
“Love your fellow as yourself'- Rabbi Akiva says: This is the great principal of the Torah”
Jerusalem Talmud Nedarim 30b
Quoted in Jewish Chronicle, 11 Oct 2013 page 22.
“Love your fellow as yourself'- Rabbi Akiva says: This is the great principal of the Torah”
Jerusalem Talmud Nedarim 30b
“The unwounded life bears no resemblance to the Rabbi.”
Source: Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging
Emperor Has No Clothes Award acceptance speech (2003)
Context: Orthodox Judaism has this amazing set of rules: everyday there's a bunch of strictures of things you're supposed to do, a bunch you're not supposed to do, and the number you're supposed to do is the same number as the number of bones in the body. The number that you're not supposed to do is the same number as the number of days in the year. The amazing thing is, nobody knows what the rules are! Talmudic rabbis have been scratching each others' eyes out for centuries arguing over which rules go into the 613. The numbers are more important than the content. It is sheer numerology.
Ibid.
"The Ends of Zionism: Racism and the Palestinian Struggle"
“For there is but one essential justice which cements society, and one law which establishes this justice. This law is right reason, which is the true rule of all commandments and prohibitions.”
Est enim unum ius quo deuincta est hominum societas et quod lex constituit una, quae lex est recta ratio imperandi atque prohibendi. Quam qui ignorat, is est iniustus, siue est illa scripta uspiam siue nusquam.
Book I, section 42; Translation by C.D. Yonge)
De Legibus (On the Laws)
Context: For there is but one essential justice which cements society, and one law which establishes this justice. This law is right reason, which is the true rule of all commandments and prohibitions. Whoever neglects this law, whether written or unwritten, is necessarily unjust and wicked.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF PARTICIPANTS – INFORMATION MEETING ON THE CULT PHENOMENON IN THE UNITED STATES http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Cult_Phenomenon_in_the_United_States_%281979%29/Biographical_Sketches, February 5, 1979, 318 Russell Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C. [Between pages 18-19 of Transcript of Proceedings]. The Cult Phenomenon in the United States (1979), Joint-Congressional Proceedings, Chaired by Senator Bob Dole
About
“I want a priest, a rabbi and a Protestant minister. I want to hedge my bets.”
On his deathbed.
Quoted by Stuart B. McIver, Dreamers, Schemers and Scalawags, Pineapple Press, Sarasota, Florida, 1994. ISBN 1-56164-034-4.
On Death and Dying
“Who is wealthy?… Rabbi Akiva says: Anyone who has a wife whose actions are pleasant”
Talmud Bavli,Shabbat https://www.sefaria.org.il/Shabbat.25b.6?lang=bi&with=all&lang2=en|
"The Symbols"
The Janitor's Boy And Other Poems (1924)
Context: p>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.</p