Shem Quotes & Sayings

But gomers are not just dear old people," said Fats. "Gomers are human beings who have lost what goes into being human beings. They want to die, and we will not let them. We're cruel to the gomers, by saving them, and they're cruel to us, by fighting tooth and nail against our trying to save them. They hurt us, we hurt them. — Samuel Shem

Forgetfulness leads to exile while remembrance is the secret of redemption. — Baal Shem Tov

Only write if you can't not. — Samuel Shem

Telling the proper stories is as if you were approaching the throne of Heaven in a fiery chariot. — Baal Shem Tov

I am going out one door, and shall go through another. — Baal Shem Tov

Basch: So why don't you ask her out?
The Runt: I'm scared she wouldn't like me and say no.
-So what? What have you got to lose?
-The possibility -if she says no- that she might have said yes. Whatever I do, I don't want to lose that possibility. — Samuel Shem

To pull a friend out of the mire, don't hesitate to get dirty. — Baal Shem Tov

Life's like a penis; When it's soft you can't beat it; When it's hard you get screwed. - The Fat Man, Medical Resident in The House of God — Samuel Shem

The patient is the one with the disease — Samuel Shem

Unless we believe that God renews creation every day, our prayers grow habitual and tedious. — Baal Shem Tov

Law XIII. THE DELIVERY OF MEDICAL CARE IS TO DO AS MUCH NOTHING AS POSSIBLE — Samuel Shem

It ain't easy to do nothing, now that society is telling everyone that their body is fundamentally flawed and about to self-destruct. People are afraid they're on the verge of death all the time — Samuel Shem

When a father complains that his son has taken to evil ways, what should he do? Love him more than ever. — Baal Shem Tov

A broom sweeps clean, and itself becomes soiled; cleanse yourself of those offenses of which you may feel guilty. — Baal Shem Tov

People should allow themselves the opportunity to really know what the unity of God means. To grasp a part of the nondivisible union is to grasp the whole. — Baal Shem Tov

Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Why? Because every human being has a root in the Unity, and to reject the minutest particle of the Unity is to reject it all. — Baal Shem Tov

Whenever feeling downcast, each person should vitally remember, "For my sake, the entire world was created." — Baal Shem Tov

Pleasures are manifestations of God's name. — Baal Shem Tov

Mind is the foundation of man. — Baal Shem Tov

I've been drunk while swimming in the river, at noon the temperature of water, air, and body all the same, so that I can't tell where body ends and water begins and it's a melding of the universe, with the river curling round our bodies, cool and warm rushes intermingling in lost patterns, filling all times and all depths. — Samuel Shem

The awareness that we stand in the presence of the Living God is one of the most important realizations we can install in our operative consciousness. God is always present. The question is, how present are we? We want to stand in that Presence without opacity. Our work is to penetrate, in meditation and in action, to the very heart of being nokhach penei ha-Shem (Lamentations 2:19), of being truly present before God. — Zalman Schachter-Shalomi

At a cardiac arrest, the first procedure is to take your own pulse — Samuel Shem

I'm telling you that the cure is the disease. The main source of the illness in this world is the doctor's own illness; his compulsion to try to cure and his fraudulent belief that he can. — Samuel Shem

To look forward to whatever flowed through the doors. To save a life? Two lives? I felt proud. The burden of treating the intractable, untreatable, unplaceable, unwanted, had been replaced by the fantasy of being a real doctor, dealing with real disease. — Samuel Shem

Fear builds walls to bar the light. — Baal Shem Tov

The central aspect of worship is the feeling of being at one with God. — Baal Shem Tov

To do nothing for the gomers was to do something, and the more conscientiously I did nothing the better they got. — Samuel Shem

I make my patients feel like they're still part of life, part of some grand nutty scheme instead of alone with their diseases. With me, they still feel part of the human race. — Samuel Shem

Ha-shem to do His dirty work, namely, punishing sin. It can be read that Mastema, not Adonai, — J.A. Konrath

I realized with alarm that I hadn't learned how to save anyone at all, not Dr. Sanders or Lazarus or Jimmy or Saul or Anna O., and that what I was thrilled about was learning how to save myself. — Samuel Shem

Before you can find God, you must lose yourself. — Baal Shem Tov

We should expect nothing less from the language that was originally given by God, to His human family. Hebrew was the method that God chose for mankind to speak to Him, and Him to them. Adam spoke Hebrew - and your Bible confirms this. Everyone who got off the ark spoke one language - Hebrew.
Even Abraham spoke Hebrew. Where did Abraham learn to speak Hebrew? Abraham was descended from Noah's son, Shem. (Ge 11:10-26) Shem's household was not affected by the later confusion of languages, at Babel. (Ge 11:5-9) To the contrary, Shem was blessed while the rest of Babel was cursed. (Ge 9:26) That is how Abraham retained Hebrew, despite residing in Babylon.
So, Shem's language can be traced back to Adam. (Ge 11:1) And, Shem (Noah's son) was still alive when Jacob and Esau was 30 years of age. Obviously, Hebrew (the original language) was clearly spoken by Jacob's sons. (Ge 14:13) — Michael Ben Zehabe

The thing is," said Gilheeny, "is that we live in constant fear of our lives. It makes the blood pressure elevate like an Arabian geyser, and the tension headaches we get would knock the balls off a bull with the twist in the maxillary sinuses themselves. — Samuel Shem

Behind everyday reality, there is a deeper reality so cruel that it condemns to death those who crime is no greater than the pursuit of their own curiosity.
("Shem-El-Nessim: An Inspiration In Perfume") — Chris Bell

If the Bible didn't show us the weaknesses, the vulnerabilities , the sins of our heroes, we might have deep questions about their true virtue. — Baal Shem Tov

The ideal of man is to be a revelation himself, clearly to recognize himself as a manifestation of God. — Baal Shem Tov

From every human being there rises a light that reaches straight to heaven, and when two souls that are destined to be together find each other, the streams of light flow together and a single brighter light goes forth from that united being. — Baal Shem Tov

There is no body cavity that cannot be reached with a number fourteen needle and a good strong arm. — Samuel Shem

It's an incredible paradox that being a doctor is so degrading and yet is so valued by society — Samuel Shem

We should not laugh at the person who becoming caught up in his prayer bends his body or moves about in strange ways. Perhaps he moves in this manner to wave off unwelcome thoughts that would interrupt the prayer. Would we find it funny if we saw a person drowning going through strange motions doing whatever was necessary to save his life? — Baal Shem Tov

This wine makes me feel like I'm bathed in amnion, breathless, fed by the motherbloodflow in the umbilical vein, fetal, slippery and tumbling over and over in the warmth of the beating womb, warm amnion, warmnion. — Samuel Shem

For any of us to come to the understanding that we are common and unlearned is the accomplishment of a lifetime. — Baal Shem Tov

We should learn and reflect to the best of our capacity, but when we reach a point where we are unable to make
sense of life, we should supplant faith for understanding, and reflect again on what we do know. — Baal Shem Tov

A BMS hears hoofbeats outside his window, the first thing he thinks of is a zebra — Samuel Shem

The disciples of the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism, tell of a dream he had. In the dream, the very incarnation of the Evil Impulse appears in the form of a sinister heart. The Baal Shem Tov seizes the heart and pounds it furiously. He would destroy evil and redeem the world. As he pummels it, he hears an infant's sobbing emitted from the heart. He stops beating it. In the midst of evil is a voice of innocence; there is goodness entangled in evil. — Harold M. Schulweis

I found myself thinking of Potts as a tragic figure, a guy who'd been a happy towheaded kid you'd love to take fishing with you, who'd mistakenly invested in academic medicine when he'd have been happy in his family business, and who'd become a splattered mess on the parking lot of a hospital in a city he'd despised. What had been the seductiveness of medicine? Why? — Samuel Shem

It used to be said that when the Baal Shem Tov came into a town, his impact was so strong, he didn't have to speak. His disciples had to dance or to sing or to preach to have the same effect. I think a real messenger, myself or anyone, by the very fact that he is there as a person, as a symbol, could have the same impact. — Elie Wiesel

Everybody is unique. Compare not yourself with anybody else lest you spoil God's curriculum. — Baal Shem Tov

And how shall we be able to tell whether he is a true zaddik?" The Baal Shem replied. "Ask him to advise you what to do to keep unholy thoughts from disturbing you in your prayers and studies. If he gives you advice, then you will know that he belongs to those who are of no account. For this is the service of men in the world to the very hour of their death; to struggle time after time with the extraneous, and time after time to uplift and fit it into the nature of the Divine Name. — Martin Buber

You know what they say: It's better to have dyspareuned than never to have pareuned at all. — Samuel Shem

There is no room for God in the man who is filled with himself. — Baal Shem Tov

He who is full of joy is full of love. — Baal Shem Tov

Yes, last year in interviewing. Empathy is when you repeat the last three words the patient says and nod your head. — Samuel Shem

Your fellow man is your mirror. If your own face is clean, the image you perceive will also be flawless. But should you look upon your fellow man and see a blemish, it is your own imperfection that you are encountering - you are being shown what it is that you must correct within yourself. — Baal Shem Tov

The world is new to us every morning - and every man should believe he is reborn each day — Baal Shem Tov

Replete is the world with a spiritual radiance, replete with sublime and marvelous secrets. But a small hand held against the eye hides it all," said the Baal Shem. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Sometimes, drunk, I ruminate on the state of my liver, and think of all the cirrhotics I have watched turn yellow and die. They either bleed out, raving, coughing up and drowning in blood from ruptured esophageal veins, or, in coma, they slip away, slip blissfully away down the yellow-brick ammonia-scented road to oblivion. — Samuel Shem

We were putting into these gomers our fear of death, but who knew if they feared death? Perhaps they welcomed death like a dear long-lost cousin, grown old but still known, coming to visit, relieving the loneliness, the failing of the senses, the fury of the half-blind looking into the mirror and not recognizing who is looking back, a dear friend, a dear reliever, a healer who would be with them for an eternity, the same eternity as the long ago, before birth. — Samuel Shem

I know what it is: it's a green mamba snake away up in the tree. You don't have to be afraid of them anymore because you are one. They lie so still on the tree branch; they are the same everything as the tree. You could be right next to one and not even know. It's so quiet there. That's just exactly what I want to go and be, when I have to disappear. Your eyes will be little and round but you are so far up there you can look down and see the whole world, Mama and everybody. The tribes of Ham, Shem, and Japheth all together. Finally you are the highest one of all. — Barbara Kingsolver

The individual is not a cog in a monstrous machine; it is within his power to modify the very laws which imprison him and the very relationship maintained by the Judge with the accused and witnesses. If it is true, as the Baal Shem says, that it is possible for man to hide the light of dawn emanating from the forest simply by shielding his eyes with his hands, still it is no less true that he can rediscover it by merely moving his hands. — Elie Wiesel

Everything above and below is one unity. — Baal Shem Tov

Gomers are human beings who have lost what goes into being human beings. They want to die, and we will not let them. — Samuel Shem