Sublime

The sixth Rebbe deduced from this principle that Israel ben Eliezer (1698–1760), the Ba‘al Shem Ṭov, “master of a good name,” generally abbreviated as the Beshṭ, should be considered the “Moses of Ḥasidism” and Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the “Moses of Ḥabad.”

It took faith to stay Jewish in the Hellenistic age,

In the first instance, the dispersion of Moses in every generation (itpashṭuta de-moshe be-khol dara we-dara) signifies the capability of every Jew to expand his or her consciousness (da‘at) to the point of being assimilated within the divine and to draw down the infinite light into the world.42 However, the righteous sages, the “eyes of the congre

My views are consistent with those who hold that moral instincts in individuals are genetic adaptations sometimes detectable even in non-human primates;1 that social norms are products of interactions between cultural evolution and genetic evolution;2 that natural selection can act at the level of the group and not just at the level of the individu

Abraham ibn Daud.

But we are not prophets, and in some ways, that makes our task even harder: unlike Moses, we first have to discern our mission, and then decide whether to heed the call.

Since ancient times, in every place they have ever lived, Jews have represented the frightening prospect of freedom. As long as Jews existed in any society, there was evidence that it in fact wasn’t necessary to believe what everyone else believed, that those who disagreed with their neighbors could survive and even flourish against all odds. The J