The Way Into Encountering God in Judaism [Paperback]

Neil Gillman (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In 4,000 years of reading, writing, and talking, Jews have imagined countless images of God. The Way into Encountering God in Judaism is an introductory survey of this imaginative tradition. Neil Gilman, a philosophy professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, freely asserts that that "nothing that we human beings say about God or God's activities in the world is literally true." Given that, Gilman asserts, "To think and talk of God ... is to think and talk metaphorically. We must make our peace with that conclusion and then trace its implications." The image of God as presented in the Bible and in Jewish tradition is "a complex metaphorical system" whose main characteristics are plurality and fluidity. The metaphors change over time, as God's people come to understand God in new ways. (Feminists, for example, have questioned or rejected male images of God; Jews living after the Holocaust have questioned or rejected the notion of a God who is "beneficent, caring, all-powerful, and, above all, just.") The chapters highlight traditional understandings of God, such as "God Is Person," "God Is Nice (Sometimes)," "God Is Not Nice (Sometimes)." And Gilman peppers his clear, accessible, survey with more contemporary thoughts, such as the idiosyncratic, beautiful idea of a theological student who thinks of God as Fred Astaire (and herself as Ginger Rogers).

When we miss a step, it's always my fault. He dances in flats; I have to dance in heels; he's on the ceiling, I'm on the floor; he can be late, I can't. He pinches me in the clinches; I mustn't. And Cyd Charisse is waiting for me to fail. But when we get it together, it's sheer ecstasy.

--Michael Joseph Gross --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

This audacious exploration of the Jewish concept of God squarely faces many contradictions and conundrums. Gillman, a professor of Jewish philosophy at Jewish Theological Seminary, won the National Jewish Book Award for Sacred Fragments: Recovering Theology for the Modern Jew. He begins by asking how humans can describe God if He is ultimately unknowable. Our common conception of God in human terms is metaphorical thinking, according to Gillman; when it comes to actual knowledge, "we are all agnostics. We know nothing." Moreover, "there is no way of proving objectively and conclusively that God exists." Gillman's ensuing discussion of monotheism leads to the paradox that God is simultaneously powerful and vulnerable--caring and loving, but also distant and cruel. Gillman cautions that since we cannot know God's essence, these attributes represent our own feelings. He explores human suffering through creative analyses of the Book of Job, the martyrdom of Rabbi Akiva and the Holocaust, leading to the admittedly unsatisfactory conclusion that acts of God are "beyond human understanding." Finally, Gillman takes up revelation and redemption, considering the issue of the Jews as the "chosen people" and juxtaposing liberal with traditionalist views. His examination of texts brings him to accept inconsistencies and to highlight discrepancies between popular images of God and God's portrayal in classical Jewish sources. Gillman has made a significant contribution here.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 205 pages
• Publisher: Jewish Lights Publishing (February 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1580231993
• ISBN-13: 978-1580231992
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,157,483 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good analyses of both traditional and nontraditionl views, May 19, 2005

By 

David E. Levine (Peekskill , NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Way into Encountering God in Judaism (Hardcover)

I have had the privilege of hearing Rabbi Gillman lecture. For years, he has been a distinguished faculty member at the Jewish Theological Seminary and his less traditional image of God is well known to those who have read his writings or heard his lectures. In this book, one of the views of God that he discusses is that of Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan. This image is that God is the Power which leads us to do good and the Power that leads us to salvation. God is more a process than a being. I once asked Rabbi Gillman if, under this view, there would be a God if there were no human beings. His insightful answer was that humankind did not invent God but discovered God. Therefore, God is not a presence who reveals Himself (Gillman, by the way, avoids using masculine pronouns to refer to God) but nonetheless exists independently of humanity. Our views of God in human terms as having emotions, being a personal God, etc. are metaphors to understanding God, who is otherwise incomprehensible. In this book, Gillman discusses this image of "discovering" God.

Gillman surveys the more traditional images of God. He sees the development of these images as delveloping from a God who instantly seeks to punish sins, such as the punishment of Adam and Eve, and the punishment of Cain after killing Able, to a God who may delay or postpone punishment, to the image of God who, through repentence, cancels punishment completely, such as when the people of Nineveh repented in the book of Jonah.

Obviously, very orthodox Jews will have a different image of God than will, e.g., a reconstructionsit Jew so, it is not possible to define what the current image of God is. However, Bishop John Shelby Sprong, in his book "Sins of Scripture, best summarizes the non traditional view that Gillman sets forth: "theism is not God, it is nothing but a human definition if God --- and a radically inadequate one at that. When theism dies God does not die, but a human definition of God does." This liberal Christian view of Bishop Sprong is a good description of a nontraditional Jewish image. Rabbi Gillman has done a great service in, relatively few pages, making both traditional and less tradtional images of God understandable.

5.0 out of 5 stars A real gem for Christians too, June 5, 2011

By 

Nadobabo "1kwonbook" (Andover, MA United States) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Way into Encountering God in Judaism (Way Into...) (Kindle Edition)

May God be pleased!

Because of the title of this book, people of a Christian persuasion, like me, may get easily dissuaded from picking it up and have chance to read. Please do NOT get turned off.

This book is one of rare gems that I have found in a decade of reading hundreds of diverse books from arts to zoo, relativity to religion. I bought one, hard-cover used book at a very 'easy' price ;-). And as I'm reading, I also bought a Kindle edition, too.

If you ever talk or think about 'God', don't go without reading this marvelous writing of the author, - it like like reading a narrative. That "God is a person" has been simply a metaphysical rote statement unrelated with the real life, to bring a response like 'O, yah?'. Think of it - in the hand of the Almighty even our Sun, which is the source of all energy in our physical and biological sphere, is only a speck of dust among the creation. Now I come to realize and can affirmatively articulate why and how such awesome and unfathomable God should come as a living person who cares about me and all people - (forget about the gentile vs. the Judaic) - as revealed in Tanakh (Old Testament). Thank you Neil so much for this gift from your heart, and hats off to the publisher.

If I had a fund, I would simply give away to everyone who loves reading books. Compared to this book, such books, like 'The Purpose-Driven Life' (by Rick Warren), 'The Shack' (William P. Young), 'The Prayer of Jabez' (by Bruce Wilkinson), along with 'The Message' (by Eugene Peterson) which disguises and sells like a hot cake as a Bible translation, but nothing more than baloney par excellence - all made the authors rich and powerful indeed - are NOT BETTER than a pile of trash in a recycle bin to be hauled away.

5.0 out of 5 stars Well written and comprehensive, January 2, 2010

By 

MARK LIEBERMAN - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Way into Encountering God in Judaism (Way Into...) (Kindle Edition)

This clear and well written book covers Judaism largely from a Conservative or Reform Jewish point of view. The author, a theology professor, is much more rigorous than, say, Harold Kushner, but he has a very distinct point of view. For example, the book contains a chapter on how "God Isn't Nice" and how God makes mistakes. If you know from the beginning that this viewpoint is anathema to you, then avoid the book. If either you accept the viewpoint or you reject it but find it nonetheless interesting, then you will find this book challenging and rewarding.