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"What can a modern Jew believe?".

Article Excerpt
What Can A Modern Jew Believe? Gilbert S. Rosenthal. Wipf & Stock (Eugene, Oregon, 2007) 267 pages.

Several years ago, this reviewer prepared a course on Jewish Manuals" for an adult education program in which a critical survey was conducted of a dozen "introductions" to Judaism--from Haim Halevy Donin's To Be A Jew, through Irving Greenberg's The Jewish Way, to Emil Fackenheim's What Is Judaism?

The works in question were, for the most part, finely calibrated studies of contemporary Jewish belief and practice, and in their ensemble, despite some lacunae; they covered basically every aspect of the intellectual matrices of Judaism as well as the quotidian observances regulated by tradition as mediated by the denominational perspectives of the author.

It is unfortunate that Gilbert S. Rosenthal's magisterial essay was not available when the course materials were being prepared because, with one minor exception (there is nothing in the book on the philosophy of secular Judaism), his treatise is the most comprehensive, readable, and searching exposition of Judaic thinking extant today. It is also clothed in an English style that is felicitous, learned without affectation, and persuasive in its erudite exegesis.

In sixteen compact chapters Rosenthal explores, among other things, Judaism's basic theological teachings about divinity, its attitudes toward humanity, the chosen people idea, and Jewish law. There are also sections on ritual, prayer, and Zionism-Israel. The author also addresses some issues that are not usually part of the Jewish "manual" approach--the idea of tolerance, the concept of "tikkun olam," and interfaith activities. This reviewer was especially entranced by Rosenthal's innovative approaches to the messianic idea and the age-old conundrum of evil (theodicy) in a universe ostensibly created by a perfect Creator.

Three stylistic modalities greatly enhance the author's inventory of the basics of Jewish belief. Each issue tackled is preceded by good-natured, occasionally humorous, anecdotal repartee and then is followed by cogent summaries of Biblical, Talmudic, medieval, and modern materials germane to the subject. Rosenthal is a Jewish ecumenicist in that he gently but candidly compares and contrasts the four source streams in modern Jewish life (Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionist)...

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