As a for­mer ambas­sador and peace nego­tia­tor, Daniel Taub is no stranger to hard con­ver­sa­tions. Beyond Dis­pute: Redis­cov­er­ing the Jew­ish Art of Con­struc­tive Dis­agree­ment is the cul­mi­na­tion of his many years of prac­tice. In it, Taub lays out a path­way out of today’s divi­sive, intractable polit­i­cal log­jam and toward com­pro­mise, dia­logue, and acceptance. 

In his intro­duc­tion, Taub explains that most peo­ple have two approach­es to con­flict, flight or fight. Those who flee from con­flict avoid it at all costs, view­ing argu­ments are dirty and divi­sive. Those who fight see dis­putes as a bat­tle­field where they must win. Taub’s book offers a third way, one that he finds woven deeply into the Jew­ish tra­di­tion. This third way involves deep lis­ten­ing, embrac­ing messy com­pro­mis­es, and under­stand­ing that no one has a monop­oly on ​“truth.” More than any­thing it wel­comes dis­pute pro­vid­ed we draw the right bound­aries around it.

As Taub explains, his book defies easy cat­e­go­riza­tion. While it includes many insights from the Jew­ish tra­di­tion, it does not stop there. Taub also includes anec­dotes from his­to­ry, phi­los­o­phy, and his own career. By speak­ing about him­self and high­light­ing his chal­lenges around nur­tur­ing healthy con­flict, Taub human­izes the strug­gle. He shows that even the most intractable prob­lems, like the future of Palestinian/​Israeli rela­tions can ben­e­fit from much of the ancient wis­dom he puts forth. 

In pre­sent­ing the Jew­ish view of dis­pute, Taub is both eru­dite and thought­ful. Since he is not the first per­son to explore the sub­ject, well-read stu­dents will be famil­iar with many of the most-quot­ed sources on the sub­ject that Taub cites: the Hil­lel and Sham­mai debates, the sto­ry of Yochanan and Reish Lak­ish, notions that Judaism pre­serves the minor­i­ty opin­ion in the Tal­mud. How­ev­er, Taub also sur­pris­es his read­er with oth­er, more hid­den gems. In one, he quotes a rel­a­tive­ly obscure four­teenth-cen­tu­ry rab­bi, Men­acham Reca­nati, to explain why we shouldn’t be too hard on our lead­ers, since they are often giv­en the thank­less task of mak­ing dif­fi­cult deci­sions. In anoth­er he actu­al­ly quotes a stu­dent of his whose insight into Adam and Eve shows why we will nev­er actu­al­ly ful­ly achieve an under­stand­ing of what God’s Truth is. This lat­er case shows mod­els for his read­ers that wis­dom can come from any­where, even and espe­cial­ly one’s stu­dent, an impor­tant point he makes through­out the book.

This anec­dote about Adam and Eve also serves as the most con­tro­ver­sial aspect of his book. If we don’t have access to the entire­ty of God’s Truth, that means that two peo­ple who dis­agree can each have a piece of it. Although a free­ing idea, one that seeks to unite dis­parate indi­vid­u­als and opin­ions rather than divide, Taub doesn’t dwell too deeply into how to choose. In quot­ing Voltaire, he makes the case that ​“doubt is not a pleas­ant con­di­tion, but cer­tain­ty is a ridicu­lous one.” Thus, even as he doesn’t give us a path­way to decide who is clos­er to Truth he gives us per­mis­sion to have com­pas­sion on our­selves and oth­ers as we seek to find it.

Taub has writ­ten an incred­i­bly read­able, enter­tain­ing, and thought-pro­vok­ing book. At times fun­ny — Taub is a mas­ter at find­ing a rel­e­vant joke to express his point — and at times deeply seri­ous, this is the kind of book you will call on in your day-to-day encoun­ters both per­son­al­ly and pro­fes­sion­al­ly. As Taub reminds us, ​“our high­est aspi­ra­tion is not to resolve our argu­ments but to have mean­ing­ful ones, which brings us clos­er not only to the truth but to each other.”