Halakhic man

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Walter Orenstein

Through a series of letters from a father to his college-age daughter, Dr. Walter Orenstein traces the role and the history of women in the Torah and shows, through text and commentary, that in traditional Jewish society the status of women is equal to that of men, though their function is often quite different. Letters to My Daughter: A Father Writes about Torah and the Jewish Woman introduces the reader to the Oral Law, to the exciting realm of Halakhah, and to some of the essential principles of Jewish philosophy. Although this work is addressed to a college student, it is meant for all women and men regardless of their backgrounds. Those who have a limited background in Jewish studies and seek an understanding of the principles of Jewish belief and the way that these principles impact upon her or his life will find this book a useful beginning to the world of Jewish scholarship. Those students whose Jewish education has taken them far beyond the rudiments of Torah knowledge but who are concerned with the status of women in Orthodox Judaism and lack the training to probe the sources on their own will find this book enlightening. This book also addresses itself to the Jewish man or woman who was raised in the secular world but who now searches for truth, meaning, and purpose in the Torah, hoping that its words will provide spiritual guidance, personal insight, and divine wisdom.

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Daniel Gordis

At a time when Americans are turning to alternative forms of spiritual fulfillment, Rabbi Daniel Gordis finds what many are looking for in the context of a several-thousand-year-old religion. God Was Not in the Fire argues that Jewish life does merit serious attention. It is Judaism's insistence on asking life's most important questions (which helps us define precisely who and what we are) that enables it to play an enriching role in our lives. Because Judaism maintains that we feel God's presence through the experiences of daily life, the author takes us through the traditions of ritual, prayer, study, mitzvah, and ethics. Gordis illustrates that by developing a relationship with God through Judaism, one can achieve the heightened sense of self essential for finding connectedness, continuity, and, ultimately, transcendence and spirituality. It is not, Gordis argues, through blind faith that Jews come to understand the world and their place in it, but through "spiritual discipline" and a ceaseless round of investigations that a sense of belonging is attained. . A why-to rather than a how-to, God Was Not in the Fire suggests that the religion of one's youth can deepen in adult life. It can give us, if we search to understand it, the most powerful way we know of expressing our humanity.

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David Liepert

Virtually every other religious book portrays the act of believing-the decision a believer makes to accept that his or her own religion's particular assumptions and explanations are true-as if it is a good thing. Frankly, I think believing is dangerous. ... The thrust of my argument is simple: All of us think that our religion is "good" and that those in apparent (and often politically motivated) opposition to it are "bad." But the real truth is that all of our religions are equally guilty of being used to promote violence, and-thanks to centuries of political manipulation that have distorted the way we read our holy books-all of us are equally guilty of not following what our religions really say. ... The later chapters of this book explore belief and human nature in a new light to explain how Freud's theories of the subconscious and quantum physics' model of the subatomic universe offer some of the best proof we have that God exists; show us a way to restore religion to its rightful role in our lives and our world; and conclude that we're all a lot closer to where we should be than we think.

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Peter Sloterdijk

"In this important new book Peter Sloterdijk returns to the origins of monotheism in order to shed new light on the conflict of the faiths today. Following the polytheism of the ancient civilizations of the Egyptians, Hittites and Babylonians, Jewish monotheism was born as a theology of protest, as a religion of triumph within defeat. While the religion of the Jews remained limited to their own people, Christianity unfolded its message with proclamations of universal truth. Islam raised this universalism to a new level through a military and political mode of expansion. Sloterdijk examines the forms of conflict that arise between the three monotheisms by analyzing the basic possibilities stemming from anti-Paganism, anti-Judaism, anti-Islamism and anti-Christianism. These possibilities were augmented by internal rifts: a defining influence within Judaism was a separatism with defensive aspects, in Christianity the project of expansion through mission, and in Islam the Holy War."--Back cover.