Judaism Straight Up: Why Real Religion Endures

Weakening the soft authority of communities in favor of the hard power of states is likely both to weaken welfare and to diminish liberty.

the multiplicity of communities has the ironic consequence of highlighting the common core of halakha that is common to all these diverse communities.

halakha is indeed deeply rooted in entrenched traditions and lacks a mechanism for legislating changes, it relies on the intuitions of ordinary practitioners of halakha, and it lacks a systematic means of enforcement.

In situations that call mainly for common sense and decency, Shimen’s first instinct is to conjure up what his bubbe (grandma) would do.

social norms must encourage our prosocial instincts and discourage our selfish instincts. If you and I both know that we share a commitment to such norms, we can trust each other and cooperate in mutually advantageous ways.

Unlike Shimen, Heidi aspires to base her beliefs solely on evidence and to choose her commitments based on these justified beliefs. She specifically aspires for her most deeply held beliefs to transcend the particular culture in which she lives.

articulated principles of halakha serve us when we don’t have clear intuitions on the matter at hand.

We can’t default to the belief that the society we belong to is a link in a directed process that connects our past with our future unless we have a very strong sense of which society we belong to: Gerer Hasidim, committed Jews, all Jews, educated Westerners, human beings, sentient beings?

Most of the world has been and continues to be committed to one or another version of monochromatic utopianism: