Climbing the Mountain

Then I found out that Jesus was a Jew! Wow! Now that really perplexed me. People who hated Jews worshiped a Jew as a God? Then I found out that Jesus was not only a Jew, but a rabbi who gave sermons on the Torah. Do Christians know that? I guess this is why M. Scott Peck in his Further Along the Road Less Traveled says that the gospels of Jesus are the best-kept secret of Christianity. So many people quoting Jesus have never read the gospels. Were they to read the gospels and maybe a little bit of the rest of the Bible they would realize that half the time Jesus is quoting Moses

I said, "Look, Rabbi, I want you to know that I am not much of a Jew. Judaism lost me at age fourteen." What R' David Aaron said in response staggered me. He pointed out that no rational adult would make a business decision based on what he knew when he was fourteen. No one would decide whom to marry based on what he knew about love and relationships when he was fourteen. But lots of people seem satisfied to dismiss religion based on what they learned-or didn't learn-at fourteen. He was right, and I was one of those that stupid.

I see so much humor, so much irony in the Bible. But what attracts me most is the fact that all these people had to overcome their faults and do something with their life. It's a message to all of us. You may do a lot of bad things, but you can overcome your past. That is the reassuring thing you learn from the Bible

A Jew must imbibe so much liquor during Purim that he can't tell the difference between "Cursed be Haman" (who, like Hitler, wanted to destroy all the Jews) and "Blessed be Mordecai" (who, along with Queen Esther foiled Haman's plot). This is to drive home the point that evil and good work hand in hand in God's unfathomable plan; often, we choose good only when confronted with evil. An incredible insight!

Can you imagine an election campaign without either candidate saying something nasty about the other, even for one day? I can't Note: Written in 1997, so this fantasy of "how campaigns used to be civil" is just that... Fantasy & revisionist history

Brando never wanted to pay the price. His superficial interest in causes was never backed up by real actions. It was merely a selfindulgent whim. And so he flitted from cause to cause like a bee buzzing from flower to flower, but crapping, not pollinating.