David Novak Quotes & Sayings

“The Holocaust, taken by itself, is a black hole. To look at it directly is to be swallowed up by it.”

“Roots can live without branches, although truncated; branches cannot live without roots.”

“Christianity and Judaism are united above all in their common affirmation and implementation of the moral teaching of the Hebrew Bible, or 'Old Testament,' and the traditions of interpretation of that teaching.”

“Proselytizing is only wrong if coercive or deceptive. Coercion, whether violent or not, is immoral, just as deception is immoral.”

“The slogan 'Never Again!' that emerged after the Holocaust implies that the Holocaust has a universal moral meaning, which, if properly learned, can provide at least a theoretical prophylactic against its repetition against anyone.”

“To be a Jew, essentially and not just accidentally, is to regard the Jewish people as one's sole primal community. Election by the unique God requires total and unconditional loyalty to one people.”

“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.”

“The most important part of the process of mourning is regularly reciting kaddish in a synagogue. Kaddish is a doxology, which Jewish tradition has mandated children to recite daily in a synagogue during the year of mourning for a deceased parent and then on the anniversary of his or her death thereafter.”

“The relationship between God and his people was always the one having absolute primacy, the one that had basically to determine all human relationships, whether those within the covenanted community itself or those between the covenanted community and the outside world.”

“Foundational autonomy asserts instead that in the most fundamental practical sense, I am my own creator, which means that at the core, I am alone.”