More from and about
Harold Kushner
(biographical info at bottom of page)
  

What cannot be achieved in one lifetime will happen
when one lifetime is joined to another.

   

I believe strongly that one of the primary goals of religion is to teach people to like themselves and feel good about themselves. All my experience has taught me that people who feel good about themselves will be more generous, more forgiving of others, less defensive about their mistakes, more accessible to change, and better able to cope with misfortune and adversity.
  
  
 If you have been brave enough to love, and sometimes you won and sometimes you lost; if you have cared enough to try, and sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't; if you have been bold enough to dream and found yourself with some dreams that came true and a lot of broken pieces of dreams that didn't, that fell to earth and shattered, then you can look back from the mountaintop you now find yourself standing on, like Moses contemplating the tablets that would guide human behavior for a millennia, resting in the Ark alongside the broken fragments of an earlier dream. And you, like Moses, can realize how full your life has been and how richly you are blessed.

      
When you carry out acts of kindness you get a wonderful feeling inside. It is as though something inside your body responds and says, yes, this is how I ought to feel.
  
We have confused God with Santa Claus. And we believe that prayer means making a list of everything you don't have but want and trying to persuade God you deserve it. Now I'm sorry, that's not God, that's Santa Claus.
  
 I think of life as a good book. The further you get into it, the more it begins to make sense.
   

Sometimes we are simply “blown away” and in awe by finding ourselves in the presence of God. Other times, however, even when we are participating in acts of kindness—complimenting others, writing a check to charity, donating time to a good cause—we are oblivious to the miracle of what is happening at that moment.

     

We teach children how to measure and how to weigh. We fail
to teach them how to revere, how to sense wonder and awe.

   

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Integrity is not something that grownups have and adolescents
can aspire to. Integrity is something that all of us,
at all ages, are constantly striving for.

   

Too often, people make the mistake of believing that if they only had
more money or more sex or a different partner or a better-looking body, they
would feel the sense of "wholeness" they have always craved. Virtually
without exception, this is not the case. What is actually lacking is the
dimension of giving and kindness as a means of nourishing the soul. To
add this dimension to your life is to nourish your soul.

   

When a mentally retarded child is born, the religious question we
often ask is, "Why does God let this happen?" The better question
to pose is to ask, "What kind of community should we be so that mental
retardation isn't a barrier to the enjoyment of one's full humanity?"

   

    
Harold Kushner is Rabbi Laureate of Temple Israel in the Boston suburb of Natick, Massachusetts. He was born in Brooklyn, New York, and graduated from Columbia University. He has six honorary doctorates, has studied at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and has taught at Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts, and the Rabbinical School of the Jewish Theological Seminary. Kushner was the editor of the magazine Conservative Judaism for four years. In 1995, he was honored by The Christophers, a nonprofit organization devoted to spreading messages of hope and understanding, as one of the 50 people who have made the world a better place in the last 50 years. In 1999, the national organization Religion in American Life paid tribute to him as their clergyman of the year.

Harold Kushner is best known as the author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People, an international bestseller first published in 1981. This volume has been translated into 14 languages and was recently selected by members of the Book of the Month Club as one of the 10 most influential books of recent years. He has also written When All You've Ever Wanted Isn't Enough, which was awarded the Christopher Medal for its contribution to the exaltation of the human spirit. Rabbi Kushner's other books are The Lord Is My Shepherd (2003), Living A Life That Matters (2002), How Good Do We Have to Be? A New Understanding of Guilt and Forgiveness (1996), When Children Ask About God: A Guide For Parents Who Don't Always Have All The Answers (1995), To Life! A Celebration of Jewish Being and Thinking (1993) and Who Needs God (1989).
  

    

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Other people:  Alan Watts - Albert Einstein - Albert Schweitzer - Andy Rooney - Anne Frank - Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Anne Wilson Schaef - Annie Dillard - Anthony Robbins - Ari Kiev - Artur Rubenstein - Barbara Johnson - Benjamin Disraeli
Benjamin Franklin - Benjamin Hoff - Bernie Siegel - Bertrand Russell - Betty Eadie - Booker T. Washington
Charlotte Davis Kasl - Cheryl Richardson - Cristina Feldman - C.S. Lewis - the Dalai Lama - Dale Carnegie - Deepak Chopra
Don Miguel Ruiz - Earl Nightingale - Elaine St. James - Eleanor Roosevelt - Elisabeth Kuebler-Ross - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Emmet Fox - Frederick Buechner - George Bernard Shaw - George Santayana - George Washington Carver - Gerald Jampolsky
Harold Kushner - Harry Emerson Fosdick - Helen Keller - Henry David Thoreau - Henry James - Henry Van Dyke
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - Henry Ward Beecher - Hugh Prather - Immanuel Kant - Iyanla Vanzant - Jack Canfield
James Allen - Jennifer James - Jim Rohn - Joan Borysenko - Joan Chittister - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - John Izzo - 
John Ruskin - Joni Eareckson Tada - Joseph M. Marshall III - Julia Cameron - Kent Nerburn - Khalil Gibran - 
Leo Buscaglia - Leonard Jacobson - Leslie Levine - Lucinda Bassett - Lydia Maria Child - Lynn Grabhorn - Marcus Aurelius
Marianne Williamson - Martin Luther King, Jr. - Maya Angelou - Melody Beattie - Michael Goddart - Mitch Albom
Mohandas Gandhi - Morrie Schwartz - Mother Teresa - M. Scott Peck - Nathaniel Branden - Nikos Kazantzakis - Norman Cousins
Norman Vincent Peale - Og Mandino - Oprah Winfrey - Oriah - Orison Swett Marden - Pau Casals - Peace Pilgrim - Phillips Brooks
Rabindranath Tagore - Rachel Carson - Rachel Naomi Remen - Rainer Maria Rilke - Ralph Waldo Trine - Richard Bach
Richard Carlson - Robert Frost - Robert Fulghum - Robert Louis Stevenson - Russell Baker - Sarah Ban Breathnach
Shakti Gawain - Soren Kierkegaard - Stephen Covey - Stephen C. Paul - Sue Patton Thoele - Susan L. Taylor
Sylvia Boorstein - Thich Nhat Hanh - Thomas Carlyle - Thomas Kinkade - Thomas Merton - Tom Walsh - Victor Cherbuliez
Wayne Dyer - Wilferd A. Peterson - Willa Cather - William James - William Wordsworth - Zig Ziglar

   

       
    

Yes, life can be mysterious and confusing--but there's much of life that's actually rather dependable and reliable.  Some principles apply to life in so many different contexts that they can truly be called universal--and learning what they are and how to approach them and use them can teach us some of the most important lessons that we've ever learned.
My doctorate is in Teaching and Learning.  I use it a lot when I teach at school, but I also do my best to apply what I've learned to the life I'm living, and to observe how others live their lives.  What makes them happy or unhappy, stressed or peaceful, selfish or generous, compassionate or arrogant?  In this book, I've done my best to pass on to you what I've learned from people in my life, writers whose works I've read, and stories that I've heard.  Perhaps these principles can be a positive part of your life, too!
Universal Principles of Living Life Fully.  Awareness of these principles can explain a lot and take much of the frustration out of the lives we lead.