Table of Contents
Preface xi
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction: The Great Conversation 1
Part 1 Parents and Children: Within the Family 25
1 Who Are Our First Parents? 27
2 Teaching at the Family Table 47
3 Holding Hands: Abraham Walks with Isaac 63
4 Bringing Up a "Problem Child" 79
5 Learning to Make Decisions 91
Part 2 The Community: From the Home to the School 103
6 The Community Teaches the Narrative of Beginnings 105
7 Priestly Garments and All That: Still Splendid? 123
8 Jewish Law and Human Nature: Educational Models 137
9 Learning and Leadership: HUM and Menahem 155
Part 3 Inside Out: Learning About Ourselves and Others 177
10 Jacob and Esau: Strategies for Coexistence 179
11 The Curriculum of Jewish Life-Goshen and the Land of Israel 197
12 Children of Two Covenants 217
13 A Tale of Two Tents: Scholarship and Faith 231
Part 4 Learning About Ourselves: Jewish Self-Education 249
14 A Question of Character: The Case of Joseph 251
15 Learning to Cope with What We Remember 273
16 Can Illness Have a Meaning?: Community, Solitude, and Providence 285
17 Living Until One Hundred and Twenty: On Dying 297
18 What Is Worth Knowing? Learning Torah "for Its Own Sake" 315
Postscript: The Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life 333
Appendix: The Chapter, the Verse, and the "Portion" 339
Reading over My Shoulder 343
Glossary 349
Notes 355
Index 369
