The God Who Hates Lies

David Hartman

Description

Covenant & Conscience—A Groundbreaking Journey to the Heart of Halakha

"Anyone curious about the Jewish way of life, yet dissatisfied with much of contemporary Jewish theology and practice—repelled, perhaps, by the cheap and vulgar apologetics of those who seek to justify and sustain some of the tradition's systematic immoralities, who smugly deny expression to any doubt or uncertainty, claiming a monopoly on absolute truth—is invited to join me on this pilgrimage."
—from the Introduction

In this deeply personal look at the struggle between commitment to Jewish religious tradition and personal morality, Dr. David Hartman, the world’s leading Modern Orthodox Jewish theologian, probes the deepest questions at the heart of what it means to be a human being and a Jew.

Dr. Hartman draws on a lifetime of learning, teaching and experience as a social activist to present an intellectual framework for examining covenantal theology as it is applied to religious life. As much an expression of his impassioned commitment to Jewish law as it is testament to a lifetime of intellectual questioning and courage, this bold examination of the halakhic system offers fresh insights into Judaism and the quest for spiritual nourishment.

Introduction
"What Planet Are You From?": A Yeshiva Boy's Pilgrimage
into Philosophy, History, and Reality 1
1 Halakhic Spirituality
Living in the Presence of God 27
2 Toward a God-Intoxicated Halakha 49
3 Feminism and Apologetics
Lying in the Presence of God 69
4 Biology or Covenant?
Conversion and the Corrupting Influence of Gentile Seed 111
5 Where Did Modern Orthodoxy Go Wrong?
The Mistaken Halakhic Presumptions of Rabbi Soloveitchik 131
6 The God Who Hates Lies
Choosing Life in the Midst of Uncertainty 159
Notes 183
Suggestions for Further Reading 187
Index 188

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Halajá
• David Hartman
• Jewish philosophy
• Modern Orthodox Judaism
• Judaism
• Religion
• Halakha

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 01 avril 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781580235983
• Langue: English

Extrait

The God Who Hates Lies: Confronting and Rethinking Jewish Tradition
2011 Hardcover Edition, First Printing 2011 by David Hartman
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted 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] .
Scripture quotations are from Tanakh (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1985), unless otherwise noted.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hartman, David, 1931- The god who hates lies: confronting and rethinking Jewish tradition / David Hartman with Charlie Buckholtz.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-1-58023-455-9 (hardcover)
1. Jewish law-Philosophy. 2. Jewish ethics-Philosophy. 3. Orthodox Judaism-Philosophy. 4. Judaism-Doctrines. I. Buckholtz, Charlie. II. Title.
BM520.6.H37 2011 296.3 6-dc22 2011004740
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Manufactured in the United States of America Jacket design: Tim Holtz
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
Praise for The God Who Hates Lies: Confronting Rethinking Jewish Tradition
David Hartman inhabits the places of the impossible-where truths collide-with courage. A traditional and halakhic Judaism will emerge from its clash with the ethical more faithful to its essence.
- Rabbi Shira Milgrom , Congregation Kol Ami, White Plains, New York
A masterful, passionate confessional of an encounter in one man s soul between traditional Judaism and his deepest moral sensibilities. Whether or not you agree with Rabbi Hartman s vision, this book will pursue you long after you have read it.
- Yehuda (Jerome) Gellman , Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Another essential and prophetic work from one of the great religious thinkers of the age. This deeply felt book is intensely personal yet intellectually rigorous-a challenge and a consolation for everyone who looks for God.
- James Carroll , author, Jerusalem, Jerusalem: How the Ancient City Ignited Our Modern World
This is the book from David Hartman we have been waiting for! Written with passion, clarity, and scholarship [it] is sure to provoke a lively conversation on the nature of Jewish law, the State of Israel and what it means to live in a covenanted relationship with God.
- Rabbi Elliot J. Cosgrove, PhD , Park Avenue Synagogue; editor, Jewish Theology in Our Time: A New Generation Explores the Foundations and Future of Jewish Belief
A trenchant and controversial statement of Jewish theology . No thinking Jew can afford to ignore this book.
- Rabbi Neil Gillman, PhD , emeritus professor of Jewish philosophy, The Jewish Theological Seminary of America; author, Doing Jewish Theology: God, Torah and Israel in Modern Judaism
A powerful and important book for Jews of every denomination and lifestyle who want to discover for themselves why Judaism matters. Brilliantly, boldly and creatively challenges all of us to understand that there are indeed two Torahs-the Torah of tradition and the Torah of our own lives.
- Rabbi Laura Geller , senior rabbi, Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills
Slides open the shut window of traditional authoritarianism and invites the fresh air of biblical and rabbinic conscience to refresh the contemporary Jewish agenda. [This book] cannot be ignored by any serious reader.
- Rabbi Harold M. Schulweis , author, Conscience: The Duty to Obey and the Duty to Disobey
One of the most important Jewish books of our time. This is a work of kiddush Hashem , sanctifying the Holy Name, too often desecrated by believers.
- Yossi Klein Halevi , author, At the Entrance to the Garden of Eden: A Jew s Search for God with Christians and Muslims in the Holy Land
Jewish Lights Books by Dr. David Hartman
The God Who Hates Lies: Confronting and Rethinking Jewish Tradition
A Heart of Many Rooms: Celebrating the Many Voices within Judaism
A Living Covenant: The Innovative Spirit in Traditional Judaism
Love and Terror in the God Encounter: The Theological Legacy of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik
C ONTENTS
Introduction What Planet Are You From? : A Yeshiva Boy s Pilgrimage into Philosophy, History, and Reality
1 Halakhic Spirituality Living in the Presence of God
2 Toward a God-Intoxicated Halakha
3 Feminism and Apologetics Lying in the Presence of God
4 Biology or Covenant? Conversion and the Corrupting Influence of Gentile Seed
5 Where Did Modern Orthodoxy Go Wrong? The Mistaken Halakhic Presumptions of Rabbi Soloveitchik
6 The God Who Hates Lies Choosing Life in the Midst of Uncertainty
Notes
Suggestions for Further Reading
Index
About Jewish Lights
Copyright
I NTRODUCTION
W HAT P LANET A RE Y OU F ROM ?
A Yeshiva Boy s Pilgrimage into Philosophy, History, and Reality
B efore moving to Israel with my family in 1971, in the afterglow of the Six-Day War, I served for sixteen years as a congregational rabbi. During that time, I did all the things traditional rabbis do: taught classes, led services, officiated life-cycle events, gave sermons, and counseled people seeking guidance in the religious dimension of their personal lives. In these conversations I heard people sincerely struggling with all manner of inner conflict. One recurring theme was the agonizing confrontation that occurred when religious demands were felt to conflict with deeply held relational commitments and ethical intuitions. I was so moved by so many of these stories that I began to sense they reflected not only the natural limitations of any legal system, but deep fissures in the edifice of Jewish tradition, both the culture within which it had been formed and the culture that saw itself as the steward of tradition s authentic legacy. I attempted to address my congregants concerns with as much religious creativity and empathic humanity as I could muster. Meanwhile I was collecting my own set of questions and conflicts.
That this type of personal religious conflict did not grow into a major theme of my rabbinate was on no account due, then, to anything like a lack of interest or concern. I chalk it up rather to the intervention of global-historical forces. In the time leading up to my aliyah , my attention had become increasingly focused on the possibilities for national Jewish renaissance presented by the still new reality of the Jewish state, with what I vividly imagined as its wide-open field of new spiritual and moral possibilities. My sermons in North America focused largely, and energetically, on weaving pictures of how this renaissance might take shape. I thought of the Jewish state as a redemptive opportunity for the political implementation of Jewish social aspirations in the context of a sovereign public. I spoke excitedly about the religious significance of a society not only shaped by the Jewish people, or even a Jewish ethos in a general sense, but organized politically around the creative contemporary application of biblical and Rabbinic categories of social justice.
In Israel, I deeply believed, we would have a socioeconomic system that implements the spirit of the biblical and Rabbinic laws of shmita , the seven-year cycle of debt forgiveness intended to mitigate the loss of dignity that comes with excessive dependency on creditors. I had heard that financial pressures in Israel made it necessary for many parents to take out loans to support their newly married children and provide for the necessities required to start a new family. In many of my sermons, I suggested that it would be in the spirit of the Torah-if perhaps not in the precise legal framework of shmita -for the Israeli government to implement a policy that would mandate Israeli banks to lower interest rates every seven years. Similarly the biblical jubilee, a fifty-year cycle culminating in a celebratory emancipation of slaves and redistribution of property (families who, because of poverty, have been forced to sell their land within this cycle, are reinstated to their former homesteads) that strives to set the conditions for a society free of economic disparity. This egalitarian spirit could be translated into social policies intent on offering possibilities for personal economic renewal, safeguarding hope for the future in those who might otherwise have good reason to despair.
I often proclaimed, and sincerely believed, that Israel would be a place where we could witness the ethical spirit of Torah manifested in a sovereign Jewish society.
In retrospect, the rude awakening I encountered upon my arrival was perhaps inevitable. It was brought home to me with characteristic Israeli bluntness in a conversation with a cabdriver a year or two into my move. The shmita year was approaching, and I saw that the concern among many Orthodox Jews in the country had little to do with restoring financial dignity to those in need. The focus, instead, was on kashrut, the permissibility or impermissibility of certain foods. Another facet of shmita law (the term literally means release ) entails that every seven years Jewish-owned fields in Israel must be left to lie fallow, their produce considered ownerless and prohibited from being bought or sold. Given this restriction, Israeli farmers were not permitted to cultivate their fields, leaving Israeli citizens to buy only from farmers outside of Israel, primarily Arab farmers in the West Bank and Jordan. The predominant, passionate, and at times vicious discourse within much of the religious community concerned whether various halakhic looph