In our unteth­ered world, sim­ply being a good per­son has become a mea­sure of hero­ism. Mensch·Marks is mem­oir as sacred sto­ry as self-help book, a series of per­son­al vignettes in dia­logue with one anoth­er over the span of decades, res­onat­ing with eter­nal ideas that span cen­turies. Mir­ror­ing the 42 steps Israel wan­dered in the Wilder­ness, Rab­bi Ham­mer­man offers 42 brief essays orga­nized into cat­e­gories of char­ac­ter, or ​“men­sch-marks,” each one a step­ping stone toward spir­i­tu­al mat­u­ra­tion. These essays cov­er cru­cial moments of fail­ure and for­give­ness, lov­ing and let­ting go, work and wor­ship, and find­ing mean­ing in the seem­ing­ly incon­se­quen­tial moments of every­day life. It traces the author’s own per­son­al growth while pro­vid­ing a road map for peo­ple of all back­grounds seek­ing a life of moral vision. The wis­dom is shared not from a pul­pit on high, but from an unfold­ing sto­ry of a fel­low trav­el­er who has stum­bled, failed and per­se­vered while try­ing to live with dig­ni­ty and grace. Ever the opti­mist, Ham­mer­man believes we can turn things around, one men­sch at a time.