“Nothing Jewish is alien to me.” [Gerschom] Scholem liked to say that. We argued about it many times. I objected that a great deal that is Jewish is alien to me (and to him, too). Also that this is as it should be. In a tradition that includes all the varieties of spiritual life, there must be varieties that one rejects; or else one is tribal and not spiritual.
—Leon Wieseltier, Kaddish
I do not doubt your idealism. But to what does it finally commit you? That is what I want to know. When does your ‘covenant’ become binding? When do you stop picking and choosing?
—Leyb Rochman to David Roskies, in Roskies, Yiddishlands
