Many scholars present Stoicism as an admirable philosophy closely aligned with Jewish morals and ethics.

Rabbi Dunner offers us a glimpse into the world of Rabbi Yosef Yehuda Leib Bloch, early twentieth-century head of Telz yeshiva, who proposes the idea that Stoicism is indeed the most elevated form of faith in God.

But Rabbi Dunner challenges this notion, which is based on a Midrash about Moses in Shemot, turning Rabbi Bloch’s radical thesis entirely on its head.