Halakhic Man--originally published in Hebrew in 1944 and appearing for the first time in English translation--is considered to be Rabbi Soloveitchik's most important statement. A unique, almost unclassifiable work, its pages include a brilliant exposition of Mitnaggedism, of Lithuanian religiosity, with its emphasis on Talmudism; a profound excursion into religious psychology and phenomenology; a pioneering attempt at a philosophy of Halakhah; a stringent critique of mysticism and romantic religion--all held together by the force of the author's highly personal vision. (...) Exuding intellectual sophistication and touching upon issues fundamental to religious life, Rabbi Soloveitchik's exploration, in sum, seeks to explain the inner world of the Talmudist--or as he is referred to typologically, halakhic man--in terms drawn from Western culture. This book brings to the English-reading world a significant work by one of the most profound Jewish thinkers of this century. (shrink)

Nowadays a basic investigation of morality and ethos would be of great importance. There is a crying need for clarification of many practical problems, both in the individual-private and in the social-ethical realms. There are too many uncertainties in which we live today, uncertainties about what we ought to do. We should try to infer from our ethical tradition certain standards that should govern our conduct. In particular, I notice confusion among rabbis as regards basic problems whose solution cannot be (...) found in the Shulhan Arukh and must rather be inferred by way of deduction from ancient principles and axioms. He approaches this task through an in-depth examination of the beginning of Pirkei Avot, raising topics such as: the sources of ethics, power and persuasion, elitism and democracy, educational philosophy, study and action, freedom and coercion, and more. (shrink)

Discusses the conflict between philosophy and science, examines the growth of religious knowledge, and shows how the Halakha, Jewish religious law, can be used to formulate a new religious outlook.

What does one do as a Jewish philosopher if one is convinced by much of the Nietzschean critique of religion? Is there a contemporary Jewish philosophical theology that can convince in a post-metaphysical age? The argument of this book is that Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik - the leading twentieth-century exponent of Modern Orthodoxy - presents an interpretation of halakhic Judaism, grounded in traditional sources, that brings a life-affirming Nietzschean sensibility to the religious life. Soloveitchik develops a form of Judaism (...) replete with key Nietzschean ideas, which parries Nietzsche's critique by partially absorbing it. This original study of Soloveitchik's philosophy highlights his unique contribution to Jewish thought for students and scholars in Jewish studies, while also revealing his wider significance for those working more broadly in fields such as philosophy and religious studies. (shrink)

Orthodox Judaism is one of the fastest-growing religious communities in contemporary American life. According to the 2013 Pew Center Survey on American religious life, Orthodox Judaism is poised to surpass all other denominations of Judaism in the United States by 2050. Anyone who wishes to understand more about Judaism in America will need to consider the tenets and practices of Orthodox Judaism: who its adherents are, what they believe in, what motivates them, and to whom they turn for moral, intellectual, (...) and spiritual guidance. Among those spiritual leaders none looms larger than Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, heir to the legendary Talmudic dynasty of Brisk and a teacher and ordainer of thousands of rabbis during his time as a Talmud teacher at Yeshiva University from the Second World War until the 1980s. Soloveitchik was not only a Talmudic authority but a scholar of Western philosophy. While many books and articles have been written about Soloveitchik's legacy and his influence on American Orthodoxy, few have looked carefully at his disciples in Torah and Talmud study, and even fewer at his Jewish thought and philosophy. "Soloveitchik's Children: Irving Greenberg, David Hartman, Jonathan Sacks, and the Future of Jewish Theology in America" is the first book to study closely three of Soloveitchik's major disciples in Jewish thought and philosophy: Rabbis Irving ("Yitz") Greenberg, David Hartman, and Jonathan Sacks. These three figures hold unique places in modern and contemporary American Jewish life. Each has been highly influential not only within American Orthodoxy but within American Judaism more broadly; each has contributed significantly in the development of Jewish philosophy and theology in the postwar era; each has founded and presided over institutions of their own. David Ross Goodman narrates how each of these three major modern Jewish thinkers learned from and adapted Soloveitchik's teachings in their own ways, even while advancing his philosophical and theological legacy. Goodman highlights the approaches taken by Greenberg, Hartman, and Sacks to some of the most critical religious and philosophical issues of our time: Jewish-Christian relations and interfaith theology; the proper religious response to the Holocaust; the place of creativity in religious life; and the primacy of life in the Jewish tradition. The story of religious life and Judaism in contemporary America is incomplete without an understanding of how three of the most consequential Jewish thinkers of this generation adapted the teachings of one of the most consequential Jewish thinkers of the previous generation. "Soloveitchik's Children" tells this gripping intellectual and religious story in a learned, and engaging manner, shining a light on where Jewish religious thought in the United States currently stands-and where it may be heading in the coming generations. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 26, Issue 2, pp 212 - 232 R. Joseph Soloveitchik’s profound engagement with _The Guide of the Perplexed_ is amply attested by Lawrence Kaplan’s recent publication of Soloveitchik’s lectures on this classic work of Jewish philosophy, delivered in 1950–1951 during a year-long course on the _Guide_. Soloveitchik’s reading is situated outside the boundaries of the _Guide_’s usual interpretations, and his lectures offer an entirely new view of the essence of the _Guide_. For Maimonides, _hesed_, (...) or loving-kindness, is the foundation of the world. Soloveitchik’s lectures offer an elaborate working out of this fundamental insight. (shrink)

Grappling with the place of Jewish philosophy at the margin of religious studies, Robert Erlewine examines the work of five Jewish philosophers—Hermann Cohen, Martin Buber, Franz Rosenzweig, Abraham Joshua Heschel, and Joseph Soloveitchik—to bring them into dialogue within the discipline. Emphasizing the tenuous place of Jews in European, and particularly German, culture, Erlewine unapologetically contextualizes Jewish philosophy as part of the West. He teases out the antagonistic and overlapping attempts of Jewish thinkers to elucidate the philosophical and cultural meaning (...) of Judaism when others sought to deny and even expel Jewish influences. By reading the canon of Jewish philosophy in this new light, Erlewine offers insight into how Jewish thinkers used religion to assert their individuality and modernity. (shrink)

In On Repentance, noted scholar Pinchas Peli has gathered the major points of Rabbi Soloveitchik's teachings on teshuvah (repentance), based on the annual series of lectures on the theme of teshuvah, presented on the anniversary of his ...

-- volume 2. The philosophy of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik.

Providing a concise but comprehensive overview of Joseph B. Soloveitchik's larger philosophical program, this book studies one of the most important modern Orthodox Jewish thinkers. It incorporates much relevant biographical, philosophical, religious, legal, and historical background so that the content and difficult philosophical concepts are easily accessible. The volume describes his view of Jewish law and how he answers the fundamental question of Jewish philosophy, namely, the "reasons" for the commandments. It shows how many of his disparate books, essays, (...) and lectures on law, specific commandments, and Jewish religious phenomenology can be woven together to form an elegant philosophical program. It also provides an analysis and summary of Soloveitchik's views on Zionism and on interreligious dialogue and the contexts for Soloveitchik's respective stances on issues that were pressing in his role as a leader of a major branch of post-war Orthodox Judaism. The book provides a synoptic overview of the philosophical works of Joseph B. Soloveitchik. It will be of interest to historians and scholars studying neo-Kantian philosophy, Jewish thought, and philosophy of religion. (shrink)

Redemption in Judaism is typically thought of as an historical and eschatological category: God has redeemed Israel in the past and will do so again in the future. Although this dipolar understanding of redemption has been dominant in Judaism, forms of actualized redemption have also found expression in which Jews, either individually or communally, secure a positive redemptive status in the present. This article focuses on the peculiar fact that Franz Rosenzweig and Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik both include an actualized (...) component within their theories of redemption. After brief consideration of Kierkegaard as a potential source for their accounts of actualized redemption, I explore how actualized redemption fits into Rosenzweig’s and Soloveitchik’s larger thought and consider their philosophical and theological motivations for conceiving of redemption as achievable. In the concluding section of the paper, I critique Rosenzweig’s and Solovetchik’s accounts of actualized redemption and suggest that Abraham Joshua Heschel’s and Eliezer Berkovits’ alternative theological anthropologies that emphasize the cultivation of holiness circumvent some of the problems I associate with actualized redemption. (shrink)

This paper consists in a reflection on the conceptual nerve center of Franz Rosenzweig’s thought and heritage that is the category of redemption as an epistemological category. The reflection is articulated through a comparative study of the redemptive epistemologies of three modern Jewish thinkers: Franz Rosenzweig, Rabbi Yoseph Dov Soloveitchik and HaRav Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook. The comparison arises from a basic feature that this paper identifies as common to all three modern visions of epistemic Jewish redemption: they all (...) feature Hegelian interpretations of the traditional Jewish category of teshuva. (shrink)

This book is an analysis of the thought of Joseph B. Soloveitchik (1903-1993). The analysis focuses on Soloveitchik's notion of transcendence as articulated in his doctoral thesis on Hermann Cohen and in three of his essays on halakhic thought, viz., 'The Halakhic Mind', and the Hebrew essays 'Ish ha-halakha' and 'U-viqqashtem mi-sham'.

This is a comprehensive study of the philosophy of Maimonides by the noted 20th-century rabbinic scholar and thinker, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik. Based on a complete set of notes on Rabbi Soloveitchik's lectures, it constitutes a major contribution to our knowledge of both Maimonides and Soloveitchik.

The opening of Halakhic man : a covert dialogue with homo religiosus -- Homo religiosus: between religion and cognition -- The first paradigm of homo religiosus : Maimonides -- The second paradigm of homo religiosus : Kant -- Halakhic man as cognitive man -- The negation of metaphysics and of the messianic idea -- Mysticism, Kabbalah, and Hasidism -- Halakhic cognition and the norm -- Halakhic man's personality structure -- Religiosity after cognition : all-inclusive consciousness -- Myth as metaphor : (...) halakhic man as a creator of worlds -- Change or interpretation: repentance as creativity -- On providence and prophecy -- Halakhic man after twenty years : what has changed?. (shrink)

The opening of Halakhic man : a covert dialogue with homo religiosus -- Homo religiosus: between religion and cognition -- The first paradigm of homo religiosus : Maimonides -- The second paradigm of homo religiosus : Kant -- Halakhic man as cognitive man -- The negation of metaphysics and of the messianic idea -- Mysticism, Kabbalah, and Hasidism -- Halakhic cognition and the norm -- Halakhic man's personality structure -- Religiosity after cognition : all-inclusive consciousness -- Myth as metaphor : (...) halakhic man as a creator of worlds -- Change or interpretation: repentance as creativity -- On providence and prophecy -- Halakhic man after twenty years : what has changed?. (shrink)

The Jewish Philosophy Reader is the first comprehensive anthology of classic writings on Jewish philosophy from the Bible to postmodernism. The Reader is clearly divided into four separate parts: Foundations and First Principles, Medieval and Renaissance Jewish Philosophy, Modern Jewish Thought, and Contemporary Jewish Philosophy. Each part is clearly introduced by the editors. The readings featured are representative writings of each era listed above and are from the following major thinkers: Abrabanel, Baeck, Bergman, Borowitz, Buber, Cohen, Crescas, Fackenheim, Geiger, Gersonides, (...) Goodman, Graetz, Halevi, Hartman, Heschel, Hess, Hirsch, Ibn Ezra, Ibn Gabirol, Ibn Paquda, Kellner, Kook, Krochmal, Leibowitz, Levinas, Maimonides, Maybaum, Mendelssohn, Novak, Philo, Plaskow, Rosenzweig, Saadia, Scholem, Seeskin, Soloveitchik, Spinoza, Strauss, Wolf, Zunz. (shrink)

Born in a small town in Lithuania, Rabbi Reuven Agushewitz emigrated to the United States in 1929. A Talmudic genius and an autodidact in philosophy, Rabbi Agushewitz published three philosophical works in Yiddish. Ancient Greek Philosophy, the first published but the last to be translated into English, offers a unique blend of clear philosophical principles and a flavorful Yiddish style, which Mark Steiner's translation preserves. Rabbi Agushewitz not only explains what the early Greek philosophers said, he also amplifies their arguments (...) with creative proofs that the ancients themselves did not offer. His attempts to correlate ancient philosophical statements with monotheism will resonate with the modern religious reader. In addition to the present volume, R. Agushewitz's philosophical books are Faith and Heresy and Principles of Philosophy, both published in translation under the auspices of the Michael Scharf Publication Trust of Yeshiva University Press. His volume of Talmudic novellae on Bava Kamma, "Bi'ur Reuven," was published with approbation from both Rabbi Aharon Kotler and Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik. These Talmudic giants differed sharply on their attitude toward the study of philosophy, but they concurred wholeheartedly on the scholarship of R. Agushewitz. (shrink)

"Cet ouvrage propose de souligner le passage de l’être à la lettre en mettant l’accent sur la rupture avec l’ontologie. Il décrit le mouvement allant de l’un à l’autre dans une sorte de « séparation liante » (AHN, p. 185) qui n’implique guère de reniement – ni d’un côté ni de l’autre. Il ne propose pas de synthèse, mais une autre distribution d’accents. Dans un premier temps, l’auteur s’interroge : cette façon de penser conduit-elle Levinas « hors du champ de (...) la philosophie »? Puis il met Levinas « à l’épreuve de l’autre », en le confrontant – toujours à partir de la perspective judaïque – à des auteurs tel que Rosenzweig sur les questions de l’éducation, Meschonnic sur la modalité du sacré, Blanchot sur l’être Juif, Janicaud au sujet du tournant théologique qu’il aurait imprimé à la phénoménologie, ou encore Benny Lévy sur l’attachement marqué de Levinas au « grec », à savoir à la philosophie. Toutefois, l’originalité de l’ouvrage réside dans la comparaison à des auteurs beaucoup moins connus dans notre espace européen : à Leibovitz pour lequel le judaïsme est une « religion revendicative », assignant l’humain aux commandements ; à Israël Salanter – fondateur du Moussar à Kovno, en Lituanie ; au rav Soloveitchik sur la question de la halakha. Mais aussi à un penseur étonnant et tonique, Daniel Epstein qui nous a livré, en hébreu, une présentation magistrale, précise et en nuances."-- page 4 de couverture. (shrink)

Every work on Jewish thought and law since the twelfth century bears the imprint of Maimonides. A.N. Whitehead's famous dictum that the entire European philosophical tradition 'consists of a series of footnotes to Plato' could equally characterize Maimonides' place in the Jewish tradition. The critical studies in this volume explore how Orthodox rabbis of different orientations--Shlomo Aviner, Naftali Zvi Yehudah Berlin (Netziv), Kalonymus Kalman Shapira, Joseph Kafih, Abraham Isaac Kook, Aaron Kotler, Joseph Soloveitchik, and Elhanan Wasserman--have read and provided (...) footnotes to Maimonides in the long twentieth century. How well did they really understand Maimonides? And where do their arguments fit in the mainstream debates about him and his works? Each of the seven core chapters examines a particular approach. Some rabbis have tried to liberate themselves from the influence of his ideas. Others have sought to build on those ideas or expand them in ways which Maimonides himself did not pursue, and which he may well not have agreed with. Still others advance patently non-Maimonidean positions, while attributing them to none other than Maimonides. Above all, the essays published here demonstrate that his legacy remains vibrantly alive today. (shrink)

Jewish Nietzscheans have traditionally shied away from any detailed examination of Nietzsche’s comments on contemporary Jewry or the Jewish religion. Scholars who have examined Jewish Nietzscheans have therefore sought to connect Nietzsche with some dimension of Jewish thought through similarities in views between Nietzsche and the Jewish intellectuals who were purportedly influenced by him. The two books under consideration in this essay strain to find solid connections between Nietzsche’s philosophy and the writings of eminent Jewish writers. Daniel Rynhold and Michael (...) Harris examine how selected Nietzschean concepts can also be found in the work of the noted Jewish thinker Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik. David Ohana, by contrast, examines a variety of Jewish writers who at some point exhibited an enthusiasm for Nietzsche, ranging from Hebrew scholars and translators to German-Jewish intellectuals. Both books suffer from many of the shortcomings of general Nietzschean influence studies: there is often no sound philological evidence of influence, or the “connection” is so general that it is difficult to see Nietzsche as the source of influence, or the alleged influence was of short duration, and it is difficult to understand what remains Nietzschean in the individual influenced. (shrink)

This contribution to the Common Knowledge symposium on xenophilia examines the life choices of two Jews who loved Christianity. Elijah Zvi Soloveitchik, born into an ultra-Orthodox, nineteenth-century rabbinic dynasty in Lithuania, spent much of his life writing a Hebrew commentary on the Gospels in order to document and argue for the symmetry or symbiosis that he perceived between Judaism and Christianity. Oswald Rufeisen, from a twentieth-century secular Zionist background in Poland, converted to Catholicism during World War II, became a (...) monk, and attempted to immigrate to Israel as a Jew in 1958. Rufeisen, while permitted to move to Israel to join a Carmelite monastery in Haifa, was denied the right to immediate citizenship of Israel which the Law of Return guarantees to all bona fide Jews. And this particular Soloveitchik has largely been forgotten, given the limits of Jewish interest in the New Testament and of Christian attention to rabbinic literature. This article explores the complex and vexing questions that the careers of these two men raise about the elusive distinctions between Judaism and Christianity, on the one hand, and, on the other, between the Jewish religion and Jewish national identity. (shrink)

This article juxtaposes Anna Pawełczyńska’s writings with the works of Meir Dworzecki and Dov Levin. It will adopt a threefold analytical lens: first, using Pawełczyńska’s writings to reassess the conception of the early resistance that Dworzecki elaborated, second utilising Dworzecki’s viewpoint as a means to articulate Pawełczyńska’s perspective of Amidah, and then looking at Levin’s perspective on Pawełczyńska’s use of partisan testimony as a historical source. The main aims are to contribute to today’s debates on the Jewish resistance and the (...) relevance of partisanship in Holocaust historiography. The article also highlights some debates on the relationship between history and memory, as well as the necessity of rethinking Catholic-Jewish relations in Poland before and after the war. It presses for a new discussion of Dan Michman’s discourse of Jewish resistance, or Yehuda Bauer’s conceptualisation of it, and underscores the originality of Levin’s thought on memory as an essential tool for history. By way of a conclusion, the reader is invited to rethink the Polish World War II historiography and to read Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik’s contribution about the blessings of the Amidah. (shrink)

The present book is a sequel to Ephraim Chamiel's two previous works The Middle Way and The Dual Truth-studies dedicated to the "middle" trend in modern Jewish thought, that is, those positions that sought to combine tradition and modernity, and offered a variety of approaches for contending with the tension between science and revelation and between reason and religion. The present book explores contemporary Jewish thinkers who have adopted one of these integrated approaches-namely the dialectical approach. Some of these thinkers (...) maintain that the aforementioned tension-the rift within human consciousness between intellect and emotion, mind and heart-can be mended. Others, however, think that the dialectic between the two poles of this tension is inherently irresolvable, a view reminiscent of the medieval "dual truth" approach. Some thinkers are unclear on this point, and those who study them debate whether or not they successfully resolved the tension and offered a means of reconciliation. The author also offers his views on these debates. This book explores the dialectical approaches of Rav Kook, Rav Soloveitchik, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, Samuel Hugo Bergman, Leo Strauss, Ernst Simon, Emil Fackenheim, Rabbi Mordechai Breuer, his uncle Isaac Breuer, Tamar Ross, Rabbi Shagar, Moshe Meir, Micah Goodman and Elchanan Shilo. It also discusses the interpretations of these thinkers offered by scholars such as Michael Rosenak, Avinoam Rosenak, Eliezer Schweid, Aviezer Ravitzky, Avi Sagi, Binyamin Ish-Shalom, Ehud Luz, Dov Schwartz, Rabbi Yuval Cherlow, Lawrence Kaplan, and Haim Rechnitzer. The author questions some of these approaches and offers ideas of his own. This study concludes that many scholars bore witness to the dialectical tension between reason and revelation; only some believed that a solution was possible. That being said, and despite the paradoxical nature of the dual truth approach (which maintains that two contradictory truths exist and we must live with both of them in this world until a utopian future or the advent of the Messiah), increasing numbers of thinkers today are accepting it. In doing so, they are eschewing delusional and apologetic views such as the identicality and compartmental approaches that maintain that tensions and contradictions are unacceptable. (shrink)

Hermann Cohen (1842-1918), the author of Religion of Reason Out of the Sources of Judaism, is the pivotal figure of late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Jewish philosophy and theology. The Jewish thinkers influenced by him include Franz Rosenzweig, Martin Buber, Mordecai Kaplan, Joseph Soloveitchik, and Emmanuel Levinas. A thoroughgoing rationalist, Cohen was an opponent of mythology and mysticism, which he viewed as cheapening and corrupting religion. Cohen summoned Jews back to the truths of reason, the centrality of ethics, the (...) primacy of humanity in theology, and the moral law as the essence of religious life and thought. What is essential to Cohen is the notion that God can be discovered by the processes of reason itself. It is not necessary to "believe" in God. God can be known through the exercise of reason and the pursuit of the ethical life. In this important study, Rabbi Jehuda Melber presents a comprehensive reformulation, analysis, and interpretation of Cohen's philosophy of Judaism for the contemporary reader. Book jacket. (shrink)

This book is a first attempt to examine the thought of key contemporary Jewish thinkers on the meaning of tradition in the context of two models. The classic model assumes that tradition reflects lack of dynamism and reflectiveness, and the present’s unqualified submission to the past. This view, however, is an image that the modernist ethos has ascribed to the tradition so as to remove it from modern existence. In the alternative model, a living tradition emerges as open and dynamic, (...) developing through an ongoing dialogue between present and past. The Jewish philosophers discussed in this work—Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Yeshayahu Leibowitz, David Hartman, and Eliezer Goldman—ascribe compelling canonic status to the tradition, and the analysis of their thought discloses the tension between these two models. The book carefully traces the course they have plotted along the various interpretations of tradition through their approach to Scripture and to Halakhah. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Ethics and Morality Edited by Elliot N. Dorff and Jonathan K. CraneLouis E. NewmanThe Oxford Handbook of Jewish Ethics and Morality EDITED BY ELLIOT N. DORFF AND JONATHAN K. CRANE New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. 499 pp. $150The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Ethics and Morality addresses what has long been a major lacuna in the field of Jewish studies. No one who (...) studies the history of Judaism would deny that ethics has always occupied a central place in Jewish thought and practice. Yet the scope and range of Jewish ethical reflection, the variety of ethical theories that have animated this tradition, and the diversity of ethical viewpoints represented by major thinkers across the centuries remain far less widely understood than they should be. With the publication of this outstanding and highly readable collection of essays, however, Elliot Dorff and Jonathan Crane have given us the most definitive and encyclopedic presentation of Jewish ethics ever assembled.This latest addition to the Oxford Handbook series encompasses twenty-nine essays that span the history of Jewish ethics from biblical times to the present, but that also introduce readers to its applied and theoretical dimensions as well as the practitioners and scholars who collectively define the field of Jewish ethics. Part 1, “Jewish Ethical Theories,” which is more accurately a comprehensive history of Jewish ethics, includes insightful pieces on biblical, rabbinic, and medieval ethics, but also pieces on key figures in the modern period from Baruch Spinoza to Martin Buber, Abraham Isaac Kook, and Joseph B. Soloveitchik, among others. This section also includes important explications of the ethics of the various modern movements of Judaism (Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionist) as well as essays on specific events and theoretical perspectives that have shaped Jewish ethical discourse in the postwar period—the Holocaust, feminism, and postmodernism. What emerges from these short but remarkably focused and accessible essays is a rich tapestry in which the wide array of genres and methods that characterize the ethics of Judaism are on full display.The second half of the volume is devoted to applied ethics, and here again the diversity of Jewish ethics is showcased. The topics covered include bioethics, the ethics of speech, sexuality, business, the treatment of animals and the environment, politics (both in America and in Israel), criminal justice, and war. The topic of bioethics is wisely subdivided so that we find separate treatments of beginning and end of life, of access to health care, and of genetic technologies. [End Page 219] While some of these essays rehearse positions that will be familiar to those within the tradition, each is an original contribution designed to present the spectrum of positions on that issue that have been articulated by contemporary Jewish ethicists. Accordingly, this volume will now become the first place to look for broad, representative presentations on the most commonly discussed ethical issues of our time.The value of the whole collection is further enhanced by the editors’ introductions, which place the individual essays in context and explain their editorial decisions in selecting and arranging the contributions as they have. Each essay is accompanied by a substantial list of suggestions for further reading that will be valuable to readers in their own right. The entire volume is rounded out with a subject index and a list of references to classical Jewish literature. One could simply not ask for a more carefully constructed or broadly useful handbook on this subject.In any edited collection of this nature, the quality of the individual contributions will vary to some extent. In this instance, the overall quality is extremely high, which is a tribute both to the individual contributors and to the editorial guidance provided by Dorff and Crane. Still, one cannot help but notice that some essays in the second section of the book are more descriptive (e.g., Daniel Sinclair’s essay on end-of-life issues) while others are more ideologically driven (e.g., Arthur Waskow’s essay on environmental ethics). Similarly, while the essays average approximately fifteen to twenty pages each, a few are shorter and more cursory (e.g., Aaron Mackler’s essay on... (shrink)

Some underlying issues of modern Jewish philosophy -- Does Judaism have universal significance? -- Death and the fear of death in Franz Rosenzweig's The star of redemption -- The Halevi book -- Into life : Rosenzweig's essays on God, man and the world -- The meaning of Hasidism : Martin Buber and Gershom Scholem -- Autobiography and the becoming of the self : Martin Buber and Joseph Campbell -- Franz Rosenzweig and Emmanuel Levinas : a midrash or thought-experiment -- Welcoming (...) the other : the philosophical foundation for pluralism in the works of Charles Davis and Emmanuel Levinas -- Joseph B. Soloveitchik and Soren Kierkegaard : reflections on "The lonely man of faith" -- Eliezer Schweid : the first Israeli philosopher -- Can we still stay with him? : two Jewish theologians confront the Holocaust (Emil Fackenheim and Arthur Cohen) -- Theology and community : the work of Emil Fackenheim -- Irving Greenberg : a Jewish dialectic of hope -- Feminist Jewish philosophy : a response. (shrink)

The idea of 'holiness' is central to religion, but it is also one of the hardest concepts to define. Is 'holiness' a synonym for Godliness, one of God's attributes, or does it have independent existence? What does it mean to say that both God and man are holy? What is the proper understanding of 'Be holy, because I the Lord your God am holy'? A Theology of Holiness analyzes the meaning of the Hebrew root k-d-sh from ancient sources, throughout Tanakh, (...) the Talmud, Rashi, Maimonides, Nachmanides, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, and Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik. Ultimately, it is a work of theology, and helps the reader achieve a deeper understanding of holiness"--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Introduction: what planet are you from? A yeshiva boy's pilgrimage into philosophy, history, and reality -- 1. Halakhic spirituality: living in the presence of God -- 2. Toward a God-intoxicated halakha -- 3. Feminism and apologetics: lying in the presence of God -- 4. Biology or covenant? Conversion and the corrupting influence of gentile seed -- 5. Where did modern orthodoxy go wrong? The mistaken halakhic presumptions of Rabbi Soloveitchik -- 6. The God who hates lies: choosing life in (...) the midst of uncertainty. (shrink)

Modern Jewish philosophy emerged in the seventeenth century, with the impact of the new science and modern philosophy on thinkers who were reflecting upon the nature of Judaism and Jewish life. This collection of new essays examines the work of several of the most important of these figures, from the seventeenth to the late-twentieth centuries, and addresses themes central to the tradition of modern Jewish philosophy: language and revelation, autonomy and authority, the problem of evil, messianism, the influence of Kant, (...) and feminism. Included are essays on Spinoza, Mendelssohn, Cohen, Buber, Rosenzweig, Fackenheim, Soloveitchik, Strauss, and Levinas. Other thinkers discussed include Maimon, Benjamin, Derrida, Scholem, and Arendt. The sixteen original essays are written by a world-renowned group of scholars especially for this volume and give a broad and rich picture of the tradition of modern Jewish philosophy over a period of four centuries. (shrink)

Faith has many aspects. One of them is whether absolute logical proof for God’s existence is a prerequisite for the proper establishment and individual acceptance of a religious system. The treatment of this question, examined here in the Jewish context of Rabbi Prof. Eliezer Berkovits, has been strongly influenced in the modern era by the radical foundationalism and radical skepticism of Descartes, who rooted in the Western mind the notion that religion and religious issues are “all or nothing” questions. Cartesianism, (...) which surprisingly became the basis of modern secularism, was criticized by the classical American pragmatists. Peirce, James and Dewey all rejected the attempt to achieve infallible absolute knowledge, as well as the presumptuousness of establishing such a knowledge by means of casting Cartesian hyperbolic doubt. They advocated an alternative approach which was more holistic and humane. This paper lays out Descartes’s approach and the pragmatists’ critique. Despite the place that pragmatic considerations hold in Jewish tradition, some thinkers reject the relevance of these ideas. Yet Berkovits’s thought suggest a different path. He rejected Descartes’ radical skepticism and his radical foundationalism, in favor of a moderate foundationalism, which allows for a belief in God alongside constructive doubts. Similar to Peirce’s conception of the fixation of belief, Berkovits views local doubts (distinct from the hyperbolic doubt) as necessary for thought. Berkovits’s understanding of the biblical human-divine encounter, following Rosenzweig, Buber, and Heschel, is conceptualized here as “encounter theology”. Berkovits criticizes the propositionalist attempts to prove God’s existence logically, as well as the presumptuousness of basing religious belief on the teleological world-order. However, Berkovits’s conception of the ‘caring God’ is not provable, and thus defined as a pragmatic ‘postulate’. The article concludes by considering Berkovits’s “encounter theology”. In contrast to the approach described by Haym Soloveitchik, of halakhic stringency and lack of subjective experience of God’s face, Berkovits’s approach is dialogic through and through. (shrink)

The essays in this volume present interpretations of themes in major Jewish texts and thinkers, as well as treatments of significant issues in Jewish theology and ethics. It offers philosophical readings of biblical narratives, analyses of topics in the thought of Maimonides, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook and Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, and critical and constructive examinations of divine providence, religious anthropology, free will, 9/11, evil, Halakhah and morality, altruism, autonomy in Jewish medical ethics, and the epistemology of religious belief. (...) The author frequently brings Jewish philosophy and law into dialogue with contemporary Anglo-American philosophy. The book serves scholars and students of Jewish philosophy and law, and is suitable for inclusion in syllabi of undergraduate and graduate courses''--Provided by the publisher. (shrink)

This volume of essays examines key themes in Jewish philosophy and ethics from the rigorous perspective of philosophical analysis. The first set of essays takes up the challenge of living a Jewish life, and includes essays on pleasure, joy, human suffering, Jewish ritual practice and the philosophical life. The second set of essays analyzes the value and meaning of autonomy, human freedom and tolerance in Jewish thought, crucial themes in western political thought and life. Other essays in the volume examine (...) the many meanings of Jewish texts, and such crucial issues in applied Jewish ethics as ecology, medical ethics, and justified homicide. Finally, a number of essays plumb the depths of one of the most influential and creative Jewish thinkers of the twentieth century, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik. Taken as a whole, this volume advances the engagement of classical Jewish themes with Anglo-American philosophy, shedding new light both on the Jewish tradition, and on the western philosophical enterprise. (shrink)

Jewish tradition presents a variety of theodicies. Job and some Talmudic passages apparently reject the notion that all suffering is punishment for sin, even though it is also taught, ostensibly to the contrary, that a sufferer should react by mending his or her ways. The tradition also allows a large enough scope to natural law to allow for a soul‐making theodicy, according to which suffering occurs naturally and the negative value of suffering is outweighed by the positive value of opportunities (...) for the sufferer and others to exercise virtues. It can also admit a theodicy that stresses the sufferer's ability to achieve, through suffering, closeness to God. Finally, antitheodicies – theistic views, often existentialist, that oppose constructing theodicies – collapse into soul‐making theodicies. Thus, soul‐making theodicies have a home in Judaism, though they are from the only explanation of suffering in Jewish tradition. They afford the most promising theodicy for Jewish thought. (shrink)