Ours is not the only way to live, but it is the Jewish way—the particular example that illustrates the general rule that you can be different and yet human, strangers and yet the beloved children of God. I know of no other faith that has taught this principle so clearly, so consistently, so courageously. The

For only as the image of God is human life not part of nature, but sacred.

Jews began to see themselves not as the people loved by God but rather as the people hated by gentiles.

Only what we lose and are given back again do we not take for granted, but consciously cherish and constantly protect.

More than the Bible is interested in the home God made for man, it is concerned with the home man makes for God. Fundamental to it is not the natural world God created but the social world we create.

Passover tells us how the Israelites won their freedom. Shabbat tells us how they kept it. One

The years of waiting, the disappointment of Ishmael, the near-loss of Isaac, burned into Jewish consciousness the knowledge that generational continuity does not simply happen. Judaism became, and still is, that rarest of phenomena, a child-centered faith.

must be able to depend on others, and they on me. But if this is not to be brought about by one of us having power over the other, then it depends on trust. And trust depends on my giving my word and keeping it.

Jews did not want to belong to the club that would have them as a member. They were Jacobs who did not want to be Jacob.