Bracha Goetz > Quotes

“I love to help children's souls shine.”
― Bracha Goetz

“you know what I’m thinking the purpose of life is? In a way, it is the exact opposite of what our education at Harvard taught us. It turns out that what we’re really here for is to release the divine spark hidden within us. In the divine spark is every individual’s greatness and uniqueness. And that’s the inner burning we tried to extinguish all these years.”
― Bracha Goetz, Searching for God in the Garbage

“What finally fills my vessel, nurtures what always lined its inner walls. Each morsel of true nourishment enlivens something that was already present, but dormant. It sensitizes the essence which was once implanted there. My true essence was hidden under layers of dirt. I am still peeling off these layers, and as I do, with a wonder distilled from childhood, I can recognize my true self.”
― Bracha Goetz, Searching for God in the Garbage

“unconscious, confining rules. Unexamined commandments. The critical difference is that the observant Jew is aware of the rules he is following. The rules are presented up-front, not subliminally. And he or she is consciously choosing to observe them. That sounds a lot more like real freedom to me.”
― Bracha Goetz, Searching for God in the Garbage

“Overnight, had my soul become useless and been replaced? Now there was only this new meaningless, valueless life I was being handed. No choice but to become a soul-less adult. I tried to become one…but that persistent soul kept re-emerging, desperately searching for what could sustain it.”
― Bracha Goetz, Searching for God in the Garbage

“remains the potential to become re-sensitized. And also never completely lost are the valuable instructions that detail how to respect and care for our souls, others’ souls, and the bodies that house them.”
― Bracha Goetz, Searching for God in the Garbage

“to fly without guidelines. I wanted to fly, but like all the other confused ones around, I was terrified with no way to get back down to earth safely.”
― Bracha Goetz, Searching for God in the Garbage

“I’m not sure myself! You know, with all the “games” eliminated, you can get to understand another person deeply and honestly, very quickly. There’s no “monkey business” before or outside of marriage. We don’t even touch each other. Well, not physically, anyway. But I think that’s why we are able to touch each other within, that much more sensitively. It is, surprisingly, such a freedom, not to have to get involved physically right away. Being free to get to know Dan in every other way, first. All the other aspects of a person besides their outer image become that much more vibrant.”
― Bracha Goetz, Searching for God in the Garbage

“independent. God relates to you as an individual, not as only part of a married couple. Each woman has her own absolutely unique relationship with God. Each woman has her own individually designed tests in life. There’s no getting around it. That doesn’t mean, though, that a woman needs to live mentally or physically apart from her family.”
― Bracha Goetz, Searching for God in the Garbage

“physical and spiritual are parallel? What my body was doing was meant as a message to me, about what was going on in my soul. Spiritual struggles are expressed through physical means! How else?”
― Bracha Goetz, Searching for God in the Garbage

“phrases that are so very easy to spit out like “be good” and “love your neighbor,” it shows how to be good; it shows how to become a more loving person.”
― Bracha Goetz, Searching for God in the Garbage

“just realized that the physical and spiritual are not merely metaphorically similar—like I was thinking when I wrote the poem about anorexia—they are precise reflections! Not only do the actions I do with my body affect my soul, also what I do with my soul effects my body. I became anorexic because my soul was starving.”
― Bracha Goetz, Searching for God in the Garbage

“I am beginning to think about how much I would love to be a mother someday. And I’ve also been thinking about the kind of qualities I am looking for in a husband. It is an extremely different sort of person than I would have looked for just a few short months ago. I have gone out with several men that I’ve been introduced to, and I’m enjoying this whole discovery process.”
― Bracha Goetz, Searching for God in the Garbage

“in a land of freedom. But again and again, the Jewish neshama will try to get up. It will search for excitement, for love, for wisdom, for nourishment. Not knowing where to look, but searching anyway. For all the lost pieces that were thrown away. Thrown away…”
― Bracha Goetz, Searching for God in the Garbage

“for living! Rabbi Noach Weinberg has a funny way of putting it, “If you do believe in God and He doesn’t exist, what have you lost? But if you don’t believe in God and He does exist, you have everything to lose.” So let’s say God really exists, and He really provided us with laws of life, I should be jumping at the chance to start observing them, right? No way! As difficult as it is for me to synthesize these “revolutionary ideas,” it is even more difficult to integrate the “revolutionary actions” into my already well-established behavior patterns.”
― Bracha Goetz, Searching for God in the Garbage

“utmost importance, but things are not how they appear. And it is so wondrous that through the decay within a person’s life, like in the decomposition of each seed in the ground, a new life can emerge.”
― Bracha Goetz, Searching for God in the Garbage

“Food, our most intimate physical craving—that actually becomes a part of our very beings—seems destined to be laden with a lot of emotional messages. For one thing, food tastes good, even when the rest of life doesn’t. I could get away from my expanding misery by losing myself in those basic gratifying sensations for a little while. I could still count on the food to be pleasurable. And, I really had nothing else as pleasurable that I could look forward to after eating.”
― Bracha Goetz, Searching for God in the Garbage

“hurting us…” To a young Talmud scholar who was recently wed, the good rabbi gave this prescription: It is a mitzvah, a precept of the Torah that a man shall make his wife happy (Deuteronomy 24:5)…”
― Bracha Goetz, Searching for God in the Garbage