"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."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Ilan Stavans "A Yidisher Bokher in Mexique" in How Yiddish Changed America and How America Changed Yiddish (2020)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Torah_study
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Torah study
18 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Torah study →
Related Quotes
"Though all the nations that are under the king's dominin obey him, and fall away every one from the religion of their…"
"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 Ra…"
"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 wr…"
"The entire oral law in the wider sense, namely, the entire material of the Mishnah, the Tosefta, and the halakic midr…"
"Every Israelite has a duty to study whether he is poor or rich, whether healthy or suffering, whether young or very o…"
"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…"