The chasidim are not easy to understand. Chasidic mystical theology is extremely difficult to master. Moreover, aside from the Lubavitch sect, chasidic society is almost hermetically sealed, and chasidic writings — composed in an arcane rabbinic Hebrew, laced with talmudic Aramaic and obscure kabbalistic references — are comprehensible only to serious students of both rabbinic literature and the kabbala. If only for these reasons, Rabbi Norman Lamm’s new English anthology of chasidic texts is a truly important contribution to Jewish learning.Read More
Chaim Nachman Bialik was not simply the bard of the modern Jewish national awakening. He was more than just the poetic voice of Zionism. He wrote of the Jews’ yearning for Zion, but also of the yearning for love; the awe of nature, the universal, desperate human search for transcendence. Above all else, Bialik captured exquisitely the pains and joys, the terror and excitement, of being a Jew in modern times.Read More
“Beyond Reasonable Doubt,” an elaborate sequel to “We Have Reason To Believe,” is a learned and compelling argument for an enlightened form of traditional Judaism that Rabbi Jacobs has dubbed “liberal supernaturalism.” The liberal supernaturalist is a Jew who adheres faithfully to Jewish law and tradition in the belief that it is divinely inspired, but who at the same time cannot blithely ignore the findings of historians.Read More