Quotes & Sayings About God From The Torah

We humans are the culmination of God's efforts. The Torah is man centered under God centered. It's like TWIN pillars, TWIN centers. It's NOT JUST God centered. — Dennis Prager

Did God dictate every single word [in Torah]? I don't know! — Dennis Prager

The system that God has given us is a holistic system. This is why the Torah is concerned with how we treat others, what we eat, how we behave, and how we produce, keep and share our wealth. The word shalom reminds us that we cannot live in peace until we completely take care of all other aspects of our lives. — Celso Cukierkorn

When the subject is sacred, proud and clever men may come to think that the outsiders who don't know it are not merely inferior to them in skill but lower in God's eyes; as the priests said, 'All that rabble who are not experts in the Torah are accursed.' and as this pride increases, the 'subject' or study which confers such privilege will grow more and more complicated, the list of things forbidden will increase, till to get through a single day without supposed sin becomes like an elaborate step-dance, and this horrible network breeds self-righteousness in some and haunting anxiety in others. — C.S. Lewis

If human language, with its logic, is the way God has given us to understand the world, then the Torah must be understood in that same language and with that same logic. — David Novak

Rabbinic literature, though it includes plenty of material from before AD 135, tends to see everything in the light, not of a continuing story about God and Israel within the ongoing flow of world history, but of the much thinner, often dehistoricized world of Torah-piety. — N. T. Wright

A man who struggles long to pray and study Torah will be able to discover the sparks of divine light in all of creation, in each solitary bush and grain and woman and man. And when he cleaves strenuously to God for many years, he will be able to release the sparks to unwrap and lift these particular shreds of holiness, and return them to God. This is the human task: to direct and channel the spark's return. This task is tikkun, restoration.
Yours is a holy work on earth right now, they say, whatever that work is if you tie your love and desire to God. You do not deny or flee the world, but redeem it, all of it - just as it is. — Annie Dillard

the First Testament is under no illusion about whether implementing the Torah has the potential to achieve God's purpose for Israel's life. There is no direct link between seeking to restrain injustice in society and the implementing of God's reign. Implementing God's reign is fortunately God's business. — John E. Goldingay

To me God's voice and inspiration is stronger, of greater importance and authority than that of any fairy or any other spirit like creature from above or below earth. My Spirit Tales are stories based on truth and inspired by His writings.
Stories about YHWH and His great wonderful acts are definitely not fairytales but Spirit Tales. — Sipporah Joseph

We had been found and brought to this place so near to the sky we could hear the voice of the King of Creation. The Lord had saved us and delivered us, as the Torah vowed he would. I would have been willing to do anything for the glory of God as I walked through the gate, except forgive him for what I had lost. — Alice Hoffman

111God has purchased the persons and possessions of the believers in return for the Garden - they fight in God's way: they kill and are killed - this is a true promise given by Him in the Torah, the Gospel, and the Qur'an. Who — Anonymous

Jews focus on the Torah, the embodiment of God's will; Christians, on an embodied God. — Meir Soloveichik

The giving of the Torah is a story of God seeking to provide humanity with the opportunity to make moral decisions. — Meir Soloveichik

An Ego Mind is a destructive mind and a rational mind is a peaceful mind. — Charleston Parker

Torah is not merely a collection of prohibitions, rigid strictures and boring observances. Rather, it is a narrative of the blessings and promises of God initially offered to one person and family, but through which the whole world will ultimately be blessed. — Walter C. Kaiser Jr.

We are not to make the Torah into God Himself, nor the Bible into a "paper pope." The Bible is only the result of the Word of God. We can experience the return of the Word of God in the here and now, the perpetual return of the actual, living, indisputable Word of God that makes possible the act of witnessing, but we should never think of the Bible as any sort of talisman or oracle constantly at our disposal that we need only open and read to be in relation to the Word of God and God Himself. — Jacques Ellul

Being born a human was not the first time God made Himself small so that we could have access to Him. First He shrunk Himself when He revealed the Torah at Mount Sinai. He shrunk Himself into tiny Hebrew words, man's finite language, so that we might get to Him that way. Then He shrunk Himself again, down to the size of a baby, down into manger finiteness. — Lauren F. Winner

If God were always visible, humans could not exist at all. "No one can see Me and live," says God. "If we continue to hear the voice of God, we will die," say the Israelites at Sinai. But if God is always invisible, hidden, imperceptible, then what difference does His existence make? It will always be as if He were not there. The answer to this dilemma is holiness. Holiness represents those points in space and time where God becomes vivid, tangible, a felt presence. Holiness is a break in the self-sufficiency of the material world, where infinity enters space and eternity enters time. In relation to time, it is Shabbat. In relation to space, it is the Tabernacle. These, in the Torah, are the epicentres of the sacred. — Jonathan Sacks

Maybe God is only the most powerful poetic idea we humans're capable of thinkin'," he said one night, after a few drinks. "Maybe God has no reality outside our minds and exists only in the paradox of Perfect Compassion and Perfect Justice. Or maybe," he suggested, slouching back in his chair and favoring her with a lopsided, wily grin, "maybe God is exactly as advertised in the Torah. Maybe, along with all its other truths and beauties, Judaism preserves for each generation of us the reality of the God of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob, of Moses - the God of Jesus." A cranky, uncanny God, D.W. called Him. "A God with quirky, unfathomable rules, a God who gets fed up with us and pissed off! But quick to forgive, Sofia, and generous, — Mary Doria Russell

Beloved is man, for he was created in the image of God. Beloved are Israel, for they were called children of God. Beloved are Israel, for unto them was given the desirable Torah — Rabbi Akiva

They could switch to a form of Judaism Lite developed by a diaspora Jew, one that did not require literacy or study of the Torah and was growing in popularity throughout this period. The diaspora Jew was Paul of Tarsus, and Christianity, the religion he developed, seamlessly wraps Judaism around the mystery cult creed of an agricultural vegetation god who dies in the fall and is resurrected in the spring. — Nicholas Wade

The Jewish tradition presents itself as the greatest revelation of God's truth that can be known in the world. That is why we call ourselves 'the chosen people.' It is not that we choose ourselves. It means that we have been elected by God and given the Torah. — David Novak

Several hundred men filled the main chamber. Women's voices could be heard from beyond the cloth screens running down the eastern wall. The gathering quieted for the service, which followed the same pattern as in Judea: a song and then a Scripture reading from the Torah scrolls, followed by a prayer from the Psalms. Some men departed to begin their day, but most remained. Jacob stayed where he was, repeating silently the Psalms that resonated with the emotions filling his heart. How precious, O God, is your constant love. You let us drink from the river of your goodness. You are the source of all life. — Davis Bunn

The ruach blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but cannot tell from where it comes or where it goes. God is He, He is Ruach (Spirit) and Ruach is speaking to our ruach (spirit) revealing great mysteries, knowledge, wisdom, understanding and joy. — Sipporah Joseph

To Catholic, Orthodox, and some Protestant Christians, communion involves partaking of the physical real presence of God in the bread and wine of the Eucharist. By contrast, the Torah draws the Jew into engagement with God's infinite mind. Torah learning is the definitive Jewish mode of communion with God. — Meir Soloveichik

The first grand federalist design ... was that of the Bible, most particularly the Hebrew Scriptures or Old Testament ... Biblical thought is federal (from the Latin foedus, covenant) from first to last
from God's covenant with Noah establishing the biblical equivalent of what philosophers were later to term Natural Law to the Jews' reaffirmation of the Sinai covenant under the leadership of Ezra and Nehemiah, thereby adopting the Torah as the constitution of their second commonwealth. The covenant motif is central to the biblical world view, the basis of all relationships, the mechanism for defining and allocating authority, and the foundation of the biblical political teaching. — Daniel J. Elazar

Since I invoke Torah so often, let me state that I don't personally believe in the God it postulates ... I am not religious, nor were the majority of the early builders of Israel believers. Yet their passion for this land stemmed from the Book of Books ... [The Bible is] the single most important book in my life. — David Ben-Gurion

I myself do not believe that the Torah is any more or less the revealed Word of God than are Dante's Commedia, Shakespeare's King Lear, or Tolstoy's novels, all works of comparable literary sublimity — Harold Bloom

If He (God) is invisible, how does He know what He looks like?'
"The Torah tells us He has made man in His own image, after His likeness, and therefore He does but glance at you, my son, and sees Himself. — Noah Gordon

I Only Believe What I See But I Question Everything I Hear — Charleston Parker

All through the Torah, God is pictured as having hands, a face. The rabbis say, Of course God doesn't really have hands, but the Torah uses the language of faces and hands and eyes so that we will have an easier time wrapping our minds around this infinite, handless God. That is what you say if you are a rabbi. But if you are a good novelist, you actually give Him hands and eyes by the end of the book, and that is what the Bible does. It says, in Deuteronomy, that God brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; and then it gives Him an arm in the Gospel of Matthew. — Lauren F. Winner

From The Ghost Wars- on the concept of the Torah as ancient science fiction. "Take the story of the fall of the tower of Babel. Let's say this represents not an act of God, nor a metaphor for this planet's diverse linguistic heritage; but a catastrophic act of terrorism by the Divisionists to sever mankind from the neural net. The internet in this situation becomes mankind's attempt to build a physical replacement for a natural ability long lost. Think of it as a wooden leg or a pacemaker. — Cole J. Davis

All throughout Torah, we find people looking for God, and not finding God, because God doesn't often conform to our expectations. God is somewhere other than the place we think to look. And our sages show that you can respond to God's hiddenness in many different ways. You can, like the writer of Lamentations, respond to God's hiddenness by mourning. Or, like the writer of Ecclesiastes, instead of asking where the God you thought you were looking for had gone, ask what God is like now. Or you can respond to God's hiddenness by being like Esther: if God is hiding, then you must act on God's behalf. If you look around the world and wonder where God has gone, why God isn't intervening on behalf of just and righteous causes, your very wondering may be a nudge to work in God's stead. — Lauren F. Winner

Torah is not just a book, not just a bunch of laws, and not just a history, but so much more. The Torah is a way ofd life to learn and live, and when studied, a spiritual way to understand life as well as providing instructions on getting closer to Adonai (God). When we treat others kindly, fairly, and lovingly, both in our home, social, and business lives, we are living Torah. The "truth" is the Torah is many things simultaneously. — Laura Weakley

Did he really believe God wrote stories that were open to one explanation only? A story that knew but one explanation could hardly be interesting and was certainly not worth the trouble of remembering. — Chaim Potok

To be Christian means to find the decisive revelation of God in Jesus. To be Muslim means to find the decisive revelation of God in the Koran. To be Jewish means to find the decisive revelation of God in the Torah, and so forth. — Marcus Borg

Both of my parents would say they were atheists, so where I inherited my connection to God I don't know. But it's natural. No Bible, no Torah, just the love religion. — Lisa Bonet

In describing the creation of man, the Torah says, "The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the earth and blew into him the breath of life." It's interesting to note that the Hebrew word for formed, which is vayiezer, was misspelled in the Bible, having used the Hebrew letter iud twice.
The word vayiezer can also mean inclinations, and from what we understand, when man was formed, he had inside of him two completely different inclinations. — Celso Cukierkorn

There's a lovely Hasidic story of a rabbi who always told his people that if they studied the Torah, it would put Scripture on their hearts. One of them asked, "Why on our hearts, and not in them?" The rabbi answered, "Only God can put Scripture inside. But reading sacred text can put it on your heart, and then when your hearts break, the holy words will fall inside. — Anne Lamott

On the other hand, inspiration - a criterion for canonization we might expect to play a great role - is not a factor. The Shepherd of Hermas and many writings either claimed inspiration or had it claimed for them, yet were neither universally nor ultimately accepted as canonical. In contrast, no NT writing claims inspiration for itself. The statement in 2 Tim. 3:16 that all Scripture is inspired by God (theopneustos) refers to Torah. Second Peter 3:16 refers to Paul's letters as though they were Scripture but does not say they were 'inspired.' In Revelation, 'inspiration' is certainly implied but not explicitly claimed. No doubt there was an increasingly widespread conviction that the NT writings were divinely inspired, but that notion did not appear to factor in as a criterion for canonization. — Luke Timothy Johnson

For many people during many centuries, mankind's history before the coming of Christianity was the history of the Jews and what they recounted of the history of others. Both were written down in the books called the Old Testament, [the Torah] the sacred writings of the Jewish people ... They were the first to arrive at an abstract notion of God and to forbid his representation by images. No other people has produced a greater historical impact from such comparatively insignificant origins and resources ... — John Roberts

the society in which the people of God will seek to implement this justice is one that remains sinful. It is in fact fortunate that, as Jesus puts it, the Torah is written for people who have stubborn wills. The Torah seeks to pull people toward God's creation intent, but it makes realistic allowance for their stubbornness (e.g., Mt 19:1-12). The empire and every other society remains a mixed entity, which makes the First Testament distinctively useful in this connection. Further, — John E. Goldingay

How can finite man commune with an infinite God? To both Christians and Jews, God himself has made that possible by irrupting into the temporal world. To Christians, God became man in the Incarnation; to Jews, the God that spoke out of the fire on Mount Sinai gave his Torah. — Meir Soloveichik

The Bible is not religion, nor are the Vedas. The Torah is not religion, nor is the Quran, or any other scripture on earth. — Abhijit Naskar

The Jews understand that the blessing of wealth was dependant upon obedience to the law and covenant. The laws in the Torah, if followed, would bring blessings.5 The Tanakh says, "How joyful are those who fear the Lord and delight in obeying his commands ... they themselves will be wealthy." (NLT, Psalm 112:1, 3) "If they listen and obey God, they will be blessed with prosperity throughout their lives." (NLT, Job 36:11) — H.W. Charles

Orthodox Jews, or, as they are known in the Talmud, the Really Chosen Ones, are committed to the idea that the entire Torah was dictated by God verbatim to Moses at Mount Sinai ... Other forms of Judaism dispute this claim, although it does explain certain passages in the first Torah, such as, I'm sorry, am I boring you? and What do you like better, Moses, Lord Almighty or Big Hoohah? — Jon Stewart