Judaism : A Way of Being

by David Gelernter

• ISBN13: 9780300151923
• ISBN10: 0300151926
• Format: Trade Book
• Copyright: 2009-11-24
• Publisher: Yale University Press

Summary

Written for observant and non-observant Jews and anyone interested in religion, this remarkable book by the distinguished scholar David Gelernter seeks to answer the deceptively simple question: What is Judaism really about? Gelernter views Judaism as one of humanity's most profound and sublimely beautiful achievements. But because Judaism is a way of life rather than a formal system of thought, it has been difficult for anyone but a practicing Jew to understand its unique intellectual and spiritual structure. Gelernter explores compelling questions, such as: How does Judaism's obsession with life on earth versus the world-to-come separate it fundamentally from Christianity and Islam? Why do Jews believe in God, and howcanthey after the Holocaust? What makes Classical Judaism the most important intellectual development in Western history? Why does Judaism teach that, in the course of the Jewish people's coming-of-age, God moved out of history and into the human mind, abandoning all power but the capacity to talk to each person from inside and thereby to influence events only indirectly? In discussing these and other questions, Gelernter seeks to lay out Jewish beliefs on four basic topicsthe sanctity of everyday life; man and God; the meaning of sexuality and family; good, evil, and the nature of God's justice in a cruel worldand to convey a profound and stirring sense of what it means to be Jewish.

Author Biography

David Gelernter is professor of computer science at Yale University and contributing editor at the Weekly Standard. He is the author of several books, including Mirror Worlds, The Muse in the Machine, and the novel 1939. His writings on Judaism have appeared in Commentary and elsewhere.

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