Studies in Spirituality (Covenant & Conversation Book 9)

God is not about power but relationship; that religion is not about control but about freedom; that God is found less in nature than in human society, in the structures we make to honor His presence by honoring His image in other human beings. Biblical faith is about the dignity of the personal, and it can never be obsolete.

There is no answer to the question, “Why do the innocent suffer?” at the level of thought. The only adequate answer is at the level of deed, in the long journey toward a world in which the innocent no longer suffer. To be sure, there is acceptance in Judaism. We call this tzidduk hadin, coming to terms with suffering and loss, saying that “all that

To return to where we started: the mishnah subtly makes the revolutionary claim that our ultimate worth as human beings is a function not of what we achieve in the world, but of the simple fact that we have been created by God.

Everywhere we go, we still bring our Torah with us. We live our mitzvot and whirl the ancient dance of halakhah—observance, study, commentary, life. Our