The Commons

Charles Haddon Spurgeon visited a farmer friend and spotted a weathervane on his barn. When he looked closer, he saw the words “God Is Love” painted under the weathervane. Mr. Spurgeon asked, “Do you mean to say that God’s love is as changeable as the wind?” “Oh, no,” said the…

A couple from California were traveling by car through Oklahoma. They saw a tornado coming. The husband drove the car off to the side of the road and the couple got out and crouched beside it. The twister was coming directly toward them, but at the last second veered off…

There is a difference between “telling the truth” and “telling the whole truth.” I think of that old Peter Sellers routine where he walks up to the register at a hotel and sees a dog lying beside the desk. He looks at the clerk and asks, “Does your dog bite?”…

A famous rabbi asked the Lubliner Hasidim: “Why do so many thousands come to you and not to me? I have learned more Talmud than you, and I can discourse on the Halakhah more profoundly?” The Lubliner replied: “I am likewise surprised at the multitudes who come. Who am I…

An ancient Jewish parable: A king sent forth several armies against his enemies, one of them under his son’s command. The son loved his father deeply, and concerned himself only with pleasing him, rather than with his own glory. Hence the victory of his army gave him little joy unless…

Rabbi Moshe Leib (1745-1807) of Sassov (now Ukraine) has often been compared to St. Francis, whom the Hasidim call a “Catholic Chasid.” He is famous for saying “He who cannot suck the boils of a child sick with the plague has not gone half-way up the heights of love for…

“We live under the illusion that if we can acquire complete control, we can understand God or we can write the great American novel. But the only way we can brush against the hem of the Lord or hope to be part of the creative process, is to have the…

“Come back to your heart, and from there, to God, for the path is not long from your heart to God. All of the difficulties that are troubling you come from what is outside of you, you who are the exile of your own heart. You let yourself be moved…

“We all need to have beliefs, we are all in need of instruction, but the following of Christ is not primarily about our creeds; it is about letting God be the Spirit of love and compassion to us and through us in every moment of our lives. All our creeds…

Brian Morton is a US writer and professor (Sarah Lawrence College). He conducted a little experiment about thanksgiving: “I examined 20 recent American CDs this morning, pulled at random from the shelf. A remarkable 17 of them offer prominent thanks to the deity in some shape or form, often before…