Michael S. BergerAssociate Professor

Trained in Philosophy of Religion at Princeton (BA with Honors) and Columbia (M.A., M.Phil, and Ph.D.), Professor Berger's research and teaching focus on the development of Jewish law and ethics, issues of medieval and modern Jewish thought, and more recently, the formation of contemporary Jewish identity particularly among the ultra-Orthodox.

He is the author of Rabbinic Authority (Oxford, 1998), edited The Emergence of Ethical Man (2005) based on the writings of the late Joseph B. Soloveitchik, and edited Return and Renewal (2018) based on the oral discourses of the late Aharon Lichtenstein. He has published on medieval & modern Jewish thought, Jewish marriage, violence in Judaism, the history of Halakhah, and approaches to Jewish education for which he serves as a consultant.

Education

• PhD, Columbia University, 1992
• MPhil, Columbia University, 1990
• MA, Columbia University, 1988
• BA, Princeton University, 1985

Research and Teaching

• Rabbinic literature
• Medieval and Modern Jewish thought
• Contemporary American Judaism

Publications

• Return and Renewal by Aharon Lichtenstein (2018)- Edited by Michael S. Berger
• Rabbinic Authority
• The Emergence of Ethical Man Ed., Michael S. Berger