Wisdom by the Week: The Weekly Torah Portion as Inspiration for Thought and creativity invites its readers to partake of an extraordinary experience: study and examination of the fifty-four weekly Torah readings through the prism of diverse works by a wide range of thinkers and artists.The writers of these essays likewise form a diverse group of men and women, coming from cultural and ideological backgrounds as varied as those of the thinkers and artists they discuss. Readers accordingly will embark on a journey proceeding simultaneously through two worlds: the world of the essay-writers and the world of the thinkers and artists whose works inspire us to take a new look at the weekly portion.

The book offers opportunities to those interested in the views of the classical Torah commentators, such as Nahmanides, Sforno, and KeliYakar; of philosophers, such as Maimonides and Isaac Abarbanel or John Locke and Spinoza; of modern thinkers, such as Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, Franz Rosenzweig, Hermann Cohen, and Sigmund Freud; of Torah greats, such as Rabbi Yitzhak Meir Alter (author of Hidushei HaRim), Rabbi Meir Simhah of Dvinsk (author of Meshekh Hokhmah), and Rabbi Israel Meir Hakohen of Radin (author of Hafez Hayyim); of contemporary thinkers, commentators, and scholars, such as Emmanuel Levinas, Martin Buber, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Hakohen Kook, the Hazon-Ish, Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, Rabbi Yitzhak Hutner, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchick and NehamaLeibowitz; and of artists and authors, such as Shulamit Hareven, Yitzhak Danziger, Dalia Ravikovitz, S. Y. Agnon, and A. B. Yehoshua.

Wisdom by the Week documents the endless inspiration afforded by Scripture to thinkers and artists – an inspiration whose powerful force continues to grow in modern times.