What do you think?
Rate this book


120 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1943
“His birth was irregular, and so he passionately loved regularity, the inviolable, commandment and taboo.
As a young man, he had killed in a fiery outburst, and so he knew better than those with no experience that to kill may be sweet, but to have killed is ghastly in the extreme, and that you should not kill.
His senses were hot, and so he yearned for spirituality, purity, and holiness – the invisible, which seemed to him spiritual, holy, and pure.” (p. 3)
“(T)he forbidden things soon came to seem dreadful to them – at first only in connection with the punishment; but that punishment soon led to their branding the deed as bad, and at its commission they felt bad themselves, without even thinking about punishment.” (p. 74)
“And even if it is only outward courtesy to do this and kiss your fingertips, nevertheless the gesture will instill in your heart something of what you should fee toward your neighbor.” (p. 77)
“So with his head afire, Moses, borrowing loosely from the people of Sinai and using his graver, tried out on the rocky wall the signs for the babbling, banging, and bursting, the popping and hopping, slurring and purring sounds, and when he had artfully assembled the distinctive signs together – lo and behold, you could write the whole world with them, whatever occupied a space and whatever occupied no space, what was made and what was made up – absolutely everything.” p. 96
“Just imagine, Holy One: If You now kill these people as You would a man, then the heathen, on hearing their cry, would say: `Bah! There was no way the Lord could bring these people into the land promised to them; He wasn’t up to it. That’s why He slaughtered them in the desert.’ Is that what You want the peoples of the world to say about You? Therefore let the strength of the Lord grow great and by Your grace show mercy for the people’s transgression.” (p. 108)
“Thus the earth shall be the earth once more, a vale of misery, but not a field of depravity. Everyone say Amen to that!
And they all said Amen.” (p. 112)