“You are entering into a tradition of manhood, or personhood, in this troubled world,” Hershey said. “You are taking a full responsibility for the Torah and its laws, and you are responsible not just for perpetuating Judaism but for making sure that there are still Jews in the world. On this day, we ask of you that you build a Jewish home, that you

When we were young. And we made this franchise for people like us. And this is what there was. But, I guess, who did we become? Now that I have some money. Now that I have some skills. What is the thing I want to say to the world? What would I make for the people so that they might understand me? Understand who I am? Catharsis, drama, something new

There has never been, in the history of all human interaction, a way for a woman to explain effectively that she’s calm when a man has suggested she isn’t.

There are few things more validating than to see someone who is like you and love them instead of hate them. That was a surprising thing about fatherhood that Nathan had not anticipated.

Ouroboros!

His father, who was too delicate to ask him about his own day, but who could absorb an untold amount of Holocaust stories, which is as close to describing the modern Jewish condition as you can get.

He remembered Ruth telling him about post-traumatic stress disorder, back when she still thought things could be different. He laughed at that: post-trauma! Anyone who named it that didn’t really understand it. There is no post. There’s only trauma. Over and over. Time moves on, but you stay there forever. No wonder there was no treatment. How do y

the concept

She’d shown impressive aptitudes in several areas and was considered gifted before that word meant privileged and merely bright.