Many Eastern religions speak of “mindfulness”—being in the present moment, aware and devoted to “the now.” In the Jewish tradition, what God asks is moral mindfulness—to be always aware of the moral dimensions of our actions. Nothing exists in a vacuum; one is always in relation to others, always in the moral moment.

Spirituality is also concerned with shaping our actions and, through them, touching the tender part of our souls. As action and passion interact, we are slowly changed, moving closer and closer to the ideal of a true sage enunciated in the Talmud—one whose inside and outside match. Spirituality means transforming oneself; a religious tradition is a

Judaism does not look on human beings as essentially sinful.

Israel is home in the classic definition of the poet Robert Frost: “Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.”

Spirituality is a constant striving to keep in mind the truth that the intangible is ultimate, that the moral world spins on the axis of what we cannot see.

Judaism urges us to sin against God before we would sin against another who is in God’s image. God can bear our sin. We cannot injure God, but we can destroy each other. Our first task therefore is kindness toward those who are created in the Divine image: the poor, the stranger, the neighbor, and the friend.

A medieval Rabbi once explained prayer with a wonderful parable. When we pray, he said, we think we are changing God. Think of a man in a rowboat who is pulling himself to shore. To someone who did not know what was going on, it might appear that he was really pulling the shore closer to himself. Similarly, when we pray, it may appear that we are

In an instructive fable, the Rabbis of the Talmud imagine that one day the evil impulse in human beings was captured and bound. Suddenly, no one had children, built houses, or took initiative, for our drives are complex and interrelated. Ambition, sexuality, even envy—all of them can be creative or calamitous.

tikkun olam, the repair of the world.