Description
Book SynopsisIs Judaism a timeless, universal set of beliefs or, rather, is it historical and contingent in its relation to different times and places? Do Jewish beliefs derive their meaning from texts and revelation or from rational argument and experience? This title addresses major Jewish thinkers who have wrestled with the moral and theological dilemmas.
Trade Review"Michael Morgan has served up an intellectual treat. These subtle and carefully reasoned essays explore the dilemmas of the post-modern Jew who would take history seriously without losing the commanding presence Israel heard at Sinai... It is a pleasure to be nourished by a fresh mind exploring the tension between reason and revelation, history and faith."- Rabbi Samuel Karff "This is without doubt one of the most significant works in modern Jewish thought and a must for a thoughtful student of contemporary Jewish philosophy." - Rabbie Sheldon Zimmerman "This may well mark the next stage in the long history of Jewish self-understanding." - Ethics " ... rigorous history of modern Jewish thought ... " - Choice
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1 Overcoming the Remoteness of the Past: Memory and Historiography in Modern Jewish Thought
Chapter 2 History and Modern Jewish Thought: Spinoza and Mendelssohn on the Ritual Law
Chapter 3 Liberalism in Mendelssohn's Jerusalem
Chapter 4 The Curse of Historicity: The Role of History in Leo Strauss and the Possibility of Jewish Philosophy
Chapter 5 Leo Strauss and the Possibility of Jewish Philosophy
Chapter 6 Judaism and Peter Berger's Heretical Imperative
Chapter 7 Jewish Ethics after the Holocaust
Chapter 8 Historicism, Evil, and Post-Holocaust Moral Thought
Chapter 9 Philosophy, History, and the Jewish Thinker: Jewish Thought and Philosophy in Emil Fackenheim's To Mend the World
Chapter 10 Franz Rosenzweig, Objectivity, and the New Thinking
Chapter 11 Jewish Philosophy and Historical Self-Consciousness
Chapter 12 Contemporary Jewish Thought in America
Notes
Index
