Naomi Levy > Quotes

“A Prayer for Daily Insight
Open my eyes, God. Help me to perceive what I have ignored, to uncover what I have forgotten, to find what I have been searching for. Remind me that I don't have to journey far to discover something new, for miracles surround me, blessings and holiness abound. And You are near.
Amen.”
― Naomi Levy, Talking to God: Personal Prayers for Times of Joy, Sadness, Struggle, and Celebration

“We talked about what it means to love without judgment, to treasure something with all its imperfections. To see the beauty in the flaws, to stand in awe of the fragile, broken people we all are. That class was a night of deep compassion”
― Naomi Levy, Einstein and the Rabbi: Searching for the Soul

“Thank you for the time we shared, for the love you gave, for the wisdom you spread. I will always treasure the lessons you taught me. I will carry them with me all the days of my life. I am so proud to be your child.
-From A Prayer When a Parent Dies”
― Naomi Levy, Talking to God: Personal Prayers for Times of Joy, Sadness, Struggle, and Celebration

“The rabbis tell us the soul is a mirror of God within us. The soul fills the body, just as God fills the world. The soul outlasts the body, just as God outlasts the world. The soul is one in the body, just as God is one in the world. The soul sees but is not seen, just as God sees but is not seen.”
― Naomi Levy, Einstein and the Rabbi: Searching for the Soul

“The women looked from one to the other, knowing what the men didn’t know. We knew the heartbeat and interior graces, compensation for our own clumsiness; the beatitude as we renounced our bodies, our noble little parasites the higher calling. We knew, without saying, the watery rollover, tremor, seismic shudders, the steadiness of the baby’s hiccups, the reliable stab from a kick to the kidney”
― Naomi Levy, To Begin Again: The Journey Toward Comfort, Strength, and Faith in Difficult Times

“wholeness, meaning, union, calling, God.”
― Naomi Levy, Einstein and the Rabbi: Searching for the Soul

“Sometimes when we’re suffering we feel as if we have been singled out. We wonder why God has picked on us. But my life as the rabbi of a small synagogue taught me that if that’s what we think, we are mistaken. We are never alone in our suffering. Scratch the surface of any family, any social gathering, any congregation, and you will find loss and pain there. We may not always be privy to the pain, but it is there just the same. If we had the power to peer inside the heart of any human being, we would uncover there a silent anguish.”
― Naomi Levy, To Begin Again: The Journey Toward Comfort, Strength, and Faith in Difficult Times

“A human being is part of the whole, called by us “Universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. The striving to free oneself from this delusion is the one issue of true religion. Not to nourish the delusion but to try to overcome it is the way to reach the attainable measure of peace of mind.”
― Naomi Levy, Einstein and the Rabbi: Searching for the Soul