Isaac Bashevis Singer tells a story about a very angry man. This man has to have everything “just so.” Any time things don’t go his way, he shouts and belittles and, on occasion, reacts violently. So even though he is rich and learned and successful, the man is miserable. His business partners have left him, his friends want nothing to do with him, his children are afraid of him, and his wife is fed up.

According to the Talmud, when a person comes before the Beit Din, the rabbinical court, seeking to convert to Judaism, the rabbis ask this question: “What did you see that made you want to convert? Don’t you know that right now, Jews are anguished, suppressed, despised, and harassed, and hardships are frequently visited upon them?” (Yev. 47a). In other words, “Are you serious?!

In 2003, I was in my first year of rabbinical school in Jerusalem. It was the middle of the Second Intifada, and it was terrifying. After several bus bombings in Jerusalem, including one around the corner from my apartment, the rabbinical students at Hebrew Union College – both the Americans there for our first year and the Israelis studying in HUC’s Israeli rabbinical program – gathered together to talk about hamatzav, the “situation,”