David Novak Quotes
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Historically, Jews only accept converts rather than actively seeking them.
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The most important part of the process of mourning is regularly reciting kaddish in a synagogue. Kaddish is a doxology, which Jewish tradition has mandated children to recite daily in a synagogue during the year of mourning for a deceased parent and then on the anniversary of his or her death thereafter.
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For those who have envisioned the State of Israel to be a democracy, which although primarily a Jewish polity for Jews is one in which non-Jews can become citizens and enjoy equal civil rights with the Jewish majority, the question of natural law is the question of human rights.
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Roots can live without branches, although truncated; branches cannot live without roots.
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The right to privacy has both positive and negative connotations for those who consider themselves part of the natural law tradition.
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The slogan 'Never Again!' that emerged after the Holocaust implies that the Holocaust has a universal moral meaning, which, if properly learned, can provide at least a theoretical prophylactic against its repetition against anyone.
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Theological reflection takes place within history, but the history within which it takes place is an ongoing, open-ended process.
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Theology always has moral implications, and morality is always undergirded by theology.
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In deciding among theological views, one should be something of a consequentialist: the choice of one theological position over another should be, if not actually determined, at least heavily conditioned by the fact that it implies a better ethical outcome than the alternatives.
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The one and only time I met Pope Benedict XVI was when he was Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger.
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Modernity has been largely shaped for Jews by three momentous experiences: the acquisition of citizenship by individual Jews in secular nation-states, the destruction of one-third of Jewry in the Holocaust, and the founding of the State of Israel.
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The shortcoming of purely political discourse between Christians and Jews arises from the fact that it is largely built upon the perception of a common enemy.
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Many of us, both Jews and Christians, want the public square to be pluralistic, which is neither partisan nor naked.
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Jewish status is defined by the divine election of Israel and his descendants. One does not become a Jew by one's own volition.
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Each person is responsible only for his or her own sins. Even the Christian doctrine of 'original sin' does not mean that humans are punished for the sin of the first human pair but, rather, that humans seem inevitably to copy the sin of the first human pair.
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Christians and Jews alike are the new exiles of the contemporary world, struggling with how to sing the Lord's song in a strange land.