Recently I took an air flight. I had to choose of book to read whilst waiting in the airport lounge, and on the flight itself. Such times are ideal for avoiding what is going on me, until there is an announcement worth taking notice of. The book I chose for this journey was 'A Backdoor To Heaven, an autobiography' by Rabbi Lionel Blue (1930-2016). I had not read it since first reading it probably for the only time twenty five years ago.
It reread as fresh and light as I remember him being in his broadcasts of 'Thought For The Day' on Radio 4, for which he was rightly famed. Below are various quotes from the book. Enjoy....
'Would I rebuild the world as it was [pre World War Two Judaism] if I could? If somebody offered me a return ticket to the past would I accept it? ....lots of religious people have tried it and the only result is banality.'.
'The facts were beginning to be known in the late forties and it was clear that everything [about the holocaust] had been blessed by some Godly organisation or another. Concentration camp guards had sung Christmas carols, Popes had signed concordats with Hitler and Mussolini and the Protestant State Church in Germany had expelled Jews who had believed in Christ. It was not that religious people were any worse than other people. The horrifying fact was that they were the same'.
'In my mind I decided to give a party and invite the various bits of me to it. If I was not going to have another breakdown then they would all have to meet sometime and learn to put up with each other...... .....a meeting was arranged.'
Religion, real religion begins when it can risk the truth.Conversion takes place when you can admit to yourself all the wrong reasons that are at work. One day at a service I admitted I was not God's boy scout.... ....I became myself and admitted who I was and I could pray.'.
'It took me some time to realize what real sin and real virtue were. I had been so preoccupied with formal ones or synthetic ones. I needed experience and teachers because I could not see the obvious.... ....on my own I could not purify myself to stop myself from playing games.'
' ....prayer and drink go rather well together. Some rabbis used to have schnapps before a service, and it certainly helps remove that deafening self-consciousness and artificial language which mummify prayer. The ghetto walls which once seemed like fortresses now seem[ed] like companionable ruins. Because they did not prevent anything I became rather fond of them.'.
'Righteous indignation is such a sleazy emotion.'.
'Of course there will be rows. You can tell Him [God] to get out of your life and He will go. But after the love has gone you will feel so empty, you will call Him back. There is nothing like the pleasure of making up. It leads to the release of love. With a human beings it is consummated in bed, and with a divine being with repentance.'.
' ....most mornings I get in the post I get an assorted mixture of religious tracts, journals and texts. I put them aside; occasionally out of curiosity I read them through. It is a strange cocktail or breakfast time. ....underneath the love there is a quite a lot of sadism.'.
'Religion has a habit of telling where you ought to be and not starting from where you are. It is also not very good at getting you from one to the other, or telling you how to evaluate the experiences en route.'.
'If you use a loudspeaker you cannot help going in for simplifications and you certainly cannot get personal in a modern auditorium.'.
'I have recommend [to] the searchers that I know that they find a place where they can stand aside from their ordinary lives to see what is extraordinary. I have a great affection for a contemplative priory, it is genuine, nobody is trying to sell me anything.'.
When I was a Rabbinic student I was sent a small congregation outside London and I day-dreamed romantically and happily...... I would be wise and humble and unnoticed, except by God of course, my hair would grow grey in their service and my sermons ripen like old Stilton; I would be rather holy.'.
'A manufacturer showed me a vast computer and I wondered if religion must always be vague and evasive. Could it ever achieve that clean precision?'.
'When divinity is ditched law and custom become autonomous, rather like tabus. Community ceases to be an expression of worship and becomes an object. When their inner balance is disturbed legal religions like Judaism (and possibly Islam) slide into communalism and politcs.'.
'Some religious literature disturbed me, because though the words were love the taste was hate.'.
'There is no direct relationship between religion and straight forward happiness.'.
'No wonder dogs were not favored by the prophets, they were so much better at inducing guilt.'.
It reread as fresh and light as I remember him being in his broadcasts of 'Thought For The Day' on Radio 4, for which he was rightly famed. Below are various quotes from the book. Enjoy....
'Would I rebuild the world as it was [pre World War Two Judaism] if I could? If somebody offered me a return ticket to the past would I accept it? ....lots of religious people have tried it and the only result is banality.'.
'The facts were beginning to be known in the late forties and it was clear that everything [about the holocaust] had been blessed by some Godly organisation or another. Concentration camp guards had sung Christmas carols, Popes had signed concordats with Hitler and Mussolini and the Protestant State Church in Germany had expelled Jews who had believed in Christ. It was not that religious people were any worse than other people. The horrifying fact was that they were the same'.
'In my mind I decided to give a party and invite the various bits of me to it. If I was not going to have another breakdown then they would all have to meet sometime and learn to put up with each other...... .....a meeting was arranged.'
Religion, real religion begins when it can risk the truth.Conversion takes place when you can admit to yourself all the wrong reasons that are at work. One day at a service I admitted I was not God's boy scout.... ....I became myself and admitted who I was and I could pray.'.
'It took me some time to realize what real sin and real virtue were. I had been so preoccupied with formal ones or synthetic ones. I needed experience and teachers because I could not see the obvious.... ....on my own I could not purify myself to stop myself from playing games.'
' ....prayer and drink go rather well together. Some rabbis used to have schnapps before a service, and it certainly helps remove that deafening self-consciousness and artificial language which mummify prayer. The ghetto walls which once seemed like fortresses now seem[ed] like companionable ruins. Because they did not prevent anything I became rather fond of them.'.
'Righteous indignation is such a sleazy emotion.'.
'Of course there will be rows. You can tell Him [God] to get out of your life and He will go. But after the love has gone you will feel so empty, you will call Him back. There is nothing like the pleasure of making up. It leads to the release of love. With a human beings it is consummated in bed, and with a divine being with repentance.'.
' ....most mornings I get in the post I get an assorted mixture of religious tracts, journals and texts. I put them aside; occasionally out of curiosity I read them through. It is a strange cocktail or breakfast time. ....underneath the love there is a quite a lot of sadism.'.
'Religion has a habit of telling where you ought to be and not starting from where you are. It is also not very good at getting you from one to the other, or telling you how to evaluate the experiences en route.'.
'If you use a loudspeaker you cannot help going in for simplifications and you certainly cannot get personal in a modern auditorium.'.
'I have recommend [to] the searchers that I know that they find a place where they can stand aside from their ordinary lives to see what is extraordinary. I have a great affection for a contemplative priory, it is genuine, nobody is trying to sell me anything.'.
When I was a Rabbinic student I was sent a small congregation outside London and I day-dreamed romantically and happily...... I would be wise and humble and unnoticed, except by God of course, my hair would grow grey in their service and my sermons ripen like old Stilton; I would be rather holy.'.
'A manufacturer showed me a vast computer and I wondered if religion must always be vague and evasive. Could it ever achieve that clean precision?'.
'When divinity is ditched law and custom become autonomous, rather like tabus. Community ceases to be an expression of worship and becomes an object. When their inner balance is disturbed legal religions like Judaism (and possibly Islam) slide into communalism and politcs.'.
'Some religious literature disturbed me, because though the words were love the taste was hate.'.
'There is no direct relationship between religion and straight forward happiness.'.
'No wonder dogs were not favored by the prophets, they were so much better at inducing guilt.'.
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