The siddur is also not meant to be read literally, but more like a poem.

the interpretive process they developed, the Rabbis rescued Judaism in one of its darkest moments and ensured its continuation for the next two millennia. Thanks to the Rabbis, Rosen notes, “Jews became the people of the book and not the people of the Temple or the land,” all now bound together by the same foundational interpretive text and

social justice is indeed a core purpose of Jewish existence.

I was stealing people’s minds, misleading them into feeling indebted to me when they really weren’t, and that was wrong.

While in theory we believe in equality, in practice, American children start out with wildly different opportunities depending on the families into which they happen to be born, and we do little to remedy those inequalities. And in recent years, we have become increasingly polarized, seeing “those people” who disagree with us as an undefined group,

What was unusual about the Torah was its concern not just for vulnerable Israelites, but for vulnerable non-Israelites as well. They too, the Torah insists, are in God’s image.

as Rabbi Jonathan Sacks points out, while the Torah dictates 613 commandments for the Israelites to follow, biblical Hebrew doesn’t have a word for “obey.” Rather, the Torah uses the word “shema,” which means “to listen, to hear, to understand, to internalize, and to respond.”

interpreted Jewish texts in the context of the time and place in which they live, taking into account current understandings of gender and sexuality. This is why today, in every denomination except Orthodoxy, women can officially participate equally in all aspects of Jewish life, serving as rabbis*20 and heads of rabbinical schools, most of which

“thankful am I.” The thankfulness comes first, before the self. We do not start our day focused on ourselves and what we lack—on our needs, worries, and wants. Rather, as Rabbi Shai Held observes, we start with gratitude to something far bigger than ourselves, which we believe is responsible for our existence.