Jews, like other Americans, have both benefited and suffered from the fraying of traditional loyalties that has come to characterize modern American culture. In Taking Hold of Torah Arnold M. Eisen offers a personal plea for - and a vision of - the revitalizing of American Judaism through a renewed relationship to Jewish tradition and the strengthening of Jewish communities. Drawing from the author's own experience both as a scholar of modern Judaism and as a modern American Jew, each of the five chapters in the book examines a major issue or theme related to this vision of renewal - in terms of one of the five books of the Torah. This encouraging work is essential reading for anyone concerned with issues of Jewish faith and the future of Judaism in America.
Arnold Eisen is like Michael Lerner with an intellectual twist. Both men seek to help American Jews figure out how to live authentically as Jews without dropping out of mainstream culture. But where Lerner froths poetic with his "politics of meaning," Eisen gives specifics about how Torah can help contemporary Jews learn to live. Taking Hold of Torah comprises five brilliant meditations that follow the structure of the Torah, considering questions about how Jews can relate to their families, synagogues, neighbors, and nation. "No Jewish community has ever existed except on the basis of a live, engaged relation to the Torah," Eisen writes. His tough, forgiving, dense, delightful essays are a good starting place for those seeking such engagement.