Teaching Jewish thought presents some methodological challenges. It is tempting to focus on particular thinkers, surfacing the theological and political issues they faced through the aspaklaria of each life and body of work. Another approach is to select themes such as chosenness, revelation, redemption, and authority, and to consider the ways in which these beams have been absorbed and refracted through the generations. This chapter suggests a framework for considering four modes of Jewish discourse. While one emphasizes what might be called bourgeois plenitude, the ideal of living a comfortable life in a strong family, a second yearns for spiritual effulgence and profound experience. A third emphasizes want and injustice, and a fourth argues that the upheavals of the twentieth century should lead us to the conclusion that former modes of thinking are no longer fit for purpose. A fifth model, connected to the four or five cups of the Passover Seder ritual, is also presented. This one holds presence and absence together in tension, including in theological terms: God is both present and absent.