Sublime

For the rabbi in distress—and for his oppressed and colonized people—Elijah breaks the rules of the game, in which the Romans governing Palestine (or the Persians governing Babylonia) always win and the Jews always lose. Elijah in disguise opens unpredictable possibilities.

Covenantal love is above all a commitment and an orientation. It includes passion and emotion but is not limited to them.

For Luria, in other words, tzimtzum yields divine absence; for the sages, in contrast, it yields intensified presence.

Zohar, Hakdama Sefer haZohar 1:4b–5a. 2For a deep dive into the qualities cultivated in chavruta study, see Elie Holzer and Orit Kent, A Philosophy of Havruta: Understanding and Teaching the Art of Text Study in Pairs (Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2013).

“From being solicitous about the honor of other people all the interpersonal commandments flow.”

Gratitude becomes a way of being in the world.

Judaism came to say that beneath this appearance of conflict, multiplicity, and caprice there was a oneness, a singularity, all-powerful and endlessly compassionate, endlessly just.