This study of the history of Judaism is organized around the polarities of timelessness, change, eternity, and the historical present.
“Midrash thus exchanges stability of language and the continuity of history for stability of values and the eternity of truth.” (Page 52)
“Messianism means that we pay very close attention to the meaning of great events and seek to understand where we are going, and when we shall get there. Rabbinic Judaism, by contrast, proposes to create a timeless world, a metahistorical community, capable of riding out the waves of history and the vicissitudes of time by creating a life of eternity and unchanging sanctity in the here and now.” (Page 110)
“It includes the striking detail that whatever the most recent rabbi is destined to discover through proper exegesis of the tradition is as much a part of the Torah revealed to Moses as is a sentence of Scripture itself. It is therefore possible to participate even in the giving of the law by appropriate, logical inquiry into the law. God himself, studying and living by Torah, is believed to subject himself to these same rules of logical inquiry.” (Page 37)
“What they offered was one Messianism in place of another. It was the Messianism built upon the paradox of the crucified Messiah, the scandal of weakness in place of strength, suffering unto death in place of this-worldly victory.” (Page 27)
“But outside the Temple the laws of ritual purity were not widely observed, for it was not required that noncultic activities be conducted in a state of Levitical cleanness.” (Page 29)