Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Harold Kushner (American Rabbi, Author)

Harold Samuel Kushner (1935–2023) was an American rabbi of the progressive wing of Conservative Judaism and a bestselling author. He was a popular interpreter of the significance of Biblical narratives about forgiveness and personal value.

Born in Brooklyn, New York, Kushner attended Columbia University and the Jewish Theological Seminary. He served as the spiritual leader of Temple Israel in Natick, Massachusetts, for over 40 years and gained a reputation as a faith-based counselor on coping with grief, tragedies, and injustices.

Kushner was the well-known author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People (1981,) written in response to the death of Kushner’s son, Aaron, who died from a rare genetic disease at the age of 14. This book challenged the conventional theological belief that God is omnipotent and omniscient, and therefore responsible for both good and bad events in the world. Instead, Kushner posited that life can be unpredictable and unjust, and that bad things can happen to good people without any reason or purpose. Kushner’s view contradicted traditional Jewish teaching about God, which resulted in criticism from some Orthodox Jews and rebuttals from other Jewish theologians. However this book became a classic and offered solace and insight to numerous individuals struggling to find meaning and consolation amidst tragedy.

Kushner’s other bestselling books on how faith helps cope with life’s problems include When Children Ask about God (1972,) Who Needs God (1989,) To Life! (1993,) The Lord Is My Shepherd (2003,) Overcoming Life’s Disappointments (2006,) and Nine Essential Things I’ve Learned About Life (2015.)

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Harold Kushner

I no longer ask the young man’s question: How far will I go? My questions are now those of the mature person: When it is over, what will my life have been about? First as Martin Buber taught, life is meeting. We come alive only when we relate to others. Secondly, we are here to change the world with small acts of thoughtfulness done daily rather than with one great dramatic leap in results. Finally, we are here to finish god’s labors. One of the sages of the Talmud taught nearly two thousand years ago that God could have created a plant that would grow loaves of bread. Instead He created wheat for us to mill and bake into bread. Why? So that we could be His partners in completing the work of creation.
—Harold Kushner
Topics: Creation

Fun can be the dessert of our lives but never its main course.
—Harold Kushner

The God I believe in is not so fragile that you hurt Him by being angry at him, or so petty that He will hold it against you for being upset with Him.
—Harold Kushner
Topics: Christianity

I would rather think of life as a good book. The further you get into it, the more it begins to come together and make sense.
—Harold Kushner
Topics: Thinking, Thought, Life and Living

Pain is part of being alive, and we need to learn that. Pain does not last forever, nor is it necessarily unbearable, and we need to be taught that.
—Harold Kushner
Topics: Pain, Suffering

The circumstances of your life have uniquely qualified you to make a contribution. And if you don’t make that contribution, nobody else can make it.
—Harold Kushner
Topics: Chance, Circumstance

The purpose of life is not to win. The purpose of life is to grow and to share. When you come to look back on all that you have done in life, you will get more satisfaction from the pleasure you have brought into other people’s lives that you will from the times that you outdid and defeated them.
—Harold Kushner
Topics: Purpose, Life, Defeat, Will, Win, Live, Time, People, Act, Action

You don’t have to be religious to have a soul; everybody has one. You don’t have to be religious to perfect your soul; I have found saintliness in avowed atheists.
—Harold Kushner
Topics: Religion

Caring about others, running the risk of feeling, and leaving an impact on people brings happiness.
—Harold Kushner
Topics: Happiness, Helpfulness, Joy, Kindness, Goodwill

When you carry out acts of kindness you get a wonderful feeling inside. It is as though something inside your body responds and says, yes, this is how I ought to feel.
—Harold Kushner
Topics: Bravery, Kindness

When you are kind to others, it not only changes you, it changes the world.
—Harold Kushner
Topics: Kindness

Can you see the holiness in those things you take for granted—a paved road or a washing machine? If you concentrate on finding what is good in every situation, you will discover that your life will suddenly be filled with gratitude, a feeling that nurtures the soul.
—Harold Kushner
Topics: Gratitude

Our souls are not hungry for fame, comfort, wealth or power. Those rewards create almost as many problems as they solve. Our souls are hungry for meaning, for the sense that we have figured out how to live so that our lives matter, so that the world will be at least a little bit different for our having passed through it.
—Harold Kushner
Topics: Soul

We pray to you, O God … for strength, determination, and willpower, to do instead of just to pray, to become instead of merely to wish.
—Harold Kushner
Topics: Perseverance

One of the most sublime experiences we can ever have is to wake up feeling healthy after we have been sick.
—Harold Kushner
Topics: Health

In the final analysis, the questions of why bad things happen to good people transmutes itself into some very different questions, no longer asking why something happened, but asking how we will respond, what we intend to do now that it happened.
—Harold Kushner
Topics: Attitude, Action, Problem-solving

God is like a mirror. The mirror never changes, but everybody who looks at it sees something different.
—Harold Kushner
Topics: Christianity, Faith, God, Divinity

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