As children, our imaginations are vibrant, and our hearts are open. We believe that the bad guy always loses and that the tooth fairy sneaks into our rooms at night to put money under our pillow. Everything amazes us, and we think anything is possible. We continuously experience life with a sense of newness and unbridled curiosity.
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.
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.
Darkness is the only path to light. It is not our wonderful gifts that make us closer to God: it's using our garbage to transform ourselves. This is the key that unlocks the door that opens to God.
If we were handling a bomb which could go off at any minute as a result of our actions, we would mind ourselves and be delicate. Our words have the same power, yet we wield them around as though they were powerless and insignificant.
With every little bit of change we make in our lives, we can maximize that small change simply by asking ourselves: 'What's next? What can I do now? What additional responsibility can I take on?'
Kabbalah is all about change. It isn't about being proud of our good qualities: the wisdom is about transforming our darkness into light.
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?
We need to have complete certainty that things will work out, not because we are righteous or wise, but because of the time, the effort, the prayers, and the tools we are using. From the moment we are given awareness about some bigger picture or mission, we have to have complete focus on what to do to get to that place.
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.
The horror of the Holocaust is not that it deviated from human norms; the horror is that it didn't. What happened may happen again, to others not necessarily Jews, perpetrated by others, not necessarily Germans. We are all possible victims, possible perpetrators, possible bystanders.
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.
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.
Every intelligent person, whether hes an artist or not - a mathematician, a doctor, a scientist - possesses a poetic way of seeing and describing the world.
Knowledge of peace passes from country to country, like children's games, which are so much alike, everywhere.
The phrase I like to use to describe my sense of time-a play on comparative literature - is comparative time.
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.
I wanted to be calm, like a mound with all its cities destroyed, and tranquil, like a full cemetery.
