At a time of rising political fear and social distrust, how can kindness become more than a private virtue? 

For this special episode, recorded live in San Francisco last month, Yehuda Kurtzer delivered the Hartman Institute’s inaugural Dan Rubin Memorial Lecture. He argues that Jewish tradition elevates acts of loving-kindness from a personal ethic to a foundation for building a healthy society. Drawing on rabbinic texts, the speeches of Martin Luther King Jr., and modern democratic thought, he explores whether kindness can function as a genuine political value rather than merely a form of civility. What would it mean to practice moral courage, resist fear, and build communities capable of sustaining both disagreement and democracy?

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