Dr. Norman J. Cohen is widely recognized as one of the great teachers of his generation. A rabbi, professor emeritus of midrash and former provost of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, he frequently lectures to Jewish and Christian laypeople and scholars on Bible study and midrash-finding contemporary meaning from ancient biblical texts. Cohen was a participant in Bill Moyers's Genesis: A Living Conversation on PBS. He is author of Self, Struggle & Change: Family Conflict Stories in Genesis and Their Healing Insights for Our Lives; Voices from Genesis: Guiding Us through the Stages of Life; Moses and the Journey to Leadership: Timeless Lessons of Effective Management from the Bible and Today's Leaders; Hineni in Our Lives: Learning How to Respond to Others through 14 Biblical Texts & Personal Stories and The Way Into Torah (all Jewish Lights).

Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Reading through the Prism of Midrash-Making the Text Our Own

PART I: FOURTEEN BIBLICAL TEXTS, FOURTEEN OPPORTUNITIES FOR MEANING
1. Recognizing the Other
2. Being Accessible to the Other
3. Awakening to Relationship
4. Response in the Everyday
5. Unqualified Openness: The Challenge and the Risk
6. Fulfilling Past Promises
7. The Significant Ramifications of Our Response to Others
8. Responding to the Other's Fears
9. The Reticence to Respond
10. The Difficulty of Discerning the Call
11. Fabricating the Call
12. The Ever-Present Other
13. The Ultimate Call
14. The Ultimate Response

PART II: PERSONAL STORIES: MAKING HINEINI COME ALIVE
Double Call
Rabbi Lester Bronstein
Jacob's Tangled Web
Alan Dershowitz
Bringing My Whole Self to God
Rabbi Laura Geller
Parallel Life Journeys
Rabbi Neil Gillman
Being Accessible to the Other in Our Lives
Rabbi Richard Jacobs
Hineini: The Calling?
Lawrence Kushner
The Story of a Calling
Peter Ascher Pitzele
I Am Not Supposed to Be Here
Rabbi Sandy Eisenberg Sasso
The Challenge of Answering Hineini
Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi
One Hineini Against Another
Rabbi Harold Schulweis
Beholding Esau
Phyllis Trible

PART III: A GUIDE TO CREATING OUR OWN PERSONAL MIDRASH: FINDING YOUR OWN VOICE IN THE TEXT

Notes