Three books that have changed my life are Dare To Believe, The Talmud, and You Don't Have To Be Wrong For Me To Be Right.
The first, by Jean-Marie Cardinal Lustiger, includes Addresses, Sermons and Interviews with the departed Bishop of Paris, who began life as the Jewish child of Polish immigrants to France, survived the Holocaust because of the courage of a Catholic family, and became a priest who never renounced his identity as a Jew. His is a story that must be read by all of us who wrestle with how to be deeply committed to the tradition we love, while continuing to see the truth of others. Categories are important, but as Cardinal Lustiger taught, they can never fully encompass the complexity of identity or the mystery of an infinite God.
The Talmud is our chance to participate in a three thousand year-old conversation about life's biggest questions, and some of its most pressing details, too. From sexuality to business administration, and from prayer to parenting, it's all in there -- and it invites any reader to participate in the next level of understanding about the things we care about most. With thousands of pages and almost no resolutions, it holds the key to an intellectual and spiritual approach that creates community without demanding uniformity and appreciates the sacredness of virtually every opinion, including ours.
Finally is the book I published this past January. And I include it in this list not only because I think it will be of interest to our readers, but also because I think it's a pretty good compass for navigating our incredibly polarized world. I include it because writing it changed my life by helping me to tell my own spiritual story -- from secular Jewish Chicago, to West Bank settler, to my current work. And in telling my own story, it reminded me that we all have a story, and that in telling it we better appreciate that we all have something to teach.
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