If you care about the future of peace, religion and religious freedom, or if you are interested in Old Testament exegesis, this book is so worth your time.
Below are some of my favorite passages:
Science, technology, the free
market and the liberal democratic state ... do not and cannot answer the three
questions every reflective individual will ask at some time in his or her life:
Who am I? Why am I here? How then shall I live? ... The 21st century has left
us with a maximum of choice and a minimum of meaning. p. 13
Violence is born of the need for
identity and the formation of groups. These lead to conflict and war. But war
is normal. Altruistic evil is not normal. Suicide bombings, the targeting of
civilians and the murder of schoolchildren are not normal. Violence may be
possible wherever there is an Us and a Them. But radical violence emerges only
when we see the Us as all-good and the Them as all-evil, heralding a war
between the children of light and the forces of darkness. That is when
altruistic evil is born. p. 48
As Jews, Christians and Muslims,
we have to be prepared to ask the most uncomfortable questions. Does the God of
Abraham want his disciples to kill for his sake? Does he demand human
sacrifice? Does he rejoice in holy war? Does he want us to hate our enemies and
terrorize unbelievers? Have we read our sacred texts correctly? What is God
saying to us, here, now?
When people accuse others of
seeking to control the world, it may be that they are unconsciously projecting
what they themselves want but do not wish to be accused of wanting. If you seek
to understand what a group truly intends, look at the accusations it levels
against its enemies. p. 83
The face that is truly ours is
the one we see reflected back at us by God. ... Peace comes when we see our
reflection in the face of God and let go of the desire to be someone else. p.
138-139
Love is not unproblematic. Given
to one but not another, to one more than another, it creates tensions
that can turn to violence. ... the message of Genesis is that love is necessary
but not sufficient. You also need sensitivity to those who feel unloved. p. 145
On the surface, Genesis is a
series of stories in which the elder is supplanted by the younger. Beneath the
surface, in a series of counter-narratives, it tells the opposite story,
subverting the whole frame of mind that says, 'Either you or me. if you win, I
lose. If I win, you lose.' That may be true of scarce goods like wealth or
power. It is not true of divine love, which is governed by the principle of
plenitude. p. 172
A humanitarian as opposed to a
group ethic requires the most difficult of all imaginative exercises: role
reversal—putting yourself in the place of those you despise, or pity, or simply
do not understand. … Empathy across boundaries can sometimes threaten religion
at its roots, because one of the sacred tasks of religion is boundary maintenance.
… Biblical ethics is a prolonged tutorial in role reversal. … Memory and role
reversal are the most powerful resources we have to cure the darkness that can
sometimes occlude the human soul. p.
183-84, 88
When a single culture is imposed
on all, suppressing the diversity of languages and traditions, this is an
assault on our God-given differences. p. 193
A chosen people is the opposite
of a master race, first, because it is not a race but a covenant; second,
because it exists to serve God, not to master others. A master race worships
itself; a chosen people worships something beyond itself. p. 198
You cannot love God without first
honoring the universal dignity of humanity as the image and likeness of the
universal God. … Search for the trace of God in the face of the Other. Never
believe that God is defined by and confined to the people like you. p. 200, 203
For all the natural pride we feel
in being part of our group—the people of the covenant, a holy nation—we are
brought face to face with the fact that others may sometimes respond to the
word of God better than we do. p. 204
Religion is at its best when it
relies on strength of argument and example. It is at its worst when it seeks to
impose truth by force. … Religion — as understood by Abraham and those who
followed him—is at its best when it resists the temptation of politics and opts
instead for influence. For what it tell us is that civilizations are judged not
by power but by their concern for the powerless; not by wealth but by how they
treat the poor; not when they seek to become invulnerable but when they care
for the vulnerable. Religion is not the voice of those who sit on earthly
thrones but of those who, not seeking to wild power, are unafraid to criticize
it when it corrupts those who hold it and diminishes those it is held against.
p. 234, 236
If vengeance belongs to God, it
does not belong to us. p. 247
The entire ethical-legal
principle on which the Hebrew Bible is based is that we own nothing. Everything
— the land, its produce, power, sovereignty, children and life itself — belongs
to God. We are mere trustees, guardians, on his behalf. We possess but we do
not own. That is the basis of the infrastructure of social justice that made the
Bible unique in its time and still transformative today. p. 254
Altruism misdirected can lead to
evil: that has been the thesis of this book. That is why the West must recover
its ideals. p. 256
Hate harms the hated but it
destroys the hater. There is no exception. p. 261
We must put the same long-term
planning into strengthening religious freedom as was put into the spread of
religious extremism. … We must train a generation of religious leaders and
educators who embrace the world in its diversity, and sacred texts in their
maximal generosity. p. 262
We are each blessed by God, each
precious in his sight, each with our role in his story, each with our own song
in the music of humankind. To be a child of Abraham is to learn to respect the
other children of Abraham even if their way is not ours. We know that we are
loved. That must be enough. To insist that being loved entails that others be
unloved is to fail to understand love itself. p. 264
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