Quotes by David Novak

About David Novak:

David Novak is a Jewish theologian, ethicist, and scholar of Jewish philosophy and law (Halakha). He is an ordained Conservative rabbi and has also trained with Catholic moral theologians.[citation needed] Since 1997 he has taught religion and philosophy at the University of Toronto; his areas of interest are Jewish theology, ethics and biomedical ethics, political theory (with a special emphasis on natural law theory) and Jewish-Christian relations.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

The Vatican's recognition of the State of Israel in 1997 could not have occurred without John Paul's leadership.

David Novak

A religious commitment coupled with theological awareness gives Jews a much better way to answer the claims made upon us by missionaries representing other religions than do the rather weak political and cultural arguments of the secularists.

David Novak

Proselytizing is only wrong if coercive or deceptive. Coercion, whether violent or not, is immoral, just as deception is immoral.

David Novak

Christianity and Judaism are united above all in their common affirmation and implementation of the moral teaching of the Hebrew Bible, or 'Old Testament,' and the traditions of interpretation of that teaching.

David Novak

A traditional rabbi is the man to whom the community and its members turn to rule on what Jewish law requires of them, particularly in cases of doubt.

David Novak

Most Jews, like most rational persons, know that their personal identity and their ethnic identity are not one and the same.

David Novak

The Holocaust, taken by itself, is a black hole. To look at it directly is to be swallowed up by it.

David Novak

Many of us, both Jews and Christians, want the public square to be pluralistic, which is neither partisan nor naked.

David Novak

Jews have not only become equal citizens in Western democracies, they have become leading citizens. And, of course, the reestablishment of the State of Israel has given Jews a political presence in the world they have not had since biblical times.

David Novak

One cannot accept Christ and still be part of the normative Jewish community; one cannot live by Torah and still be part of the Church.

David Novak

The shortcoming of purely political discourse between Christians and Jews arises from the fact that it is largely built upon the perception of a common enemy.

David Novak

Christians and Jews alike are the new exiles of the contemporary world, struggling with how to sing the Lord's song in a strange land.

David Novak

Each person is responsible only for his or her own sins. Even the Christian doctrine of 'original sin' does not mean that humans are punished for the sin of the first human pair but, rather, that humans seem inevitably to copy the sin of the first hu...

David Novak

Every individual is a person necessarily imbedded in a range of multiple relations, and therefore, no one is really independent in anything but a relative sense; no one is truly autonomous.

David Novak

Modernity has been largely shaped for Jews by three momentous experiences: the acquisition of citizenship by individual Jews in secular nation-states, the destruction of one-third of Jewry in the Holocaust, and the founding of the State of Israel.

David Novak

During the Middle Ages, Jews were members of a semi-independent polity within a larger polity.

David Novak

Historically, Jews only accept converts rather than actively seeking them.

David Novak

I first came to Jewish-Catholic relations in 1963, while studying for the rabbinate at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York.

David Novak

Religious traditions are in a constant state of development and renewed self-understanding.

David Novak

The slogan 'Never Again!' that emerged after the Holocaust implies that the Holocaust has a universal moral meaning, which, if properly learned, can provide at least a theoretical prophylactic against its repetition against anyone.

David Novak

It has always been inevitable that, living as a small minority among a Christian majority, some Jews would convert to Christianity.

David Novak

Author Bio

  • NameDavid Novak
  • DescriptionAmerican rabbi and philosopher
  • Born1941
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionRabbi