Only the other world has substance and reality; only good deeds and holy learning have tangible worth.
The orthodox Jewish faith practically excludes woman from religious life.
God, for example, appealed to me as a beardless man wearing a quilted silk cap; holiness was something burning, forbidding, something connected with fire while a day had the form of an oblong box.
Life is much shorter than I imagined it to be.
If you study the Talmud you please God even more than you do by praying or fasting.
If it be true that our people represent a high percentage of mental vigor, the distinction is probably due, in some measure, to the extremely important part which Talmud studies have played in the spiritual life of the race.