Imagine you are Yaakov. You spent 20 years away from your parents, due to the threat of your brother. And then you lost your son, the oldest of your beloved wife Rachel. Your other sons told you he was attacked by an animal and killed, and you have no...

There has long been a tension in Judaism and in Jewish communities between particularism and universalism. Proponents of particularism would have Jews form themselves into self-contained communities, isolated from neighboring non-Jewish communities,...