One of the core dilemmas of building a personal moral system in the modern world is paralysis of choice. There is no shortage of profound ethical frameworks—religious, philosophical, psychological—but choosing one as foundational can feel like a betrayal of all the others.
A hundred years ago, long before the internet, moral formation was more straightforward. Access to information was limited. Family traditions, religious commitments, and rigid educational curricula created a kind of order—foundational texts were presented in a sequence that built upon the past. You didn’t have to decide where to begin. The canon was given, not chosen.
Today, by contrast, everything is available instantly. With a few clicks, you can move from Aristotle to the Bhagavad Gita, from Nietzsche to the Talmud. It’s impossible to know what to believe in, not because of a lack of sources, but because there are too many. Jumping from one moral framework to another is easy, but staying with one long enough for it to shape you is hard.
The result isn’t just confusion, it’s a loss of coherence, depth, and belonging.
For my part, every time I sit with a few pages of the Torah — trying to anchor myself in something foundational, something enduring—I start to wonder: Is this too ancient? Too rooted in a world I no longer inhabit? What if there’s something more modern, more psychologically sophisticated, more directly relevant to the dilemmas of today?
So I move on. Maybe to Greek philosophy. Maybe to a contemporary thinker. Maybe to a thread on social media that seems profound in the moment. And then the same doubt creeps in again: Is this enough? Is this the right place to start?
The cycle repeats.
Another challenge is that no one else seems to be reading the same things. In a world of algorithmic consumption and personalized canons, we no longer share texts the way previous generations did. There’s no village elder, no common teacher, no study partner. We are all reading in isolation; each of us walking a different path, unable to build meaning together because we no longer begin from the same ground.
But after years of this jumping, from one system to the next, one voice to another, I’ve realized something: no philosophy is perfect. No system is complete. And hopping endlessly between them is certainly not a method for constructing the foundation I crave.
The only way forward is to choose one. Not because it is flawless, but because staying with it, and enduring it, is the only path to depth. I’ve decided to start with my own tradition; the Torah will be soil in which to root myself. From there, I can contend with other systems. I can invite in Plato, Epictetus, Nietzsche, or Aurelius—not as replacements, but as challengers. I can let the internal debate rage, not to tear things down, but to refine what I choose to build.
Beneath all of this lies a deeper motivation. One day my children will look to me to understand the world. I want them to inherit not just opinions, but a soul that has been examined and ordered. A framework — not perfect, but honest — that can serve as their starting point. If I haven’t done the work to wrestle with these questions, to think clearly, to choose deliberately, then I’ve already failed them before their own search can begin.