained high positions at court. But they were no longer as dominant as they had been in Baghdad, and the India trade of the tenth to twelfth centuries which is described in the Cairo Geniza documents was carried out and financed to a far greater degree by Mus­lims based in the Mediterranean area.83 Still, Cairo became an increas­ingly important centre of Jewish mercantile and financial activity. Egypt - Egyptian Muslims and Egyptian jlw ry - became the new in­termediary between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, with the old Babylonian centre receding to the background."

"We have seen now that after the tenth century the most important centres of the Jewish diaspora were no longer in Babylonia or in the Islamic capital of Baghdad (which however remained the seat of the Gaonate and the Exilarch) but shifted westward to Egypt and Spain, and eastward to Khurasan, Central Asia and the frontier of Hind... Egypt, after the fall of Constantinople in 1204, virtually monopolized the Indian transit trade but the Jews were expelled from this trade and an association of Arab traders known as the karimi took over... All along the northern overland routes from India, in Sind and Afghanistan, the Babylonian-Persian Jewry spread and be­ came an important commercial intermediary between the Islamic world on the one hand and India and Central Asia on the other. Jewish settle­ment in this period rapidly increased here, until in the thirteenth century the Mongols brought Jewish involvement in trade and finance to a low pitch. It is quite clear that the elimination of the Jewish intermediary from the overland India trade virtually coincided in time with the elimi­nation of the Jews from the maritime trade between coastal western In­dia and Malabar and Egypt. In Malabar, Muslim traders superseded the Jewish and, to a lesser extent, Christian guilds. Jewish involvement in the trade between India and the Islamic lands of the Middle East, then, after reaching a peak in the tenth to eleventh centuries, eclipsed in the twelfth or thirteenth century - at the same time that the Jewish transition to Latin Christianity occurred. The simultaneousness of these developments appears to be no accident."

"Two clusters of settlements developed, one in the north, spreading out from Khurasan, and one on the westcoast, mainly Malabar, which was important in the maritime network. It seems certain that in both areas the Jews were relatively thin on the ground before the rise of Islam, although in Malabar a considerable community did exist. The earliest and most significant settlement of Jews in India was the one on the Malabar coast and these Jews had probably come by sea after the destruction of the second temple. According to legend the presence of Jews in Khurasan and on the north-western frontier of India also dates from pre-Islamic times."

"The first definite proof of the existence of a Jewish colony near Cranganore is, in the meantime, the Tamil charter of Bhaskara Ravivarman (978-1036 A.D.), a grant of lands and privi­leges, written in the obsolete Vatteluttu script of ancient Tamil. Jewish, Muslim and Christian travel accounts of the twelfth and thir­teenth centuries mention small Jewish settlements all along the Malabar coast, in towns such as Calicut, Quilon and Cranganore (Shingali), and at various places further north... The Jews of Malabar came to be divided in ‘White’ and ‘Black’ Jews and the latter were either the offspring of mixed marriages between Jews and Hindus or descendants of Hindus who had converted to Juda­ism.125 White Jews say that the Black Jews are descendants of the nu­merous slaves who were purchased and who converted to Judaism to be manumitted. The Black Jews themselves claim to be the descendants of the Israelites of the first captivity.126 However that may be, the main source of replenishment of the Malabar Jews still remained the Islamic Middle East."

"In India the history of Jewish migration and settlement and of the development of Judaism after the twelfth century was less chequered than in Europe, but also less fruitful. Persecutions on a systematic scale are not in evidence at any time. Yet the career of the Jews in India was abortive. A recent collection of essays on Indian Jews has once again revealed ‘that there is remarkably little interaction with the Hindu religious tradition, classical and popular’. ... Ultimately the success of Jewish trade and the prosperity of the Jewish communities in India derived from the promi­nent position which the Jews occupied in Baghdad, Cairo and elsewhere in the Islamic Middle East in the period before they were absorbed by Europe."

"But Jael the wife of Heber took a tent-peg and picked up a mallet; she crept up softly to him and drove the peg into his temple right through to the ground. He was lying fast asleep, worn out; and so he died."

"He asked for water; she gave him milk; she offered him curds in a lordly dish. She reached her hand out to seize the peg, her right hand to seize the workman's mallet. She hammered Sisera, she crushed his head, she pierced his temple and shattered it. Between her feet, he crumpled, he fell, he lay; at her feet, he crumpled, he fell. Where he crumpled, there he fell, destroyed. At the window, she leans and watches, Sisera's mother, through the lattice, 'Why is his chariot so long coming? Why so delayed the hoof-beats from his chariot?'"

"The sword of the LORD, and of Gideon."

"They then said, 'Very well, say Shibboleth.' If anyone said, "Sibboleth", because he could not pronounce it, then they would seize him and kill him by the fords of the Jordan. Forty-two thousand Ephraimites fell on this occasion."

"So he said to them: Out of the eater came what is eaten, and out of the strong came what is sweet. But three days went by and they could not solve the riddle."

"If ye had not plowed with my heifer, ye had not found out my riddle."

"He smote them hip and thigh."

"With the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps, wth the jaw of an ass have I slain a thousand men."

"She cried, 'The Philistines are on you, Samson!' He awoke from sleep, thinking, 'I shall break free as I have done time after time and shake myself clear.' But he did not know that Yahweh had left him. The Philistines seized him, put out his eyes and took him down to Gaza. They fettered him with a double chain of bronze and he spent his time turning the mill in the prison."

"And Samson said, Let me die with the Philistines. And he bowed himself with all his might; and the house fell upon the lords, and upon all the people that were therein. So the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life."

"In those days there was no king in Israel, and everyone did as he saw fit."

"The people arose as one man."

"The next stage in Israelite history is the era of the judges, or tribal chiefs. The most famous of them, Samson, establishes his reputation by killing thirty men during his wedding feast because he needs their clothing to pay off a bet. Then, to avenge the killing of his wife and her father, he slaughters a thousand Philistines and sets fire to their crops; after escaping capture, he kills another thousand with the jawbone of an ass. When he is finally captured and his eyes are burned out, God gives him the strength for a 9/11-like suicide attack in which he implodes a large building, crushing the three thousand men and women who are worshipping inside it."

"What the nibbler has left, the grown locust has eaten, what the grown locust has left, the hopper has eaten, and what the hopper has left, the shearer has eaten."

"Loudly the cattle groan! The herds of oxen are bewildered because they have no pasture. The flocks of sheep bear the punishment too. Yahweh, to you I cry: for fire has devoured the desert pastures, flame has burnt up all the trees in the countryside. Even the wild animals pant loudly for you, for the watercourses have run dry, and fire has devoured the desert pastures."

"Land, do not be afraid; be glad, rejoice, for Yahweh has done great things."

"'I will make up to you for the years devoured by grown locust and hopper, by shearer and young locust, my great army which I sent to invade you."

"And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophecy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions."

"The sun will be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the Day comes, that great and terrible Day. All who call on the name of Yahweh will be saved, for on Mount Zion will be those who have escaped, as Yahweh has said, and in Jerusalem a remnant whom Yahweh is calling."

"Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears; let the weak say, I am strong."

"'For in those days and at that time, when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem, I shall gather all the nations together and take them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat; there I shall put them on trial because of Israel, my people and my heritage, for having scattered them among the nations and having divided my land among themselves."

"'Let the nations rouse themselves and march to the Valley of Jehoshaphat, for there I shall sit in judgement on all the nations around."

"Multitude on multitude in the Valley of Decision! For the Day of Yahweh is near in the Valley of the Verdict!"

"When that Day comes, the mountains will run with new wine and the hills will flow with milk, and all the stream-beds of Judah will run with water. A fountain will spring from Yahweh's Temple and water the Gorge of the Acacias."

"הֲיֵֽלְכ֥וּ שְׁנַ֖יִם יַחְדָּ֑ו בִּלְתִּ֖י אִם־נוֹעָֽדוּ"

"אַרְיֵ֥ה שָׁאָ֖ג מִ֣י לֹ֣א יִירָ֑א אֲדֹנָ֚י יֱהֹוִה֙ דִּבֶּ֔ר מִ֖י לֹ֥א יִנָּבֵֽא"

"וְלֹֽא־יָֽדְע֥וּ עֲשֽׂוֹת־נְכֹחָ֖ה נְאֻם־יְהֹוָ֑ה הָאֽוֹצְרִ֛ים חָמָ֥ס וָשֹׁ֖ד בְּאַרְמְנֽוֹתֵיהֶֽם"

"לָכֵ֕ן כֹּ֥ה אֶֽעֱשֶׂה־לְּךָ֖ יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל עֵקֶב כִּי־זֹ֣את אֶֽעֱשֶׂה־לָּ֔ךְ הִכּ֥וֹן לִקְרַאת־אֱלֹהֶ֖יךָ יִשְׂרָאֵֽל"

"For look, he it is who forges the mountains, creates the wind, who reveals his mind to humankind, changes the dawn into darkness and strides on the heights of the world: Yahweh, God Sabaoth, is his name."

"Seek good and not evil so that you may survive, and Yahweh, God Sabaoth, be with you as you claim he is. Hate evil, love good, let justice reign at the city gate: it may be that Yahweh."

"Will not the Day of Yahweh be darkness, not light, totally dark, without a ray of light?"

"I hate, I scorn your festivals, I take no pleasure in your solemn assemblies. When you bring me burnt offerings . . . your oblations, I do not accept them and I do not look at your communion sacrifices of fat cattle. Spare me the din of your chanting, let me hear none of your strumming on lyres, but let justice flow like water, and uprightness like a never-failing stream!"

"I despise your religious festivals; your assemblies are a stench to me. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!"

"This is what he showed me: the Lord standing by a wall, with a plumb-line in his hand. 'What do you see, Amos?' Yahweh asked me. 'A plumb-line,' I said. Then the Lord said, 'Look, I am going to put a plumb-line in among my people Israel; never again will I overlook their offences."

"The Lord was standing by a wall that had been built true to plumb, with a plumb line in his hand. And the Lord asked me, "What do you see, Amos?" "A plumb line," I replied. Then the Lord said, "Look, I am setting a plumb line among my people Israel; I will spare them no longer.""

"The days are coming- declares the Lord Yahweh- when I shall send a famine on the country, not hunger for food, not thirst for water, but famine for hearing Yahweh's word. People will stagger from sea to sea, will wander from the north to the east, searching for Yahweh's word, but will not find it."

"The days are coming- declares Yahweh- when the ploughman will tread on the heels of the reaper, and the trader of grapes on the heels of the sower of seed, and the mountains will run with new wine and the hills all flow with it. I shall restore the fortunes of my people Israel; they will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them, they will plant vineyards and drink their wine, they will lay out gardens and eat their produce. And I shall plant them in their own soil and they will never be uprooted again from the country which I have given them, declares Yahweh, your God."

"If thieves were to come to you (or robbers during the night) surely they would steal only as much as they wanted? If grape-pickers were to come to you, surely they would leave a few gleanings? But how you have been pillaged!"

"Your allies all pursued you right to the frontier, your confederates kept you in suspense, then got the better of you, your own guests laid a trap for you, 'He has quite lost his wits.'"

"For the violence done to your brother Jacob, shame will cover you and you will be annihilated for ever."

"Just as you have drunk on my holy mountain, so will all the nations drink continually, they will drink, will drink greedily, but they will be as though they had never been!"

"People from the Negeb will occupy the Mount of Esau, people from the lowlands the country of the Philistines; they will occupy Ephraim and Samaria, and Benjamin will occupy Gilead."

"Have we not all one father, hath not one GOD created us? why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother, by profaning the covenant of our fathers?"

"I am coming to put you on trial and I shall be a ready witness against sorcerers, adulterers, perjurers, and against those who oppress the wage-earner, the widow and the orphan, and who rob the foreigner of his rights and do not respect me, says Yahweh Sabaoth."

"Will a man rob God?"

"Bring the tithes in full to the treasury, so that there is food in my house; put me to the test now like this, says Yahweh Sabaoth, and see if I do not open the floodgates of heaven for you and pour out an abundant blessing for you."

"'On the day when I act, says Yahweh Sabaoth, they will be my most prized possession, and I shall spare them in the way a man spares the son who serves him."

"For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his sings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall."

"Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth a curse."

"שְׁפִילִית לְסֵיפֵיהּ דַּעֲווֹן גִּלְיוֹן, וּכְתִיב בֵּיהּ: אֲנָא לָא לְמִיפְחַת מִן אוֹרָיְיתָא דְּמֹשֶׁה אֲתֵיתִי [וְלָא] לְאוֹסֹפֵי עַל אוֹרָיְיתָא דְמֹשֶׁה אֲתֵיתִי}}"

"אֲזַל אַסְּקֵיהּ בִּנְגִידָא לְיֵשׁוּ הַנּוֹצְרִי, אֲמַר לֵיהּ: מַאן חֲשִׁיב בְּהָהוּא עָלְמָא? אֲמַר לֵיהּ: יִשְׂרָאֵל. מַהוּ לְאִדַּבּוֹקֵי בְּהוּ? אֲמַר לֵיהּ: טוֹבָתָם דְּרוֹשׁ, רָעָתָם לֹא תִּדְרוֹשׁ, כׇּל הַנּוֹגֵעַ בָּהֶן כְּאִילּוּ נוֹגֵעַ בְּבָבַת עֵינוֹ.}}"

"That the Talmud and other Jewish sources say nothing about Jesus which is not the distortion of Christian tradition is sufficiently explained by the date of these documents and the fact that those who compiled them were governed by entirely polemical considerations."

"These Talmud stories seem as though they are deliberately intended to contradict events recorded in the Gospels: the selfsame facts are perverted into bad and blameable acts."

"The Jesus or Jehoshua ben-Pandira (or ben-Stada) of the Gemara is a shady character who in the reign of Alexander Jannaeus (103–78 )—different versions give different dates—learns magic in Egypt, leads the people astray, and is stoned to death and hanged at Lydda. ... The character of Jesus is blackened, his miracles are explained by magic, his trial is made out to have been regular and fair, and so forth."

"It is now more than half a century since Renan put the question, "Has Jewish tradition anything to teach us concerning Jesus?" This question must be answered in the negative. ... The Jewish legend—a growth of those later centuries—gave him an aspect of its own, purely apocryphal in its character, neither meant nor ever taken by the Jews as real history."

"Some rabbis take the point of view—listen carefully—that yes, the true story of Jesus is in our Talmud, not in the Christian Bible. Meaning that when you have a problem of reconciling the Christian version of who Jesus was with the Jewish versions, some rabbis take the point of view: "Yeah, the Talmud gets it right. And the Christian scriptures? It's not accurate.""

"At the conclusion of a class at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2000, during which I quoted passages from the New Testament, a student approached me and asked whether I would be citing more quotes in future classes. I told her that I would give her two answers. The first: yes. The second: In all the 2,700 pages of the Babylonian Talmud, there is only one quotation from a non-Jewish book, namely from the New Testament (Babylonian Talmud Tractate Shabbat 116a-b). What is allowed to the Talmud is allowed also to a talmid (pupil). She never showed up in my classes again."

"שׁוּב מַעֲשֶׂה בְּגוֹי אֶחָד שֶׁבָּא לִפְנֵי שַׁמַּאי. אָמַר לוֹ׃ גַּיְּירֵנִי עַל מְנָת שֶׁתְּלַמְּדֵנִי כׇּל הַתּוֹרָה כּוּלָּהּ כְּשֶׁאֲנִי עוֹמֵד עַל רֶגֶל אַחַת! דְּחָפוֹ בְּאַמַּת הַבִּנְיָן שֶׁבְּיָדוֹ. בָּא לִפְנֵי הִלֵּל, גַּיְירֵיהּ. אָמַר לוֹ׃ דַּעֲלָךְ סְנֵי לְחַבְרָךְ לָא תַּעֲבֵיד — זוֹ הִיא כׇּל הַתּוֹרָה כּוּלָּהּ, וְאִידַּךְ פֵּירוּשָׁהּ הוּא, זִיל גְּמוֹר.}}"

"רבי מאיר אומר מנין שאפילו עובד כוכבים ועוסק בתורה שהוא ככהן גדול תלמוד לומר (ויקרא יח, ה) אשר יעשה אותם האדם וחי בהם כהנים לוים וישראלים לא נאמר אלא האדם הא למדת שאפילו עובד כוכבים ועוסק בתורה הרי הוא ככהן גדול}}"

"ר״מ אומר מניין שאפילו עובד כוכבים ועוסק בתורה שהוא ככהן גדול שנאמר (ויקרא יח, ה) אשר יעשה אותם האדם וחי בהם כהנים לוים וישראלים לא נאמר אלא האדם הא למדת שאפילו עובד כוכבים ועוסק בתורה הרי הוא ככהן גדול}}"

"התם בשבע מצות דידהו׃}}"

"אָמַר רִבִּי שַׁבְּתָי כְּתִיב וּמִשְׁפָּט וְרֹב צְדָקָה לֹא יַעֲנֶה. אֵין הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא מַשְׁהֵא מַתַּן שְׂכָרָן שֶׁל עוֹשֵׂי מִצְוֹת בַּגּוֹיִם.}}"

"אֲבָל יֵשׁ קִנְיָן לְגוֹי בְּאֶרֶץ יִשְׂרָאֵל לַחְפּוֹר בָּהּ בּוֹרוֹת שִׁיחִין וּמְעָרוֹת, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר׃ ״הַשָּׁמַיִם שָׁמַיִם לַה׳ וְהָאָרֶץ נָתַן לִבְנֵי אָדָם״.}}"

"ואמר ר׳ יוחנן עובד כוכבים שעוסק בתורה חייב מיתה שנאמר (דברים לג, ד) תורה צוה לנו משה מורשה לנו מורשה ולא להם}}"

"וליחשבה גבי שבע מצות מ״ד מורשה מיגזל קא גזיל לה מאן דאמר מאורסה דינו כנערה המאורסה דבסקילה}}"

"כׇּל שִׁיטָּה וְשִׁיטָּה שֶׁנָּטְלוּ גּוֹיִם מִירוּשָׁלַיִם, עָתִיד הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא לְהַחֲזִירָן לָהּ}}"

"Gentiles are unquestionably human, created in G-d's image, and Jewish law recognizes this as do the rabbis of the Talmud."

"The descendants of Noah, i.e., all of humanity, were commanded to observe seven mitzvot: The mitzva of establishing courts of judgment; and the prohibition against blessing, i.e., cursing, the name of God; and the prohibition of idol worship; and the prohibition against forbidden sexual relations; and the prohibition of bloodshed; and the prohibition of robbery; and the prohibition against eating a limb from a living animal."

"It is a mitzva for a gentile to study the halakhot that pertain to the seven Noahide mitzvot, and when he does so he is highly regarded."

"For ye, brethren, became followers of the churches of God which in Judaea are in Christ Jesus: for ye also have suffered like things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews: Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men: Forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins alway: for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost."

"There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise."

"For none of these iniquities come of the Lord; for he doeth that which is good among the children of men; and he doeth nothing save it be plain unto the children of men; and he inviteth them all to come unto him and partake of his goodness; and he denieth none that come unto him, black and white, bond and free, male and female; and he remembereth the heathen; and all are alike unto God, both Jew and Gentile."

"Gentiles persecuted the Jews for thousands of years before the Nazis got efficient at it."

"Touch the conservative capitalist who is a Jew, and the red communist who is also a Jew will spring to his defense. It may be that sometimes they love each other less, but altogether they hate non-Jews more, and that is their common bond. The Kehillah is an alliance, more offensive than defensive, against the "Gentiles.""

"Labor would prosper as well, while the price of the product would remain constant, the prosperity of industry, labor and management would continually increase. We Jews glory in the fact that the stupid goy have never realized that we are the parasites consuming an increasing portion of production while the producers are continually receiving less and less."

"[In] the third passage, Shema, the ayin [] of [the word] Shema and the dalet [] of [the word] echad are enlarged."

"The first verse of the Shema is considered the most essential declaration of the Jewish faith—the Lord is our God, the Lord is one."

"The speaker in 6:4–9, as is typical of Deuteronomy, is Moses."

"The syntax of the statement is quite strange. ... Thus, it is not surprising that both traditional commentators as well as contemporary scholars offer many different interpretations."

"When HaShem commanded him to go down to Egypt and liberate the Jewish people from bondage, he asked HaShem, "When I come to the children of Israel and I say to them, 'The God of your forefathers sent me to you,' they will ask me, 'What is His name,' What &lbrack;&rbrack; should I say to them?" ... Now examine the final letters and discover the singular name HaShem- as follows:}}... It therefore is evident from the simple meaning of the verse itself, as well as from its letters and its numerical value, that Moshe, peace be upon him, was asking the Holy One, blessed is He, about the secret of His singular and preexistent name, Hashem-."

"After the destruction of the Second Temple there remained no trace of knowledge as to the pronunciation of the Name (see Jehovah). The commentators, however, agree as to its interpretation, that it denotes the eternal and everlasting existence of God, and that it is a composition of (meaning "a Being of the Past, the Present, and the Future"). The name Ehyeh () denotes His potency in the immediate future, and is part of Yhwh. The phrase "ehyeh-asher-ehyeh" (Ex. iii. 14) is interpreted by some authorities as "I will be because I will be," using the second part as a gloss and referring to God's promise, "Certainly I will be [ehyeh] with thee" (Ex. iii. 12)."

"Moses has the Being of beings say, "I am he who is." ... "I am, therefore something exists," seems to us a more primal and simple basis for experimental philosophy. Ego sum qui sum: that is God's first revelation in man and of man in the world, and it is also the first axiom of occult philosophy. . Being is being. Thus the principle behind this philosophy is what is, and there is nothing hypothetical or uncertain about it."

""The Law Is." In this Aphorism the word "" denotes "present, actual existence." It is as strong a term denoting actual existence as the English language supplies. ... The word "Is" has the significance of the word "Am" in the following quotation from Exodus, iii. 14, in the Hebrew Sacred Books: "And God said unto Moses, ' That '; and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel: hath sent me unto you." This then is the sense in which the Arcane Aphorism employs the term ""—in the sense of Absolute Existence."

"I AM is the self-definition of the absolute, the foundation on which everything rests. I AM is the first cause-substance. I AM is the self-definition of God.I AM hath sent me unto you. I AM THAT I AM. Be still and know that I AM God.I AM is a feeling of permanent awareness. The very center of consciousness is the feeling of I AM. I may forget who I am, where I am, what I am, but I cannot forget that I AM. The awareness of being remains, regardless of the degree of forgetfulness of who, where, and what I am."

"And what is God's self-definition in the Bible? Did God say, "I have always been, and I always will be?" Of course not. That would have given reality to past and future. God said: "." No time here, just presence."

"When Moses asks his name and credentials, Yahweh replies with a pun which, as we shall see, would exercise monotheists for centuries. Instead of revealing his name directly, he answers: "I Am Who I Am (Ehyeh asher ehyeh)." ... When the Bible uses a phrase like: "they went where they went", it means: "I haven't the faintest idea where they went". So when Moses asks who he is, God replies in effect: "Never you mind who I am!" or "Mind your own business!""

"One might wish to follow Martin Buber and understand this "explanation" of the name as a refusal of revelation: "I am who I am" and what that is is none of your business. Nevertheless, in the following verses this explanation seems to be explicitly put into a relation to the name Yhwh. ... The form ʾehyeh echoes first of all the promise of assistance of verse 12, ʾehyeh ̔immāk. "I shall be" or "I am" refers in the first instance to the god who "is with &lbrack;Moses&rbrack;" and promises Moses help."

"The exact significance of verse 14 is not completely clear, and it has been the subject of much scholarly speculation. 'Yahweh' is evidently related to the verb 'to be', and the King James Version of the Bible renders it as . The best translation is probably either '; that is who I am' (New English Bible) or 'I am the one who is' (New Jerusalem Bible)."

"God: [whispering] Moses... Moses: Here I am. God: Take the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you stand is holy ground. Moses: Who are You? God: . Moses: I don't understand. God: I am the God of your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob."

"In the part lowest of the abysses is Sheol, the place where those dwell who have passed to the state of rephaim or "shades". This is the place lower than any other, which is described in the Book of Job (x. 21–2) as the land where the shadow of death reigns, where the shadows are scarcely broken by any glimmers of twilight, where there is no order, and whence there is no return—in short, as something very like the Hades and Avernus of the Greek and Latin classics, and the Aralu of the Babylonians. No Hebrew Dante has described this place; yet we already find in Ezekiel a part of Sheol distinguished as deeper, called the "pit" or "the lowest parts of the earth", where the uncircumcised descend and those who have fallen by the sword, causing terror in the land of the living. In course of time this distinction came to be more definite: the upper part of Sheol, destined for the just, was called "Abraham's bosom", and the lower part became Gehenna, where sinners were tormented in flames."

"Here the dead meet (Ezek. xxxii.; Isa. xiv.; Job xxx. 23) without distinction of rank or condition—the rich and the poor, the pious and the wicked, the old and the young, the master and the slave—if the description in Job iii. refers, as most likely it does, to Sheol. The dead continue after a fashion their earthly life. Jacob would mourn there (Gen. xxxvii. 35, xlii. 38); David abides there in peace (I Kings ii. 6); the warriors have their weapons with them (Ezek. xxxii. 27), yet they are mere shadows ("rephaim"; Isa. xiv. 9, xxvi. 14; Ps. lxxxviii. 5, A. V. "a man that hath no strength"). The dead merely exist without knowledge or feeling (Job xiv. 13; Eccl. ix. 5). Silence reigns supreme; and oblivion is the lot of them that enter therein (Ps. lxxxviii. 13, xciv. 17; Eccl. ix. 10). Hence it is known also as "Dumah", the abode of silence (Ps. vi. 6, xxx. 10, xciv. 17, cxv. 17); and there God is not praised (ib. cxv. 17; Isa. xxxviii. 15)."

"The Jewish scriptures contain a variety of views about what happens to a person at death. Most commonly, a person who dies is simply said to have gone to "death"—a term used some thousand times in the Bible. Better known but far less frequent, a person's ultimate destination is sometimes called "Sheol", a term whose meaning and etymology are debated. It occurs over sixty times in the Hebrew Bible, and there is unanimity among critical scholars that in no case does Sheol mean "hell" in the sense people mean today. There is no place of eternal punishment in any passage of the entire Old Testament. In fact—and this comes as a surprise to many people—nowhere in the entire Hebrew Bible is there any discussion at all of heaven and hell as places of rewards and punishments for those who have died."

"אֲזַל אַסְּקֵיהּ בִּנְגִידָא לְיֵשׁוּ הַנּוֹצְרִי אֲמַר לֵיהּ מַאן חֲשִׁיב בְּהָהוּא עָלְמָא אֲמַר לֵיהּ יִשְׂרָאֵל מַהוּ לְאִדַּבּוֹקֵי בְּהוּ אֲמַר לֵיהּ טוֹבָתָם דְּרוֹשׁ רָעָתָם לֹא תִּדְרוֹשׁ כׇּל הַנּוֹגֵעַ בָּהֶן כְּאִילּוּ נוֹגֵעַ בְּבָבַת עֵינוֹ אֲמַר לֵיהּ דִּינֵיהּ דְּהָהוּא גַּבְרָא בְּמַאי אֲמַר לֵיהּ בְּצוֹאָה רוֹתַחַת דְּאָמַר מָר כׇּל הַמַּלְעִיג עַל דִּבְרֵי חֲכָמִים נִידּוֹן בְּצוֹאָה רוֹתַחַת תָּא חֲזִי מָה בֵּין פּוֹשְׁעֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל לִנְבִיאֵי אוּמּוֹת הָעוֹלָם}}"

"Jesus is accordingly, in the following curious Talmudic legend, thought to sojourn in hell. A certain Onḳelos b. Ḳaloniḳos, son of Titus' sister, desired to embrace Judaism, and called up from hell by magic first Titus, then Balaam, and finally Jesus, who are here taken together as the worst enemies of Judaism. ... Onḳelos then asked the nature of his punishment, and was told that it was the degrading fate of those who mock the wise (Giṭ. 56b–57a)."

"Our rabbinic texts, all in the Bavli, emphasize that Jesus, the new Balaam, does not have a portion in the world to come: his fate is that he must be punished in hell forever, with no chance of redemption—and the same is true for his followers: they better give up any hope of earning eternal life in his succession, as his apostles promise."

"Think carefully about your behaviour."

"Go up into the hills, fetch timber and rebuild the House; and I shall take pleasure in it and manifest my glory there -- Yahweh says."

"The abundance you expected proved to be little. When you brought the harvest in, I blasted it. And why? - Yahweh Sabaoth declares. Because while my House lies in ruins, each of you is busy with his own house."

"That is why the sky has withheld the rain and the earth withheld its yield."

"I have called down drought on land and hills, on grain, on new wine, on olive oil and on all the produce of the ground, on humans and animals and all your labours.""

"A little while now, and I shall shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land."

"I shall shake all the nations, and the treasures of all the nations will flow in, and I shall fill this Temple with glory, says Yahweh Sabaoth."

"Behold the sea, great and immense, | where countless creatures move, | small and large animals. | Ships travel there | and there swims the leviathan whom you created to have fun. (Psalms)"

"On that day the Lord will punish | with the hard sword, large and strong, | the darting serpent Leviathan, | the tortuous serpent Leviathan | and he will slay the dragon that is in the sea. (Book of Isaiah)"

"The Mother-Abyss, | that formed everything, | has prepared Irresistible Weapons: | brought into the world [...] ferocious Leviathans, | to which it gave a frightening appearance | and surrounded with supernatural splendor, | thus equating them to the gods: | "Whoever sees them (he said) | lose consciousness! | And let them once launched, | never retreat!" (Enûma Eliš)"

"The representation of Leviathan is [...] for Job a celebration of the supreme lordship of the Creator who can even allow himself to "play with him like a sparrow, tying him up for the amusement of little girls" (40.29). This is why, according to a Jewish tradition, Leviathan will be killed and prepared for the messianic banquet of the righteous. (Gianfranco Ravasi)"

"We probably mean the crocodile, an animal similar to the alligator, but larger and more formidable, with a narrower snout and webbed feet up to the ends of the toes. [...] It seems that the word Leviathan refers to the crocodile in Ps. 74:14 and Isa. 27:1. But in Ps. 104:26, this term evidently applies to some sea monster, perhaps to the whale. Various large cetacean animals are found in the Mediterranean. (Philip Schaff)"

"You can fish Leviathan with the hook | and hold his tongue with a cord, | stick a reed in his nostrils | and pierce his jaw with a hook? | Perhaps he will make many supplications to you and will he speak sweet words to you? | Perhaps he will make an alliance with you, | so that you may take him as your servant forever? | You will joke with him like a sparrow, | tying it for your maidens? | The fishing companies will put it up for sale, | will the traders share it? | You will riddle his skin with arrows and with the harpoon his head? | Put your hand on him: | at the memory of the fight, I did not rebuke! (Book of Job)"

"You have divided the sea with power, | you have crushed the heads of the dragons upon the waters. | At Leviathan you broke the head, | you fed him to the sea monsters. (Psalms)"

"We have clear evidence throughout the biblical text that the Lord Yahweh was himself an aspect of the serpent's power. [...] We will not be surprised then to learn that the name of the priestly tribe of Levi, Yahweh's favorite, derived from the same verbal root as the term Leviathan and that, when paintings of the non-depictable god finally appeared, his form it was that of a god with serpent-shaped legs."

"As Ea defeated Apsu and Marduk defeated Tiamat, so Yahweh did with the sea monster Rahab (Job 26, 12-13) and with the Leviathan (Job 41 ; Psalms 74, 14)."

"The literatures of the Iron Age of both the Aryan Greeks and the Romans, and the Semites of the Near Levant repeat the theme of the defeat, by a solar hero, of a despicable monster belonging to a previous divine order and possessor of some treasure : a land, a maiden, gold or simply one's own power. The main biblical example is Yahweh's victory over the cosmic sea serpent, the Leviathan, of which he himself boasts to Job."

"Leviathan is the sacralized example of an alpha predator in a certain culture. Amba is another, Bäru yet another. Similar beliefs and traditions could be cited for jaguars, Nile crocodiles, pumas, reticulated pythons and all the other species of large predators that lived in uncomfortable contiguity alongside humans, of whom they sometimes preyed. The mythical dimension of alpha predators, reflected and amplified in those beliefs and traditions, has contributed significantly to shaping the vision developed by our species of its place in creation."

"This original Leviathan should not be confused with a whale. In later times the name took on this meaning generically, but the biblical Leviathan is something stranger and more frightening. It is a chimerical creature, half crocodile and half dragon, evoked for spiritual purposes by elements of psychological and zoological reality."

"According to one theory, this figure derives from a previous Phoenician monster called Lotan, a seven-headed dragon representing primordial chaos, defeated by the deity Baal. In the Jewish scriptures, Leviathan seems more firmly under divine power. Yahweh is Almighty. Leviathan is powerful, and then comes all the others. The passage quoted from Job is a portrait of the predatory servant of God, a creature who exists to remind humans - poor Job himself and all of us - that we are in third place, not higher, in the food chain of power and glory."

"As Ea defeated Apsu and Marduk defeated Tiamat, so he did Yahweh with the sea monster Rahab (Job 26, 12-13) and with the Leviathan (Job 41; Psalms 74, 14). (Joseph Campbell)"

"With force shakes the sea | and with intelligence tames Rahab. | At his breath the skies clear up, | his hand pierces the twisting serpent. (Book of Job)"

"God does not withdraw his anger: | under him the supporters of Rahab are crushed. (Book of Job)"

"Have you not torn Rahab in pieces, | did you not slay the dragon? (Book of Isaiah)"

"Rahab is the formidable Tiamat, which the Babylonian demiurge Marduk cut into two parts, from which heaven and earth arose. The Jews were able to learn about this myth even before the captivity. Traces of it are found in Job and in some psalms. (Alfred Loisy)"

"You dominate the pride of the sea, | you calm the tumult of its waves. | You have trampled Rahab like a vanquished man, | with a mighty arm you have scattered your enemies. (Ethan the Ezraite, Psalms)"

"Vain and useless is the help of Egypt; | therefore I call him «Rahab the idle». (Book of Isaiah)"

"Snakes in the Bible"

"The terms used for this metal are either ba'aẓ or avaẓ, kassitera, kassiteron, and gassiteron (Gr. κασσίτερος). Both ba'aẓ and kassitera are used in the same passages (Men. 28b and elsewhere), which implies that they were two different metals or kinds of the same metal. The Temple menorah was not to be made of them, but when the Hasmoneans cleansed the Temple and needed a new menorah (the golden one having been carried off by Antiochus IV), they made it of seven spears plated with tin. It was forbidden to make weights out of metal – tin and lead being mentioned specially – because metal wears away. The traveler Pethahiah of Regensburg (12th century) reports that in Babylonia people were summoned to synagogue by a tin instrument. In the later Middle Ages up to modern times tin was used extensively for artistic ritual objects such as Ḥanukkah menorot, seder, Kiddush, and Havdalah plates, etc."

"Just as Hanukkah candles are lighted one by one from a single flame, so the tale of the miracle is passed from one man to another, from one house to another, and to the whole House of Israel throughout the generations."

"The four species are all plants that need an abundance of water, and at the end of Sukkot, prayers for rain will be said."

"The preferred Shofar of Redemption is the Divine call that awakens and inspires the people with holy motivations, through faith in God and the unique mission of the people of Israel. This elevated awakening corresponds to the ram's horn, a horn that recalls Abraham's supreme love of God and dedication in Akeidat Yitzchak, the Binding of Isaac."

"According to one theory, the six-pointed "shield of David" which adorns the modern Israeli flag, started to become a national symbol with David al-Roy's crusade. "Ever since," writes Baron, "it has been suggested, the six-cornered 'shield of David', theretofore mainly a decorative motif or a magical emblem, began its career toward becoming the chief national-religious symbol of Judaism. Long used interchangeably with the pentagram or the 'Seal of Solomon', it was attributed to David in mystic and ethical German writings from the thirteenth century on, and appeared on the Jewish flag in Prague in 1527.""

"It is a common custom to write [God's name,] Shaddai, on the outside of a mezuzah opposite the empty space left between the two passages."

"When a man pronounces the Tetragrammaton, write the Cabalists, the nine heavens are shaken, and all the spirits cry out to each other: "Who thus disturbs the kingdom of heaven?" And then the earth reveals to the first heaven the sins of the foolhardy person who took the eternal one's name in vain, and the accusing Verb is transmitted from circle to circle, from star to star, and from hierarchy to hierarchy."

"The children of Israel received without idealisation the statements of their great lawgiver. To them the tables of the law were true tablets of stone, prepared, engraved, broken, and re-engraved; while the graving tool which thus inscribed the law was held undoubtingly to be the finger of God."

"In brief, the Tree of Life is a compendium of science, psychology, philosophy and theology."

"The object of the theoretical (as separate from the practical) Qabalah, insofar as this thesis is concerned, is to enable the student to do three main things: First, to analyze every idea in terms of the Tree of Life. Second, to trace a necessary connection and relation between every and any class of ideas by referring them to this standard of comparison. Third, to translate any unknown system of symbolism into terms of any known one by its means."

"Hearing that the woman will bear children, the only good news in God's grim prophecy of the dismal human future (sorrow, sweat, toil, and death), he grasps at this straw of hope, renaming the woman Eve (Chavah), because she is the mother of all living (chai). From Adam's hopefulness, Eve gets the first genuinely proper name in the Bible."

"The light blue Star of David lies in a sea of white, between a single light blue stripe on top, another on the bottom. This elegant design is the Flag of the State of Israel."

"...in 1648, .. Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II gave the Jews of Prague permission to fly a "Jewish flag" over their synagogue, in recognition of their part in saving the city from the Swedish invaders, who besieged the city as part of the 30 Years War. This "Jewish flag" was red with a yellow Star of David at its center."

"Everyone recognizes the blue stripes and Magen David of the State of Israel's flag. Likewise, the LGBTQ Jewish flag – a Magen David centered on the rainbow flag – is commonplace and self-explanatory."

"A man's wife is permitted to him. Therefore, a man may do whatever he desires with his wife. He may engage in relations whenever he desires, kiss any organ he desires, engage in vaginal or other intercourse, or engage in physical intimacy without relations, provided he does not release seed in vain. ... Nevertheless, it is pious conduct for a person not to act frivolously concerning such matters, and to sanctify himself at the time of relations, as explained in Hilchot Deot. He should not depart from the ordinary pattern of the world. For this act was [given to us] solely for the sake of procreation. ... Our Sages do not derive satisfaction from a person who engages in sexual relations excessively and frequents his wife like a rooster. This reflects a very blemished [character]; it is the way underdeveloped people conduct themselves. Instead, everyone who minimizes his sexual conduct is praiseworthy, provided he does not neglect his conjugal duties, without the consent of his wife."

"An adult man who engaged in intercourse with a minor girl less than three years old has done nothing, as intercourse with a girl less than three years old is tantamount to poking a finger into the eye. In the case of an eye, after a tear falls from it another tear forms to replace it. Similarly, the ruptured hymen of the girl younger than three is restored."

"καὶ ποιεῖ πάντας, τοὺς μικροὺς καὶ τοὺς μεγάλους, καὶ τοὺς πλουσίους καὶ τοὺς πτωχούς, καὶ τοὺς ἐλευθέρους καὶ τοὺς δούλους, ἵνα δῶσιν αὐτοῖς χάραγμα ἐπὶ τῆς χειρὸς αὐτῶν τῆς δεξιᾶς ἢ ἐπὶ τὸ μέτωπον αὐτῶν, καὶ ἵνα μή τις δύνηται ἀγοράσαι ἢ πωλῆσαι εἰ μὴ ὁ ἔχων τὸ χάραγμα, τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ θηρίου ἢ τὸν ἀριθμὸν τοῦ ὀνόματος αὐτοῦ."

"The juxtaposition of buying and selling with the mark of the beast refers to the fact that Roman coins normally bore the image and name of the current emperor. The inability to buy or sell would then be the result of the refusal to use Roman coins. Such a refusal is analogous to the Zealot refusal to carry, look at, or manufacture coins bearing any sort of [graven] image."

"George Read thought the words [allowing the Federal government to “emit bills of credit” i.e., print paper money], if not struck out [of the Constitution] would be as alarming as the mark of the beast in Revelation."

"Robert: The three 6s. Monk: 6 is the sign of the devil. Jennings: But why three 6s? Monk: We think it means the diabolical trinity: the Devil, the Antichrist and the false prophet. Jennings: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Monk: For every holy thing there is an unholy one, that is the essence of temptation."

"Following publication of the first edition of this book, some individual anti-Semites and anti-Semitic groups began to utilize parts of what Israel Shahak and I wrote about Jewish fundamentalists to justify their hatred of Jews. They alleged that by revealing ideas of Jewish fundamentalists we have confirmed generalizations about the "evil nature" of Jews. They have taken our criticism of Jewish fundamentalism out of context and have utilized it in an invalid manner for their ugly purpose. … It should be obvious that Israel Shahak and I abhor what these anti-Semites do but that we are not responsible for them or for what they do."

"The opening verb form, ve-ahavta, rather than the imperative ehov, allows the prefixed vav to be taken as purposive. ... The rest of the verse serves as a topic sentence for a corresponding threefold explication in the following verses—drawn from the key terms heart (, leivav), soul (, nefesh), and might (, meʾod)—that spells out the implementation of the command."

"Understanding the deeper meaning of each of these words—heart, soul, might—enhances the power of this central Jewish prayer."

"מִי שֶׁלֹּא רָאָה בֵּית הַמִּקְדָּשׁ בְּבִנְיָנוֹ — לֹא רָאָה בִּנְיָן מְפוֹאָר מֵעוֹלָם. מַאי הִיא? אָמַר אַבָּיֵי וְאִיתֵּימָא רַב חִסְדָּא: זֶה בִּנְיַן הוֹרְדוֹס.‏"

"Οὐ βλέπετε ταῦτα πάντα; ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, οὐ μὴ ἀφεθῇ ὧδε λίθος ἐπὶ λίθον ὃς οὐ καταλυθήσεται."

"فَإِذَا جَآءَ وَعْدُ ٱلْـَٔاخِرَةِ لِيَسُـۥٓـُٔوا۟ وُجُوهَكُمْ وَلِيَدْخُلُوا۟ ٱلْمَسْجِدَ كَمَا دَخَلُوهُ أَوَّلَ مَرَّةٍۢ وَلِيُتَبِّرُوا۟ مَا عَلَوْا۟ تَتْبِيرًا"

"The Jews were loth to have their Temple pulled down, fearing lest it might not be rebuilt. To demonstrate his good faith, Herod acccumulated the materials for the new building before the old one was taken down. The new Temple was rebuilt as rapidly as possible, being finished in a year and a half, although work was in progress on the out-buildings and courts for eighty years. As it was unlawful for any but priests to enter the Temple, Herod employed 1,000 of them as masons and carpenters."

"יְהֹוָ֣ה אָמַ֔ר לִשְׁכֹּ֖ן בָּעֲרָפֶֽל׃ בָּנֹ֥ה בָנִ֛יתִי בֵּ֥ית זְבֻ֖ל לָ֑ךְ מָכ֥וֹן לְשִׁבְתְּךָ֖ עוֹלָמִֽים׃"

"When the Temple was constructed it was, together with Solomon's palace, by far the most splendid pile of buildings that the Hebrews had ever seen."

"Now as soon as the army had no more people to slay or to plunder, because there remained none to be the objects of their fury, (for they would not have spared any, had there remained any other work to be done,) Caesar gave orders that they should now demolish the entire city and temple, but should leave as many of the towers standing as were of the greatest eminency; that is, Phasaelus, and Hippicus, and Mariamne; and so much of the wall as enclosed the city on the west side. This wall was spared, in order to afford a camp for such as were to lie in garrison, as were the towers also spared, in order to demonstrate to posterity what kind of city it was, and how well fortified, which the Roman valor had subdued; but for all the rest of the wall, it was so thoroughly laid even with the ground by those that dug it up to the foundation, that there was left nothing to make those that came thither believe it had ever been inhabited. This was the end which Jerusalem came to by the madness of those that were for innovations; a city otherwise of great magnificence, and of mighty fame among all mankind."

"For reasons that remain obscure, in the case of the Palestinian Jews of Fustat, or Old Cairo—who worshipped in what would eventually become known as the Ben Ezra synagogue—the tradition of geniza was, it seems, extended to include the preservation of anything written in Hebrew letters, not only religious documents, and not just in the Hebrew language. Perhaps, as one scholar has proposed, "the very employment of the Hebrew script ... sanctified written material.""

"One way or another, the alphabet created a possibility that never existed before, namely of a society of mass, even universal, literacy. With only twenty-two symbols, it could be taught, in a relatively short time, to everyone. We see evidence of this at many places in Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible. Isaiah says "All your children shall be taught of the Lord and great shall be the peace of your children" (Isaiah 54:13), implying universal education."

"Aleph and Tav being the first and the last letters of the alphabet, the expression "from Aleph to Tav" signifies "from beginning to end". Hence, "the observers of the Law from Aleph to Tav" are those that keep the Law in its entirety."

"And when he desired to create the world, all the letters came in turn and each said to the Holy One, blessed be He: Lord of the Universe, may it be Your will that the world be created through me. ... When aleph saw that the Holy One, blessed be He, desired to create the world through bet, she stood to one side and was silent, until the Holy One, blessed be He, called her and said to her: aleph, why are you silent; why do you not speak as your companions? Aleph answered and said before Him: Lord of the Universe, My companions amount to much, but I am of little value. The Holy One, blessed be He, said to her: No wonder that you are the first and the sovereign, since I am One and you are one. Since you have been humble, I will glorify you by making you a thousand (elef)."

"The only letter that had refrained from urging its claims was the modest Alef, and God rewarded it later for its humility by giving it the first place in the Decalogue."

"Some claim to find a satisfactory explanation of the origin of this letter in that it represents an ox-yoke, or the head of an Ox, the horns forming the top part of the letter. This is highly significant, for the letter when pronounced as Aleph and spelt in full h, means an Ox or Bull, an admirable symbol to denote the generative power of Nature."

"Five or six guys get up on the bimah on the stage, and they are facing the congregation. They get their talit over their heads, and they start this chanting, I think it's called duchening. And my father said to me, "Don't look!" So everybody's got their eyes covered with their hands, or they have got their talit down over their faces, or turned away, turned their back to these guys. ... And then the leader would shout out: "Yeborechecho!" ["The Lord bless thee!"] And the rest of them would respond: "Yeborechecho adonai v'yishmerecho!" ["The Lord bless thee and keep thee!"] It was chilling. Whoa, something major is happening here! So I peeked, and I saw them with their hands stuck out from beneath their talit like this, towards the congregation. ... I had no idea what was going on, but the sound of it and the look of it was magical."

"The moment you ask a child in Israel what Yom Kippur means to him, and he answers the Yom Kippur War, or a fun day on a bicycle — then I don’t know if that is Zionism or whatever you call it, but it has certainly become bankrupt"

"Magen David Adom said Saturday its paramedics treated 2,842 people across Israel during Yom Kippur, including three lightly hurt by the force of a rocket that exploded in the Western Galilee. Another 12 people were hurt while running to shelters amid , the ambulance service added. Some 320 projectiles were fired or launched into Israel by Hezbollah from Lebanon, the Israel Defense Forces said, while two rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip."

"The curious symbol-system known to us as the Tree of Life is an attempt to reduce to diagrammatic form every force and factor in the manifested universe and the soul of man; to correlate them one to another and reveal them spread out as on a map so that the relative positions of each unit can be seen and the relations between them traced. In brief, the Tree of Life is a compendium of science, psychology, philosophy, and theology."

"In the literature, there is considerable discussion regarding the term Kabbalah (). Most authorities state that it comes from the root Kabal (), meaning "to receive." Abulafia takes this a step further, maintaining that a mystic is called a Kabbalist because he has received (Kibel, ) the tradition from either the prophets or those who received from them."

"We are seized with admiration when we penetrate the sanctuary of the Cabala, by the sight of a doctrine so logical, so simple, and at the same time so absolute. The necessary union of ideas and of signs; the consecration of the most fundamental realities with primitive characters, the trinity of words, of letters and of numbers; a philosophy as simple as the alphabet, profound and infinite as the Verb; theorems more complete and illuminating than those of Pythagoras; a theology which we summarize by counting on our fingers; an infinity that could be held in the hollow of a child's hand; ten numbers and twenty-two letters, a triangle, a square, and a circle: those are the whole of the elements of the Cabala."

"The word "Qabalah" is derived from a Hebrew root (QBL) meaning "to receive". The legend is that this philosophy is a knowledge of things first taught by the Demiurgos to a select company of spiritual intelligences of a lofty rank who, after the Fall, communicated its divine injunctions to Mankind—who, in reality, were themselves in incarnation. It is also denominated the Chokmah Nistorah, "The Secret Wisdom", so-called because it has been orally transmitted from Adept to Pupil in the Secret Sanctuaries of Initiation."

"The process which the Kabbalists described as the emanation of divine energy and divine light was also characterized as the unfolding of the divine language. ... They speak of attributes and of spheres of light; but in the same context they speak also of divine names and the letters of which they are composed. ... The elements of the divine language appear as the letters of the Holy Scriptures. Letters and names are not only conventional means of communication. They are far more. Each one of them represents a concentration of energy and expresses a wealth of meaning which cannot be translated, or not fully at least, into human language."

"The Tree of Life can never be disjoined from the Tree of Knowledge for both have one and the same root."

"According to Gen. ii. 9, there stood in the midst of the Garden of Eden a "tree of life," apparently by the side of the "tree of knowledge of good and evil." Although Gen. iii. 3 seems to presuppose but one tree there, Gen. iii. 22 asserts that, after the primitive pair had eaten of the tree of knowledge, they were expelled from Eden lest they should put forth their hands and take of the tree of life and live forever. The view of the writer was that Eden contained a tree the magical power of the fruit of which conferred immortality upon him who partook of it, though Yhwh prohibited mortals from partaking of this fruit."

"The titles of the Qliphoth, generally speaking, suggest the vice characteristic of the Sephira or other idea to which they are attributed. Thus the Thaumiel refer to Kether, because their characteristic is to possess two contending heads, and so to deny the unity of Kether. So also the Golachab are giants like volcanoes, symbolizing energy and fire, and their liability to appear as tyranny and aimless destruction. Similarly, the Qliphoth of Venus are carrion birds, as opposed to the dove, sparrow, etc."

"In a previous chapter we have referred to the Qliphoth, the evil and averse Sephiroth; the time has now come to study them in detail, even though "these are awful forms, dangerous even to think upon." ... The Qliphoth are aptly termed the evil and averse Sephiroth, for they are not independent principles or factors in the cosmic scheme, but the unbalanced and destructive aspect of the Holy Stations themselves. There are, in fact, not two Trees, but one Tree, a Qliphah being the reverse of a coin of which the obverse is a Sephirah."

"Certainly Jesus' teaching was in accord with major tenets of the Pharisees, since he also believed that charity and loving-kindness were the most important of the mitzvot. Like the Pharisees, he was devoted to the Torah and was said to have preached a more stringent observance than many of his contemporaries. He also taught a version of Hillel's Golden Rule, when he argued that the whole of the Law could be summed up in the maxim: do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

"Esoteric tradition avers that the boy Jesus ben Joseph, when His calibre was recognised by the learned doctors of the Law who heard Him speak in the Temple at the age of twelve, was sent by them to the Essenian community near the Dead Sea to be trained in the mystical tradition of Israel, and that He remained there until He came to John to be baptised in the Jordan before commencing His mission at the age of thirty. Be that as it may, the closing clause of the Lord's Prayer is pure Qabalism. Malkuth, the Kingdom, Hod, the Power, Netzach, the Glory, form the basal triangle of the Tree of Life, with Yesod, the Foundation, or Receptacle of Influences, as the central point. Whoever formulated that prayer knew his Qabalah."

"One of the ironies of early Christianity is that Jesus himself was a Jew who worshiped the Jewish God, kept Jewish customs, interpreted the Jewish law, and acquired Jewish disciples, who accepted him as the Jewish messiah. Yet, within just a few decades of his death, Jesus's followers had formed a religion that stood over-against Judaism. How did Christianity move so quickly from being a Jewish sect to being an anti-Jewish religion?"

"As a child, I received instruction both in the Bible and in the Talmud. I am a Jew, but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene."

"He impelled people to believe that he was a prophet sent by God to clarify perplexities in the Torah, and that he was the Messiah that was predicted by each and every seer. He interpreted the Torah and its precepts in such a fashion as to lead to their total annulment, to the abolition of all its commandments and to the violation of its prohibitions."

"A few remarks are necessary at this point, since the name Jesus has been introduced into this work. It is not the desire of the writer to be drawn into the maelstrom of controversy with regard to the character or nature of Jesus, the individual sacred to Christians; nor is it his intention to engage in polemics as to whether Jesus actually lived, whether he was a great Adept, or simply a solar myth, as many of the exponents of the higher criticism claim. The Qabalah simply uses the name יהשוה‎ Yeheshua because it implies a certain philosophy descriptive of certain of its prime theorems. … I make this remark to reassure those of my readers who may be of Jewish persuasion."

"Such was the miraculous nature of what Schechter found in the Cairo Geniza that some have compared its discovery to that of the Dead Sea Scrolls. ... One of the twentieth century's greatest historians, S. D. Goitein, whose writing about the daily and most mundane Geniza documents unfurled a vibrant panorama of this Mediterranean society, clearly had such a comparison in mind when he titled a 1970 talk about the Geniza "The Living Sea Scrolls.""

"The Jews used to deposit all sorts of written and printed material in such rooms which were provided in or near their synagogues; they were not intended to be kept as in archives, but were to remain there undisturbed for a certain time. The Jews were afraid lest such writings which might contain the name of God should be profaned by misuse. So such written—and in later times also printed—matter was taken from time to time to consecrated ground and buried; thus it perished."

"The sacredness of the divine names must be recognized by the professional scribe who writes the Scriptures, or the chapters for the phylacteries and the mezuzah. Before transcribing any of the divine names he prepares mentally to sanctify them. Once he begins a name he does not stop until it is finished, and he must not be interrupted while writing it, even to greet a king. If an error is made in writing it, it may not be erased, but a line must be drawn round it to show that it is canceled, and the whole page must be put in a genizah and a new page begun."

"The word for Crown is Keter (), and Abulafia notes that when these letters reversed, they spell karet (), which means "cut off." Thus, when an individual attempts to reach the highest level of the Crown, if he is not worthy, he can end up being "cut off" spiritually. Abulafia therefore warns in the strongest terms that one who attempts to enter these mysteries must be adequately prepared, and that one not enter unless he is thoroughly familiar with all the necessary introductions."

"GENESIS, KING JAMES BIBLE 8 And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9 And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the also in the midst of the garden, and the . 10 And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads."

"BOOK 4. THE ARGUMENT Satan now in prospect of Eden, and nigh the place where he must now attempt the bold enterprize which he undertook alone against God and Man, falls into many doubts with himself, and many passions, fear, envy, and despare; but at length confirms himself in evil, journeys on to Paradise, whose outward prospect and scituation is discribed, overleaps the bounds, sits in the shape of a on the , as highest in the Garden to look about him."

"By the garden of Eden in the Word is not meant any garden, but intelligence; and by tree is not meant any tree, but man."

"In Jewish sources, Christmas Eve is known as Nittel Nacht. The term nittel originates from the Latin Natale Domini, "Nativity of the Lord"; however, when spelled in Hebrew, it takes on a new shade of meaning …"

"By the mid-1900s, when Judeo-Christian relations matured, the Christmas Eve customs fell mostly by the wayside as the Jewish community wanted to show their support for their Christian neighbors. While there are still some Orthodox groups that observe Nittel Nacht, these are not widespread customs among modern Jews."

"Nittel Nacht comes to us from an era when relations between Jews and Christians, the Church and Judaism, could be described as 'tense' at best. We are fortunate to be living in a day and age where relations between these two groups have flourished immensely in both the Catholic and Protestant denominations."

"The Yiddish name for Christmas is Nittel. It derives from the medieval Latin name of the holiday, Natalis Dies Domini, "the Lord's birthday", which also gave French and Italian their names for the holiday, Noël and Natale respectively."

"In certain places, Christian authorities actually prohibited Jews from appearing in public places during the Christian high holidays, so Jewish schools and synagogues were closed. In other places, Christians attacked Jews on Christmas, thus staying home was encouraged for security reasons."

"Just as some common people among the Jews sat up late on Christmas Eve keeping a boisterous apotropaic vigil, so too many Christian villagers watched out that night together in rowdy protective groups."

"It's a little bit—some of you might be troubled by what we're going to say. Let me just first say that what I'm looking at tonight is a Jewish folk custom. I certainly don't need to denigrate any other religion, but historically, we can understand that the religions didn't always get along as well as they do today, and Jews were subject to all sorts of persecution, and Jews responded with the pen. And I think we can appreciate this and look at what is a folk custom without—you know, seeing it as an aspect of Jewish cultural history."

"As to the word [Nittel] itself, there is no doubt that its origin is the Medieval Latin Natale Dominus from which the French Noel is also derived. Nevertheless, rabbinic authors, not being aware of this, have displayed great ingenuity in suggesting Hebrew sources for the word."

"It used to be dangerous to go out on this night. [Observant Christians] would go to church, hear sermons about how Jews were Yoshke (Jesus) killers, and so it wasn't safe for the Jews to go outside. If that's the case, then there's no room for &lbrack;Nittel Nacht&rbrack; to be kept today because that isn't a worry or fear anymore."

"This is the genealogy of Terah: Terah begot Abram, Nahor, and Haran. Haran begot Lot. And Haran died before his father Terah in his native land, in Ur of the Chaldeans. Then Abram and Nahor took wives: the name of Abram’s wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor’s wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran the father of Milcah and the father of Iscah. But Sarai was barren; she had no child. And Terah took his son Abram and his grandson Lot, the son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, his son Abram’s wife, and they went out with them from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to the land of Canaan; and they came to Haran and dwelt there. So the days of Terah were two hundred and five years, and Terah died in Haran."

"And Joshua said to all the people, "Thus says the Lord God of Israel: "Your fathers, including Terah, the father of Abraham and the father of Nahor, dwelt on the other side of the River in old times; and they served other gods.""

"The sons of Shem were Elam, Asshur, Arphaxad, Lud, Aram, Uz, Hul, Gether, and Meshech. 18 Arphaxad begot Shelah, and Shelah begot Eber. To Eber were born two sons: the name of one was [b]Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided; and his brother’s name was Joktan. Joktan begot Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah, Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah, Ebal, Abimael, Sheba, Ophir, Havilah, and Jobab. All these were the sons of Joktan. Shem, Arphaxad, Shelah, Eber, Peleg, Reu, Serug, Nahor, Terah, and Abram, who is Abraham."

"(about the genealogy of Jesus)...the son of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham, the son of Terah, the son of Nahor, the son of Serug, the son of Reu, the son of Peleg, the son of Eber, the son of Shelah, 36 the son of Cainan, the son of Arphaxad, the son of Shem, the son of Noah, the son of Lamech..."

"God himself must have either written or dictated to Adam the events of chapter 1. Adam then added chapters 2-4 to the record and passed it on to one of his descendants, presumably on clay tablets baked or dried into pottery. Noah would have carried the sacred records on the ark. Noah and his sons would have been eyewitnesses to the events in Genesis 5:11 - 10:32. Shem must have written the last part (chapters 10:1-11:10) and given the responsibility of keeping the records to his great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson Terah, whom he outlived by 70 years! Evidently Moses, being raised in Egypt to be a pharaoh and having access to the best libraries and records, came into possession of the records or a copy of them, and was the inspired editor to put the records into their final form the book of Genesis."

"And Noah was five hundred years old, and Noah begot Shem, Ham, and Japheth."

"And Noah begot three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth."

"On the very same day Noah and Noah’s sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and Noah’s wife and the three wives of his sons with them, entered the ark—..."

"Now the sons of Noah who went out of the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. And Ham was the father of Canaan. 19 These three were the sons of Noah, and from these the whole earth was populated. [...] But Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and went backward and covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were [a]turned away, and they did not see their father’s nakedness."

"Then he said:"

"(About the toledot) And children were born also to Shem, the father of all the children of Eber, the brother of Japheth the elder. The sons of Shem were Elam, Asshur, Arphaxad, Lud, and Aram. The sons of Aram were Uz, Hul, Gether, and Mash. Arphaxad begot Salah, and Salah begot Eber. To Eber were born two sons: the name of one was Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided; and his brother’s name was Joktan. Joktan begot Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah, Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah, Obal, Abimael, Sheba, Ophir, Havilah, and Jobab. All these were the sons of Joktan. And their dwelling place was from Mesha as you go toward Sephar, the mountain of the east. These were the sons of Shem, according to their families, according to their languages, in their lands, according to their nations."

"The sons of Shem were Elam, Asshur, Arphaxad, Lud, Aram, Uz, Hul, Gether, and Meshech. Arphaxad begot Shelah, and Shelah begot Eber. To Eber were born two sons: the name of one was Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided; and his brother’s name was Joktan. Joktan begot Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah, Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah, Ebal, Abimael, Sheba, Ophir, Havilah, and Jobab. All these were the sons of Joktan."

"And destroyed all the firstborn in Egypt, The first of their strength in the tents of Ham."

"Israel also came into Egypt, And Jacob dwelt in the land of Ham. [...] They performed His signs among them, And wonders in the land of Ham."

"Wondrous works in the land of Ham, Awesome things by the Red Sea."

"So they went to the entrance of Gedor, as far as the east side of the valley, to seek pasture for their flocks. And they found rich, good pasture, and the land was broad, quiet, and peaceful; for some Hamites formerly lived there."

"May God enlarge Japheth, And may he dwell in the tents of Shem; And may Canaan be his servant."

"And children were born also to Shem, the father of all the children of Eber, the brother of Japheth the elder."

"Now the sons of Noah who went out of the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. And Ham was the father of Canaan. 19 These three were the sons of Noah, and from these the whole earth was populated. And Noah began to be a farmer, and he planted a vineyard. Then he drank of the wine and was drunk, and became uncovered in his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside. But Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and went backward and covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were turned away, and they did not see their father’s nakedness. So Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done to him. 25 Then he said: "Cursed be Canaan; A servant of servants He shall be to his brethren.""

"( about the toledot of Canaan) Canaan begot Sidon his firstborn, and Heth; the Jebusite, the Amorite, and the Girgashite; the Hivite, the Arkite, and the Sinite; the Arvadite, the Zemarite, and the Hamathite. Afterward the families of the Canaanites were dispersed. And the border of the Canaanites was from sidon as you go toward Gerar, as far as Gaza; then as you go toward Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, as far as Lasha. These were the sons of Ham, according to their families, according to their languages, in their lands and in their nations."

"And it came to pass, when the sun went down and it was dark, that behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a burning torch that passed between those pieces. On the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying: "To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates— the Kenites, the Kenezzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.""

"(In response to the words of an angel: "Flee to the mountains, lest you be swept away!") So it came to pass, when they had brought them outside, that he said, “Escape for your life! Do not look behind you nor stay anywhere in the plain. Escape to the mountains, lest you be destroyed.” Then Lot said to them, “Please, no, my lords! Indeed now, your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have increased your mercy which you have shown me by saving my life; but I cannot escape to the mountains, lest some evil overtake me and I die. See now, this city is near enough to flee to, and it is a little one; please let me escape there (is it not a little one?) and my soul shall live.” And he said to him, “See, I have favored you concerning this thing also, in that I will not overthrow this city for which you have spoken. Hurry, escape there. For I cannot do anything until you arrive there.”"

"And as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: They ate, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Likewise as it was also in the days of Lot: They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built; but on the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. 30 Even so will it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed."

"For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment; and did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly; 6 and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, making them an example to those who afterward would live ungodly; and delivered righteous Lot, who was oppressed by the filthy conduct of the wicked (for that righteous man, dwelling among them, tormented his righteous soul from day to day by seeing and hearing their lawless deeds)."

"Blessings are on the head of the righteous, But violence covers the mouth of the wicked."

"When the morning dawned, the angels urged Lot to hurry, saying, "Arise, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be consumed in the punishment of the city.""

"When the morning dawned, the angels urged Lot to hurry, saying, “Arise, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be consumed in the punishment of the city.” And while he lingered, the men took hold of his hand, his wife’s hand, and the hands of his two daughters, the Lord being merciful to him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city. So it came to pass, when they had brought them outside, that he said, “Escape for your life! Do not look behind you nor stay anywhere in the plain. Escape to the mountains, lest you be destroyed.” [...] The sun had risen upon the earth when Lot entered Zoar. Then the Lord rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah, from the Lord out of the heavens. So He overthrew those cities, all the plain, all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground."

"Likewise as it was also in the days of Lot: They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built; but on the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. Even so will it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed."

"Orpheus' mistake wasn't that he turned and looked back towards Eurydice and Hell, but that he ever thought he could escape. Same with Lot's wife. Averting our eyes does not change the fact that we are marked."

"The next major figure in the Bible is Abraham, the spiritual ancestor of Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Abraham has a nephew, Lot, who settles in Sodom. Because the residents engage in anal sex and comparable sins, God immolates every man, woman, and child in a divine napalm attack. Lot’s wife, for the crime of turning around to look at the inferno, is put to death as well. Abraham undergoes a test of his moral values when God orders him to take his son Isaac to a mountaintop, tie him up, cut his throat, and burn his body as a gift to the Lord. Isaac is spared only because at the last moment an angel stays his father’s hand. For millennia readers have puzzled over why God insisted on this horrifying trial. One interpretation is that God intervened not because Abraham had passed the test but because he had failed it, but that is anachronistic: obedience to divine authority, not reverence for human life, was the cardinal virtue."

"And Lot's wife, of course, was told not to look back where all those people and their homes had been. But she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human. So she was turned into a pillar of salt. So it goes. (pp. 21-22)"

"Yet even among theologians we note here and there a skeptical spirit in natural science. Early in the same seventeenth century [Par F.] Eugène Roger published his Travels in Palestine. As regards the utterances of Scripture he is soundly orthodox: he prefaces his work with a map showing... the place where Samson slew a thousand Philistines with the jawbone of an ass, the cavern which Adam and Eve inhabited after their expulsion from paradise, the spot where Balaam's ass spoke, the place where Jacob wrestled with the angel, the steep place down which the swine possessed of devils plunged into the sea, the position of the salt statue which was once Lot's wife, the place at sea where Jonah was swallowed by the whale, and "the exact spot where St. Peter caught one hundred and fifty three fishes." As to natural history he describes and discusses with great theological acuteness the basilisk. ...about a foot and a half long, is shaped like a crocodile, and kills people with a single glance. The one which he saw was dead fortunately for him, since in the time of Pope Leo IV—as he tells us—one appeared in Rome and killed many people by merely looking at them; but the Pope destroyed it with his prayers and the sign of the cross. ...Providence has wisely and mercifully protected man by requiring the monster to cry aloud two or three times whenever it leaves its den. ...the same divine mercy has provided that the crowing of a cock will kill the basilisk. Yet even in this good and credulous missionary we see the influence of Bacon and the dawn of experimental science; for, having been told many stories regarding the salamander, he secured one, placed it alive upon the burning coals, and reports to us that the legends concerning its power to live in the fire are untrue. He also tried experiments with the chameleon..."

"Every today is at the same time both a cradle and a shroud: a shroud for yesterday, a cradle for tomorrow. Today, yesterday, and tomorrow are equally near to one another, and equally far. They are generations, they are grandfathers, fathers, and grandsons. And grandsons invariably love and hate the fathers; the fathers invariably hate and love the grandfathers. Today is doomed to die — because yesterday died, and because tomorrow will be born. Such is the wise and cruel law. Cruel, because it condemns to eternal dissatisfaction those who already today see the distant peaks of tomorrow; wise, because eternal dissatisfaction is the only pledge of eternal movement forward, eternal creation. He who has found his ideal today is, like Lot's wife, already turned to a pillar of salt, has already sunk into the earth and does not move ahead. The world is kept alive only by heretics: the heretic Christ, the heretic Copernicus, the heretic Tolstoy. Our symbol of faith is heresy: tomorrow is an inevitable heresy of today, which has turned into a pillar of salt, and to yesterday, which has scattered to dust. Today denies yesterday, but is a denial of denial tomorrow. This is the constant dialectic path which in a grandiose parabola sweeps the world into infinity. Yesterday, the thesis; today, the antithesis, and tomorrow, the synthesis."

"Irene: Hello, Archie! Archie: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Irene: I bet that means, "Who needs her around on my day off?" Edith: Archie didn't mean that... did you, Archie? Archie: Don't ever argue with a guest, Edith."

"Roy Tillman: Well, you don't get it, do you? This is the path I'm on. Starts at birth and it ends here. This isn't a trip to Starbucks on the way to the office. This isn't an idea. God cuts our names into bone and that's who we become. He blows His holy trumpet and the walls fall down. You all came here to find Lot's wife, but she's already a pillar of salt and she ain't turning back. So, go and live, or stay and die. It's up to you."

"Anybody who could turn Lot's wife into a pillar of salt, incinerate Sodom and Gomorrah and make it rain for forty days and forty nights has got to be a fun guy."

"Then Jacob said to Laban, “Give me my wife, for my days are fulfilled, that I may go in to her.” And Laban gathered together all the men of the place and made a feast. Now it came to pass in the evening, that he took Leah his daughter and brought her to Jacob; and he went in to her. And Laban gave his maid Zilpah to his daughter Leah as a maid."

"When Leah saw that she had stopped having children, she took her servant Zilpah and gave her to Jacob as a wife. Leah’s servant Zilpah bore Jacob a son. Then Leah said, “What good fortune!” So she named him Gad."

"Now Laban had two daughters: the name of the elder was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel Leah’s eyes were delicate, but Rachel was beautiful of form and appearance."

"Now when Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister, and said to Jacob, “Give me children, or else I die!”"

"Ne l'ordine che fanno i terzi sedi, | siede Rachel di sotto da costei | con Bëatrice, sì come tu vedi. (Dante Alighieri, Divina Commedia)"

"Sappia qualunque il mio nome dimanda | ch'i' mi son Lia, e vo movendo intorno | le belle mani a farmi una ghirlanda. || Per piacermi a lo specchio, qui m'addorno; | ma mia suora Rachel mai non si smaga | dal suo miraglio, e siede tutto giorno. || Ell'è d'i suoi belli occhi veder vaga | com'io de l'addornarmi con le mani; | lei lo vedere, e me l'ovrare appaga. (Dante Alighieri, Divina Commedia)"

"Now when Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister, and said to Jacob, “Give me children, or else I die!”"

"Then Israel journeyed and pitched his tent beyond the tower of Eder. And it happened, when Israel dwelt in that land, that Reuben went and lay with Bilhah his father’s concubine; and Israel heard about it."

"And Rebekah said to Isaac, “I am weary of my life because of the daughters of Heth; if Jacob takes a wife of the daughters of Heth, like these who are the daughters of the land, what good will my life be to me?”"

"And they blessed Rebekah and said to her: “Our sister, may you become The mother of thousands of ten thousands; And may your descendants possess The gates of those who hate them.”"

"Now Isaac pleaded with the Lord for his wife, because she was barren; and the Lord granted his plea, and Rebekah his wife conceived. But the children struggled together within her; and she said, “If all is well, why am I like this?” So she went to inquire of the Lord. And the Lord said to her: “Two nations are in your womb, Two peoples shall be separated from your body; One people shall be stronger than the other, And the older shall serve the younger.”"

"For it is written that Abraham had two sons: the one by a bondwoman, the other by a freewoman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and he of the freewoman through promise, which things are symbolic. For these are the two covenants: the one from Mount Sinai which gives birth to bondage, which is Hagar— for this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and corresponds to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children— but the Jerusalem above is free, which is the mother of us all."

"Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. And she had an Egyptian maidservant whose name was Hagar. So Sarai said to Abram, “See now, the Lord has restrained me from bearing children. Please, go in to my maid; perhaps I shall obtain children by her.” And Abram heeded the voice of Sarai. Then Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar her maid, the Egyptian, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan. 4 So he went in to Hagar, and she conceived. And when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress became despised in her [b]eyes."

"And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, scoffing. Therefore she said to Abraham, “Cast out this bondwoman and her son; for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, namely with Isaac.” And the matter was very displeasing in Abraham’s sight because of his son."

"Then she departed and wandered in the Wilderness of Beersheba. And the water in the skin was used up, and she placed the boy under one of the shrubs. Then she went and sat down across from him at a distance of about a bowshot; for she said to herself, “Let me not see the death of the boy.” So she sat opposite him, and lifted her voice and wept."

"And Jacob told Rachel that he was her father’s relative and that he was Rebekah’s son. So she ran and told her father. Then it came to pass, when Laban heard the report about Jacob his sister’s son, that he ran to meet him, and embraced him and kissed him, and brought him to his house. So he told Laban all these things."

"Then Jacob said to Laban, “Give me my wife, for my days are fulfilled, that I may go in to her.” And Laban gathered together all the men of the place and made a feast. [...] So it came to pass in the morning, that behold, it was Leah. And he said to Laban, “What is this you have done to me? Was it not for Rachel that I served you? Why then have you deceived me?” And Laban said, “It must not be done so in our country, to give the younger before the firstborn. Fulfill her week, and we will give you this one also for the service which you will serve with me still another seven years.” Then Jacob did so and fulfilled her week. So he gave him his daughter Rachel as wife also. And Laban gave his maid Bilhah to his daughter Rachel as a maid. Then Jacob also went in to Rachel, and he also loved Rachel more than Leah. And he served with Laban still another seven years."

"Sete anos de pastor Jacob servia Labão, pai de Raquel, serrana bela; Mas não servia o pai, servia a ela, E a ela só por prémio pretendia."

"God has a sense of ironic justice. To rid Jacob of his deceitful nature, God placed Jacob under Laban, a worse deceiver. To show me how insensitive and in fact merciless at times I had been to the weak, God placed me ‘under’ upset and – from my point of view – unforgiving brothers who would not give me any mercy or the benefit of the doubt, though I felt I had done so much for them through the years. I felt humiliated through shame and exasperated to the point of considering leaving the Lord. I learned that mercy expressed through kindness, forgiveness and gentleness – was not only God’s way to encourage and strengthen the weak, but the only path to keep a movement together. In all of these trials, my dear wife exemplified how one should love the weak by staying at my side with unconditional love."

"Now it came to pass when the king was dwelling in his house, and the Lord had given him rest from all his enemies all around, that the king said to Nathan the prophet, “See now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwells inside tent curtains.” Then Nathan said to the king, “Go, do all that is in your heart, for the Lord is with you.” But it happened that night that the word of the Lord came to Nathan, saying, “Go and tell My servant David, ‘Thus says the Lord: “Would you build a house for Me to dwell in? For I have not dwelt in a house since the time that I brought the children of Israel up from Egypt, even to this day, but have moved about in a tent and in a tabernacle."

"(To king David) You are the man! Thus says the Lord God of Israel: ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. I gave you your master’s house and your master’s wives into your keeping, and gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if that had been too little, I also would have given you much more! Why have you despised the commandment of the Lord, to do evil in His sight? You have killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword; you have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the people of Ammon. Now therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised Me, and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.’ Thus says the Lord: ‘Behold, I will raise up adversity against you from your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun. For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, before the sun.’"

"Moses took his tent and pitched it outside the camp, far from the camp, and called it the tabernacle of meeting. And it came to pass that everyone who sought the Lord went out to the tabernacle of meeting which was outside the camp. So it was, whenever Moses went out to the tabernacle, that all the people rose, and each man stood at his tent door and watched Moses until he had gone into the tabernacle. And it came to pass, when Moses entered the tabernacle, that the pillar of cloud descended and stood at the door of the tabernacle, and the Lord talked with Moses. All the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the tabernacle door, and all the people rose and worshiped, each man in his tent door. So the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. And he would return to the camp, but his servant Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, did not depart from the tabernacle."

"Now on the day that the tabernacle was raised up, the cloud covered the tabernacle, the tent of the Testimony; from evening until morning it was above the tabernacle like the appearance of fire. 16 So it was always: the cloud covered it by day, and the appearance of fire by night. Whenever the cloud was taken up from above the tabernacle, after that the children of Israel would journey; and in the place where the cloud settled, there the children of Israel would pitch their tents. At the command of the Lord the children of Israel would journey, and at the command of the Lord they would camp; as long as the cloud stayed above the tabernacle they remained encamped."

"And when the tabernacle is to go forward, the Levites shall take it down; and when the tabernacle is to be set up, the Levites shall set it up. The outsider who comes near shall be put to death. The children of Israel shall pitch their tents, everyone by his own camp, everyone by his own standard, according to their armies; the Levites shall camp around the tabernacle of the Testimony, that there may be no wrath on the congregation of the children of Israel; and the Levites shall keep charge of the tabernacle of the Testimony."

"Now when Moses went into the tabernacle of meeting to speak with Him, he heard the voice of One speaking to him from above the mercy seat that was on the ark of the Testimony, from between the two cherubim; thus He spoke to him."

"He who lifts up his hand in a threatening manner against a fellow-man, though he may not actually strike him, is designated a wicked man."

"In calling his two sons by the names of Gershom and Eliezer, Moses, like Joseph and other righteous men, intended to have the fact of God's help constantly before him. Since his sons would be with him, and he would often address them or call them by name, he would remember his gratitude to God."

"Moses, before he left Egypt, succeeded in securing for the Israelites the observance of rest on the Sabbath, by pointing out to Pharaoh the necessity – in his own interest – of granting his slaves one day every week freedom from labour, and thereby invigorating them for the renewal of labour after their rest."

"There is no place without God's presence. Even in the bush He was present, and this was the lesson of God's omnipresence that Moses learnt when he was called out of the bush."

"The matron whom we find so often arguing with Rabbi José observed one day to that sage, 'My god is surely greater than yours. When your God appeared to Moses in the bush, Moses merely covered his face, whilst when my god (the serpent) made its appearance he could not stand his ground at all, but had to run away out of fear.' 'Not so, 'returned the Rabbi, 'for in order to be out of the power of your god it sufficed for Moses to step a few paces back, but whither could he have fled from the presence of Him who filleth the earth?'"

"When praying on behalf of Pharaoh to remove the plague of hail from him, Moses went out of the town to do so (Exodus 9:20), because he would not pray in the midst of the idols and abominations that polluted the place and rendered it unfit for prayer to the throne of mercy. He went into the open, pure air of God to pray to God."

"For the purpose of effecting Israel's redemption God did not disdain to appear in a place where there were images of idols or other impurities."

"David advisedly calls one of his Psalms (Psalm 90) 'A prayer of Moses, the man of God,' and another Psalm (Psalm 102) he names 'A prayer of the afflicted,' to convey to us the truth that the prayer of the greatest and of the most humble of men, that of the richest and that of the poorest, of the slave and of the master, are equal before God."

"Prayers should be said in common, master and man mistress and maid, rich and poor together, for all are equal before God."

"If your hands are stained by dishonesty, your prayers will be polluted and impure, and an offence to Him to whom you direct them. Do not pray at all before you have your hands purified from every dishonest act."

"Man is the proudest of God's creatures, the eagle is the haughtiest amongst the birds, the ox amongst the cattle, and the lion amongst the beasts of the field. Hence it was the image of these four which Ezekiel saw in his vision on the throne of God."

"Every prophecy, afterwards uttered by various prophets, was handed over on Sinai at the time of the giving of the Decalogue, but was to be kept unproclaimed until each prophet had received the charge of proclaiming his respective prophecy"

"I am the first and I am the last, and beside Me there is no God' (Isaiah 43:6) I am the first, I have no father; I am the last, I have no brother. Beside Me there is no God; I have no son."

"He who lives by usury in this world shall not live in the world to come."

"Repentance makes virtues almost of the very vices of the penitent sinner."

"Poverty is man's greatest affliction."

"The poor are styled 'God's own.'"

"In giving his Torah to Israel, God is like a king who gives his only daughter in marriage, and makes it a condition with her husband that there shall always be a room kept for him in their house. If we wish to have the Torah, we must have God also. This is the meaning of the words 'Make Me a sanctuary that I may dwell therein.'"

"Gold is one of the things for the non-existence of which man would probably be all the better. It was originally called into existence for the service of the Mishkan and of the Temple."

"My light, the Torah, says God to man, is in thy hand; but thy light, the soul, is in my hand. Take care of my light, so that I may take care of thy light."

"God requires but earnest prayer and a penitent heart."

"Israel was redeemed from Egypt in answer to prayer. Joshua became a conqueror because of his prayer; in the days of the judges help was obtained by prayer; Samuel's help for his people was granted in reply to prayer."

"When God first called Moses, not being then an expert prophet, he was addressed in a voice similar to that of his own father, and he thought that his father had come to him from Egypt. God then told him that it was not his earthly father who called him, but the God of his father. Then, we find, Moses hid his face, which he did not do when first called by his name; not in fact until he heard the words, 'I am the God of thy fathers.'"

"It is prohibited to preach out of manuscript. Sermons are to be delivered without the help of any writing before the preacher."

"Samuel Rapaport, Tales and Maxims from the Midrash (London: George Routledge & Sons, 1907)"

"Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, 7 vols. (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1909–1938)"