To a degree unrivaled by any other nation, Jews became a people whose very survival was predicated on the school, the house of study, and life as a never-ending process of learning. “When does the obligation to study begin?” asks Maimonides. “As soon as a child can talk. When does it end? On the day of death.”

Insofar as there were still Jews, they lived, spiritually speaking, in suspended animation, mere ghosts among the living. The result was a failure, among Christians and even sometimes among Jews themselves, to understand that Judaism had not died with the loss of the second Temple. To the contrary, it underwent one of most creative moments in Jewis

When time has disappeared and space is a comfortless ripple of white sand, should you imagine yourself inside the skin of the first man or inside the mind of God? The Talmud gives an answer to this question. It is, the mind of God. To save yourself, you re-create the world.

This is something I love about Judaism: When Temples fall, we don’t just stand around trying to make sacrifices at the ruins. We retranslate our tradition to create something more enduring.