Sublime

for Jewish ethics, the path to universal love is through partiality rather than around it.

The contemporary welcome for converts represents both a new chapter in Jewish history and a return to the very beginning of Jewishness, to Abraham and Sarah and the souls who accompanied them, leaving the world of their parents to begin a new chapter in world history.

Moses’s actions on behalf of the Midianites are described with the same word as God’s actions on behalf of the Israelites. The point is subtle but unmistakable: in siding with the oppressed and resisting injustice, we emulate God.

They are looking for more than a class; they want to build real community. They want substance, and they want the skills to own their Jewish lives.

And Judaism is concerned not just with the amount of tzedakah we give to them, but with how we give it, insisting that we do so in a way that respects the recipient’s dignity.

shifting the operative frame of the American Jewish experience from one of institutional preservation to one of communal empowerment.

“The pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, an almost fanatical love of justice and the desire for personal independence—these are the features of the Jewish tradition which make me thank my stars I belong to it.”

In many cases, minyangoers are looking to engage with the outside world but are interested in doing so with other Jews.