4 Quotes by Tova Mirvis

Before I left, as they did at the end of my wedding, as they did at the conclusion of divorce ceremonies hundreds of years ago, the rabbis wished me a mazel tov.

People bustled around me, in a Manhattan hurry, but I stopped walking. I stared at my reflection. It was hard not to rip off the hat right there, not to strip down on Broadway to the person I sensed waiting below. A voice, stronger than I knew I had, whispered in my head: This is not who you are.

It was better to say nothing than to have your excitement met with indifference; better not to talk than to find you were talking to yourself. In.

Be good, said this teacher. be good, the community said. Be good, my name reminded me. But could the inside of your mind be made to conform as readily as your body could – your thoughts covered with the equivalent of a long skirt? I knew without needing to be told that an indispensable part of being good was a willingness to hid what you really thought. There was one way to be good and there were infinite ways to be bad.