Jewish Choices, Jewish Voices: Body - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0827608608 ISBN 13: 9780827608603

Publisher: JEWISH PUBLICATON SOCIETY, 2008

Synopsis

This JPS ethics series deals with some of the most critical moral issues of our time.

What are our obligations and rights to our own bodies? What does Judaism say about tattoos? Piercings? About our obligations to exercise and eat properly? What about smoking? Alcohol? Recreational drugs? Who owns our organs? What about our eggs and sperm? If resources are limited, whose body comes first and how do we decide? Why do so many young Jews suffer from eating disorders?

Each volume in this series presents traditional and contemporary sources on specific topics, followed by hypothetical cases and study questions to provoke discussion. Supplementing these are brief essays written by a diverse group—political figures and journalists, business professionals and authors, scholars and artists, young voices and old, traditional believers and iconoclasts. As a conclusion, Dorff and Newman present their own reflections, providing a counterpoint to the contributors' perspectives. These voices from the Jewish tradition and today’s Jewish community give us new questions and perspectives to think about and encourage us to consider our moral choices in a new light. Jewish Choices, Jewish Voices takes a hard look at important and controversial topics of our time. Future volumes include Power; War and National Security; Sexual Relations; and The Internet.

About this title

About the Author

Elliot Dorff is the author of three JPS books on Jewish ethics: To Do the Right and the Good, Love Your Neighbor and Yourself, and Matters of Life and Death, and has edited several anthologies with multiple contributors. He and Louis Newman are co-editors of Contemporary Jewish Ethics and Morality (1995) and Contemporary Jewish Theology (1999). Dorff has served for many years on the Committee of Jewish Law and Standards of the Rabbinical Assembly and is currently its Vice Chair. He is Rector and Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the American Jewish University of Los Angeles. Louis Newman is the John M. and Elizabeth W. Musser Professor of Religious Studies and Director of Judaic Studies at Carleton College, and the author of Past Imperatives: Studies in the History and Theory of Jewish Ethics (1998), and co-editor with Dorff of two anthologies (see above). He is currently completing An Introduction to Jewish Ethics, a college textbook.

From the Back Cover

Jewish Choices, Jewish Voices Body

Is my weight anybody's business but my own? Can a tattoo express my Jewish identity? How risky is bungee jumping, anyway?

Jews of different ages and life experiences reflect on these and other ethical dilemmas in this cutting-edge new series from JPS. Jewish Choices, Jewish Voices. This volume, Body, offers a range of traditional and contemporary sources on Jewish attitudes toward the body. Listen as rabbis, doctors, athletes, artists, and others weigh in on how Judaism influences their own choices. Intended to promote dialogue, challenge assumptions, and reflect the reality of Jewish life today, Jewish Choices, Jewish Voices is for anyone who struggles to lead an ethical life and wonders about the range of informed Jewish responses to controversial questions.

Elliot N. Dorff is the author of three JPS books on Jewish ethics, To Do the Right and the Good, Love Your Neighbor and Yourself, and Matters of Life and Death. Dorff has served for many years on the Committee of Jewish Law and Standards of the Rabbinical Assembly and is currently its vice chairman. He also serves on a number of national boards and committees dealing with Jewish ethics. He is rector and Sol and Anne Dorff Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the American Jewish University of Los Angeles.

Louis E. Newman is the John M. and Elizabeth W. Musser Professor of Religious Studies and director of Judaic Studies at Carleton College, and the author of Past Imperatives: Studies in the History and Theory of Jewish Ethics (1998). He is completing An Introduction to Jewish Ethics, a college textbook.

Reviews

What is the Jewish position on tattoos, eating disorders and body piercings? According to this book on Judaism and the body, that's actually the wrong question: it's not about claiming the Jewish position on any issue, but finding a Jewish ethic that successfully addresses Torah, tradition and beliefs. This multiauthor book, part of JPS's new series on contemporary ethical dilemmas (future volumes will address money, war, sexual relations, and power, among other issues), presents multiple points of view and personal voices. Tattoos, for example, are weighed against biblical and Talmudic injunctions, historical allusions (are Jewish tattoos offensive to Holocaust victims?) and cultural standards. Some of the best essays are by doctors, including one who ruminates on whether he has an ethical responsibility to prescribe medication that might save his patients from short-term depression. As a book, this collection can feel disjointed; it begins abruptly with three quick case studies and numerous quotes from ancient and contemporary rabbis on various body issues, then segues into contributors' uneven essays on those topics. Though no single answer emerges, the book's general sensibility is, to paraphrase one essayist, to remember that God created our bodies, and we are only renting them. (Apr.)
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Edition details

• Publisher: JEWISH PUBLICATON SOCIETY
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0827608608
• ISBN 13: 9780827608603
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 160
• Editor: Dorff Rabbi Elliot N., Newman Louis E.