April 27, 2026/ 10 Iyar 5786 What makes higher education 'higher' is that we cultivate the love of learning for its own sake, that we provide participants with a time to reflect critically on what they believe in and why, to reflect on what purposes and life ambitions are worthy of them. We should be places of moral and civic growth that cultivate...the ability to think and reason together and argue about hard ethical and civic questions. Adapted from Michael Sandel, Harvard Magazine, 2026 Join me, and your fellow and aspiring teachers for a monthly online meet-up. These will be informal, heartfelt conversations about the teaching life. First Mondays: Our next meeting is May 4, 6:30PM to 7:45PM. Each meeting I will be joined by a … [Read more...] about New Monthly OnLine Meet-Up Opportunity for Teachers and Scholars of Religious Studies/Jewish Studies
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After Cataclysm: MacIntyre, Marburg, and the Circle of Life
After a cataclysm: that defines our moment, claims Alasdair MacIntyre in his classic 1981 work, After Virtue. Yes, now is after a cataclysm: the grinding down – almost total annihilation – of ways of life that offer an orientation to what matters most, and of institutions – think the family, or even more concretely, the family dinner, or less prosaically, how to live with death (and not to flee from it, or try to cover it over): how do we spend time with someone who is mourning the loss of their spouse just moments before? We once knew. The wrecking ball we call modernity, and the fuel that powers it, capital, MacIntyre declares again and again – and continuing to speak this way well after having ceased to call himself a Marxist – has … [Read more...] about After Cataclysm: MacIntyre, Marburg, and the Circle of Life