Arguments for the Sake of Heaven: Emerging Trends in Traditional Judaism

Overview

What is the future of the Jewish people? In Arguments for the Sake of Heaven, Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi Elect of the United Hebrew Congregations of the British Commonwealth, explores the contemporary issues that are influencing Judaism and the controversies that are affecting its destiny.

Index

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A

• Abarbanel, Isaac, I89-190
• Abram, 81-82
• Achad ha-Am (Asher Ginsberg), 71, 106
• Adler, Nathan Marcus, 46
• The Affluent Society (Galbraith), 249
• After Virtue (MacIntyre), 200-201
• Agudat Yisrael, 50, 56-57, 129
• Aliyah
  • rates of, 91-92
  • a religious obligation, 19
• Alkalai, Yehudah, 35
• Alter, Aryeh Leb (the Sefat Emet), 174
• America
  • aliyah rates of, 91-92
  • Conservative Judaism in, 126
  • immigration to, 73-74
  • Orthodoxy in, 126-128
  • Reform Judaism in, 125-126
  • teshuvah in, 70
• American Jewry, 105-106, 125
  • ethos of, 116-117
  • and intermarriage, 113-114
• Amital, Yehudah, 178
• Anglo-Jewry, 233-234, 240
• Anomic, 72
• Anti-Semite and Jew (Sartre), 97-98
• Anti-Semitism
  • and anti-Zionism, 103
  • early warning on, 83
  • and identity, 103-104
  • nineteenth-century, 33
  • persistence of, 67-68
• Anti-Zionism, 172-175
• Arama, Isaac, 188, 190
• Argument
  • continuities of 204-207
  • diversity and dialogue in, 203- 204
  • process of, 202, 221-224
  • recovery of, 225-228, 253-255
  • tradition as, 200-215
• Aries, Philippe, 137
• Assimilation, 245
  • and assimilationism, 147-158
  • drive to, 64-66
  • paradox of, 68-70
  • and prejudice, 67
  • revolution against, 220-221
• Auto-emancipation (Pinsker), 80

B

• Baal Shem Tov (R. Israel b. Eliezer), 36, 44
• Balfour Declaration, 173
• Beliefs and Opinions (Saadia Gaon), 198
• Ben-Gurion, David, 77, 120, 129
• Berdyczewski, Mischa, 51
• Berger, Peter, 72, 84, 89, 137, 166
• Berkovits, Eliezer, 167, 196
• Berlin, Irving, 74
• Berlin, Isaiah, 33
• Berlin, Naftali, 56
• Bernays, Isaac, 46
• Bettelheim, Bruno, 138
• Bialik, Chaim Nachman, 51, 65, 151
• “Biblical criticism,” 41
• Birth rates, 88-91, 136
• Bittul Torah, 165
• Bleich, David, 121
• Boerne, Ludwig, 64
• Borowicz, Eugene, 141, 150, 210
• Borrowed Time (Jackont), 93
• Breuer, Isaac, 130, 173
• Breuer, Mordecai, 178
• Breuer, Solomon, 163
• Buber, Martin, 22, 69
• Bulka, Reuven, 119
• Burke, Edmund, 211

C

• Central Conference of American Rabbis, 118
• Chajes, Zvi Hirsch, 30-31, 117, 133
• Chasidism
  • as alternative culture, 44-45
  • in America, 127
  • functional equivalent of, 57
  • vitality of, 69
• Children, roles of, 137-138
• Children of the Dream (Bettelheim), 138
• Christianity, conversion to, 27-28, 67-68
• “Civil religion,” 71, 151, 211
• Clermont-Tonnerre, Count, 21-22
• Cohen, Shaye D., 118
• Cohen, Steven M., 74, 89, 109, 118
• Compartmentalized identity, 50, 166-167
• Conflict, continuities of, 204-207
• Conservative Judaism, 30
  • in America, 126
  • birth of, 211-212
• Conversion
  • to Christianity, 27-28, 67-68
  • and intermarriage, 118
  • to Judaism, 100-101, 120-121
• Counterassimilation, 70
• Covenant, the, 185-186
• Covenantal crisis, 187-190
• Covenantal interactions, 57-59
• Covenantal renewal, 190-192
  • and reunification of Torah and the Jewish people, 194
• Creation, unity of, 52-53
• Cuddihy, John Murray, 76, 101
• Cults, 71
• “Cultural” Zionism, 71
• Culture, sanctification of, 53

D

• Daas Torah, 132-133
• Darwinism, 247-249
• Dawidowicz, Lucy, I02
• Destiny, 94-96
• Dialogue with dissent, 251-252
• Diaspora or exile, 104-106
• Disraeli, Benjamin, 25
• Diversity and dialogue, 203-204
• Divorce, 89-90, 117
• Don-Yehiyah, Eliezer, 79, 103, 151
• Durkheim, Emile, 71-72
• “Duty of separation,” 46
• Dynasties, 57

E

• Eckardt, A. Roy, 78
• Edict of Tolerance (Joseph II), 42
• Educational models, 163-165
• Elazar, Daniel, 127-128
• Elijah (the Vilna Gaon), 42-44
• Emancipation collective, 33
  • as conversion to secular citizenship, 63
  • death of, 81
  • declined, 54
  • and the “duty of separation,” 46
  • and end of exile, 53
  • Jewish response to, 25-33
  • and models of modernity, 44-45
  • and the sense of family, 243
  • spiritual challenge of, 47
• Eretz Yisrael, 52
• Essenes, 95
• Ethics, individual, 165-166
• Ethnicity, 73-76
• Ettlinger, Jacob, 46
• Euchel, Isaac, 44
• Excommunication, 25-26
• Exile
  • diaspora or, 104-106
  • doubts and conflicts of, 52-53
  • end of, 53
  • as precarious imbalance, 90-91

F

• Fackenheim, Emil, 79, 99-101, 141
• Faith, suffering as trial of, 101
• Family
  • kibbutz vision of, 138
  • traditionaI, 137
• Family ties, 241-244
• Fasman, Oscar, 123
• Fein, Leonard, 103, 128
• Fiddler on the Roof, 86
• Folk Judaism, 217
• Frankel, Zechariah, 30, 48, 211-212
• Freud, Sigmund, 25, 64, 138
• Friedlander, David, 27-28
• Friedmann, Georges, 74
• Frost, Robert, 107
• Fundamentalism, 71
• Furtado, Abraham, 39

G

• Galbraith, John Kenneth, 249
• Geiger, Abraham, 31, 46
• Generational continuity, 84
• Ginsberg, Asher, 71
• Glazer, Nathan, 110, 115
• Goldscheider, Calvin, 74-75, 88-89, 109-111, 114, 139
• Goldstein, Alice, 88
• Gordon, A. D., 151
• Gordon, Judah Leib, 25, 65
• Greenberg, Blu, 197
• Greenberg, Irving, 119, 167, 189, 196
• Guide of the Perplexed ( Maimonides), 198, 205-206, 224
• Gush Emunim, 130-131, 177

H

• Habits of the Heart, 142
• Ha-Cohen, Israel Meir (the Chafetz Chayyim), 123-124, 174
• Ha-Cohen, Meir Simcha (the Ohr Sameach), 173-174
• Halevi, Judah, 36
• Halkin, Hillel, 90
• Harkabi, Yehoshafat, 36, 131
• Hartman, David, 167, 196, 251
• Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 41
• Heilman, Samuel, 63, 88-89, 166
• Heine, Heinrich, 27, 64
  • baptism of, 68
• Helmreich, William, 164
• Herberg, Will, 71, 115
• Hertzberg, Arthur, 64, 87
• Herzl, Theodor, 36, 150, 156
• Hess, Moses, 33-37, 69, 83, 190
• Hildesheimer, Azriel, 55
• Himmelfarb, Milton, 78
• Hirschenhohn, Chaim, 195-196
• Hirsch, Samson Raphael, 3, 31, 43, 45-50, 58, 141, 170
  • education of, 46
  • on emancipation, 46–47
  • orthodoxy of, 48-50, 159, 179-181, 192-193
  • and secular culture, 161
  • on Zionism, 50
• Historical process, 221-225
• History of the Jews (Johnson), 94-96
• Hitler, defiance of, 99-101
• Holdheim, Samuel, 31-32, 117
• Holocaust, 77, 81
  • and Israel, 102-104
  • and Jewish identity, 101-103
  • memories of, 78
  • and survival of Judaism, 99-101
• Horeb (Hirsch), 46
• Hutner, Isaac, 175

I

• Ideal, as moderation or extreme, 178-180
• Identity, 16-17
• Immigration to America, 73-74
• Institutional logic, 151-153
• Interdependence, paradoxes of, 106-108
• Intermarriage, 85-87, 113-114, 117-118, 136
• In the Land of Israel (Oz), 102
• Israel, 66
  • as affirmation of life, 78-79
  • birth of, 77
  • character and destiny of, 94-96
  • and diaspora Jewry, 77-80, 107
  • dilemmas of, 90-93
  • the Holocaust and, 102-104
  • identification with, 104-106, 108, 216-217
  • Orthodoxy in, 128- 131
  • and personal status, 119-121

J

• Jackont, Amnon, 93
• Jacob, children of, 248
• Jakobovits, I., 121, 160, 178
• Jerusalem (Mendelssohn), 25-26
• The Jewish Catalog, 209-210
• Jewish Darwinism, 247-249
• Jewish education, 47
• Jewish family, 88-90
• Jewish identity, 16-17, 112-114, 186
  • anti-Semitism and, 97-99
  • changes in, 24-38
  • compartmentalized, 50
  • and the covenant, 188-190
  • doubts about, 96
  • dual, 49
  • the Holocaust and, 101-102
  • and identification with Israel, 104-106
  • as a people apart, 22-24
  • the return of particularism, 78-80
  • revival of, 66-76
  • secular, 51-53
  • and the sense of family, 242-244
  • and survival, 121-122
• Jewish Law, constituency of, 194-195
• Jewishness, 109-112
• Jewish peoplehood, 185-186
  • Orthodoxy and, 192-194
  • renewed sense of, 183
  • unity of, 216-217
• Johnson, Paul, 94-96
• Joseph II (Austrian Emperor) 42
• Josephus, 95
• Judaism
  • abandonment of, 74
  • attempts to exorcise, 64
  • “folk,” 217
  • and generational continuity, 84
  • “Germanization” of, 30
  • ideal types within, 205
  • Jewishness and, 109-112
  • normative reinstatement of, 158
  • from Orthodoxy to, 228-230
  • persistence of, 66-68
  • and personal status, 117-119
  • public domain of, 249-250
  • rewriting of, 71
  • “science” of, 65
  • secularized, 115
  • voluntariness of, 26, 43

K

• Kalischer, Zvi Hirsch, 35
• Kant, Immanuel, 42
• Kaplan, Mordecai, 64, 71, 107, 111, 116, 167, 196
• Karelitz, Avraham (the Chazon Ish), 250
• Karo, Joseph, 204
• Kellner, Hansfried, 84
• Kierkegaard, Soren, 168
• Klatzkin, Jacob, 65, 141-142
• Klausner, Joseph, 51
• Knesset Yisrael, 22
  • fate of, 157-158, 249
  • substantive reality of, 250
• Koestler, Arthur, 74, 107
• Kook, Avraham, 50-53, 143, 161-162, 169-170, 176, 180, 251
• Kook, Zvi Yehudah, 131, 176

L

• Landau, Ezekiel, 42
• Langer, Jiri, 69
• Law of Return, 219-220
  • tension surrounding, 120-121
• Lazarus, Emma, 74
• Lebanon War, 139-140
• Leibowitz, Yeshayahu, 107, 178, 195-196, 251
• Leisure, 168
• Lessing, Theodor, 64
• Liberles, Robert, 44
• Lichtenstein, Aharon, 160, 169, 178, 250
• Liebman. Charles, 73, 75, 79, 103-105, 126, 135, 151
• “Life-plans,” 89
• Loewe, Judah (the Maharal), 91
• The Lonely Man of Faith (J. Soloveitchik), 115-116, 198
• Lubavitch, 127

M

• MacIntyre, Alasdair, 200-201, 203, 206
• Maimonides, 36, 84, 198, 202, 204-206, 224, 246
  • Hirsch’s criticism of, 47
  • on leisure, 168
  • on the messianic state, 223
• Marranos, 188, 190
• Marriage, 85-87
• Marx, Karl, 33, 64
• Mason, Jackie, 73
• The Melting Pot (Zangwill), 86-87
• Mendelssohn, Moses, 25-28, 37, 43, 165
• Mensch-Jissroel, 49, 165
• Messianic Zionism, 175-J78
• Messiahs, self-styled, 40
• Michaelis, Johann David, 29
• Mill, John Stuart, 72, 203, 249
• Mirsky, Norman, 116-117, 153
• Mishneh Torah, 202, 223
• Modernity
  • and the human condition, 72
  • resistance to, 55-57
  • rethinking, 140-142
  • Western European models of, 43-45
• Modern Orthodoxy, 48-50, 59, 140-142, 195-197
  • controversial nature of, 197-199
• Mohilever, Samuel, 170-172
• Montefiore, Sir Moses, 35
• Morality, shared public, 72
• Morganbesser, Sidney, 73
• Musar, 57

N

• Nachmanides, 36
• Nachman of Bratslav, 36
• Napoleon Bonaparte, 24
• Napoleonic Sanhedrin, 24, 39
• Nationalism, 71
• Neturei Karta, 175, 177
• Neusner, Jacob, 105-106, 147
• Nietzsche, Friedrich, 41
• Nineteen Letters on Judaism (Hirsch), 46-47
• Nordau, Max, 67-68
• Normalization, 76-78

O

• Orthodoxy, 39, 43, 218
  • in America, 126-128, 148-149
  • and diaspora Zionism, 138-140
  • environment of, l 33-135
  • in Israel, 128-131, 149
  • and the Jewish people, 192-194
  • to Judaism, 228-230
  • literature of, 65
  • modern, 48-50, 59, 140-142, 195-199
  • the radicalization of, 159-182
  • the reemergence of, 123-144
  • tradition, marriage, and the family in, 135-138
  • and uniformity, 213-215
• Oz, Amos, 102, 131

P

• Particularism, 78-80
• Pelikan, Jaroslav, 212
• Personal status, 117-119
• Israel and, 119-121
• Pharisees, 95-96
• Pinsker, Leon, 80, 83
• Pluralism, 154-156
• Polarization, 151-153
• Popper, Karl, 74
• Prejudice, persistence of, 67-68
• Prophecy, task of, 85
• Protestant-Catholic-Jew (Herberg), 71

R

• Rabbinic Judaism, 39-41, 214-215
• Rabinovitch, Nachum, 178, 250
• Rabin, Yitzchak, 93
• Rackman, Emanuel, 167, 196
• Raphael, Frederic, 69
• Reconstructionism, 71, 111-112, 116
• Reform, 217-218
  • in America, 125-126
  • Hirsch’s criticism of, 46-47
  • and intermarriage, 117-118
  • nineteenth-century, 29-32
  • and “normalization,” 76
  • and personal status, 118-119
  • and religious legitimation, 116-117
  • and traditional forms, 79
  • and Zionism, 33-34
• Reines, Isaac, 54, 156, 170-172
• Religious legitimation, 115-117
• Religious returnees, 10
• Religious Zionism, 169-172
• Riskin, Shlomo, 196
• Ritterband, Paul, 89, 92
• Rome and Jerusalem (Hess), 34, 36
• Rosen, Joseph (the Rogachover), 174
• Rosenzweig, Bernard, 169
• Rosenzweig, Franz, 69
• Rotenstreich, Natan, 106
• Rubinstein, Amnon, 77, 103, 131
• Ruppin, Arthur, 88

S

• Saadia Gaon, 40, 113, 179, 198
• Sadducees, 95
• Sage, and prophet, 202
• Samuel, Maurice, 76
• Sartre, Jean Paul, 97-98
• Satmar, 127
• Schiffman, Lawrence, 119
• Scholem, Gershom, 48, 69, 106
• Schwarzschild, Steven, 98
• Schweid, Eliezer, 106-107, 180
• Scruton, Roger, 211
• Secular culture, Torah and, 161-163
• Secular education, 42-43
• Secularization
  • limits of, 70-73
  • secularism and, 149-151
  • and segregation, 180-182
• Self-transcendence, 11-12
• Separation, duty of, 46
• Separation of church and state, 22
• Shabbat
  • proposed transfer of, 30
  • versus vacations, 168
• Shabbatai Zevi, 40-41
• Shechinah, 81, 96
• Shimon bar Yochai, 103-104
• Shimon ben Zemach Duran, 207-208
• Shokeid, Moshe, 92
• Shorter, Edward, 137
• Silberman, Charles, 74, 109
• Simcha, Meir, 250
• Simon, Uriel, 178
• Single-mindedness, 3-4
• Six Day War
  • and Gush Emunim, 130-131
  • “legitimacy crisis” after, 141
  • and religious symbols, 176
  • teshuvah following, 130
• Sklare, Marshall, 128
• Socialism, holy core of, 53
• Social process, 115-117
• Sofer, Moses (the Chatam Sofer), 36, 54-57, 195
• Soloveitchik, Chaim, 56
• Soloveitchik, Joseph, 50, 54, 56, 115-116, 161-162, 166-167, 190, 198-199, 249
• Souls of chaos, 52
• Soviet Jews, 92
• Spinoza, Baruch, 28-29, 64
  • and the secularization of Zionism, 35-37
• Steiner, George, 101, 141, 242
• Steinschneider, Moritz, 65
• Synagogue Life (Heilman), 166
• Syrkin, Nachman, 124, 151

T

• Teitelbaum, Joel (the Satmarer Rebbe), 174
• Teshuvah, 53, 69, 143-144
  • in Israel and America, 70
• Tiktin, Solomon, 45
• Torah and secular culture, 161-163
• Torah im Derekh Eretz, 159-160, 164-171
• Toulmin, Stephen, 162
• Tradition, 135-138
  • as argument, 200-215
  • attempts to rationalize, 55
  • challenges to, 41-43
  • dissent within, 251
  • many voices of, 197-199
  • secularized, 210-211
  • “The State of Orthodoxy,” 160
  • and “tradition,” 207-208
  • vacation paradox in, 167

U

• Uganda proposal, 156
• Uniformity, 213-215

V

• Vacations, 167-168
• Veblen, Thorstein, 64
• Vilna Gaon, the, 3, 36
• Vogel, Manfred, 118
• Volozhiner, Chaim, 56
• Volozhyn Yeshivah, 51, 56
• Voltaire, 32, 63, 80-81
• Voluntary faith and code, 26, 43

W

• Walzer, Michael, 167-168
• Waxman, Chaim, 139
• Weinberg, Yechiel, 227
• Weininger, Otto, 64
• Wessely, Naftali Herz, 42, 44
• Who Was A Jew (Schiffman), 119
• Wiesel, Elie, 189
• Wittgenstein’s ladder, 171-172
• Women, role of, 226-227
• Woocher, Jonathan, 151
• Wurzburger, Walter, 160
• Wyschogrod, Michael, 101, 242

Y

• Yehoshua, A. B., 102, 106
• Yeridah, 92-93
• Yeshivot, 163-165
  • in America, 126-127
  • evolution of, 56-57
  • in Israel, 130

Z

• Zangwill, Israel, 86-87, 156
• Zionism
  • birth of, 32-35
  • “cultural,” 71
  • diaspora, 138-140
  • and interdependence, I06-108
  • messianic, 175-178
  • and normalization, 76-77
  • orthodox dissociation from, 50, 172-175
  • precursors of, 192
  • and Reform Judaism, 79
  • religious, 51-53, 169-172
  • secular, 35-37, 53, 91, 124
  • and the Uganda proposal, 156
• Zunz, Leopold, 65