Conscience: The Duty to Obey and the Duty to Disobey [Hardcover]

Harold M. Schulweiss (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 2008

At this critical moment in our nation's-and the world's-history, we are called sharply but lovingly to think in new ways about our moral and political behavior by Harold Schulweis, one of America's great spiritual leaders. Like the biblical prophets, he speaks to people of all faiths, all backgrounds in this call for renewal of conscience.

"The urgent challenge for religion is to provide religious groups with the resources needed to resist immoral authority. Religion is morally obligated to instill the sanctity of conscience that may balance the culture of obedience with the culture of moral disobedience.... Organized religion appears unable to envision the interdependent coexistence of obedience and disobedience, a time to obey and a time to disobey."

A provocative book, it examines the idea of conscience and the role conscience plays in our relationships to law, ethics, religion, human nature and God-and to each other. From Abraham to Abu Ghraib, from the dissenting prophets to Darfur, he probes history, the Bible and the works of contemporary thinkers for ideas about both critical disobedience and uncritical obedience, illuminating the potential for evil and the potential for good that rests within us as individuals and as a society.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this articulate and cogent treatise, Schulweis, longtime congregational rabbi and founding chairman of the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous, argues that acts of disobedience can be appropriate and moral when law violates conscience. Referencing the Midrash, Bible and Talmud, he argues that both the popular understanding of God as a being who cannot be contradicted and of Judaism as a religion that requires uncompromising obedience to authority is mistaken. Throughout Jewish history, he explains, rabbis have created ingenious legal maneuvers to eliminate laws they found unconscionable, such as making capital punishment so difficult to implement that it became obsolete. Furthermore, God's engagement with humanity, most famously his interaction with Abraham before he destroys Sodom, indicates a willingness for confrontations promoting morality and righteousness. Schulweis's broad knowledge is evident as he intersperses biblical anecdotes with philosophical theories, as is his ability to make his thesis relevant by including material on the Holocaust and references to Abu Ghraib. Whether religious or not, readers concerned with the culture of mindless complicity will find this volume revealing and enlightening. (Nov.)
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From Booklist

The book analyzes the idea of conscience and the role it plays in our relationships to law, ethics, religion, human nature, and God—as well as to each other. Schulweis delves into history, the Bible, and the works of many contemporary scholars, looking for great ideas about critical disobedience and what he labels uncritical obedience. His goal is to interpret and understand the potential for evil and the potential for good in us and in our society. Schulweis has given us a readable treatment of some difficult issues. --George Cohen

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 131 pages
• Publisher: Jewish Lights Publishing; Hardcover Ed edition (October 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1580233759
• ISBN-13: 978-1580233750
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,225,404 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A case for conscience as the source of common ground, October 30, 2008

By 

Maxwell Grant (Pelham, NY) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Conscience: The Duty to Obey and the Duty to Disobey (Hardcover)

Drawing on Scripture, Talmud, history and literature, Rabbi Harold Schulweis has written a short book that celebrates the role of conscience as the essence of religion -- both in Judaism, specifically and religion, generally.

Highly readable with short chapters and "pull quotes" (those boxes with a quotation from the text set in the margin of a page), the book seems designed for faith-based study groups in synagogues. Schulweis writes very clearly and uses quotations thoughtfully -- even a group with people of different ages and from very different walks of life would be able to read it together easily.

Schulweis argues emphatically against a literal reading of Scripture. Specifically, he shows how Judaism has a rich tradition of reading the Bible that is willing to challenge even the words on the page in the name of the values that God stands for. Even explicit laws can be retired in the name of deeper principles.

The challenge for faithful people, he argues, is to seek to live under the direction of those deeper principles, and to build a world that is based upon them.

It is a good book, but not a great one. Simply, it is too short, and it leaves the reader wanting more...actually, a little too much more.

Nevertheless, fans of Schulweis' work, especially the magnificent "For Those Who Can't Believe," will be glad to have another useful, thought provoking volume to add to their libraries.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A great moral leader's wonderful words, February 16, 2009

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A. S. Krantz (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Conscience: The Duty to Obey and the Duty to Disobey (Hardcover)

Rabbi Harold Schulweis is one of the greatest living rabbis. His insights on human behavior, morality and G-d are valuable for Jew and Gentile alike. This slim book is a pleasure to read. I am privileged to call him my rabbi and have a signed copy of his great book.

4.0 out of 5 stars Conscience: How Jewish Law, traditional Jewish sources and conscience interact, February 26, 2011

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Michael Brochstein (New York, NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Conscience: The Duty to Obey and the Duty to Disobey (Hardcover)

If you just wish to know simple straightforward halakha (Jewish law) then don't bother with this book. If you wish to see ways that conscience can play a role then read this book. It draws from traditional Jewish sources as well as others. It is a bit too short and I wished the early sections were more fleshed out. Still, definitely worth reading if this subject interests you.