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.

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. 

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.

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.

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.