Joe Kanofsky introduces us to the thought of Russian political philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev, who serves as a model of the flaws in constraining the sweep of Jewish history to one philosophical or theological view.

Menachem Genack read’s Lincoln’s Second Inaugural and discovers the profundity of the President’s religious thought – this week in “The BEST.”

Joe Kanofsky, writing for “The BEST,” reintroduces us to Lionel Trilling’s “examination of life by aesthetic categories” which help the reader detach from “the habits of thought and feeling that the larger culture imposes… giving him a ground and vantage point from which to judge and condemn, and perhaps revise, the culture which produced him.”

In “The BEST” Asher Oser reads Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew” and considers points of contrast with Megillat Ruth’s depiction of marriage and relationships built on trust and kindness.