How do we fig­ure out how to live a good and just life? How do we set our moral com­pass so that it points us in the right direc­tion? How do we devel­op an eth­i­cal code that helps us make our day-to-day decisions?

Nachum Amsel, a rab­bi and edu­ca­tor, is con­vinced that peo­ple are search­ing for answers to these ques­tions now more than ever before. His response is this book, a vol­ume that con­tains a thor­ough expla­na­tion of Jew­ish val­ues — moral prin­ci­ples which he says are God-giv­en and not sub­ject to change even though each gen­er­a­tion may see the world through new eyes.

Rab­bi Amsel sees Judaism not only as a reli­gion, but also as a way of life, and thus his book goes far beyond tra­di­tion­al rit­u­als to encom­pass every action of our lives. He believes that all our deci­sions and the behav­ior that results from them, even eat­ing and sleep­ing, can be done in a Jew­ish way — that is, with a moral pur­pose that con­forms to the time­less eth­i­cal pre­cepts of Judaism.

He makes the point that he is not con­cerned with Jew­ish law, over which there have always been many dis­putes, nor Jew­ish thought, in which there are mul­ti­ple view­points and diver­gent cus­toms, but rather with val­ues, the deep­er, under­ly­ing set of moral prin­ci­ples that guide our over­all lives and keep them clean and correct.

With this frame­work in mind, Rab­bi Amsel has accom­plished his goal. He takes us alpha­bet­i­cal­ly from alter­na­tive med­i­cine through jeal­ousy to sac­ri­fice, and all the way to tol­er­ance (and intol­er­ance) in Judaism. Along the way we learn a great deal. For exam­ple, in the sec­tion enti­tled Pain in Judaism, we find out that unlike some reli­gions, Judaism does not see pain as some­thing pos­i­tive, and that try­ing to elim­i­nate one’s pain is com­plete­ly legitimate.

In the sec­tion called Sports, we learn that Jews need not take part in games only to win; it is com­plete­ly accept­able to be inter­est­ed only in the phys­i­cal exer­cise and not the com­pet­i­tive expe­ri­ence. Yet the sec­tions pro­vide far more than just guid­ance. In a detailed essay about giv­ing tzeda­ka, for exam­ple, we learn why giv­ing char­i­ty is the most unusu­al of all the commandments.

There is no sec­tion on sin, but Rab­bi Amsel nev­er­the­less deals with this fraught top­ic in oth­er parts of the book. He writes that ​“Judaism clear­ly sep­a­rates the desire to sin and the sin itself,” and rec­og­nizes that Jews are ​“nor­mal human beings” who might find them­selves tempt­ed to com­mit a sin. This desire brings about ​“the inner bat­tle between the good incli­na­tion and the bad…as allud­ed to in the Torah.”

Rab­bi Amsel’s writ­ing is clear and fac­tu­al, his tone reserved and intel­lec­tu­al. He eas­i­ly pro­vides cogent argu­ments for all his views, seam­less­ly cit­ing Rashi com­men­tary and Torah scrip­ture when need­ed in detailed, well-orga­nized foot­notes. His grasp of his sub­ject mat­ter is clear­ly strong and solid.

The entire text in this com­pre­hen­sive ref­er­ence book appears in both Eng­lish and Hebrew, mak­ing this book appeal­ing to a wide audi­ence and adding a note of spe­cial inter­est for bilin­gual readers.