Why did God create mankind? Because God likes stories.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that humanity's existence is tied to the intrinsic value of storytelling, highlighting the divine appreciation for narratives.
Jonathan Sacks asserts that God's creation of humanity is rooted in the love for stories, implying that our lives are narratives filled with meaning. This perspective emphasizes the significance of storytelling as a fundamental aspect of human experience and our connection to the divine, suggesting that our stories are not only important to us but to the fabric of existence itself.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about the importance of storytelling in religion.
Stabilizing the euro is one thing, healing the culture that surrounds it is another. A world in which material values are everything and spiritual values nothing is neither a stable state nor a good society. The time has come for us to recover the Judeo-Christian ethic of human dignity in the image of God.
Governments cannot make marriages or turn feckless individuals into responsible citizens. That needs another kind of change agent.
Jews read the books of Moses not just as history but as divine command. The question to which they are an answer is not, 'What happened?' but rather, 'How then shall I live?' And it's only with the exodus that the life of the commands really begins.
Find people not to envy but to admire. Do not the profitable but the admirable deed. Live by ideals.
Some years ago there was a study to discover the most stressful occupation. It turned out not to be the head of a large business, football manager or prime minister, but rather: bus driver.
The Holocaust survivors are among the most inspiring people I have had the privilege to meet.
A man is never as big as when he is on his knees to help a child.
To narrate is to give oneself: it seems obvious that literature, as an effort to communicate fully, will continue to be blocked so long as misery and illiteracy exist, and so long as the possessors of power continue to carry on with impunity their policy of collective imbecilization through the mass media.
Philosophy as practice does not mean its restriction to utility or applicability, that is, to what serves morality or produces serenity of soul.
I think that slavery is wrong, morally, socially and politically. I desire that it should be no further spread in these United States, and I should not object if it should gradually terminate in the whole Union.
I do know my own mind,' protested Anne. 'The trouble is, my mind changes and then I have to get acquainted with it all over again.
The fundamental law of the militia is, that it be created, directed and commanded by the laws, and ever for the support of the laws.
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