An abrasive yet impassioned college professior goes through a midlife crisis.

As Max juggles various duties associated with being department chair,the Dean attempts to lighten Max's heavy course load by ordering him to teach a class with Andrea. In other developments, Max ajusts to a pushy new assistant; Nell has trouble relating to her roommate; and the board considers making the school coed.

Max is worried about his own resolve when his sponsor, who had seemed to be the model of self-control, ends up falling off the wagon after 22 years.

While struggling to have faith in himself, Max, who has long questioned the existence of God, is surprised by and ambivalent about Lester's sudden intense desire to have Max join a Temple so he may be Bar Mitzvah'd -- something Lester believes his late mother, a Jewish convert, would have wanted.

Meanwhile, Andrea wonders if she made the right decision after reluctantly agreeing to continue as the thesis advisor to Theo, the seemingly contrite visiting male student who made an unwanted advance toward her.

And, Judith doesn't know what to tell her husband, Gil, when he finally shows her the first few chapters of the book he is writing -- and she finds them to be less than inspired.