Jewish Meaning in a World of Choice

Studies in Tradition and Modernity

David Ellenson

• Publisher: The Jewish Publication Society
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9780827611832
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Jewish Theology

Internationally recognized scholar David Ellenson shares twenty-three of his most representative essays, drawing on three decades of scholarship and demonstrating the consistency of the intellectual-religious interests that have animated him throughout his lifetime.

These essays center on a description and examination of the complex push and pull between Jewish tradition and Western culture. Ellenson addresses gender equality, women's rights, conversion, issues relating to who is a Jew, the future of the rabbinate, Jewish day schools, and other emerging trends in American Jewish life. As an outspoken advocate for a strong Israel that is faithful to the democratic and Jewish values that informed its founders, he also writes about religious tolerance and pluralism in the Jewish state.

The former president of Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion, the primary seminary of the Reform movement, Ellenson is widely respected for his vision of advancing Jewish unity and of preparing leadership for a contemporary Judaism that balances tradition with the demands of a changing world.

Scholars and students of Jewish religious thought, ethics, and modern Jewish history will welcome this erudite collection by one of today's great Jewish leaders.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Part 1. Shaping Jewish Life in an Open Society
• 1. A Response by Modern Orthodoxy to Jewish Religious Pluralism
• 2. German Orthodox Rabbinical Writings on the Jewish Textual Education of Women
• 3. Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch to Liepman Phillip Prins of Amsterdam
• 4. An Ideology for the Liberal Jewish Day School
• 5. Denominationalism: History and Hopes
• 6. The Integrity of Reform within Kelal Yisra-el
• Part 2. Searching for a Balanced Theology
• 7. A Theology of Fear
• 8. Eugene B. Borowitz
• 9. Laws and Judgments as a “Bridge to a Better World”
• 10. Heschel and the Roots of Kavanah
• 11. Rabbi Hayim David Halevi on Christians and Christianity
• 12. Interreligious Learning and the Formation of Jewish Religious Identity
• Part 3. Visions for Israel
• 13. A Zionist Reading of Abraham Geiger and His Biblical Scholarship
• 14: National Sovereignty, Jewish Identity, and the “Sake of Heaven”
• 15: The Talmudic Principle “If One Comes Forth to Slay You, Forestall by Slaying Him” in Israeli Public Policy
• 16: The Rock from Which They Were Cleft
• 17: Moshe Zemer’s Halakhah Shefuyah
• 18: Reform Zionism Today
• Part 4. Rabbis and the Rabbinate
• 19. Wissenschaft des Judentums, Historical Consciousness, and Jewish Faith
• 20. “Creative Misreadings” in Representative Post-Emancipation Halakhic Writings on Conversion and Intermarriage
• 21. A Portrait of the Poseq as Modern Religious Leader
• 22. Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits on Conversion
• 23. Transformation of the Rabbinate
• Source Acknowledgments
• Bibliography of the Published Writings of David Ellenson
• About David Ellenson