The world was created because God willed it, but why did He will it? Judaism has maintained, in all of its versions, that this world is the arena that God created for man, half beast and half angel; to prove that he could be a moral being...man was given dominion over nature, but he was commanded to behave towards the rest of creation with justice and compassion. Man lives, always, in tension between his power and the limits set by his conscience.

I write to tell my grandchildren where they come from, and what their grandparents were up to, and I hope they will in their own way continue. I invite anyone else to listen in.

In mid-career, I was at one and the same time the rabbi of a major congregation, writing books, and teaching at Columbia. I didn't spend enough time with my children. Now, when I get an all-important call, I sometimes say that I'm having lunch with my granddaughter. And I do not apologize

Most American Jews came from the lower middle classes, and therefore they brought with them not a lot of Jewish culture. The American Jewish story starts with Ellis Island, and the candy store in the Bronx.

You save your soul by saving someone else's body.

I think anti-Semitism is the meal ticket of the organizations that fight it.

How can a rabbi not live with doubt? The Bible itself is a book of doubt.