Contemporary Jewish Religious Thought

These essays from one- hundred and forty experts on various subjects central to Judaism are organized in alphabetical order. The essays as to be expected are not of uniform quality but many are truly outstanding. I remember one essay especially and that is Aviezer Ravitzky's essay on the concept of ' Shalom'. In a beautiful piece Ravitzky shows the various levels of the concept's meaning in Judaism. It is not simply ' peace' as the absence of war but rather defines the ideal relation within a person within a family within a society, the ideal relationship in which there is harmony, balance and completion. And of course 'Shalom' is too one of the Names of G-d. It is difficult to read any of these essays without learning something fundamental and important in Judaism. I would say it is a must for the library of every serious student of Judaism.

Students don't like to buy books for their college courses but every now and then there is one they keep and enjoy for the rest of their lives. This is one of them. The late Arthur Cohen and Paul Mendes Flohr assembled a remarkable array of first rate authors to write on an encyclopedic range of topics relevant to an understanding of what Judaism is all about from a contemporary perspective. I've used the book since 1994 in an intro to Judaism course I offer every year, and I have never been disappointed. Occasionally, the essays demand a bit much from an undergraduate student. But as long as s/he is ready to engage in reading texts that don't dum down the issue, s/he'll get something valuable out of it. I recommend this book most highly.

Weighing in at almost 1200 pages, and consisting of 140 essays from the world's top Jewish scholars, this book doesn't sound like something you'd bring to the beach -- but in reality, it's not so bad. The essays, organized alphabetically and each dealing with a specific topic ("Aesthetics," "Aggadah," "Anti-Judaism and Antisemitism," "Apocalypse," "Atheism," "Authority," "Bible Criticism," "Catastrophe," "Charity," etc), read more like sermons than academic research papers. In other words, they're unpretentious. I don't know how the editorial team managed to rein in 140 independent authors and convince them to all write like human beings, but kudos to them for pulling it off. It couldn't have been easy. I can't even pick up a collection of the best essays in European philosophy without having to plow through 40 pages of dreck by some clown who's trying to mathematically prove that we're not all brains in vats. Anyway, everything in this book is both solid and reasonable; it's a book to be respected and, more to the point, it's a book to be read. Pick it up and read a random essay -- any essay. You won't be disappointed.