Israeli illustrator Shay Charka explains how Art Spiegelman’s “Maus” liberated Jewish culture by appropriating anti-Semitic stereotypes: “Spiegelman’s most significant contribution to the rehabilitation of the Jewish spirit after millennia of persecution culminating in the Holocaust is specifically through his depictions of Jews as mice.” While a Missouri School Board debates banning
June 20, 2023

Debating Maus

As we prepare to read the twinned stories of the banishment of Ishmael and the binding of Isaac we revisit this installment from our The BEST series, in which our editor Jeffrey Saks offered a reading of Marilynne Robinson's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel
November 9, 2022

Isaac, Ishmael & Marilynne Robinson

Postmodernism, deconstruction, and midrashic readings help us make sense of the enigmatic tale of the Tower of Babel – read in synagogues this Shabbat. Miriam Feldmann Kaye marshals the thought of Jacques Derrida and Jonathan Sacks to construct meaning out of the confusion wrought through the bilbul at Bavel.
October 27, 2022

Derrida and Sacks at the Tower of Babel 

Chaim Strauchler looks to Matthew Arnold and Rav Kook for the ultimate and integrated whole toward which “the best that has been thought and said” might lead—namely one’s best self. As” The BEST” column heads off for a hiatus, Strauchler reflects on what we have been doing in 150 installments and what we hope you’ve gained from the effort.
September 29, 2022

The BEST and Our Best Selves

The TRADITION Podcast takes a look back at our “The BEST” column, marking 150 entries, and surveying some of the themes in general culture which potentially inspire us to live better. Marina Zilbergerts, Dov Lerner, and Chaim Strauchler discuss the challenges and opportunities of harnessing worldly culture in the service of religious life. They also consider questions of instrumentalism, the decline of the liberal arts, and the recent “New York Times” expose on Hasidic yeshivot. 
September 22, 2022

PODCAST: The Best

Ephraim Fruchter writes on Charles Lamb’s “Grace Before Meat” for this week’s The BEST: If the essential aim of a benediction is appreciation, “Grace Before Meat” claims that the prosperous cannot hit the target. Only the poor and children can truly appreciate food’s value. How do the early 19th-century essayist’s ideas resonate with our own conception of blessings?
September 15, 2022

The BEST: Grace Before Meat

Chaim Strauchler writes on Adam Smith’s classic “The Wealth of Nations” for The BEST: Each person acting in his own self-interest “conquers” the world – as God tasked Adam I. With this ingenuity, humanity acting together constitutes “the invisible hand” – a combination of the human and something almost divine.
September 8, 2022

The BEST: The Wealth of Nations 

David Curwin, writing for The BEST, sees a life lesson in juxtaposing the films “Saving Private Ryan” (1998) with “The Irishman” (2019): “The end of each film, with the perspective of decades after those pivotal events, implies that it was the protagonists’ private lives, not their public roles, that really mattered.” 
September 1, 2022

The BEST: Saving Private Ryan

Yitzchak Blau finds in Marilynne Robinson’s essay collection, “When I Was a Child I Read Books,” an argument for Jewish communities to more forthrightly discussing their shortcomings, even as they defend their faith claims – this week in The BEST.
August 25, 2022

The BEST: When I Was a Child I Read Books

Na’amit Sturm Nagel writes in The BEST on Eva Hoffman’s portrayal of the immigrant experience after the Holocaust: Movement doesn’t only move forward, and people do not simply work towards a sense of wholeness. Rather, for Hoffman, people and places are meant to be fragmented, as Hoffman concludes: “it is in my misfittings that I fit.”
August 18, 2022

The BEST: Lost in Translation

Gershon Albert writes on what we can learn from a particular funk-band: Vulfpeck has mastered the art of creating culture. Every part of the musical experience is considered, from cinematographic decisions that focus on 70s video nostalgia, to self-made fonts and minimalist instruments. These elements all contribute to a sense of communal belonging. Those of us who are tasked with creating sense of belonging for Jewish institutions can learn from this approach to culture, using elements like language, aesthetics, and “shtick.”
August 11, 2022

The BEST: “Dean Town” by Vulfpeck

Through Raskolnikov’s narrative, Dostoevsky engages with deep philosophical questions regarding the relationship between tradition, rationality, and the individual. The strategy at use in “Crime and Punishment” is especially relevant to Orthodox Jews facing moral challenges today. By carefully painting the mindset of his protagonist, Dostoevsky argues that social and moral traditions and obligations ought not to be disposed of – explains Natan Levin in this week’s The BEST.
August 4, 2022

The BEST: Crime and Punishment

Asher Oser writes on Augustine’s “Confessions” for The BEST: When he wrote the “Confessions,” Augustine was a middle-aged man looking back on his younger years. I am now close to the age Augustine was when he began to write the “Confessions.” As I reflect on my choices, Augustine’s mature awareness of God’s providence in his past helps to move me in that direction. What he experienced at the time as his own choices are now refracted in light of God’s providence.
July 28, 2022

The BEST: Augustine’s Confessions

Marina Zilbergerts writes for The BEST on Eviatar Banai’s song “Night as the Day Does Shine”: “Banai has found a way to synthesize elements of his previous self with the new, and to bridge conflicting worlds into musical inspiration. Speaking directly to the essence of our age, Banai’s music pulls the aspiration to holiness and transcendence directly from the banal ups and downs of human experience.”
July 21, 2022

The BEST: Eviatar Banai’s “Night as the Day Does Shine”

Rivka Krause writes on poet Mary Oliver and her lesson to pause for gratitude: At times, the deepest understanding comes from appreciating the simple and often overlooked things around us. Our rituals aim to ingrain a thankfulness through awareness into the Jewish consciousness. The action of blessing food before eating should lead to thoughtfulness of where it comes from and why we eat it, but it so rarely does, because we do not pause and think.
July 14, 2022

The BEST: “What Gorgeous Thing”

Alex Ozar writes on Danielle S. Allen’s “Talking to Strangers”: Each of us can, and so must, contribute to our country’s fund of goodwill and mutuality. We do this not through professing the right views, and not through politeness around charged topics, but through talking to strangers, which for Allen means leaving our comfort zones to form actual relationships of cooperation and accountability with those we’d prefer stay at a distance.
June 30, 2022

The BEST: Talking to Strangers

Writing about A.B. Yehoshua’s 1990 experimental, historical novel “Mr. Mani,” Jeffrey Saks considers how the Hebrew author raised questions about how the Jewish past reverberates throughout the generations. Saks also discusses his unlikely friendship with Yehoshua, and what the author, who passed away last week at age 85, taught him about Jewish life and Zionism. 
June 23, 2022

The BEST: Mr. Mani

Rachel Sharansky Danziger writes on the value of appreciating common literary forms: By treating all myths and religious stories as variations on the same deeper psychological drama, Joseph Campbell’s “The Hero With a Thousand Faces” discards the question of their veracity, rendering them all equally true – or untrue. To accept this position is to reject the first commandment, Maimonides’ 13 principles of faith, and so much else besides. That said, Campbell’s methodology can still enrich our study of Tanakh.
June 16, 2022

The BEST: The Hero With a Thousand Faces

Yitzchak Blau writes on the 2008 film “Doubt” and its depiction of authoritarian structures and sexual abuse: The Jewish community is not immune from this scourge. The processes of selecting and grooming victims, cover-ups in misguided attempts to protect institutions, and an inability to deal with this on a communal level transcend social and religious divides. This week in The BEST.
June 9, 2022

The BEST: Doubt 

Sarah Rudolph writes on the ongoing “Jewish” relevance of Plato’s Dialogues: Socratic dialogue has echoes in Jewish tradition. We would do well to study and appreciate it as such. Jewish thought is rooted in questions; we dig into our texts and find ourselves full of questions. Our never-ending questions keep our oral and written traditions alive and relevant.
June 2, 2022

The BEST: Dialogues of Plato 

In The BEST Chaim Strauchler writes on Emily Dickinson and the function of art: For Dickinson, in her terse paradoxical style, art tells “all the truth” – but does so in a way that can be understood. A certain degree of falsehood – slant – must be included in effective truthful communication.
May 26, 2022

The BEST: “Tell All the Truth But Tell It Slant”

In this Omer season, as we read each Shabbat from Avot, Ephraim Fruchter sees parallels in Marcus Aurelius’ “Meditations” and draws our attention to the benefits of reading this classic ethical text opposite the musar tradition.
May 12, 2022

The BEST: Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations 

For Yom HaAtzmaut, TraditionOnline’s The BEST shares Rafi Eis’ application of John Locke’s “A Letter Concerning Toleration” to a dispute between Rabbis Sacks and Riskin concerning the separation of religion and state: When “religion enters politics, it becomes a divisive, not a uniting, force. If it seeks power, it will forfeit influence” vs. “Without power, how can the chosen people protect the powerless against their exploiters?”
May 5, 2022

The BEST: A Letter Concerning Toleration

As we mark Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) sample these relevant recent offerings from “The BEST” on Holocaust literature that engages our hearts, minds, and memories: Jeffrey Saks and Yitzchak Blau on Primo Levi; Shay Charka on Spiegelman’s “Maus.”
April 28, 2022

The BEST: Yom HaShoah Columns

Yitzchak Blau writes on C.S. Lewis’ “An Experiment in Criticism” for The BEST: “Literature does provide pleasure, but it surely does more than that. It opens readers to new horizons, inspires them to analyze ideas, and connects them to a more profound sense of the good. If so, a poem must both be and mean.”
March 31, 2022

The BEST: An Experiment in Criticism

Chaim Strauchler on “The Idea of the Holy” for “The BEST”: Empiricism says things that cannot be measured do not really exist. Writing at the start of the 20th century, Rudolf Otto cried foul. There’s something within us (and beyond us) that cannot be reduced to external observation. This anti-reductionist approach is a critical weapon in a Ben or Bat-Torah’s arsenal today.
March 24, 2022

The BEST: The Idea of the Holy

For this Purim-edition of “The BEST” Jeffrey Saks offers a reading of S.Y. Agnon’s “The Bridal Canopy” and its message for the holiday. “Naturally, if this novel’s plot twist is to take place on any particular day of the year, Purim is pre-programmed for such a thing. On this holiday of masks and disguised identities, what is concealed will be revealed, and God works it all out for his faithful in the end.”
March 16, 2022

The BEST: The Bridal Canopy

Dov Lerner writes on what makes John Milton’s “Paradise Lost” so revolutionary and so significant to the religious reader: “Milton dismantles the epic celebration of mortal combat so paradigmatic of Homer and Virgil—depicting belligerence as the blemish of the weak, and resilience as the sign of the strong.”
March 10, 2022

The BEST: Paradise Lost

Chaim Brovender sees in Rembrandt’s art a message for our humanity: Rembrandt telegraphs to us that each person’s individual identity cannot be suppressed. Each one’s face is unique and meaningful. Each figure is not quite like anyone else, and recalls to our minds the midrashic observation: “Just as no two people resemble one another, so no two people think alike. Rather, each person has an opinion of his own.”
March 3, 2022

The BEST: Rembrandt’s “The Night Watch” 

Dalya Koller writes on Joni Mitchell’s “Blue”: Being pulled in multiple directions and towards multiple homelands — what it feels like to have one leg in multiple countries at once — this theme of a dual homeland is an integral and historical aspect of the experience of a diaspora Jew. “Blue” teaches that this feeling of duality isn’t exclusive to Jews.
February 24, 2022

The BEST: Joni Mitchell’s “Blue”

Moshe Kurtz writes on Johnny Cash’s “Hurt” – “Regardless of the promise of a life waiting on the other side, the pain of bereavement is real and sometimes overpowering. One can know that Rabbinic Judaism unequivocally believes in the immortality of the soul, but it is something else to fully internalize it into one’s psyche. Johnny Cash’s struggle to balance his faith commitments with his despondent emotional state is what makes this work of art both poignant and relatable for all people of faith.”
February 17, 2022

The BEST: Johnny Cash’s “Hurt”

Israeli illustrator Shay Charka explains how Art Spiegelman’s “Maus” liberated Jewish culture by appropriating anti-Semitic stereotypes: “Spiegelman’s most significant contribution to the rehabilitation of the Jewish spirit after millennia of persecution culminating in the Holocaust is specifically through his depictions of Jews as mice.”
February 10, 2022

The BEST: Maus

Chaim Brovender writes on the value of art as he interprets two works by Vermeer: “Surely these ideas can be stated in religious language and are found in the words of Hazal. But not everyone can appreciate the wonder in the world through the word, and not everyone can appreciate the love that is expressed in creation through the use of language. Vermeer enables us to look upon these notions through an amazing representation of reality.” 
February 3, 2022

The BEST: Vermeer’s “Geographer” and “Astronomer”

Chaya Sara Oppenheim writes on Norman Rockwell’s “Working on the Statue of Liberty” and on the work required to preserve our liberty. Rockwell depicts a different, rare, and meaningful vantage point: We see Lady Liberty from behind, with our feet already firmly planted on American soil. The Statue of Liberty—for all the freedom and “world-wide welcome” that she symbolizes at the entrance of New York Harbor—is not the central figure in this painting.
January 27, 2022

The BEST: Working on the Statue of Liberty 

Steven Gotlib compares and contrasts “The Matrix” and Jewish mystical traditions, suggesting the relationship between man and machine in the movie is fundamentally antagonistic: for one to live freely, the other must be enslaved. Our reality, however, is quite different. The relationship between humanity and divinity, as portrayed in Nefesh HaHayyim and Tanya, is one of cooperation.
January 20, 2022

The BEST: The Matrix 

Yisroel Ben-Porat profiles John Winthrop’s 1630 sermon “A Modell of Christian Charity” and its relevance to the American Jewish story: “Like the Puritans in New England, we too see ourselves as a small and distant minority meant to live exemplary lives as a light unto the nations. It is easy to read ourselves into Winthrop’s words, to hear his call for unity as a reminder of the values of tzedaka, ahdut, hesed, and other traits toward others.”
January 13, 2022

The BEST: A City Upon a Hill

There’s an interesting debate raging through the imperiled halls of the Ivy League’s humanities departments -- and it has special meaning for Modern Orthodoxy as a religious community that has classically valued the encounter with worldly, humanistic wisdom.  As the relationship of those two realms of wisdom, often framed around the concept of Torah u-Madda, is receiving renewed ideological and institutional reassessment, TRADITION's editor Jeffrey Saks takes note of trends in general higher education and society. This column is the first in a projected series exploring this topic and its importance in the coming months. 
January 6, 2022

Great Books and “The BEST” Books

Sarah Golubtchik finds in Eric Bazilian’s song “One of Us” a positive theological exercise with potential to deeply impact the development of one’s religious persona.
December 30, 2021

The BEST: One of Us

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.
December 23, 2021

The BEST: Self-Reliance

Carol Gilligan’s
December 16, 2021

The BEST: In a Different Voice

William James’ essay “The Will to Believe” is a critique of purely evidential approaches to belief. In David Shatz’s reading, it offers a crucially relevant point about the place of emotions in choices about belief today and grants license to “go for it” – in this week’s “The BEST.”
December 9, 2021

The BEST: The Will to Believe

Thomas Cole’s masterpiece landscape, “The Oxbow,” is a meditation on the balance and tension between untamed chaos and balanced order. In Emma Horowitz’s reading it also casts a ray of sunlight on the polarities of faith in the Divine and the impulse to human endeavor – in this week’s “The BEST.”
December 2, 2021

The BEST: The Oxbow

This post is about Arlo Guthrie’s “Alice's Restaurant,” and it's about Arlo, and the Restaurant, but
November 25, 2021

The BEST: Alice’s Restaurant

The New Yorker’s Adam Gopnik is an erudite polymath, and his elegant essays are a source of astute acumen, offering valuable insight and a model of superb writing. Yitzchak Blau’s offers a reader’s guide in this week’s “The BEST.”
November 18, 2021

The BEST: Adam Gopnik’s Essays

In which “Squid Game” reminds our editor, Jeffrey Saks, of a more worthy exploration of how shockingly easily humanity can become degraded – Primo Levi’s remarkable work of incredible moral power, “Survival in Auschwitz,” in this week’s “The BEST.”
November 11, 2021

The BEST: Survival in Auschwitz

By turning vice on its head, C.S. Lewis’ brilliant satire, “The Screwtape Letters,” serves as an enduring guide to attaining virtue, explains Yakov S. Weinstein in this week’s “The BEST.”
October 28, 2021

The BEST: The Screwtape Letters 

Can lessons from war be drawn to religious life? Chaim Strauchler connects the counter-intuitive wisdom of Sun Tzu's
October 21, 2021

The BEST: The Art of War 

What lessons does Billy Joel’s song “Vienna” hold for our thinking about pursuing excellence in all realms? Isaac Selter hears in the song a teaching about balancing striving for dreams and aspirations along with trust in Divine help in this week’s “The BEST.”
October 14, 2021

The BEST: Billy Joel’s “Vienna”

Avi Narrow-Tilonsky writes on The Gettysburg Address for The BEST: “As religious Jews, dedicated to religious piety and knowledge, the Gettysburg Address can serve as a reminder of values which we share with others—a basic unifying morality and the need to refer to our history as a source for these values.”
October 7, 2021

The BEST: The Gettysburg Address 

Ari M. Gordon writes for TraditionOnline’s The Best, “Our Jewish communities today stand to benefit from engagement with Ibn Khaldun’s civilizational theory — Materialism and individualism in our communities are challenging the Jewish value of sacrifice for God, community, and the greater good. 
September 30, 2021

The BEST: The Muqaddimah of Ibn Khaldun 

The Melekh HaKadosh and the Little Prince: Chaim Strauchler writes on “The Little Prince” for The BEST. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry uses a children’s story to speak to adults about human pretension and the pursuit of life’s ultimate meaning. His insights into the connection between friendship and ritual serve the religious reader well, especially during the High Holiday “taming” season.
September 9, 2021

The BEST: The Little Prince

Michael Sandel’s “Liberalism and the Limits of Justice” offers a criticism of unfettered individualism, and does so in the language of liberalism itself. Sam Lebens, writing for The BEST, reminds us that R. Sacks realized more vividly than others that the communitarian critique of liberalism resonates deeply with Rabbinic sources because Judaism is a religion rooted in our tribal or national identity.
August 26, 2021

The BEST: Liberalism and the Limits of Justice 

Andrew Rosenblatt writes on Max Weber’s “The Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism” for The BEST:  “While the Torah world may have little use for Protestant sects, the idea that religion is a primary driver of culture and that culture is a primary factor in the economy should concern any community leader.”
August 19, 2021

The BEST: The Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

Samuel Lebens writes in The BEST: “John Stuart Mill’s moving and thorough defense of the freedom of speech, in which he describes the good that comes even from listening to false beliefs, can function as an important corrective to the peril of dogmatism.” 
August 12, 2021

The BEST: On Liberty

Nessa Liben writes on George Orwell’s vision for English society, “Exposure to alternative viewpoints does not make us less patriotic; it makes us more so. It reminds us to improve ourselves and our national collective identity, our patriotism.” This week in The BEST.
August 5, 2021

The BEST: The Lion and the Unicorn

Writing for
July 29, 2021

The BEST: “I Have a Dream”

Rene Girard argues that sacrifice channels violence into a sacred moment. A surrogate victim is chosen allowing a moment of deep catharsis. In this week’s “The BEST” Zissy Turner sees in “Violence and the Sacred” a framework within which to guide her student’s response to anti-Semitism.
July 22, 2021

The BEST: Violence and the Sacred

Rousseau’s “Social Contract” does not alienate the individual’s power of self-government, but preserves it in elevated form. Society forms not to avoid violence, but so that individuals can better meet the challenges of living through collaboration, innovation, and shared knowledge. It’s Rabbi Sacks’ concept of a politics of “We instead of Me” writes Isaac Fried in this week’s The BEST.
July 8, 2021

The BEST: On the Social Contract

Tolstoy’s challenges us to struggle against material prosperity and a save-the-world politics that has made “social progress” priests of every college graduate and pop star. Yakov Danishevky explains why Tolstoy’s “Confession is The BEST because it exposes the underbelly of high-class culture: status, self-righteousness, and dogmatism.
June 24, 2021

The BEST: Tolstoy’s Confession 

In which a book about Zen and motorcycles is less about either of those and turns out to be more of a Musar work reminding us to aim for Quality in our life and service of God. Todd Berman reads a contemporary classic in this week’s the BEST.
June 17, 2021

The BEST: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

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.
June 3, 2021

The BEST: The Meaning of History 

Menachem Genack read’s Lincoln’s Second Inaugural and discovers the profundity of the President’s religious thought – this week in “The BEST.”
May 27, 2021

The BEST: Lincoln’s Second Inaugural

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.”
May 20, 2021

The BEST: Beyond Culture 

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.
May 13, 2021

The BEST: The Taming of the Shrew

Suzanne Socken considers Thorton Wilder’s classic play “Our Town” as a musar text in this week’s installment of “The BEST”
May 6, 2021

The BEST: Our Town

TRADITION’s esteemed editor emeritus Shalom Carmy returns with an entry on Dostoevsky’s “The Brothers Karamazov” – this week in The BEST.
April 29, 2021

The BEST: The Brothers Karamazov

Writing for The Best, Elie Weissman reviews
April 22, 2021

The BEST: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

Chaim Strauchler looks back on TraditionOnline’s Rabbi Sacks Bookshelves Project, summing up the insights gained as we took a look at the array of writings in Jewish and general wisdom from which R. Sacks crafted his books, essays, and sermons.
April 8, 2021

The BEST: R. Sacks Bookshelves Project – A Closing Chapter

G.K. Chesterton remains one of the great writers and communicators of modern religion, combining a journalist’s flair, the literary credentials of a first-rate author, and a theology deeply considered. Writing for this week's R. Sacks Bookshelves Project, Ben Crowne looks at points of contact between the Catholic Chesterton's writing in
March 18, 2021

The BEST: Chesterton’s “Orthodoxy”

Writing for the R. Sacks Bookshelves project, Chaim Strauchler examines points of intersection between Charles Taylor's
March 11, 2021

The BEST: A Secular Age

R. Sacks observed the United States in the spirit of Alexis de Tocqueville – admiring its institutions but knowing he had a role in helping Americans (and citizens of the world) navigate liberal democracy, the market economy, and ever-advancing science and technology. Stuart Halpern presents “Democracy in America” in this week’s R. Sacks Bookshelves Project.
March 4, 2021

The BEST: Democracy in America

Daniel Rose explains the impact of Leonard Cohen’s music on R. Sacks -- for the R. Sacks Bookshelves Project. Hallelujah!
February 25, 2021

The BEST: Leonard Cohen

How are Jewish texts the overlooked and underappreciated sources of enlightenment political thought? Rafi Zarum shares with us R. Sacks’ reading of Eric Nelson’s “The Hebrew Republic” – this week in the Sacks Bookshelves Project.
February 18, 2021

The BEST: The Hebrew Republic

“No man is an island,” wrote John Donne in “Meditation XVII.” Lindsey Taylor-Guthartz unpacks the depths of this classic prose poem and draws connections to the thought of Rabbi Sacks, who agreed that “any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind.” This week in the Rabbi Sacks Bookshelves Project.
February 11, 2021

The BEST: “Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions”

Spinoza correctly identified the centrality of Jewish law for the survival of Judaism, but erred in thinking that eliminating it is the path to a moral society. Daniel Rynhold explains how R. Sacks showed that maintaining mitzvot and retaining particularity is the way to secure a just society – for Jews and for humanity in general. 
February 4, 2021

The BEST: Spinoza

Robert Putnam’s well-known “Bowling Alone” is among the most cited works in the writings of Rabbi Sacks. Johnny Solomon explains how the two thinker’s ideas on civil society and social disconnection overlap. 
January 28, 2021

The BEST: Bowling Alone

Daniel Rynhold shows how R. Sacks identified collective structures such as religious traditions as that which creates social meanings giving reasons to pursue one course over another. In doing so R. Sacks restores the link between ethics and reason, reading against a classic essay by philosopher A.J. Ayer – This week in “The Rabbi Sacks Bookshelves Project.”
January 21, 2021

The BEST: Language, Truth and Logic

Daniel Friedman reads H. Richard Niebuhr’s classical essay, asking what it implies for the universal value of civil society – a new entry in the R. Sacks Bookshelves Project, presented in cooperation with the London School of Jewish Studies.
January 14, 2021

The BEST: “The Idea of Covenant in American Democracy”

As much as the biblical telling of the Israelites’ “long walk to freedom” may have inspired Nelson Mandela, his life and accomplishments inspired Jonathan Sacks – Daniel Rose explains in this week’s R. Sacks Bookshelves Project.
January 7, 2021

The BEST: Long Walk to Freedom

Jonny Lipczer, writing for the R. Sacks Bookshelves Project, reads Stephen Carter’s “Civility” and asks about our distinctly Jewish responsibilities as citizens of larger society.
December 31, 2020

The BEST: Civility

Helena Miller, for the Saks Bookshelves Project, on the progressive era’s legacy of cultural pluralism, and its meaning for contemporary religious society.
December 24, 2020

The BEST: Democracy Versus the Melting Pot

In this week’s Rabbi Sacks Bookshelves Project, Tamra Wright considers the implications of a recent trend in behavioral science for crafting a “new musar.”
December 17, 2020

The BEST: Tiny Habits

Michael J. Harris, writing for The BEST's R. Sacks Bookshelves Series, introduces our readers to Alasdair MacIntyre's groundbreaking work of moral philosophy.
December 10, 2020

The BEST: After Virtue

The BEST: Moses and Monotheism
December 3, 2020

The BEST: Moses and Monotheism

The BEST: The Rabbi Sacks Bookshelves
December 2, 2020

The BEST: The Rabbi Sacks Bookshelves

The BEST: Pride and Prejudice
November 26, 2020

The BEST: Pride and Prejudice

The BEST: Star Wars
November 19, 2020

The BEST: Star Wars

The BEST: Tintern Abbey
November 12, 2020

The BEST: Tintern Abbey

The BEST: Maybe You Should Talk to Someone
October 29, 2020

The BEST: Maybe You Should Talk to Someone

The BEST: Leaves of Grass
October 22, 2020

The BEST: Leaves of Grass

Primo Levi
October 8, 2020

The BEST: The Drowned and the Saved 

The BEST: Man’s Search for Meaning
October 1, 2020

The BEST: Man’s Search for Meaning

The BEST: Twofold
September 24, 2020

The BEST: Twofold

The BEST: Fear and Trembling
September 17, 2020

The BEST: Fear and Trembling

PODCAST: The BEST
September 10, 2020

PODCAST: The BEST

The BEST: Birches
September 3, 2020

The BEST: Birches

The BEST: On the Brink of Everything
August 27, 2020

The BEST: On the Brink of Everything

The BEST: The Story of Stuff
August 13, 2020

The BEST: The Story of Stuff

The BEST: Les Misérables
August 6, 2020

The BEST: Les Misérables

The BEST: Ode to a Potsherd
July 30, 2020

The BEST: Ode to a Potsherd

THE BEST: Harry Potter
July 23, 2020

THE BEST: Harry Potter

The BEST: Band of Brothers
July 16, 2020

The BEST: Band of Brothers

The BEST: Retrospective
July 9, 2020

The BEST: Retrospective

THE BEST: The Ruined House
July 2, 2020

THE BEST: The Ruined House

The BEST: Rav Kook’s “Fourfold Song”
June 25, 2020

The BEST: Rav Kook’s “Fourfold Song”

The BEST: Toy Story 
June 11, 2020

The BEST: Toy Story 

The BEST: Narcissism: A New Theory
June 4, 2020

The BEST: Narcissism: A New Theory

THE BEST: A Love Supreme 
May 21, 2020

THE BEST: A Love Supreme 

The BEST: Apeirogon
May 7, 2020

The BEST: Apeirogon

The BEST: Uncle Tom’s Cabin
April 30, 2020

The BEST: Uncle Tom’s Cabin

The BEST: Smallfoot
April 23, 2020

The BEST: Smallfoot

The BEST: The Twilight Zone: Time Enough at Last
March 26, 2020

The BEST: The Twilight Zone: Time Enough at Last

The BEST: Nemesis
March 19, 2020

The BEST: Nemesis

Hamlet
March 12, 2020

The BEST: Hamlet

The BEST: A Bad Case of Stripes
March 5, 2020

The BEST: A Bad Case of Stripes

The BEST: Gustav Mahler: Symphonies 1-6
February 27, 2020

The BEST: Gustav Mahler: Symphonies 1-6

The BEST: Till We Have Faces
February 20, 2020

The BEST: Till We Have Faces

The BEST: Sol LeWitt: A Wall Drawing Retrospective
February 13, 2020

The BEST: Sol LeWitt: A Wall Drawing Retrospective

The BEST: The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat
February 6, 2020

The BEST: The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat

The BEST: Star Trek: The Original Series 
January 30, 2020

The BEST: Star Trek: The Original Series 

The BEST: Rembrandt’s Jeremiah
January 23, 2020

The BEST: Rembrandt’s Jeremiah

The BEST: The Chronicles of Narnia
December 26, 2019

The BEST: The Chronicles of Narnia

The BEST: Polly and the Pirates
December 19, 2019

The BEST: Polly and the Pirates

The BEST: “Thinking, Fast and Slow”
December 12, 2019

The BEST: “Thinking, Fast and Slow”

The BEST:
December 5, 2019

The BEST: “Everyone Brave Is Forgiven” by Christopher Cleave

The BEST: “The Last Lion”
November 27, 2019

The BEST: “The Last Lion”

The BEST: Constantine’s Sword
November 21, 2019

The BEST: Constantine’s Sword

The BEST: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
November 15, 2019

The BEST: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

The BEST: The Shawshank Redemption
November 6, 2019

The BEST: The Shawshank Redemption

The BEST: “The Power Broker”
October 31, 2019

The BEST: “The Power Broker”

The BEST: “Daniel Deronda”
October 10, 2019

The BEST: “Daniel Deronda”

The BEST: “The Life of Samuel Johnson” by James Boswell
September 26, 2019

The BEST: “The Life of Samuel Johnson” by James Boswell

The BEST: Changing Lanes
September 19, 2019

The BEST: Changing Lanes

The BEST: Dead Poets Society
September 12, 2019

The BEST: Dead Poets Society

The BEST: 2016 Cleveland-Chicago World Series Game 7
September 5, 2019

The BEST: 2016 Cleveland-Chicago World Series Game 7

The BEST: The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion
August 23, 2019

The BEST: The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion

The BEST:
August 15, 2019

The BEST: “Getting to Yes” and “You Can Negotiate Anything”

The BEST: Masterpiece Comics by R. Sikoryak
August 8, 2019

The BEST: Masterpiece Comics by R. Sikoryak

The BEST - Atul Gawande, Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End
August 1, 2019

The BEST – Atul Gawande, Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End

The BEST: David Foster Wallace, “This Is Water” (2005)
July 25, 2019

The BEST: David Foster Wallace, “This Is Water” (2005)

The BEST: “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost (1923)
July 18, 2019

The BEST: “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost (1923)

“The Best” - עידית
July 5, 2019

“The Best” – עידית

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