Sublime

Rather than a system of distilled ideas or a code of behavioral ideals, Jewish observance is living Jews living Judaism and interested non-Jews enriching their own path with nuggets of Torah.

Rabbi Greenberg explained that we lost 30 percent of the Jewish people during the war, but more than 80 percent of the scholars, mystics, and teachers who could pass on ancient traditions.

In recent years, the synagogue world has become obsessed with welcoming people into the worship space—and not just Kiddush, but the service itself.

Judaism, I discovered, demands an appreciation of complexity and scrupulous consideration of opposing views.

Only if my desires have been educated beyond selfishness to the common good do I experience law as freedom itself—as the Psalm put it: “I will walk in freedom for I have sought out Your law.”

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

Rabbi Saadia Gaon teaches that “the Jews are a people by virtue of Torah.”

Judaism is the ambitious attempt to build a society out of covenantal relationships, associations of free individuals, each respecting the integrity of the other, bound only by words, moral commitments, given, received and honored in trust.

In Judaism, faith is a revolutionary gesture