Matthew

“The whole Bible is the working out of the relationship between God and man,” says Greenberg. “God is not a dictator barking out orders and demanding silent obedience. Were it so, there would be no relationship at all. No real relationship goes just one way. There are always two active parties. We must have reverence and awe for God, and honor for the chain of tradition. But that doesn’t mean we can’t use new information to help us read the holy texts in new ways. We don’t have to sit back and passively accept that Leviticus bans sex between men at all times and in all ways if other convincing ways of reading can be found.”
― A.J. Jacobs, The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible As Literally As Possible

“The problem was that the teacher did not teach expressiveness as part of the learning process but still expected the student to perform expressively. All of us, whether teacher or performer, occasionally spend more time developing the technical ability to perform certain literature. There is certainly nothing wrong in using this approach occasionally, but to do so all the time, with every composition, dulls our emotive abilities. Therein lies the danger: our technical skills flourish while our expressive skills languish.”
― J. Timothy Caldwell, Expressive Singing: Dalcroze Eurhythmics for Voice

“Abraham Joshua Heschel said, “A religious person is one who suffers harm done to others . . . whose greatest strength is love and defiance of despair.”
― Abigail Pogrebin, My Jewish Year: 18 Holidays, One Wondering Jew