Daily Jewish Wisdom

[Green Gaia]

No injustice in this world is suffered alone. No matter how quiet or hidden the suffering, how silent the afflicted, there is One who not only knows of it, but likewise feels the pain. There are lives of quiet desperation, but no lives of solitary desperation, for all suffering is shared.

- Rabbi David Wolpe, "Healer of Shattered Hearts"

 

[Green Gaia]

Whoever destroys a single life is as guilty as though he had destroyed the entire world; and whoever rescues a single life earns as much merit as though he had rescued the entire world.

- The Talmud, Mishna. Sanhedrin 37a

 

[Green Gaia]

It is better to have less if it is with peace of mind than to have abundant wealth but with a tormented spirit.

- Ecclesiastes

 

[Green Gaia]

A religious man is a person who holds God and man in one thought at one time, at all times, who suffers harm done to others, whose greatest passion is compassion, whose greatest strength is love and defiance of despair.

- Abraham Joshua Heschel

 

[Green Gaia]

A man is only as good as what he loves.

- Saul Bellow, "Seize the Day"

 

[Green Gaia]

One hour of repentance and good deeds in this world is more beautiful than all the life in the world to come.

- Jacob b. Kurshai, Mishna: Abot

 

[Green Gaia]

If you must hate, if hatred is the leaven of your life, which alone can give flavor, then hate what should be hated: falsehood, violence, selfishness.

- Boerne, "Der ewige Jude"

 

[Green Gaia]

The spiritual perfection of man consists in his becoming an intelligent being--one who knows all that he is capable of learning.

- Maimonides

 

[Green Gaia]

The world is new to us every morning--this is the Holy One's gift and every person should believe he is reborn each day.

- Baal Shem Tov

 

[Green Gaia]

The ultimate result of your knowledge of God should be the conviction that of His real essence you are completely ignorant.

- Bahya, "Hovot HaLevavot"

 

[Green Gaia]

Give of yourself...
you can always give something, even if it is only kindness...
No one has ever become poor from giving.

- Anne Frank, "The Diary of a Young Girl"

 

[Green Gaia]

The purpose of the laws of the Torah...is to bring mercy, loving-kindness and peace upon the world.

- Moses Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, "Laws of the Sabbath," 2:3

 

[Green Gaia]

Why was only a single man created first? That virtue and vice may not be claimed as hereditary.

- Tosefta: Sandhedrin 8:4

 

[Green Gaia]

Just as we love ourselves despite the faults we know we have, so should we love our neighbors despite the faults we see in them.

- Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov

 

[Green Gaia]

Do not say, "When I have leisure, I will study." Perhaps you will have no leisure.

- Pirkei Avot 2:4

 

[Green Gaia]

The virtue of angels is that they cannot deteriorate; their flaw is that they cannot improve. Humanity's flaw is that we can deteriorate; but our virtue is that we can improve.

- Hasidic saying

 

[Green Gaia]

Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are a good person is like expecting the bull not to charge you because you are a vegetarian.

- Rabbi Harold Kushner, "When All You've Ever Wanted Isn't Enough," paraphrasing Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan

 

[Green Gaia]

Human fallibility being what it is, victory and truth do not always go together. Therefore, if you have to always win, you can't always be true.

- Rebbe Nachman of Breslov

 

[Green Gaia]

What is in your heart about your fellow man is most likely in his heart about you.

- Book of Deuteronomy

 

[Green Gaia]

A man is what he is, not what he used to be.

- Yiddish proverb