We burned with love for ourselves, all of us, starters of the fire we suffered- our love was the affliction for which only our love was the cure.
Jonathan Safran FoerRead
The Torah is the foundational text for Jewish law, but the Haggadah is our book of living memory. We are not merely telling a story here. We are being called to a radical act of empathy. Here we are, embarking on an ancient, perennial attempt to give human lives - our lives - dignity.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the importance of the Haggadah in creating empathy and dignity through storytelling.
Jonathan Safran Foer highlights the distinction between the Torah and the Haggadah, suggesting that while the Torah serves as a legal foundation, the Haggadah plays a crucial role in preserving and articulating human experiences and memories. By engaging with the narrative, individuals participate in an empathetic journey that seeks to elevate human dignity, reminding us that storytelling is not just a recounting of the past but a call to honor and understand the lives we touch.
Themes
TorahHaggadahEmpathyStorytellingDignityMemory
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used in a discussion about the importance of narrative in human connection during a cultural seminar.
More from Jonathan Safran Foer
All quotes →Memory was supposed to fill the time, but it made time a hole to be filled. Each second was two hundred yards, to be walked, crawled. You couldn't see the next hour, it was so far in the distance. Tomorrow was over the horizon, and would take an entire day to reach.
Jonathan Safran FoerRead
She was not crying Which surprised me very much But I understand now That she had found places For her melancholy That were behind more masks Than only her eyes
Jonathan Safran FoerRead
What do babies dream of? She must be dreaming of the before-life, just as I dream of the afterlife.
Jonathan Safran FoerRead
A few weeks after the worst day, I started writing lots of letters. I don't know why, but it was one of the only things that made my boots lighter.
Jonathan Safran FoerRead
What is being awake if not interpreting our dreams, or dreaming if not interpreting our wake?
Jonathan Safran FoerRead
Similar quotes
Think of God; attachments will gradually drop away. If you wait till all desires disappear before starting your devotion and prayer, you will have to wait for a very long time indeed.
Ramana MaharshiRead
The greater the diversity, the greater the perfection.
Thomas BerryRead
Some African leaders actually dare to suggest that democracy is a concept alien to traditional African society. This is one of the most impudent political blasphemies I can think of.
Wole SoyinkaRead
Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
Carl SaganRead
What distressed me most - more even than my own folly - was the perplexing question - How can beauty and ugliness dwell so near? Even with her altered complexion and face of dislike; disenchanted of the belief that clung around her; known for a living, walking sepulcher, faithless, deluding, traitorous; I felt, notwithstanding all this, that she was beautiful. Upon this I pondered with undiminished perplexity.
George MacdonaldRead
He that goeth about to persuade a multitude that they are not so well governed as they ought to be shall never want attentive and favorable hearers.
Richard HookerRead