6 Quotes by Eliezer Berkovits

Orthodoxy is, in a sense, halacha in a straitjacket. Having had to transform the Oral Tora into a new written one, we have become Karaites of this new Written Tora.

Halakha, as the human way of life in accordance with the Torah, does not aim at absolute truth, nor does it run after the fata- morgana of universal truth. Neither of them is accessible to human beings. Its aim is “earthly truth” that the human intellect is able to grasp and for whose pursuance in life man must accept personal responsibility.

We are dealing here not with the dogmas of a church, but rather with events that for thousands of years have exercised the most powerful influence in the history of a living people. Jewish children were not taught: 'These are the things we Jews believe in', but 'These are the things that happened to us and made us what we are

There is, in truth, no genuine confrontation between faith and law; there is no choice between them. If one starts out with a philosophy of despair and is willing to abandon life in its biological and socio­-historica1 fullness to its doom of futility and meaninglessness, one is bound to seek salvation in some otherworldly spiritual redemption. One has not chosen faith and rejected law', one has rejected life and thus needs no law.

The foundation of religion is not the affirmation that God is, but that God is concerned with man and the world; that, having created the world, he has not abandoned it, leaving it to its own devices; that he cares for his creation.

No doubt, God took a risk with creation by granting it consciousness and free decision.