Judaism: A Way of Being - Softcover

Gelernter, David Hillel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0300168152 ISBN 13: 9780300168150

Publisher: Yale University Press, 2011

Synopsis

A highly original interpretation of Judaism as a way of life, the fundamentals of Jewish belief—and the Judaism nobody knows

Written for observant and non-observant Jews and anyone interested in religion, this remarkable book by the distinguished scholar David Gelernter seeks to answer the deceptively simple question: What is Judaism really about? Gelernter views Judaism as one of humanity’s most profound and sublimely beautiful achievements. But because Judaism is a way of life rather than a formal system of thought, it has been difficult for anyone but a practicing Jew to understand its unique intellectual and spiritual structure. Gelernter explores compelling questions, such as:

• How does Judaism’s obsession with life on earth versus the world-to-come separate it fundamentally from Christianity and Islam?
• Why do Jews believe in God, and how can they after the Holocaust?
• What makes Classical Judaism the most important intellectual development in Western history?
• Why does Judaism teach that, in the course of the Jewish people’s coming-of-age, God moved out of history and into the human mind, abandoning all power but the capacity to talk to each person from inside and thereby to influence events only indirectly?

In discussing these and other questions, Gelernter seeks to lay out Jewish beliefs on four basic topics—the sanctity of everyday life; man and God; the meaning of sexuality and family; good, evil, and the nature of God’s justice in a cruel world—and to convey a profound and stirring sense of what it means to be Jewish.

About this title

About the Author

David Gelernter is professor of computer science at Yale University and contributing editor at the Weekly Standard. He is the author of several books, including Mirror Worlds, The Muse and the Machine, and the novel 1939. His writings on Judaism have appeared in Commentary and elsewhere. He lives in Woodbridge, CT.

From Booklist

Gelernter means to answer four fundamental questions from a strictly Jewish perspective: How do we understand our place in the universe? Is physical creation all there is? How can we live our lives as human beings? Does life have a greater goal beyond mere survival? Culling from various Jewish sources, he answers by means of thematic images that resonate throughout a “lived Jewish life.” Those image-themes (and questions coordinate with the principal four) include separation (what is the point of Jewish religious law?), the veil (how can we be in touch with the transcendent?), perfect asymmetry (what role does family play?), and inward pilgrimage (how can Judaism reconcile a just and merciful God with evil?). In the appendix, he answers two further questions, Why believe in God? and What makes Judaism the most important intellectual development in Western history?, and offers a brief treatise on Jewish and Christian ethics. Though written for Jews unsatisfied by “usual approaches” to Judaism, the book may fascinate non-Jews interested in its questions, too, regardless of whether they agree with Gelernter’s conclusions. --June Sawyers

About this edition

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0300168152
• ISBN 13: 9780300168150
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 248