Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Self-Reliance” is an enduring and eloquent examination of that most American of virtues: individualism. Since the essential human being is the private self, how do we square the essay's teachings with a religious life of community and contribution to the other? Jeffrey Saks re-reads “Self-Reliance,” with its echoes in the Rav and the Reb, in this week’s The BEST.

Carol Gilligan’s "In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development" changed the way moral theory and psychology recognize different voices. Stephen Glicksman explains why this matters to everyone – and uses Gilligan's work to underline the various implications of the role of women in Jewish thought and communal life – in this week’s “The BEST.”