The Talmud says that, on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, God inscribes our names in one of three books: The Book of Life for the righteous, the Book of Death for the devilish and a to-be-determined list for the muddy middle.

Likewise, Pirkei Avot, a collection of rabbinic wisdom, instructs that Jews should keep in mind “all your deeds are inscribed in a book,” a work that, if it exists, surely stretches across several heavens.

No surprise, then, that Jewish tradition holds texts in such high regard. As poet and literary critic Adam Kirsch writes in his new book, “The People and the Books,” texts often became turning points in Jewish history. For a religion that lived in diaspora for more than 1,800 years, books took the place of temples and monuments, governments and great battle sites.