John

“My commitment to my friends forced me to develop a complex ethos of pluralism on the ground. I had to find ways to practice Judaism as I understood it while, at the same time, accepting that those around me might not believe or do the exact same things that I did. I had to respect someone's choice to drive to my house on Shabbat, just as I hoped that members of other Jewish communities would respect my choice to wear a yarmulke and tzitzit or to pray in a mixed-gender setting. As Ben Dreyfus, founder of an independent minyan (prayer group) in New York, puts it, "if you want the protections of pluralism, you have to buy into pluralism yourself. This doesn't mean you have to believe that other positions are valid, but it does mean you have to respect their right to exist."15”
― Danya Ruttenberg, Surprised by God: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Religion

“Death rarely changes how we feel about someone. Heightens it, more often than not.”
― Jane Harper, The Dry

“I’d rather extinguish the fire in hell and burn heaven, so that people could start loving God for no other reason than love.”
― Elif Shafak, The Forty Rules of Love

“Does it even need to be said that there are times when one must stand up to the community, and use one's voice in support of an unpopular view? Or that complicity is participation? Sometimes the issue at hand may concern a gross injustice, sometimes it may just be about individual boundaries. Sometimes a dissenting view will be heard and accepted, sometimes it will be ignored. None of this changes our obligation to move through the world with honesty and bravery.”
― Danya Ruttenberg, Surprised by God: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Religion