FAITH AND FORTITUDE: Megillat Ruth and the Torah Reading for Shavuot

Faith and Fortitude Megillat Ruth presents selections of the writings of Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits, one of the major Jewish philosophers of the twentieth century, as a new and meaningful commentary for the Megillah and Shavuot Torah reading. The Shavuot holiday experience will be enriched with the reading of the Ruth story along with Rabbi Berkovits’ insightful and refreshing ideas that address crucial topics for the modern era.

ELIEZER BERKOVITS (1908–1992) was a renowned philosopher, theologian, and talmudic scholar. He studied under Rabbi Yechiel Yaakov Weinberg at the Hildesheimer Rabbinical Seminary in Berlin, and received his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Berlin. He served in the rabbinate in Berlin (1934–1939), Leeds, England (1940–1946), Sydney, Australia (1946–1950), and Boston (1950–1958). In 1958 Rabbi Berkovits became chair of the philosophy department at the Hebrew  Theological College in Skokie, subsequently making aliyah in 1976, to live the remainder of his life in Israel. In addition to his numerous philosophical writings and articles, Rabbi Berkovits was the author of nineteen books including Faith After the Holocaust, God, Man and History, and Not in Heaven: The Nature and Function of Halakha. He also wrote two works on halakha that were published in Hebrew: Conditionality in Marriage and Divorce and Halakha: Its Authority and Function.

REUVEN MOHL attended Yeshivat Hakotel and then completed his undergraduate studies at Yeshiva University. He earned his Doctor of Dental Surgery degree from New York University Dental School and received Rabbinic Ordination from Rav Zalman Nechemia Goldberg of Jerusalem. He is the editor of Faith and Freedom Passover Haggadah and Faith Fulfilled Megillat Esther both compiled from the writings of Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits. He has a private dental practice in New York City and lives in Teaneck, New Jersey with his wife and three children.