Quotes from Danya Ruttenberg

Before we even understand what repentance is, we're instructed4 to name, out loud, the harm that we have caused.

Does it even need to be said that there are times when one must stand up to the community, and use one's voice in support of an unpopular view? Or that complicity is participation? Sometimes the issue at hand may concern a gross injustice, sometimes it may just be about individual boundaries. Sometimes a dissenting view will be heard and accepted, sometimes it will be ignored. None of this changes our obligation to move through the world with honesty and bravery.

Another human being's suffering is not magically erased because the person who caused it says that they didn't mean to do it.

We can be the people who either crush or cultivate our children's sense of awe as they enter a world that doesn't necessarily foster it. When we choose to experience wonder, we help our children retain the tools to keep doing so as they get older.

The story of Cain and Abel from the book of Genesis teaches ... the lesson of social responsibility... The answer to the question 'Am I my brother's keeper?' is a resounding yes"31

It's inconvenient and it's maddening and it's frustrating and it's sometimes painfully difficult to love another person, even or especially our own child. But this love is our spiritual practice. It is our work and our task down here on this mortal coil. It is not only the oxygen that we offer to our children, it's what makes us able to breathe, ourselves.

I came to see that the goal of spiritual practice was perhaps more truly about service to others, becoming a better person, and responsibility to the whole, not just chasing the next moment of feeling twinkly and high.