Intro -- Contents -- Foreword -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- I. God -- 1. Mordecai M. Kaplan, The Future of the American Jew -- 2. Abraham Joshua Heschel, Man Is Not Alone -- 3. Hans Jonas, "The Concept of God After Auschwitz: A Jewish Voice" -- 4. Richard L. Rubenstein, After Auschwitz -- 5. Eliezer Berkovits, Faith After the Holocaust -- 6. Erich Fromm, You Shall Be as Gods -- 7. Marcia Falk, "Notes on Composing New Blessings: Toward a Feminist-Jewish Reconstruction of Prayer" -- 8. Edward L. Greenstein, "'To You Do I Call': A Critique of Impersonal Prayer" -- 9. Sandra B. Lubarsky, "Reconstructing Divine Power" -- 10. Rebecca Alpert, "Location, Location, Location: Toward a Theology of Prepositions" -- II. Revelation and Commandment -- 11. Marvin Fox, The Condition of Jewish Belief -- 12. Aharon Lichtenstein, The Condition of Jewish Belief -- 13. Will Herberg, Judaism and Modern Man -- 14. Jakob J. Petuchowski, "Revelation and the Modern Jew" -- 15. Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Halakhic Man -- 16. Benjamin H. Sommer, Revelation and Authority -- 17. Tamar Ross, Expanding the Palace of Torah -- 18. Eugene B. Borowitz, Renewing the Covenant -- 19. Susan Handelman, "'Crossing and Recrossing the Void'" -- 20. David Novak, "Is the Covenant a Bilateral Relationship?" -- 21. Rachel Adler, Engendering Judaism -- 22. Mara H. Benjamin, The Obligated Self -- III. Spirituality -- 23. Arnold Jacob Wolf, "Against Spirituality" -- 24. Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Halakhic Man -- 25. Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Sabbath -- 26. Arthur Green, Jewish Spirituality/Seek My Face, Speak My Name -- 27. Daniel C. Matt, God and the Big Bang -- 28. Zalman Schachter- Shalomi, Paradigm Shift -- 29. Marcia Prager, The Path of Blessing -- 30. Nancy Flam, "Healing the Spirit" -- 31. Arthur Waskow, Down- to-Earth Judaism -- 32. Sheila Weinberg, "Images of God: Closeness and Power".

Intro -- Contents -- Foreword -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- I. God -- 1. Mordecai M. Kaplan, The Future of the American Jew -- 2. Abraham Joshua Heschel, Man Is Not Alone -- 3. Hans Jonas, "The Concept of God After Auschwitz: A Jewish Voice" -- 4. Richard L. Rubenstein, After Auschwitz -- 5. Eliezer Berkovits, Faith After the Holocaust -- 6. Erich Fromm, You Shall Be as Gods -- 7. Marcia Falk, "Notes on Composing New Blessings: Toward a Feminist-Jewish Reconstruction of Prayer" -- 8. Edward L. Greenstein, "'To You Do I Call': A Critique of Impersonal Prayer" -- 9. Sandra B. Lubarsky, "Reconstructing Divine Power" -- 10. Rebecca Alpert, "Location, Location, Location: Toward a Theology of Prepositions" -- II. Revelation and Commandment -- 11. Marvin Fox, The Condition of Jewish Belief -- 12. Aharon Lichtenstein, The Condition of Jewish Belief -- 13. Will Herberg, Judaism and Modern Man -- 14. Jakob J. Petuchowski, "Revelation and the Modern Jew" -- 15. Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Halakhic Man -- 16. Benjamin H. Sommer, Revelation and Authority -- 17. Tamar Ross, Expanding the Palace of Torah -- 18. Eugene B. Borowitz, Renewing the Covenant -- 19. Susan Handelman, "'Crossing and Recrossing the Void'" -- 20. David Novak, "Is the Covenant a Bilateral Relationship?" -- 21. Rachel Adler, Engendering Judaism -- 22. Mara H. Benjamin, The Obligated Self -- III. Spirituality -- 23. Arnold Jacob Wolf, "Against Spirituality" -- 24. Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Halakhic Man -- 25. Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Sabbath -- 26. Arthur Green, Jewish Spirituality/Seek My Face, Speak My Name -- 27. Daniel C. Matt, God and the Big Bang -- 28. Zalman Schachter- Shalomi, Paradigm Shift -- 29. Marcia Prager, The Path of Blessing -- 30. Nancy Flam, "Healing the Spirit" -- 31. Arthur Waskow, Down- to-Earth Judaism -- 32. Sheila Weinberg, "Images of God: Closeness and Power".

Jonathan D. Sarna's award-winning American Judaism is now available in an updated and revised edition that summarizes recent scholarship and takes into account important historical, cultural, and political developments in American Judaism over the past fifteen years. Praise for the first edition: "Sarna . . . has written the first systematic, comprehensive, and coherent history of Judaism in America; one so well executed, it is likely to set the standard for the next fifty years."--Jacob Neusner, Jerusalem Post "A masterful overview."--Jeffrey S. Gurock, American Historical Review "This book is destined to be the new classic of American Jewish history."--Norman H. Finkelstein, Jewish Book World Winner of the 2004 National Jewish Book Award/Jewish Book of the Year

A new approach to understanding Jewish thought since the eighteenth century Is Judaism a religion, a culture, a nationality—or a mixture of all of these? In How Judaism Became a Religion, Leora Batnitzky boldly argues that this question more than any other has driven modern Jewish thought since the eighteenth century. This wide-ranging and lucid introduction tells the story of how Judaism came to be defined as a religion in the modern period—and why Jewish thinkers have fought as well as championed this idea. Ever since the Enlightenment, Jewish thinkers have debated whether and how Judaism—largely a religion of practice and public adherence to law—can fit into a modern, Protestant conception of religion as an individual and private matter of belief or faith. Batnitzky makes the novel argument that it is this clash between the modern category of religion and Judaism that is responsible for much of the creative tension in modern Jewish thought. Tracing how the idea of Jewish religion has been defended and resisted from the eighteenth century to today, the book discusses many of the major Jewish thinkers of the past three centuries, including Moses Mendelssohn, Abraham Geiger, Hermann Cohen, Martin Buber, Zvi Yehuda Kook, Theodor Herzl, and Mordecai Kaplan. At the same time, it tells the story of modern orthodoxy, the German-Jewish renaissance, Jewish religion after the Holocaust, the emergence of the Jewish individual, the birth of Jewish nationalism, and Jewish religion in America. More than an introduction, How Judaism Became a Religion presents a compelling new perspective on the history of modern Jewish thought.

New portrayals of the religious lives of American Jewish women from colonial times to the present.

Highlighting well-known Jewish thinkers from a very wide spectrum of opinion, the author addresses a range of issues, including: What makes a thinker Jewish? What makes modern Jewish thought modern? How have secular Jews integrated Jewish traditional thought with agnosticism? What do Orthodox thinkers have to teach non-Orthodox Jews and vice versa? Each chapter includes a short, judiciously chosen selection from the given author, along with questions to guide the reader through the material. Short biographical essays at the end of each chapter offer the reader recommendations for further readings and provide the low-down on which books are worth the reader's while. Introduction to Modern Jewish Thinkers represents a decade of the author's experience teaching students ranging from undergraduate age to their seventies. This is an ideal textbook for undergraduate classes.

A Chomprehensive anthology of classic writings on Jewish philosophy from the Bible to postmodernism.

You no longer have to choose between what you know and what you believe—an accessible introduction to a theological game-changer. “I wrote this book for you if you want to be able to locate your life in a single, encompassing story, one that includes everything from the first moment the universe began until yesterday, a narrative that embraces deepest personal meaning, a yearning to love and be loved, a quest for social justice and compassion.” —from the Introduction Much of what you were told you should believe when you were younger forces you to choose between your spirit and your intellect, between science and religion, between morality and dogma: unchanging laws of nature vs. miracles that sound magical; a good God vs. the tragedies that strike all living creatures; a God who knows the future absolutely vs. an open future that you help to shape through your choices. This fascinating introduction to Process Theology from a Jewish perspective shows that these are false choices. Inspiring speaker, spiritual leader and philosopher Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson presents an overview of what Process Theology is and what it can mean for your spiritual life. He explains how Process Theology can break you free from the strictures of ancient Greek and medieval European philosophy, allowing you to see all creation not as this or that, us or them, but as related patterns of energy through which we connect to everything. Armed with Process insights and tools, you can break free from outdated religious dichotomies and affirm that your religiosity, your spirit, your mind and your ethics all strengthen and refine each other.

The modern Jew, living in a world of shattered beliefs and competing ideologies, is often confronted with questions of faith. Sacred Fragments is for those who still care enough to continue the struggle. In forthright, nontechnical language the author addresses the most difficult theological questions of our time and shows that there are still viable Jewish answers for even the greatest skeptics.

The story of the origins and development of a Jewish form of secularism Not in the Heavens traces the rise of Jewish secularism through the visionary writers and thinkers who led its development. Spanning the rich history of Judaism from the Bible to today, David Biale shows how the secular tradition these visionaries created is a uniquely Jewish one, and how the emergence of Jewish secularism was not merely a response to modernity but arose from forces long at play within Judaism itself. Biale explores how ancient Hebrew books like Job, Song of Songs, and Esther downplay or even exclude God altogether, and how Spinoza, inspired by medieval Jewish philosophy, recast the biblical God in the role of nature and stripped the Torah of its revelatory status to instead read scripture as a historical and cultural text. Biale examines the influential Jewish thinkers who followed in Spinoza's secularizing footsteps, such as Salomon Maimon, Heinrich Heine, Sigmund Freud, and Albert Einstein. He tells the stories of those who also took their cues from medieval Jewish mysticism in their revolts against tradition, including Hayim Nahman Bialik, Gershom Scholem, and Franz Kafka. And he looks at Zionists like David Ben-Gurion and other secular political thinkers who recast Israel and the Bible in modern terms of race, nationalism, and the state. Not in the Heavens demonstrates how these many Jewish paths to secularism were dependent, in complex and paradoxical ways, on the very religious traditions they were rejecting, and examines the legacy and meaning of Jewish secularism today.