Rabbi Harold Samuel Kushner is a prominent American rabbi aligned with the progressive wing of Conservative Judaism,[citation needed] and a popular author.
Forgiveness is a favor we do for ourselves, not a favor we do to the other party.
We do ourselves and others a disservice when we make old age something to be feared. . . The longer we live, the more life we possess.
There are some things we should feel guilty about, but the guilt feelings should attach to the deed, not to the doer.
The idea is to find some bit of holiness in everything-food, sex, earning and spending money, having children, conversations with friends. Everything can be seen as a miracle, as part of God's plan. When we can truly see this, we nourish our souls.
The path to God is rarely a steady climb upward. We climb, we fall back, and we climb higher again.
When your life is filled with the desire to see the holiness in everyday life, something magical happens: Ordinary life becomes extraordinary, and the very process of life begins to nourish your soul.
Being kind to others is a way of being good to yourself.
The soul is not a physical entity, but instead refers to everything about us that is not physical - our values, memories, identity, sense of humor. Since the soul represents the parts of the human being that are not physical, it cannot get sick, it cannot die, it cannot disappear. In short, the soul is immortal.
Seek something outside your nine-to-five job as an additional source of fulfillment and as a way to feel the joy of helping others.
No good deed ever goes wasted.
Our society puts too much emphasis on finding someone who will love you; our culture focuses too much on being loved and not enough on being a loving person.
You don't have to be religious to have a soul; everybody has one. You don't have to be religious to perfect your soul; I have found saintliness in avowed atheists.
It is because you have the typical American habit of seeing everything as a test. You see the mountain as your enemy and you set out to defeat it. So, naturally, the mountain fights back and it is stronger than you are. We do not see the mountain as our enemy to be conquered. The purpose of our climb is to become one with the mountain and so it lifts us up and carries us along.
One of the sages of the Talmud taught nearly 200 years ago that God could have created a plant that would grow loaves of bread. Instead He created wheat for us to mill and bake into bread. Why? So that we could be HIs partners in completing the work of creation.
We teach children how to measure and how to weigh. We fail to teach them how to revere, how to sense wonder and awe.
Love is not like a buffet line where the person in front of you threatens to take too much and leave too little for you. Love is like a muscle; the more it is exercised today, the more it can be used tomorrow.
None of us has the power to make someone else love us. But we all have the power to give away love, to love other people. And if we do so, we change the kind of world we live in.
We have confused God with Santa Claus. And we believe that prayer means making a list of everything you don't have but want and trying to persuade God you deserve it. Now I'm sorry, that's not God, that's Santa Claus.
God is the One who is with us when we have to do something we don't think we are capable of doing.
Why bad things happen to good people