Believing and Its Tensions: A Personal Conversation about God, Torah, Suffering and Death in Jewish Thought - Hardcover

Gillman, Rabbi Neil

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1580236693 ISBN 13: 9781580236690

Publisher: Jewish Lights, 2013

Synopsis

An intimate and candid examination of the changing nature of belief and where it can lead us―from the life experience of one of Judaism's leading thinkers.

For over five decades, Rabbi Neil Gillman has helped people think through the most challenging questions at the heart of being a believing religious person. In this intimate rethinking of his own theological journey he explores the changing nature of belief and the complexities of reconciling the intellectual, emotional and moral questions of his own searching mind and soul.

• If what we have in recognizing, speaking of and experiencing God is a wide-ranging treasury of humanly crafted metaphors, what, then, is the ultimate reality, the ultimate nature of God? What lies beyond the metaphors?
• If humanity was an active partner in revelation―if the human community participated in what was revealed and gave it meaning―what then should be the authority of Jewish law?
• How do we cope―intellectually, emotionally and morally―with suffering, the greatest challenge to our faith commitment, relationship with God and sense of a fundamentally ordered world?
• Death is inevitable but why is it built in as part of the total life experience?

About this title

About the Author:

Neil Gillman, rabbi and PhD, is professor of Jewish philosophy at The Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, where he has served as chair of the Department of Jewish Philosophy and dean of the Rabbinical School. He is author of Believing and Its Tensions: A Personal Conversation about God, Torah, Suffering and Death in Jewish Thought; The Death of Death: Resurrection and Immortality in Jewish Thought, a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award and a Publishers Weekly "Best Book of the Year"; The Way Into Encountering God in Judaism; The Jewish Approach to God: A Brief Introduction for Christians; Traces of God: Seeing God in Torah, History and Everyday Life (all Jewish Lights) and Sacred Fragments: Recovering Theology for the Modern Jew, winner of the National Jewish Book Award.

Review:

This book is the culmination of a lifetime of studying and teaching Jewish philosophy and theology at the Jewish Theological Seminary. It is Rabbi Gillman's gift to his students (aren't we all his students?), and to serious Jews who think about issues like God, revelation, evil and death. It is a remarkable summary of his life’s work, and an inspiring, enlightening, refreshing presentation.

For over five decades, Rabbi Neil Gillman has helped people think through the most challenging questions at the heart of being a believing religious person. In this intimate rethinking of his own theological journey he explores the changing nature of belief and the complexities of reconciling the intellectual, emotional and moral questions of his own searching mind and soul.

If what we have in recognizing, speaking of and experiencing God is a wide-ranging treasury of humanly crafted metaphors, what, then, is the ultimate reality, the ultimate nature of God? What lies beyond the metaphors?

If humanity was an active partner in revelation―if the human community participated in what was revealed and gave it meaning―what then should be the authority of Jewish law?

How do we cope―intellectually, emotionally and morally―with suffering, the greatest challenge to our faith commitment, relationship with God and sense of a fundamentally ordered world?

Death is inevitable but why is it built in as part of the total life experience?

Rabbi Gillman confesses that he cannot answer many of these profound questions – they are simply unanswerable –in tension. But the in depth exploration of his important themes gives the thinking reader much to chew on, and for those of us who agree with most of what he has written, it is a reaffirming and confirming statement of being a Jew and a human being. Everyone who wants to understand the Bible, Judaism, and their place in one’s life should read this book.

(Jewish Media Review)

About this edition

• Publisher: Jewish Lights
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1580236693
• ISBN 13: 9781580236690
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 144