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The Passover Seder is a moment of profound transition, when we move from being Avadim (slaves) to Benei Chorin (liberated people). Such transitions are not to be taken lightly. They require immense preparation - of body, mind, and spirit - if one wishes for them to go smoothly. Read more...

Most Jews tend to think that everyone in the world thinks and acts as Jews do. That includes not only the content of the way that Jews understand and react to life, but the argumentative, and yet humorous, method we use to negotiate it. It will therefore be helpful to clarify the underlying assumptions of Jewish ethics by comparing them to those of Christianity and American secularism, the two other traditions that American Jews are likely to know, to show that that is not so. Read more...

In Professor Michael Walzer's now-classic study of the political history of the Passover story, Exodus and Revolution (1985), he concludes with three fundamental teachings that illuminate the ongoing relevance of the narrative to our contemporary lives: Read more...

Last week I had one of those perfect moments as a teacher. The passage of Talmud we were studying was a challenging one, but my students had studied hard before coming to class, so we were off to a good start. We struggled together to put all the pieces of a complex passage into place, and when we finally achieved clarity in interpreting the difficult page, I noticed that we had gone a full fifteen minutes over our allotted class period. It was a rare moment where time – at least for me, the teacher – seemed to have stood still. Read more...