I have referred to [Rabbi Shlomo ben Isaac] on occasion, but I doubt that you will find his name in any of my indices. In my view, he is important in the history of interpretation; and that is a subject I have not approached directly.

If I had to choose between the two ways of approaching the deity, I should prefer the existential relational way, to the abstract philosophical way. I think it is truer, or in any case, less misleading, to say that God is an old Jew with a white beard whom I love, than to say that God is the ground of being and meaning, or to say that God is a name denoting the ultimate mystery. I prefer the bold primitive colors of the Biblical way of describing God.

There are surely many legitimate approaches to Biblical literature, and I think that it depends very much on one's experience and temperament which way one deals primarily with Biblical material.

My father was a Social Gospel, far-left liberal, and to some degree a mystic. But we did not have Bible readings; we had prayers.

I think we may very well, in many areas, get likelihood, but not certitude. We don't want certitude anyway, do we?

You have miracles [in the Hebrew Bible], yes, but they're not the work, normally, of demons.

Elie [Wiesel], when you ask, "Why do I want to know," I'm trying to grab the holy. And I'm getting thrown back.