In Ethics of the Fathers, a 2,000-year-old compendium of rabbinic wisdom, a sage called Akavya Son of Mahalalel instructs us that meditating on three matters will keep a person on the proper path ...

So begins the fifth chapter of Genesis, and it lives up to the billing. Starting with Adam, who ‘begat a son in his own likeness, and in his own image, Seth’, the chapter describes the generations ...