One: (Franz A. Kafka Updated). There is no need to leave your room. Close your door and open these windows. Wait, silent and alone, but not lonely. The world orders itself at your fingers tips, and offers itself to you, and is unmasked; it cannot do otherwise, in ecstasy you are turned.
Two: “The letters of the Jews are dancing knives
That carve the heart of darkness seven ways.” (Karl Shapiro)
Three: The Bible, of all books, is the most dangerous. (Mieke Bal)
Four: Biblical men and women remain among the most elusive, enigmatic, and least understood of any heroes. (Rabbi Adin Steinsalz)
Five: Those who read literally, with no interpretation, “their folly deserves our pity.” (Rabbi Moshe Ben Maimon)
Six: The Book of Books, the Bible, is an “inexhaustible storehouse of wisdom to which one can always resort for guidance and inspiration.” (Rabbi Philip Birnbaum)
Seven: The essence of biblical study is the discovery of the irritants of scripture, the sand in our craws that get our vital juices flowing and produce the pearls we call Midrash. (The Very Rabbi)
Eight: “…your neck is comely with a string of pearls” (Song of Songs 1:10)
Pearls? These are the Torah portions, strung together, reflecting brilliance one to the other, adding radiance one to the next, forming a circle in their strand. (Rabbi Levi, Midrash Rabbah, Song of Songs, 1:54)
Nine:
And New Moon after New Moon,
And Shabbat after Shabbat
All
Shall come to
Acknowledge the Lord
By worship and study. (Paraphrase of the end of the Book of Isaiah)
Ten: “By virtue of their history and the character shaped by it, Jews are vulnerable to radical ideas. Utopian dreams, millennial prophecies, and messianic expectations are as much a part of their cultural heritage as is the practical worldly attitude for which they are so well known.” (Ernest Van Den Haag)
