July 5, 2012

[This article is the third of a four part series by Misha Galperin. You can find the previous two here: Heroic Leadership, Leading with Force.]

by Misha Galperin

When I was a student at Yeshiva University, I learned a great deal about Judaism, having been deprived of the richness of a Jewish education in the FSU. I don’t really know why they took me. They realized I knew nothing and had a group of rabbis and students stuff me with basic Judaism the weekend before classes started, thinking they could get me up to speed. It’s hard to master 4,000 years in two days. I wasn’t up to the task.

But over the course of my time there, there was one Jewish teaching of many that lodged itself in my brain. I remember a law that said that one had to say something new in prayer each and every day. I am not a person who prays regularly, I confess, so this was not of huge practical importance, but it had symbolic significance for me. Read more