Why did God create mankind? Because God likes stories.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that humanity's existence is tied to the intrinsic value of storytelling, highlighting the divine appreciation for narratives.
Jonathan Sacks asserts that God's creation of humanity is rooted in the love for stories, implying that our lives are narratives filled with meaning. This perspective emphasizes the significance of storytelling as a fundamental aspect of human experience and our connection to the divine, suggesting that our stories are not only important to us but to the fabric of existence itself.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about the importance of storytelling in religion.
Stabilizing the euro is one thing, healing the culture that surrounds it is another. A world in which material values are everything and spiritual values nothing is neither a stable state nor a good society. The time has come for us to recover the Judeo-Christian ethic of human dignity in the image of God.
Governments cannot make marriages or turn feckless individuals into responsible citizens. That needs another kind of change agent.
Jews read the books of Moses not just as history but as divine command. The question to which they are an answer is not, 'What happened?' but rather, 'How then shall I live?' And it's only with the exodus that the life of the commands really begins.
Find people not to envy but to admire. Do not the profitable but the admirable deed. Live by ideals.
Some years ago there was a study to discover the most stressful occupation. It turned out not to be the head of a large business, football manager or prime minister, but rather: bus driver.
The Holocaust survivors are among the most inspiring people I have had the privilege to meet.
Americans, it seems to me, tend to protect their children from the harshness of life, in their interest.
I have nothing to ask but that you would remove to the other side, that you may not, by intercepting the sunshine, take from me what you cannot give.
The honey doesn't taste so good once it is being eaten; the goal doesn't mean so much once it is reached; the reward is no so rewarding once it has been given. If we add up all the rewards in our lives, we won't have very much. But if we add up the spaces *between* the rewards, we'll come up with quite a bit. And if we add up the rewards *and* the spaces, then we'll have everything - every minute of the time that we spent.
Every major horror of history was committed in the name of an altruistic motive. Has any act of selfishness ever equalled the carnage perpetrated by disciples of altruism.
The youth gets together his materials to build a bridge to the moon, or, perchance, a palace or temple on the earth, and, at length, the middle-aged man concludes to build a woodshed with them.
A man who has no office to go, to I don't care who he is, is a trial of which you can have no conception.
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