Exploring the fundamental harmony along the continuum between scientific inquiry and religion, the authors of this text examine a series of encompassing issues such as purity, perception, authority, precision, and the supernatural comparing how each is handled in the realm of science, art/poetry and Jewish scholarship. The result of the study provides a range of contemporary values that arrive at a respect and appreciation for the underlying unity of all knowledge.
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Editorial Reviews
Review
A felicitous meeting between an Israeli engineer and an American chemist who is also a Nobel Laureate has produced one of the most unique books the reviewer has come across in years...This is my nomination for the 1997 National Jewish Book Award. -- The Western Jewish Bulletin, November 7, 1997
If you like detective stories, or crossword puzzles, or intellectual games, you're missing pleasure by not reading it. -- Endeavor, Vol.22, 1998
The authors have presented a well-written, concise, and thoroughly enjoyable reconciliation of the old, the new, and the scientific...All in all, the book is a new flask filled with some very fine old wine. -- San Francisco Viewpoint, Sept.19, 1997
The complexity of the book mirrors the complexity of truth itself. Bits of science and Jewish lore are tossed together with poems and diagrams of chemical structure and correspondence between the authors and colleagues, e-mail discussions, scripture, basic lessons on physics, law and art. The authors don't apologize for this lack of focus, though readers may find it frustrating. "We tell stories, inherently digressive the way real life is," they write. Their digressions are enchanting, but sometimes they play in too many different keys at once. -- The Los Angeles Times Sunday Book Review, K. C. Cole
This book will read with pleasure by those who adjure the simplistic, enjoy complex ideas, and have abandoned hope for definitive answers for unanswerable questions. -- Endeavor, Vol.22, 1998
This is a very different kind of book, often insightful, occasionally hillarious, never dull. We recommend it for those who live either within the world of science or the world of Judaism and would like to walk - or dance- on a bridge that has been constructed to connect the two. -- St. Louis Jewish Light, February 18, 1998
Throughout, Old Wine, New Flasks is a remarkable blending of earnestness and playfulness, learning and imagination, prose and poetry, rigorous scientific thinking and critical humanistic considerations. Indeed, the book is a validation of the philosophy of Torah U-Madda, of the union of Judaism and culture, religion and secularism. -- The New Leader, March 9-23, 1998
If you like detective stories, or crossword puzzles, or intellectual games, you're missing pleasure by not reading it. -- Endeavor, Vol.22, 1998
The authors have presented a well-written, concise, and thoroughly enjoyable reconciliation of the old, the new, and the scientific...All in all, the book is a new flask filled with some very fine old wine. -- San Francisco Viewpoint, Sept.19, 1997
The complexity of the book mirrors the complexity of truth itself. Bits of science and Jewish lore are tossed together with poems and diagrams of chemical structure and correspondence between the authors and colleagues, e-mail discussions, scripture, basic lessons on physics, law and art. The authors don't apologize for this lack of focus, though readers may find it frustrating. "We tell stories, inherently digressive the way real life is," they write. Their digressions are enchanting, but sometimes they play in too many different keys at once. -- The Los Angeles Times Sunday Book Review, K. C. Cole
This book will read with pleasure by those who adjure the simplistic, enjoy complex ideas, and have abandoned hope for definitive answers for unanswerable questions. -- Endeavor, Vol.22, 1998
This is a very different kind of book, often insightful, occasionally hillarious, never dull. We recommend it for those who live either within the world of science or the world of Judaism and would like to walk - or dance- on a bridge that has been constructed to connect the two. -- St. Louis Jewish Light, February 18, 1998
Throughout, Old Wine, New Flasks is a remarkable blending of earnestness and playfulness, learning and imagination, prose and poetry, rigorous scientific thinking and critical humanistic considerations. Indeed, the book is a validation of the philosophy of Torah U-Madda, of the union of Judaism and culture, religion and secularism. -- The New Leader, March 9-23, 1998
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Talmudical,
By
This review is from: Old Wine, New Flasks: Reflections on Science and Jewish Tradition (Hardcover)
Indeed the style employed by the authors can in some ways be compared to that of the Talmud, which is an encyclopedia of Jewish law but often works quite associatively in presenting information. The authors have explored the synthetist view (also voiced by Maimonides and many contemporary orthodox Jewish scientists) that religion MUST BE reconcilable with scientific findings, even though they might not be at first glance. The Jewish sources are well researched. An intriguing read.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The book has a mind widening effect,
By A Customer
This review is from: Old Wine, New Flasks: Reflections on Science and Jewish Tradition (Hardcover)
Roald Hoffmann and Shira Leibowitz have worked together long and hard with a very ambitious project in mind, that is to establish or, better said, search and show possible connections between two of human cultural enterprises, religion (specifically Jewish religion) and science (particularly Chemistry).Sh. Leibowitz's deep knowledge of the byblical books and commentaries, and R.Hoffmann's extensive knowledge in Chemistry, Physics, Art, and Poetry, make up a very rich treasure box from where they have picked up different items, which then they developed as trees with many branches, by connecting or associating ideas. The tree metaphor also helps to express the divergent nature of their writing, without a specific idea to lay out, expose, prove, or simply develop. This characteristic in the process of the writing and specially the selection of items (somewhat by chance it seems), leaves the reader too much to himself, finding value in the text by his or her own wonderings, given that there is no conclusion established for the various links. It is a different style, most writers aim to convince, they guide the reader with frequent reminders as returning to the point of departure, or flashbacks to see the path followed. In this book R.H and Sh.L. only draw a picture with elements of two cultures, they express an open minded view of reality, and of knowledge, as something that is built by each person with the materials at hand. It's difficult to say what is it that one has learned after reading them, in the classical way, but there is a feeling of having travelled from the beginning of man's thought through the minds of many thoughtful men and women till our days, there is a feeling of the mind widenning, of an alertness that was not there before.
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