Quotes About Divine

Replete is the world with a spiritual radiance, replete with sublime and marvelous secrets. But a small hand held against the eye hides it all," said the Baal Shem.

Happy is he who is aware of the mysteries of his Lord.

Six days a week we wrestle with the world, wringing profit from the earth; on the Sabbath we especially care for the seed of eternity planted in the soul. The world has our hands, but our soul belongs to Someone Else. Six days a week we seek to dominate the world, on the seventh day we try to dominate the self.

For Sinai consisted of both a divine proclamation and a human perception. It was a moment in which God was not alone.

A longing for things material is an instrument by which one may approach the love of God; even through coarse desires one may come to love the Creator.

Judaism is God's quest for man.

Thus Judaism is based upon a minimum of revelation and a maximum of interpretation, upon the will of God and upon the understanding of Israel.

God's goodness is not a cosmic force but a specific act of compassion. We do not know it as it is but as it happens. To mention an example, "Rabbi Meir said: When a human being suffers what does the Shechinah say? My head is too heavy for Me; My arm is too heavy for Me. And if God is so grieved over the blood of the wicked that is shed, how much more so over the blood of the righteous.

The Sabbath, thus, is more than an armistice, more than an interlude; it is a profound conscious harmony of man and the world, a sympathy for all things and a participation in the spirit that unites what is below and what is above. All that is divine in the world is brought into union with God. This is Sabbath, and the true happiness of the universe.

Just as man is not alone in what he is, he is not alone in what he does. A mitsvah is an act which God and man have in common.

The Torah is primarily divine ways rather than divine laws.

He is in need of the work of man for the fulfillment of His ends in the world.

To the religious man it is as if things stood with their backs to him, their faces turned to God, as if the glory of things consisted in their being an object of divine care.

Philosophy of religion conducted in this manner, then, celebrates humility before the divine, since the awareness of God's overwhelming priority decenters us and puts us in our proper place.

The way to understand the meaning of torah min hashamayim ("the Bible is from heaven") is to understand the meaning of hashamayim min hatorah ("heaven is from the Bible). Whatever taste of "heaven" we have on earth is in the Bible.

to the Bible the idea of the good is penultimate; it cannot exist without the holy. The holy is the essence, the good is its expression.

Rabbi Tarfon said: "You are not called upon to complete the task, yet you are not free to evade it." Whatever we do is only a partial fulfillment; the rest is completed by God.

The essence of our faith in the sanctity of the Bible is that its words contain that which God wants us to know and to fulfill. How these words were written down is not the fundamental problem.

We must constantly remember: we spoil and God restores. How ugly is the way in which we spoil, and how good and how beautiful is the way in which He restores.

The act of revelation is a mystery, while the record of revelation is a literary fact, phrased in the language of man.

If there is anything that links the human to the divine, it is the courage to stand by a principle when everybody else rejects it.

I know there is a God, and that He hates injustice and slavery. I see the storm coming, and I know that his hand is in it. If He has a place and work for me - and I think He has - I believe I am ready.

Without the assistance of that divine being, I cannot succeed. With that assistance I cannot fail. Trusting in Him, who can go with me, remain with you and be everywhere for good let us confidently hope that all will yet be well.

Two principles have stood face-to-face from the beginning of time; and they will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity and the other the divine right of kings.