Micah Goodman > Quotes

“Spinoza wrote,”
― Micah Goodman, The Wondering Jew: Israel and the Search for Jewish Identity

“The Guide is a struggle against tyrannies of the mind, not only those imposed by extreme religious movements, but also those formed out of our own hasty preconceptions.”
― Micah Goodman, Maimonides and the Book That Changed Judaism: Secrets of "The Guide for the Perplexed"

“The philosopher Karl Popper convincingly showed how utopian systems (such as fascism and communism) that consider themselves to be perfect tend to become violent dictatorships.17 The inner logic of utopian societies tends to make them hate difference. If you believe that the system is perfect, then dissent is by definition destructive and must be suppressed.”
― Micah Goodman, Maimonides and the Book That Changed Judaism: Secrets of "The Guide for the Perplexed"

“When I see a person walking among us who has answered all his questions and contradictions . . . I wonder whether he is living on another planet, outside our world of tears and vicissitudes, of torments and stolen hopes. . . . As for me, I prefer a mind confused, erratic, and restless over a mind without trouble that is silent about the truths it holds dear. —Berl Katznelson”
― Micah Goodman, Catch-67: The Left, the Right, and the Legacy of the Six-Day War

“People become infatuated with their own thoughts and lock themselves into a limited and limiting framework of ideas.”
― Micah Goodman, Maimonides and the Book That Changed Judaism: Secrets of "The Guide for the Perplexed"

“The educational power of ritual is the Torah’s weapon of choice for defeating paganism.”
― Micah Goodman, Maimonides and the Book That Changed Judaism: Secrets of "The Guide for the Perplexed"

“Our thought processes should lead us beyond first impressions. We need to be willing to free ourselves from preconceptions”
― Micah Goodman, Maimonides and the Book That Changed Judaism: Secrets of "The Guide for the Perplexed"

“The Talmud distinguishes between huqqim (laws) and mishpatim (statutes). While the reasons for the mishpatim, such as “Do not murder,” are perfectly clear, the reasons behind huqqim—for example, not mixing wool and linen, or sending out the scapegoat on Yom Kippur—are opaque. The Talmud says about them, “I, God, decreed it and you do not have permission to question them” (BT Yoma, 67b).”
― Micah Goodman, Maimonides and the Book That Changed Judaism: Secrets of "The Guide for the Perplexed"

“The urge to consume the world causes suffering; the desire to understand the world brings happiness.”
― Micah Goodman, Maimonides and the Book That Changed Judaism: Secrets of "The Guide for the Perplexed"

“Between the path of doubt, which empties the world of meaning, and the path of fanaticism, which lays the world to waste, there is a middle ground. It”
― Micah Goodman, The Wondering Jew: Israel and the Search for Jewish Identity

“Maimonides, by contrast, does not try to make reason and Torah compatible. For him, there is no need to harmonize revelation and reason, because revelation reveals reason. One does not have to reconcile the two intermediaries between us and truth, because they are really one. According to Saadia Gaon, Torah exists in harmony with reason; according to Maimonides, Torah is the revelation of reason.”
― Micah Goodman, Maimonides and the Book That Changed Judaism: Secrets of "The Guide for the Perplexed"