The essays collected in this volume discuss the creative tension between identity and communication and the complex relationship between specificity and universality. They deal primarily with various aspects of religious existence. The different chapters propose the shaping of identity in a dialogical manner and aim to promote an inclusive mode of thinking in which attention to the self does not preclude a genuine concern for the other. Ephraim Meir is Professor of Modern Jewish Philosophy at Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel, and patron of the Jerusalem-Academy in Hamburg.