I sat reading in these chairs and felt somehow, in an abstract rather than a religious way, that suffering shapes you. Not only my own religious thought, but that of my ancestors, affected me in some way. The thing we have as Jews is that it's a wonderfully abstract religion. Images are not allowed, so it's welcome to abstract thought.

I wouldn't play it in public - you need different muscles, you can't use the upper arm, just the fingers. But the sound has a glow, because the strings aren't …

In the Bronx, we had three synagogues on one block at 161st Street. My father was Orthodox and we went to the Sephardi one. Further along was the Conservative,…

I'm deeply grateful to be Jewish. I feel it's enriched my life and I feel very strongly about Jewishness.

Why , alas! is life decreed Full of pain and full of sorrow? All uncertain as it is, Can we rest upon to-morrow? Why should blessings yet in store, Hold us sti…

Do you know how cruel your God can be, David. How fantastically cruel? ...Sometimes he makes us live.

Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, t…