Most Jews tend to think that everyone in the world thinks and acts as Jews do. That includes not only the content of the way that Jews understand and react to life, but the argumentative, and yet humorous, method we use to negotiate it. It will therefore be helpful to clarify the underlying assumptions of Jewish ethics by comparing them to those of Christianity and American secularism, the two other traditions that American Jews are likely to know, to show that that is not so. Read more...

In Professor Michael Walzer's now-classic study of the political history of the Passover story, Exodus and Revolution (1985), he concludes with three fundamental teachings that illuminate the ongoing relevance of the narrative to our contemporary lives: Read more...

Last week I had one of those perfect moments as a teacher. The passage of Talmud we were studying was a challenging one, but my students had studied hard before coming to class, so we were off to a good start. We struggled together to put all the pieces of a complex passage into place, and when we finally achieved clarity in interpreting the difficult page, I noticed that we had gone a full fifteen minutes over our allotted class period. It was a rare moment where time – at least for me, the teacher – seemed to have stood still. Read more...

Freedom is on my mind, as it should be at this time of year, but it's pretty hard to be connected to the news lately, any news, and not sense that 'freedom' has pretty much become a cliché. A word we lightly throw around when we need it, when it suits our ends, and all too often to galvanize our own rigid dogmas; it has become a weapon to protect our own spiritual and material excesses. It is happening now in Indiana and in Georgia, where freedom apparently means possessing the unfettered power to discriminate behind the veil of a dangerous interpretation of religious liberty. Read more...

There is a moment in the traditional liturgy of the seder in which Jews would open their doors and literally shout angry words at their enemies: " Sh'foch ha-Matcha... May God pour out His wrath on them!" I have never included these lines in my Passover, but this year, I was sorely tempted. I wanted to open the door and yell with anger. I wanted to rage. Read more...