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     Hartman is founder and director of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. He and his family emigrated from Montreal more than 25 years ago. Originally presented as a series of lectures at the Yale University Divinity School in 1998, the book presumes an academic, or at least an extremely well-read, audience. Nevertheless, Hartman's key positions and arguments are accessible to a general reader.

     The first chapter of this brief (170-page) book deals, in part, with the extraction of religion from major parts of Israeli Jewish life, but Hartman believes that the Zionist revolution was "upset by the failure of secular liberalism to become the exclusive basis of Jewish self-understanding in the twentieth century and by the Holocaust's destruction of the large potential base of a secular aliyah." The middle chapters analyze the philosophical perspectives of two giants of the Middle Ages: Yehuda Halevi and Moses Maimonides.

     Then in Chapter Five, Hartman puts forth his conviction that for the sake of Jewish continuity modern Israel needs a more inclusive and inviting means of engaging its secular elements. He minces no words in criticizing Orthodox religious and political leaders: "The oddity of their religious posture vis-à-vis the secular community is due to their failure to grasp the extent to which Jewish consciousness has changed." He calls for opening up a discussion on the tradition of the Jews with the secular population but without making the assumption that those secular Jews are stepping forth on the road to teshuvah (repentance). He states: "A discussion concerning the Jewish tradition is open-ended. We do not know beforehand what direction such a discussion will take or how the tradition will speak to the diverse temperaments and sensibilities. . . .The crucial issue is how Jews who are not prepared for a leap of faith and are far removed from a commitment to Halakhah and rabbinic authority can be encouraged to reengage with Jewish traditional texts and feel intellectually empowered to participate in Judaism's ongoing interpretive tradition."

[IFSHJ believes that by studying traditional texts from a secular and historic perspective, we can learn from our history.]

[Notes by Francine Weinberg, a member of The City Congregation for Humanistic Judaism, New York City; March 2001]

New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000. ISBN 0-300-08378-5.

$18.50

To order through Powell's Books, click here. (A portion of this electronic purchase will be contributed to IFSHJ)

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