Some two thou­sand years ago, as the sto­ry goes, a rab­bi named Yochanan makes the epit­o­me of prag­mat­ic gam­bles – wager­ing the entire fate of the Jew­ish peo­ple. In dia­logue with the soon-to-be Roman emper­or Ves­pasian, Yochanan tac­it­ly acknowl­edges the Romans’ planned destruc­tion of Jerusalem in return for a plot of land in a town called Yavneh. There, after the raz­ing of Jerusalem, Jews will join with their teacher to reen­vi­sion a new Judaism – one not based on Tem­ple rites but on real life in exile – lay­ing the ground­work for today’s vibrant Judaism.

In Rab­bi Marc Katz’s nov­el exam­i­na­tion, prag­ma­tism is itself an authen­tic Jew­ish strat­e­gy for address­ing moral ques­tions. The rab­bis of the Tal­mud mod­el the process by demon­strat­ing how to think sit­u­a­tion­al­ly, weigh com­pet­ing val­ues, and make hard com­pro­mis­es. Lead­ing rab­bis ask, ​“What will work?” along­side ​“What is right?” They birth a mal­leable and nuanced sys­tem of law (halakhah) that is faith­ful to their received tra­di­tion and to the peo­ple and cir­cum­stances before them.

By inves­ti­gat­ing how the rab­bis nav­i­gate their own eth­i­cal chal­lenges – deter­min­ing truth, uphold­ing com­pro­mise, con­vinc­ing oth­ers, keep­ing peace with neigh­bors, avoid­ing infight­ing, weigh­ing sin­ning in hopes of pro­mot­ing a greater good–Yochanan’s Gam­ble forges a new Jew­ish path for­ward for resolv­ing moral conun­drums in our day.