Customer Reviews

A Concise Guide to Judaism: History, Practice, Faith

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It might be futile and meaningless to write a review on an out-of-print book. But I had to respond to the indefensible critique by Mr. Silver in the Library Journal review excerpted above. For the record, I am a college teacher; the tradition of Judaism, broadly considered, was one of my major fields of study in graduate school.

This is the best, most succinct introduction to Judaism I have ever used. It restates complex judgments of scholarship in simple language. I do not understand Mr. Silver's complaint about organization: it is a straightforward historical one, the best one to use in introducing Judaism. After an introductory chapter, he looks at
*Ancient Israel
*The Hebrew Scriptures (their basic content, their later use in the tradition)
*The Development of Judaism (distinct from ancient Israel)
*The Rabbinic Writings (the development of the Talmudim)
*Philosophy and Mysticism (both of which developed after the rabbinic tradition)
*Modern Judaism
*The Jewish Household (Prayer, Sabbath, Kosher, etc.)
*the Calendar and Holy Days

--A preeminently coherent presentation.

He complains about two inaccuracies: monotheism and Rosenzweig. I agree that Rabbi Rosenberg's presentation of the latter is not very insightful or coherent, but that would not make any difference to the typical user or reader of such a text as this. I reread the pages having to do with monotheism, I simply don't see what he was objecting to, unless it be a moderate use of the historical-critical method in explaining how monotheism came about. Again, Rabbi Rosenberg's explanation, although necessarily condensed and elliptical in referring to the salient issues, is still defensible today.

I very much wish it was back in print.