Yehuda Quotes & Sayings

In fact, this figure [five million "murdered" Gentiles] is too high if one is counting victims who were targeted exclusively for racial reasons, but too low if one counts the total number of victims the Nazi regime killed outside military operations.
(...)
Wiesenthal's aggrandizement of his role in the Eichmann capture is far less disturbing and historiographically significant than another of his inventions. In an attempt to elicit non-Jewish interest in the Holocaust, Wiesenthal decided to broaden the population of victims - even though it meant falsifying history. He began to speak of eleven million victims: six million Jews and five million non-Jews. Holocaust historian Yehuda Bauer immediately recognized that this number made no historical sense. Who, Bauer wondered, constituted Wiesenthal's five million.

--The Eichmann Trial, page 8 — Deborah E. Lipstadt

The beauty of the environment is an important factor in the quality of life. — Yehuda Levi

My son, again you worry me. From time to time you worry me, so regularly it should calm me. I remember once, when you were little, we saw a fire together in a big hotel. The flames and the water and the smoke, the wailing and the shouting and the madly flashing lights, all these saved me from lots of talk on what life is. And we stood in silence. I ask myself where my father hid his fear, perhaps in a closed closet or some other place beyond the reach of children, perhaps deep in his heart. But now again you worry me. I'm always looking for you, this time among the mists of the Upper Galilee. I am a mist father. And the child is no more, for he is already grown. — Yehuda Amichai

If falling into desperation worked to make things better, then I would say, 'Let's all jump into despair.' But it doesn't help. The only way to truly find meaning and fulfillment is to look at the disaster, the pain, the difficulty, and know with complete certainty that good can come from this. — Yehuda Berg

It was not an adventure; it was my life. — Yehuda Amichai

The soul inside me is the last foreign language I'm learning, — Yehuda Amichai

A rewarding relationship occurs when there is a common spiritual goal, shared spiritual values and a mutual desire to build a relationship upon a spiritual foundation and for the purpose of connecting to the light of the creator. — Yehuda Berg

Trauma ruptures and hollows. Compassion mends and fills; love heals. — Na'ama Yehuda

My poems are political in the deeper sense of the word. Political means to live in your time, to be a man of your time. — Yehuda Amichai

Our contribution purely depends on our consciousness and our willingness to support those in need, to show vulnerability and accept the support of others, to share without expecting the credit, to give it our all and allow our hard work to decide the outcome, to understand that control can only be achieved with a shared responsibility. — Yehuda Berg

Behind all this, some great happiness is hiding. — Yehuda Amichai

Tonight I think again of many days that are sacrificed for one night of love. Of the waste and the fruit of the waste, of plenty and of fire. And how painlessly-time. — Yehuda Amichai

I know a man
who photographed the view he saw
from the window of the room where he made love
and not the face of the woman he loved there. — Yehuda Amichai

The phrase I like to use to describe my sense of time-a play on comparative literature-is comparative time. — Yehuda Amichai

Power,' as the sociologist Nachman Ben-Yehuda writes, 'enters the picture in two ways': the first entails constructing and legitimizing the moral system itself; the second, in enforcing it. In this view, 'deviants are those who simply do not have enough power to prevent others from defining them as such'. — Shuli Barzilai

I suppose history always did have in it a large bit of the perspective of those who wrote it. People tend to make their own truth of what was right loom larger than other truths just as true but somehow less favorable to telling. — Na'ama Yehuda

I do believe that the original sources of all religions should be taught, because with that we will find our similarities, not just our differences. I believe that if Mohammed, Buddha, Jesus, and Moses all got together they would be best of friends because the spiritual basis of all religions is something that builds unity. — Yehuda Berg

I try to stay a civilian, to live as a human, not as a poet. — Yehuda Amichai

Jerusalem is a port city on the shore of eternity. — Yehuda Amichai

If we each take responsibility in shifting our own behavior, we can trigger the type of change that is necessary to achieve sustainability for our race or this planet. We change our planet, our environment, our humanity every day, every year, every decade, and every millennia. — Yehuda Berg

Change is inevitable. Things absolutely cannot stay the same. The type of change we invoke is up to each and every one of us. — Yehuda Berg

Men who hit do so because they can...someplace they enjoy or need to humiliate another. There is no love in violence, only control and domination. — Na'ama Yehuda

Unfortunately, it is human nature for us to only learn and grow from a place of emptiness. It's hard to learn when we are winning and on top of the world. — Yehuda Berg

Son of man, keep not silent, forget not deeds of tyranny. Cry out at the disaster of a people, recount it unto your children and they unto theirs. — Yehuda L. Bialer

With so much evidence of depleting natural resources, toxic waste, climate change, irreparable harm to our food chain and rapidly increasing instances of natural disasters, why do we keep perpetuating the problem? Why do we continue marching at the same alarming beat? — Yehuda Berg

At the end of the day, the key to happiness is taking ultimate responsibility for your reactions to all of your experiences - the good and the chaotic. — Yehuda Berg

If not in the moment, where do you propose to live? — Na'ama Yehuda

My heart in the East
But the rest of me far in the West
How can I savor this life, even taste what I eat?
How, in the bonds of the Moor,
Zion chained to the Cross,
Can I do what I've vowed to and must?
Gladly I'd leave
All the best of grand Spain
For one glimpse of the ruined Shrine's dust. — Yehuda HaLevi

I've learnt more physics from Kabbalah than I ever did in school. — Yehuda Berg

Be the kind of person you want to be with ... If you don't like the people in your life, you are the one who has to change, not them. — Yehuda Berg

God is not separate from anything, or anyone. So it's impossible to prevent God from being visible in our government. — Yehuda Berg

We may proclaim that stress kills, but in reality it is not stress that kills; it is our reaction to it. Sometimes we react to the Light by finding various ways of shutting it out. But when we shut off the Light, we are in fact killing ourselves - so the idea is not to turn stress away, but to let it in. — Yehuda Berg

Kabbalah is all about change. It isn't about being proud of our good qualities: the wisdom is about transforming our darkness into light. — Yehuda Berg

Death is just another path to take, as real as morning. — Na'ama Yehuda

And Thou shalt never, but never be a bystander. — Yehuda Bauer

At any given moment, it's not about where we are supposed to be. It's about what work, which relationship, what decision I take. Every moment counts. Every decision counts. And if we look at our decisions in life as such, we stop battling and start winning. — Yehuda Berg

If we can remain present and deal with the moment in front of us, no matter what our battle, then if we lose, we'll know that ultimately we weren't supposed to win that battle in the first place. — Yehuda Berg

God never answers prayers. It is people who answer their own prayers by knowing how to connect and utilize the divine energy of the Creator and the God-like force in their own souls. — Yehuda Berg

Today, make time to play. — Na'ama Yehuda

I imagine God to be like my father. My father was always the voice of certainty in my life. Certainty in the wisdom, certainty in the path, certainty always in God. For me God is certainty in everything. Certainty that everything is good and everything is God. — Yehuda Berg

Before Ben-Yehuda ... Jews could speak Hebrew; after him they did. — Cecil Roth

Love is like a reservoir of kindness and pleasure, like silos and pools during a siege. — Yehuda Amichai

We need to realize that our path to transformation is through our mistakes. We're meant to make mistakes, recognize them, and move on to become unlimited. — Yehuda Berg

You invite judgment into your life every time you judge others. To avoid this invitation to negativity, it's best to stop focusing on others' darkness. Instead, pay attention to their strengths. Today, be a horse with blinders. Look at only the good. As you develop this power, you will attract positive forces into your life. — Yehuda Berg

I've often said that all poetry is political. This is because real poems deal with a human response to reality and politics is part of reality, history in the making. Even if a poet writes about sitting in a glass house drinking tea, it reflects politics. — Yehuda Amichai

From the place where we are right, flowers will not grow in the spring. — Yehuda Amichai

I wanted to be calm, like a mound with all its cities destroyed, and tranquil, like a full cemetery. — Yehuda Amichai

In North America and Western Europe, ten percent of the population of the world consumes fifty percent of its energy. — Yehuda Levi

Like high mountain climbers who set up a base in the valley at the foot of the mountains and another camp and camp number two and camp number three at various heights on the road to the peak, and in every camp they leave food and provisions and equipment to make their last climb easier and to collect on their way back everything that might help them as they descend, so I leave my childhood and my youth and my adult years in various camps with a flag on every camp. I know I shall never return, but to get to the peak with no weight, light, light! — Yehuda Amichai

The reason a poet is a poet is to write poems, not to advertise himself as a poet. — Yehuda Amichai

Every work of art stems from a wound in the soul of the artist. When a person is hurt, his immune system comes into operation, and a self-healing process takes place, mental and physical." He called art "a psychological component of the auto-immune system that gives expression to the healing process. — Yehuda Koren

If we are going to be happy and have any chance at growing then we must learn how to forgive others ... and ourselves. — Yehuda Berg

It's our own small voice within that is our oppressor; it says we are not worthy and not powerful enough. Our limited beliefs are the real foes we need to fight and conquer. — Yehuda Berg

When hearts speak, they touch each other and transform the deepest sorrow. — Na'ama Yehuda

I think the end is endless. It's either a big black hole or a big white light or both together. But it's totally meaningless, because even if someone would explain it, I wouldn't understand it. — Yehuda Amichai

Every intelligent person, whether he's an artist or not - a mathematician, a doctor, a scientist - possesses a poetic way of seeing and describing the world. — Yehuda Amichai

Ego is one of the biggest weapons that is used to take us down. It's self-destructive. It's a problem on all levels - even regular people can have big ego problems. — Yehuda Berg

In my life are many windows
and many graves.
Sometimes they exchange
roles:
then a window is closed forever,
then by way of a gravestone
I can see
very far.
(Hebrew-to-English translation by Rabbi Steven Sager) — Yehuda Amichai

The biggest breakthroughs in consciousness occur when things are difficult; when we have a choice to fall to the worst of ourselves or rise to the best of ourselves. — Yehuda Berg

To me, spirituality means 'no matter what.' One stays on the path, one commits to love, one does ones work; one follows one's dream; one shares, tries not to judge, no matter what. — Yehuda Berg

Positive change always encounters resistance, conflict, and obstacles. We must embrace difficult and heated situations in life, for that is the method of igniting our reactions in order to transform them. — Yehuda Berg

The establishment of the state of Israel is not the result of the Holocaust. It is almost a result of the fact that the Holocaust was not totally successful. — Yehuda Bauer

In truth, we are all part of the team of humanity. And as such, we are all obligated to share ourselves, and our talents, for the sake of the team. — Yehuda Berg

From the explicit prohibition against the destruction of fruit trees, our sages deduced that it is all the more forbidden to destroy the fruits themselves. — Yehuda Levi

I come from a people who gave the Ten Commandments to the world. Time has come to strenghten them by three additional ones, which we ought to adopt and commit ourselves to: thou shall not be a perpetrator; thou shall not be a victim; and thou shall never, but never, be a bystander. — Yehuda Bauer

The more we invest in our spirituality, the more consistently we can elevate our consciousness and connect to the spiritual source of everything good. — Yehuda Berg

When I grew up, I thought I was Jewish. Now I don't consider myself Jewish. I consider myself a Kabbalist. — Yehuda Berg

Love is a weapon of Light, and it has the power to eradicate all forms of darkness. That is the key. When we offer love even to our enemies, we destroy their darkness and hatred ... — Yehuda Berg

Your garbage, transformed, is your gift. — Yehuda Berg

If you are messing around all day and then scream for certainty, you're not going to get it. If you spend energy and do the work and develop that certainty, you'll get to where you need to be, even if you don't know exactly where that is. — Yehuda Berg

Spy (1973)
Many years ago,
I was sent
to spy out the land beyond the age of thirty.
And I stayed there
and didn't go back to my senders,
so as not to be made
to tell
about this land
and made
to lie. — Yehuda Amichai

Particular nuisances (are) smoke, sewage odours, dust and similar aerosols, and vibrations. — Yehuda Levi

If we can soften our hearts, and if we can access the pure and simple aspect of our nature, then we can regain the realization that everything we need is already inside us and anything is attainable. — Yehuda Berg

People use each other
as a healing for their pain. They put each other
on their existential wound,
on the eye, on the cunt, on mouth and open hand.
They hold each other and won't let go. — Yehuda Amichai

Sometimes I come crashing down inside myself
without anyone noticing. — Yehuda Amichai

The only things that last are love and hate. The only one that matters is love: Choose love. Hate erodes. Love nourishes.. — Na'ama Yehuda

Do not be a perpetrator. Do not be a bystander. Do not be a victim. — Yehuda Bauer

Listening better. Caring more. Being there. Its not big changes, but the little ones in our daily lives that make all the difference. With little ways to love more, big things happen — Yehuda Berg

It's enough to make a small shift within and a small action in the world. Collectively these have a huge effect. — Yehuda Berg

Only my penis is still free and happy, no good for sword fights and no good for any work, or even for hanging things on, or for digging trenches. Praise be to God that it is so. — Yehuda Amichai

There are two languages: one as things seem to us and the other of knowledge. — Yehuda Amichai

Out of three or four in a room
One is always standing at the window
Hair dark above his thoughts
Behind him the words
And in front of him the words, wandering without luggage
Hearts without provision, prophecies without water,
And big stones put there
And stayed, closed, like letters,
With no adresses; and no one to receive them. — Yehuda Amichai

You cannot fight hate and violence with more hate and violence, any more than you can conquer darkness with more darkness. Adding darkness only increases blackness. To subtract shadow, add light. — Na'ama Yehuda

Change requires leaving our comfort zones and plunging headfirst into uncomfortable situations. It's true this causes some pain and discomfort for a moment, but it's the quickest path to generating long-term fulfillment. — Yehuda Berg

Overthinking is often a product of underdoing. — Yehuda Berg

The only way to get to Heaven is to go through Hell. — Yehuda Berg

Like a butcher sharpening knife on knife
I sharpen heart on heart inside me. — Yehuda Amichai

The truth is that we were born to have it all. And part of our handicap as adults is that we no longer understand our potential. — Yehuda Berg

The whole point of all of this - why we are here, why the world is here, and why we have the political system and leaders that we do - is to achieve change. This is the purpose of life. — Yehuda Berg

One grey hair appeared on my head
I plucked it out with my hand.
It answered me: You have prevailed against me alone -
What will you do when my army comes after me? — Yehuda HaLevi

'Faith' and 'trust' are words that put the power in the hands of an outside force that we are meant to rely on - whether it is God or a person or the universe. Certainty puts the power back in our hands. — Yehuda Berg

When you're truly connecting with wisdom, the more you learn, the more you realize the less you know. — Yehuda Berg

The memory of my father is wrapped up in white paper, like sandwiches taken for a day of work. Just as a magician takes towers and rabbits out of his hat, he drew love from his small body. — Yehuda Amichai

In the not so distant past, we were close enough to our community to physically see how our actions impacted the group overall. Now it's just too easy to look the other way, or turn off the TV or computer and detach ourselves from the others. — Yehuda Berg

Here (Jerusalem), tears do not weaken the eyes, they only polish and shine the hardness of faces like stone. — Yehuda Amichai

One of the treasures of nature is beauty; this, too, should be preserved. — Yehuda Levi

Hurt people hurt people. That's how pain patterns gets passed on, generation after generation after generation. Break the chain today. Meet anger with sympathy, contempt with compassion, cruelty with kindness. Greet grimaces with smiles. Forgive and forget about finding fault. Love is the weapon of the future. — Yehuda Berg

Many can argue that it is our power of intelligence that is the key to the human domination of our planet. I suggest that it is the ability to put our thoughts into words that can be communicated to others. — Yehuda Berg

When you complain you advertise your stupidity. — Yehuda Ashlag

Every little action creates an effect: We are all interconnected. — Yehuda Berg