14 Quotes by Amy-Jill Levine

Our responsibility is to love God and to love our neighbour which is what Jesus taught and it’s also what Judaism taught – and that would make sense because Jesus was Jewish.

Religion has been defined as designed to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable. We do well to think of the parables of Jesus as doing the afflicting. Therefore, if we hear a parable and think, ‘I really like that’ or, worse, fail to take any challenge, we are not listening well enough.

Residual marcionism, the view that God had a personality transplant somewhere between the pages of Malachi and Matthew, is still alive and well in churches today; it is also still a heresy.

I’ve got a good shepherd; you’ve got a sadistic dentist.

When church becomes a club, parables become pedestrian.

Reducing parables to a single meaning destroys their aesthetic as well as ethical potential.

The question of paying taxes is a valid one today, particularly for people living under occupation or under an unjust regime. It was a valid one in ancient Israel as well – how much does one go along with the emperor, and when must one resist?

Church reminded me very much of going to shul. It was a bunch of men wearing long robes, speaking in a language I didn’t understand.

It’s much safer, in many congregations, to assure the faithful how our souls are saved through divine grace rather than to suggest that our societies are saved through personal and corporate aid to the poor.