Finding God: Ten Jewish Responses [Paperback]

Rifat Sonsino (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1986 | ISBN-10: 0807403121 | ISBN-13: 978-0807403129

This is a book about God, specifically about the different ways Jews have spoken of God throughout history. In its examination of 4,000 years of Jewish thought, it presents the broad spectrum of theological opinions that have been explored and affirmed by great Jewish thinkers, ancient and modern. Many Jews today avoid speaking about God. Unable to accept the traditional notions presented to them as authoritative, they often turn to other faiths or cults that offer the possibility of spiritual expression more in keeping with their personal God concept. Unaware of the variety within Judaism, they abandon their religious community in the mistaken impression that their longing for God cannot be satisfied within the faith of their ancestors. In this book, the authors skillfully present ten distinct Jewish theological perspectives, each of which has something to say to us today about our lives as individuals and as Jews. Each grapples with the following crucial questions: What is God? Is there more than one God? What is God's name? How can we know God? What is God's relationship to the world? Does God have a special relationship with the Jewish people? What does God "want" from us? How does God relate to me? Why is there evil in the world? "If we make it possible for one Jew to reclaim his or her Jewish spiritual identity, " the authors write, "if we help others to begin to talk about God without ambivalence or embarrassment, if we serve as a catalyst for further study of these and other Jewish thinkers, we will consider our work worthwhile."

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 140 pages
• Publisher: Urj Pr (March 1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807403121
• ISBN-13: 978-0807403129
• Product Dimensions: 17 x 5.8 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #926,537 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Judaism does encompass many conceptions of the nature of God, February 16, 2000

By 

Gabriel Appleman - See all my reviews

This review is from: Finding God: Ten Jewish Responses (Hardcover)

Today the vast majority of American Jews are not Orthodox. Judaism does not have a fixed creed which tells us exactly how we must understand the nature of God and what we should expect of Him. There is a Rabbinic vision of the nature of God, but Jews who are not Orthodox and many who are nominally Conservative are not always comfortable with the Rabbinic vision and, indeed, the Torah says that the form and nature of God cannot be known or understood by man. This book describes ten ways, including the Rabbinic, in which Jews have and still do see God...Some of these infuriate traditional Orthodox Jews, who may equate any concepts other than the Rabbinical as either heresy or atheism, but their condemnation does not invalidate the thought of some of our greatest and best known scholars as described in this book. It is an invaluable reference for the Jew who is seeking a reconciliation between Judaism and his existance in the modern world.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A better concept for a book than it is a book, May 5, 2006

By 

Daniel A. Spiro "Author of The Creed Room and... (Bethesda, MD USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Finding God: Ten Jewish Responses (Hardcover)

Sonsino and Syme are to be congratulated for having the idea to write this book. In a religious community where atheism has come to be seen as a sign of education, open-mindedness and even intelligence, Sonsino and Syme wish to call this trend to a halt. Theirs is but a simple message: never again should we feel compelled to define "God" narrowly in the most traditional theistic terms. Amen to that!

Spiritual Jews throughout the centuries have searched their souls for their own concepts about the existence and nature of God, and have come up with very different answers. It is presumptuous for an Orthodox Jew, for example, to tell followers of Baruch Spinoza or Mordecai Kaplan, "You might THINK you believe in God, but you're really just an atheist. Only MY God is the true God." That attitude is rubbish, as Sonsino and Syme aptly demonstrate.

Ah, but while the idea of this book was wonderful, the execution was less than divine. Sonsino and Syme purport to be describing ten different concepts of God that Jews have adopted over the years. But the depictions are dry, uninspired and ultimately uncompelling -- or at least that was my reaction.

What the authors should have done is identified ten brilliant writers, or at least gifted minds, who actually believe in these ten Gods and have them explain why they've adopted those views. As it is, too many readers will come away from this book wondering why anyone believes in ANY of these Gods, which I can't imagine was the authors' intent, given that they are both rabbis.

4.0 out of 5 stars God through the ages, February 2, 2012

By 

Eric Maroney (Trumansburg, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Finding God: Ten Jewish Responses (Hardcover)

Most people's notions of God, if they even have any, are stunted at the level of children: that of the big man in the sky. Of course, with this idea, there is a limit to spiritual or religious growth. This form of God, in my opinion, leads people away from religion and what they consider its puerile notions of God and the divine.

Finding God: Ten Jewish Responses by Rifat Sonsion and Daniel B. Syme lays out many different concepts of God throughout the length of Jewish history. There is the God of the Bible, Rabbinical literature, Philo of Alexandria, Maimonides, Isaac Luria, Spinoza, Martin Buber, Steinberg, Kaplan, and Fromm. This is not a long book, 132 pages of text, so it is commendable that the authors have distilled so complex an array of thinkers in so short a space. This is difficult to do, yet they accomplished it smoothly.

For readers looking to expand their notions of God without getting too technical or diving into primary literature, this book is an excellent resource.