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

Unlike the issue of messiahhood, which arose when Jews and Christians were members of the same religio-political community and spoke the same conceptual language, the issues of the incarnation and the Trinity divide people who are no longer members o...

David Novak

Jewish status is defined by the divine election of Israel and his descendants. One does not become a Jew by one's own volition.

David Novak

Although most Christian churches advocate some sort of mission to non-Christians, no Jewish group advocates a mission to non-Jews. Proselytization seems to be foreign to Judaism.

David Novak

Theology always has moral implications, and morality is always undergirded by theology.

David Novak

The rabbi is often the regular preacher in the synagogue, the man whose sermons offer his community more general theological and moral guidance.

David Novak

When modern political Zionism emerged around the turn of the twentieth century, most Orthodox Jews opposed it.

David Novak

All modern secularity requires is that our public norms and the arguments for them not presuppose common acceptance of Jewish or Christian revelation, even if these public norms are consistent with a particular community's revelation and the authorit...

David Novak

All the questions discussed in the Talmud and related rabbinic literature are normative questions: either they are questions of what one is to think or what one is to do. Every prescribed thought has some practical implication; every prescribed act h...

David Novak

In deciding among theological views, one should be something of a consequentialist: the choice of one theological position over another should be, if not actually determined, at least heavily conditioned by the fact that it implies a better ethical o...

David Novak

For those who have envisioned the State of Israel to be a democracy, which although primarily a Jewish polity for Jews is one in which non-Jews can become citizens and enjoy equal civil rights with the Jewish majority, the question of natural law is ...

David Novak

The relation between Judaism, Zionism, and Messianism is one that is often hard for Jews to get straight. Needless to say, it is even harder for non-Jews.

David Novak

Roots can live without branches, although truncated; branches cannot live without roots.

David Novak

In a very real sense, Jews have to believe that Christians have missed the point about how to wait for the end, and Christians have to believe something quite similar about the Jews.

David Novak

We Jews who willingly and happily confirm our covenantal status and its attendant rights and duties must take the question of mission seriously: either to accept it or reject it knowingly and with conviction.

David Novak

To view any individual as being independent of relationality is like viewing a point outside of a line, a line outside of a figure, a figure outside of a body.

David Novak

The religious doctrine of traditional Judaism entails the acceptance of the nationhood of the Jewish people and the everlasting sanctity of the Land of Israel for them.

David Novak

The one and only time I met Pope Benedict XVI was when he was Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger.

David Novak

It was in the early 1960s that my late revered teacher, Professor Abraham Joshua Heschel, became the first major Jewish theologian in America to enter into dialogue with Christian theologians on a high theological level.

David Novak

A fully positive relationship between Christians and Jews is one that would elide all differences.

David Novak

As a practicing Jew, I have studied with Christian teachers whom I respect for who they are and what they are, including their positive concern with Jews and Judaism.

David Novak

The right to privacy has both positive and negative connotations for those who consider themselves part of the natural law tradition.

David Novak

Author Bio

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