Jewish Theology in Our Time

Description

A powerful and challenging examination of what Jews believe today—by a new generation's dynamic and innovative thinkers.

At every critical juncture in Jewish history, Jews have understood a dynamic theology to be essential for a vital Jewish community. This important collection sets the next stage of Jewish theological thought, bringing together a cross section of interesting new voices from all movements in Judaism to inspire and stimulate discussion now and in the years to come.

Provocative and wide-ranging, these invigorating and creative insights from a new generation’s thought leaders provide a coherent and inspiring picture of Jewish belief in our time.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Jewish history
• Jewish philosophy
• Theology
• Judaism
• Religion

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 01 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781580235662
• Langue: English

Extrait

JEWISH THEOLOGY IN OUR TIME
A New Generation Explores the Foundations and Future of Jewish Belief

EDITED BY RABBI ELLIOT J. COSGROVE, P H D
FOREWORD BY RABBI DAVID J. WOLPE
PREFACE BY RABBI CAROLE B. BALIN, P H D
Jewish Theology in Our Time:
A New Generation Explores the Foundations and Future of Jewish Belief
2010 Hardcover Edition, First Printing 2010 by Elliot J. Cosgrove Foreword by David J. Wolpe Preface by Carole B. Balin
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or reprinted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
For information regarding permission to reprint material from this book, please mail or fax your request in writing to Jewish Lights Publishing, Permissions Department, at the address/fax number listed below, or e-mail your request to [e-mail] .
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Jewish theology in our time : a new generation explores the foundations and future of Jewish belief / edited by Elliot J. Cosgrove.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN-13: 978-1-58023-413-9
ISBN-10: 1-58023-413-5
1. Judaism-Doctrines. 2. God (Judaism) I. Cosgrove, Elliot J.
BM602.J49 2010
296.3-dc22
2010009313
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Manufactured in the United States of America
Jacket design: Jenny Buono
Jacket Art: Shraga Weil, Heritage II, signed and numbered serigraph published by Safrai Gallery, Jerusalem, Israel; www.safrai.com .
Published by Jewish Lights Publishing
A Division of LongHill Partners, Inc.
Sunset Farm Offices, Route 4, P.O. Box 237
Woodstock, VT 05091
Tel: [phone] Fax: [phone]
www.jewishlights.com
To my favorite new voices in Jewish life, my children: Lucy, Madeline, Zoe, and Jed
May each of you one day share the faith expressed first by the Israelites at the Red Sea:
This is my God, and I will glorify Him; My father s God, and I will exalt Him
-E XODUS 15:2
C ONTENTS
Foreword by Rabbi David J. Wolpe
Preface by Rabbi Carole B. Balin, PhD
Introduction
THE GOD IN PROCESS
I Will Be Who I Will Be: A God of Dynamic Becoming
R ABBI B RADLEY S HAVIT A RTSON , DHL
God as the Breath of Life
E ITAN F ISHBANE , P H D
Living and Dreaming with God
R ABBI S HAI H ELD
Cosmic Theology and Earthly Religion
R ABBI J EREMY K ALMANOFSKY
Non-dual Judaism
R ABBI J AMES J ACOBSON -M AISELS
THE GODS OF THE TEXT
Open-Source Covenant
R ABBI J ONATHAN C RANE , P H D
More Theos , Less Ology
R ABBI J EREMY G ORDON
A Progressive Reform Judaism
R ABBI E VAN M OFFIC
Spiritual Mappings: A Jewish Understanding of Religious Diversity
R ABBI O R N. R OSE
The Religion of Torah
B ENJAMIN D. S OMMER , P H D
WAYS OF TALKING ABOUT GOD
Five Pillars of Orthodox Judaism or Open Charedism
R ABBI A SHER L OPATIN
Toward a New Jewish Theological Lexicon
R ABBI M ICHAEL M ARMUR , P H D
Martin Buber: The Dialogue with God
R ABBI W ILLIAM P LEVAN
Radically Free and Radically Claimed:
Toward the Next Stage of Liberal Jewish Theology
R ABBI R ACHEL S ABATH B EIT -H ALACHMI , P H D
Can Traditional Jewish Theology Still Speak to (Some of) Us?
M ARC B. S HAPIRO , P H D
A QUEST FOR GOD
A Quest-Driven Faith
R ABBI E LLIOT J. C OSGROVE , P H D
Theological Proximity: The Quest for Intimacy with God
S IMON C OOPER , P H D
Longing to Hear Again
R ABBI L EON A. M ORRIS
Walking the Walk
R ABBI D ANIEL N EVINS
On This Sacred Ground
R ABBI E LIYAHU S TERN
THE GOD IN BETWEEN
The Radical Divinity
R ABBI T AMAR E LAD -A PPELBAUM
How I Came to Theology, or Didn t
R ABBI D ANIEL M. B RONSTEIN , P H D
The Theology of the In-Between
B ENJAMIN S AX , P H D
First Fruits of the Seasons of Hope and Renewal
R ABBI N AAMAH K ELMAN
Afterword
Notes
Suggestions for Further Reading

About Jewish Lights
Copyright
F OREWORD
R ABBI D AVID J. W OLPE
T HE J EWISH PEOPLE , Abraham Joshua Heschel famously declared, is a messenger that has forgotten its message. In the intervening years, the dilemma has become more acute: we are a people that has largely forgotten that we have a mission.
Theology is about the restoration of mission as well as the clarification of message. This is what I believe -that is the marching order of a theological statement. Though couched in complexity, qualification, textual nuance, and sometimes (we hope!) elegant prose, the theologian offers a booster shot of belief. In the tangle of life circumstance and changing mores, where can a modern Jew stand confident in his or her faith, in his or her Torah?
There were times when Torah did battle with a single, unified ideological opponent: Torah versus Christianity, or Islam, or Aristotle, or the internal rejectionism of the Karaites. But today there are challenges on all fronts: biology, astronomy, comparative religion, sociological study, textual criticism, historical consciousness, and many, many others. As Jews in the modern world, to ignore the proliferation of challenging disciplines is to declare ourselves irrelevant. Embracing the challenges is to recognize the enormity of our task.
Ultimately the thread that binds Jewish teaching together is relationship. The Jew must establish a relationship with God, with self, with other Jews, with the non-Jewish world, with the Land of Israel and even with the marvel of creation. The filament that binds us to each of these will be spun differently in the hands of each thinker. None can be ignored, and the diversity of views you will hear in these pages attests to the many ways in which the task can be understood and undertaken.
The interested reader should keep his or her eye on one more great change in Jewish theology. The modern non-Orthodox theologian need not begin knowing where he or she must end up. The defense of standard halakhic practice is no longer a given. Perhaps she or he will end up with a modified Halakhah, or a stringent version, or none at all. Although governed in some sense by fidelity to the Torah, that fidelity takes all sorts of self-declared forms in the modern age. In addition to theology performing the work of clarifying belief, it is crucial for shaping practice.
Some will find this swirling cauldron an inspiriting joy. Others may find it confusing, even saddening. Why can we not settle on an approach that will bring the Jewish community together, an approach to which we can all subscribe? Alas (or thank God) such was never the case in Jewish history-the unity of the past is vastly exaggerated in the collective memory-and it is even less true today. In a modern, scientifically advancing age, with the State of Israel and the fraught but materially successful diaspora, the People Israel will sing many songs. Some will be discordant; many will not harmonize easily with the others. In this book are the new theological singers of Israel, each adding his or her own individual notes to the grand chorus. There is much here to provoke, disturb, and discomfit you. But you will also find great beauty and depth. We may not agree on the content of the message. How wonderful, however, to be reminded that we are the bearers of an ancient and essential message. How necessary the struggle to give voice to that message. In that struggle is the beginning of wisdom.
P REFACE
R ABBI C AROLE B. B ALIN , P H D
Y OU RE TEACHING WHAT ? asked a classmate in grad school two decades ago, when she heard I was offering a class at a local synagogue.
Jewish theology, I repeated, growing slightly impatient with her questions.
But what do you mean by that ? she asked, as her traditional Jewish upbringing slipped into sharp relief against the walls of our university.
It was as if I were speaking in a foreign tongue. Doing Jewish theology-the process of piecing together a personally meaningful understanding of God-was utterly alien to her. In her religious life, she was accustomed to speaking exclusively to, and not necessarily about, the Divine.
For sure, for millennia, Jews have spoken to God. Patriarchs and priests, matriarchs and mystics, prophets and poets have poured out [their] heart[s] (Psalm 62:9) in the hope of a Reply. We can t blame them for trying. After all, according to the master narrative of Jewish tradition embedded in the Torah, the God of the Israelites did respond to the people at Mt. Sinai, and, apparently, to all descendants to follow. Given that stunning revelation, it didn t take long for Jews to start talking about God. Indeed, God-talk has wended its way through time and space, leaving in its wake countless attempts by Jews to apprehend, comprehend, and contend with essential questions relating to the Divine.
The nub of the matter for the historian of religion is the extent to which Jews of any given era permitted outside influences to infringe upon their distinctive thought and way of life. Philo of Alexandria (20-50 CE) is generally regarded as the first post-biblical Jew to step boldly and self-consciously beyond the boundaries of Jewish learning in a quest to understand God. He relieved his rationalist discomfort with biblical passages that ascribed human-like qualities to the Divine (i.e., anthropomorphism) by importing the Hellenistic hermeneutic of allegory into the Jewish world. Others followed him. The medieval period is peppered with the likes of Saadia Gaon and Yehuda Halevi (whose anti-philosophical tract is actually philosophic in form), along with Hasdai Crescas and Joseph Albo. But it is, of course, Rambam s Aristotelian-influenced thought that changed forever the depth and breadth of theological conversation among Jews.
Notwithstanding his persistently powerful influence in our own day, one can safely assume that only a small circle of devotees and critics paid much heed to Rambam s philosophy in his day. Throughout the Middle Ages, the overwhelming majority