Studies in Spirituality (Covenant & Conversation Book 9)

We know that life on earth is a temporary dwelling. That is why we value each moment and its newness.

Modern politics and economics were built on the foundation of the rational pursuit of self-interest.

Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson. There was nothing self-abasing about him. He carried himself with quiet dignity. He was self-confident and had an almost regal bearing. But when you were alone with him, he made you feel you were the most important person in the room. It was an extraordinary gift. It was “royalty without a crown.

When we place the self at the centre of our universe, we eventually turn everyone and everything into a means to our ends. That diminishes them, which diminishes us. Humility means living by the light of that which is greater than me. When God is at the centre of our lives, we open ourselves up to the glory of creation and the beauty of other peopl

When we lose faith in God, what is left at the centre of consciousness is the self.

When it says “be holy” it means, according to Nahmanides, practise self-restraint even in the domain of the permitted. Don’t be a glutton, even if what you are eating is kosher.

The people who change the world, whether in small or epic ways, are those who turn peak experiences into daily routines, who know that the details matter, and who have developed the discipline of hard work, sustained over time. Judaism’s greatness is

Do not believe that the future is written. It isn’t. There is no fate we cannot change, no prediction we cannot defy. We are not predestined to fail; neither are we pre-ordained to succeed.

To be Jewish means to live in the conscious presence of the God we can’t see but can sense as the force within ourselves urging us to be more courageous, just, and generous than ourselves. That’s what Judaism’s rituals are about: reminding us of the presence of the Divine.