Unfinished Rabbi: Selected Writings of Arnold Jacob Wolf - Hardcover

Wolf, Arnold

9781566631839: Unfinished Rabbi: Selected Writings of Arnold Jacob Wolf

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1566631831 ISBN 13: 9781566631839

Publisher: Ivan R. Dee, 1998

Here, in a long-awaited collection, are the most important writings from a lifetime of work by one of the most influential Jewish thinkers in American life over the last half-century. Arnold Wolf’s combination of religious traditionalism with political activism has placed him at the leading edge of Reform Judaism, whether as the navy’s only Jewish chaplain in the Far East, among the marchers at Selma, as Hillel director at Yale University, or in his Chicago-area congregations. “For decades,” writes Eugene Borowitz in his Foreword, “Arnold Jacob Wolf has been the finest English stylist in the American rabbinate. In the diverse fields that have engaged him, he has written with unique clarity, penetration, belief, and sophistication. His writing, as the Mindrash says of Revelation, ‘smashes against the ear.'” Through the years Rabbi Wolf has used this gift to attempt to make God manifest in life, experimenting with prayer and ceremony long before “spirituality” became a generation’s rallying cry. These selections from a wide range of his writings display his boldness of faith, his uncommon respect for students and congregants, and his rare qualities of humanity.

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About the Author:

Arnold Jacob Wolf is rabbi of KAM Isaiah Israel Congregation in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago. He has also written What is Man? and Challenge to Confirmands and has edited Rediscovering Judaism and Jewish Spiritual Journeys.

From Publishers Weekly:

Reform Rabbi Arnold Jacob Wolf (Kam Isaiah Israel Congregation, Chicago) has long sought to integrate deep and passionate faith with social activism and justice, including protesting the Vietnam War and in supporting the Civil Rights movement. He has been for many students, congregants and colleagues an ideal rabbi, calling them back to the roots of their piety and practice as they sought to become better Jews. This collection of Wolf's writings ranges far and wide to include his sermons, letters, addresses, portraits of Jewish leaders and social tracts. The subjects of these collected writings include, among others, the "role of the rabbi and the congregant," "Jewish beliefs," "mitzvot," "Judaism as social activism," "Teaching" and "Israel and other faiths." All of the writings manifest Wolf's characteristic flair for couching prophetic words in articulate writing. For example, in his essay on "Teaching the Bible Today," Wolf emphasizes that "a good Bible class is very confusing?it will be filled with controversy... because we honor Scripture best by taking it seriously enough to argue about it." His portraits of his contemporaries include Abraham Joshua Heschel, Mordecai Kaplan and Jean-Paul Sartre. In a final section, Wolf provides insights into his own life and struggles to be a faithful Jew in his "Fragments of My Life." The volume presents a fascinating chronicle through writing of one of the great Jewish voices of the 20th century.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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