Talmud Quotes

I am one of the few goyim who have ever actually tackled the Talmud.

I suppose you now expect me to add that it is a profound and noble work, worthy of hard study by all other goyims. Unhappily, my report must differ from this expectation. It seems to me, save for a few bright spots, to be quite indistinguishable from rubbish.

It is written in the Jewish law book, the Talmud, that only the Jew is human, that Gentiles are only animals.

I expect from our judges that their verdicts are also inspired by Talmudic law - and not only by common law or European justice systems.

My mother, whose family was heavily rabbinic, said she wanted me to continue the family tradition in the rabbinate. My father said he wanted me to be a scholar of the Talmud, but he wanted me to make my living in science.

The Jewish conception of the Jews as the Chosen People who must eventually rule the world forms indeed the basis of Rabbinical Judaism... The Jewish religion now takes its stand on the Talmud rather than on the Bible.

The word resentment means to re-feel.

..to feel again. Someone wrongs or wounds you; in resenting it, you re-feel the injury. And you re-hurt yourself. The Hebrew Talmud says that a person who bears a grudge is "Like one who, having cut one hand while handling a knife, avenges himself by stabbing the other hand."

I never turn down a drink. Among friends it’s always appropriate. A man is only a man as they say, but brandy is still brandy. You’ll find that in the Talmud too.

In the Jewish Quarter [Judengasse] was I born and educated;

until my fifteenth year, they tried to beat the Talmud into me. My teachers were inhuman beings [Unmenschen], my colleagues were bad company, inducing me to secret sin; my body was frail, my spirit raw.

Every blade of grass has its Angel that bends over it and whispers, "Grow, grow." - The Talmud

The truth is that what the great religions preached, the Yiddish-speaking people of the ghettos practiced day in and day out. They were the people of The Book in the truest sense of the word. They knew of no greater joy than the study of man and human relations, which they called Torah, Talmud, Mussar, Cabala.

I'm a Larry David fan, right? And it seems to me that Jewish history from the Talmud on has been a self-deprecating, self-critical kind of humor.

I had rather believe all the Fables in the Legend, and the Talmud, and the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without a Mind.

The sign work of the Orient it runneth up and down;

The Talmud stalks from right to left, a rabbi in a gown; The Roman rolls from left to right from Maytime unto May; But the gods shake up their symbols in an absent-minded way. Their language runs to circles like the language of the eyes, Emphasised by strange dilations with little panting sighs.

The Talmud is to this day the circulating heart's blood of the Jewish religion.

Whatever laws, customs or ceremonies we observe-whether we are orthodox, conservative, reform or merely spasmodic sentimentalists-we follow the Talmud. It is our common Law.

In my tradition, one must wait until one has learned a lot of Bible and Talmud and the Prophets to handle mysticism. This isn't instant coffee. There is no instant mysticism.

If it be true that our people represent a high percentage of mental vigor, the distinction is probably due, in some measure, to the extremely important part which Talmud studies have played in the spiritual life of the race.

I argue that the Talmud is about the constant struggle to understand.

I have decided to follow in my sinful ways, and have largely abandoned the increasingly religious life I was leading over the previous months, including several hours of Talmudic study a day.

I wanted to write a commentary on the Bible, to write about the Talmud, about celebration, about the great eternal subjects: love and happiness.

Every interpretation is but an introduction to another interpretation, and that is how Talmud pages are printed.

I read the text; and then I come to the Shirat ha-Yam, to the Song of the Sea [Exodus 15], to the poetry. Who could have written such a poem except someone who went through it? It is so full of life, so full of truth, of passion, of concern. And the thousands and thousands of commentaries in the Talmudic tradition that have been written on it. It had to have happened. But even if not, I would attribute the same beauty to the text as I do now.

In Jewish tradition the Talmud is said to have been given on Sinai.

The Bible is interpreted by the Talmud.

Except, in Rabbinic tradition, a Talmudic law has the weight of the Biblical law. Sometimes we say in a prayer, "Blessed are Thou, O God, who has ordered us and commended us," to do something. But you don't find that "something" in the Bible; you find it in the Talmud. So Talmudic law becomes as important as Biblical law.

I would not speak of Judaism as a Talmudic or Rabbinic religion. It's a Biblical religion.

The Hebrew Bible defines Judaism. It's certainly true that the Talmudic interpretations become authoritative and normative, but they are interpretations of the Hebrew Bible. So that is always there.

Judaism is in a sense a Rabbinic, Talmudic religion, rather than a Biblical religion.

In my town we studied the five Books of Moses, but rarely the prophets.

We studied the Talmud so much that I sometimes knew the prophets because of the prophetic quotations in the Talmud. We almost never studied the prophets themselves.

In Talmudic literature, certainly in the beginning, he was like a human being - except he was a serpent. But he was talking and walking and probably dreaming.

I have a concordance to the Talmud at home, which I have to use.

Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986, Elie Wiesel is also the author of more than 40 books. As relevant as anything to today's discussion are the insights into the Biblical texts that are contained in his lectures and books. They include Messengers of God [1976], Five Biblical Portraits [1978] and his just-published Wise Men and Their Tales - Portraits of Biblical, Talmudic and Hasidic Masters.

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?

From the Rabbis of the early Talmudic age I learned that there is never a last word on God. There's, you always continue to question. Even God himself could be questioned and you can keep arguing with one another and there will be no end to this conversation about the divine because no human expression of God can be ultimate.

For me, study is a divine and daily imperative, and I study a page of Talmud daily so that I am not only teaching. My teaching is constantly being fed by my learning.

Pharisaism became Talmudism...But the spirit of the Ancient Pharisee survives unaltered. When the Jew...studies the Talmud, he is actually repeating the arguments used in the Palestinian academies. From Palestine to Babylonia; from Babylonia to North Africa, Italy, Spain, France and Germany; from these to Poland, Russia and eastern Europe generally, ancient Pharisaism has wandered.