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Judaism as a Civilization: Toward a Reconstruction of American-Jewish Life

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This is the book that began the evolution of modern American Jewish life as it has developed. Kaplan analyzes the movements that have shaped modern Judaism, and explains why none of them alone can address the needs of contemporary American Jews. His ideas, written over 50 years ago, have influenced all other movements, as well as giving birth to the Reconstructionist movement. This is a book that every thinking American Jew must read, whether you end up agreeing or disagreeing with his views. The fact that he had his feet in three of the four movements in American Jewish life (he was rabbi of an Orthodox synagogue and involved in the early days of the Young Israel movement, taught at Jewish Theological Seminary (Conservative), and was the founder of Reconstructionism) gives him insights into each group.

Mordecai Menahem Kaplan (1881-1983), was a rabbi, essayist and Jewish educator, and the founder of Reconstructionist Judaism. He also wrote books such as The Meaning of God in Modern Jewish Religion, Judaism in Transition, and The Purpose and Meaning of Jewish Existence; a People in the Image of God.

He wrote in the Preface to this 1934 book, "The lack of controversial writing about Judaism... does not mean that there is inward peace in Israel; it betokens the peace of stagnation. This spiritual stagnation in America must be disturbed, and if some of the views expressed in this book will produce the slightest ripple in American-Jewish thinking, the book will have served a useful purpose."

Here are some quotations from the book:

"(T)he future of Judaism demanded that all Jewish teaching and practical activity be based on the proposition that the Jewish religion existed for the Jewish people and not the Jewish people for the Jewish religion." (Pg. xii)
"The Jews who represent the most vital and promising element in Jewry today are those to whom Judaism is a problem." (Pg. 83)
"(T)he task now before the Jew is to save the otherness of Jewish life; the element of unlikeness will take care of itself." (Pg. 178)
"By placing Judaism within the category of civilizations we shall know how to fit it into the framework of the modern social order... Judaism... has functioned as a civilization throughout its career, and it is only in that capacity that it can function in the future." (Pg. 180)
"The likelihood that... the Jews will be accorded national status is not so remote as it may seem." (Pg. 239)
"This means that for the Jews no progressive corporate life anywhere is possible without the establishment of a national home in Palestine." (Pg. 173)
"(T)he Jewish civilization cannot survive without the God-idea as an integral part of it, but it is in no need of having any specific formulation of that idea authoritative for all Jews." (Pg. 394)
"At the same time, a beginning should be made toward evolving a mode of worship which conforms with the conception of Judaism as a modern, spiritual civilization." (Pg. 430)

Mordecai Kaplan's Judaism and Civilization is the most important work in Jewish Theology published in the 20th century--it's too bad it's out of print.