Today we present our second installment in TRADITION’s yearly tradition of offering up endorsements for summer reading from our editorial board.

TRADITION continues its yearly tradition of turning to our esteemed editorial board for endorsements for summer reading. Some of the picks could have easily been predicted, others are quite surprising, all are worthy of your attention. Read the first of three installments today on TraditionOnline.

Yitzchak Blau’s recent review of Shai Held’s “Judaism Is About Love” (Spring 2025) gives Nathaniel Helfgot an opportunity to consider God’s attributes of jealousy and vengeance, how that can be squared with His essence as a God of mercy and compassion, and the challenge this presents us, tasked with imitating and following in His ways.

For the sixth year running, TRADITION will continue its tradition of turning to our esteemed editorial board for endorsements for summer reading. Some may be amused to think of a seaside read with the 29 tomes our team chose – but that’s what you get from TRADITION’s thought leaders—sometimes surprising suggestions, but always reading worthy of your attention. Win a subscription by being the first to predict the most titles which will appear this year.

The life of moral philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, who passed away last month at age 96, constituted a roaming intellectual and spiritual journey. His critique of secular moral theories that had emerged out of the Enlightenment as abject failures should cause people of faith to pay attention to his writing. Daniel Rynhold observes that most Orthodox Jews have been exposed to MacIntyre through his profound impact on the thought and teachings of R. Jonathan Sacks—and encourages us to dig deeper into the source.