Jewish existence is not only the adherence to particular doctrines and observances but primarily the living in the spiritual order of the Jewish people, the living in the Jews of the past and with the Jews of the present. It is not only a certain quality in the souls of the individuals; it is primarily involvement and participation in the covenant

One of Judaism’s most distinctive and challenging ideas is its ethics of responsibility, the idea that God invites us to become, in the rabbinic phrase, his ‘partners in the work of creation’. The God who created the world in love calls on us to create in love. The God who gave us the gift of freedom asks us to use it to honour and enhance the free

Sincere, thoughtful caring-about is crucial but its main contribution, Noddings writes, is in “suggest[ing] ways to extend caring-for to many more recipients.”15 In the same vein, I think, the laws of tzedakah enshrine the primacy of caring-for.16

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