Crisis and Covenant

Overview

In this pioneering study of Jewish thought, Rabbi Sacks examines how Jews have sought ways back to tradition in an untraditional age. He addresses a crucial dilemma for Jews and Judaism today. The Holocaust and the birth of the state of Israel have combined to create strong contemporary awareness of peoplehood – of Jews as sharing a common history, destiny and responsibility. But can there be peoplehood across the deep religious and cultural divisions that are the heritage of the Jewish encounter with modernity?

He explores the responses of contemporary Jewish thought to this dilemma, through an examination of its understanding of the concepts of covenant and peoplehood; of the nature of religious pluralism within a Jewish context; of the relationship of Jewish law to contemporary society; and of the interpretation of religious texts today – the question of Fundamentalism. Rabbi Sacks assesses the thought of Joseph Soloveitchik, Yeshayahu Leibowitz, Eliezer Berkovitz, Michael Wyschogrod, Irving Greenberg and David Hartman. He reveals the acute inner tensions when a religious tradition collides with modern consciousness.

Crisis and Covenant is essential reading not only for those scholars and students of Jewish thought and modern Jewish history, but for all those concerned with the fate of religious traditions in a secular age.

Index

---

A

• Abarbanel 39, 90
• abortion 152
• Abraham 26-7, 29, 103, 109, 116, 165, 233, 251, 252
• Acha bar Yaakow, Rabbi 262
• activism 59-63
• Aelia Capitolina 60-1
• aggadah 145, 179
• Agudat Yisrael 67, 75
• agunah 91
• Akiva, Rabbi 35, 62, 177, 186, 214, 222, 223, 226, 247
• Albo, Joseph 90
• aleph 187
• Alkalai, Rabbi Yehudah 59, 62, 64, 67
• Alter, Robert 240
• am 138, 140
• American Jews 94-102, 106, 108
• American Reform movement 9, 11, 272
  • Pittsburgh Platform (1885) 15, 58, 102, 147, 151
• Amos 6, 131
• Amram 46
• anti-Semitism 10, 11, 12-14, 26, 63, 87, 95, 118, 119, 234
• anti-Zionism 18, 31, 60, 65-70
• Aristotle 178, 183, 258, 260
• assimilation 10, 44
• atchalta de-ege’ulah 72
• Auerbach, Erich 239, 240
  • ‘Odysseus’ Scar’ 238

B

• ba’alei teshuvah 95, 274
• Babylonian Talmud 145, 155, 160, 164, 221
• Balaam 44
• Bar Kochba rebellion 16, 45, 60, 62, 214
• Barth, Karl 32, 134
• Barthes, Roland 240
• Bayfield, Anthony 158
• Beethoven 26
• Beis Yaakov 169
• Bellah, Robert 101
• Belzer Chassidim 169
• Ben Gurion, David 79, 187, 198
• Bentham, Jeremy 254
• Berdichevski, Micha 64
• Berdyaev, Nicholas 5
• Berger, Peter 95, 102, 103, 212
• Berkovits, Eliezer 37, 40, 162-3, 164, 165, 167, 168, 171, 274
• Berlin, Sir Isaiah 276
• Beruriah 168
• Bet Hatefutsot 120
• Biblical Judaism, contrast with rabbinic Judaism 127-8
• bibliolatry 198
• birth-rates 19, 44, 45, 46, 91
• Bloom, Harold
  • The Anxiety of Influence 237
  • A Map of Misreading 237
• Borochov, Ber 64, 78
• Borowitz, Eugene 103
• Brandeis, Louis 106
• Breuer, Isaac 67
• Breuer, Mordecai 196, 199, 200
• brit goral 137, 138, 139, 140
• brit ye’ ud 137, 139, 140
• Buber, Martin 119, 157-8, 185, 186, 189, 196, 239, 259
• Bundists 118

C

• canonisation 213-16
• Cassutto, Umberto 195
• centrist Orthodoxy 11
• Chanan, Abba 37
• Chanina ben Teradyon, Rabbi 176, 177, 202, 210
• Chassidic movement 10, 46, 47, 65, 66, 247
  • Belzer Chassidim 169
  • Sefer Chassidim 168
• chavurah movement 96
• children of mixed marriages 98
• Childs, Brevard 220, 240
• circumcision 122, 138
• Cohen, Hermann 184-5, 186
• Cohen, Steven M. 94, 96
• Conservative Judaism 148, 151, 158, 160, 184
• covenant 1, 6
  • constitution 170-2
  • and criticism 229-33
  • and refutation 26-9
  • renewing 48-51
  • and universality 263-5
• Cuddihy, John Murray 4, 63, 234

D

• Darwin 256-7
• Dead Sea Scrolls 187, 217
• Della Pergola, Sergio 98
• demography 92
• derash 224
• Descartes 256
• diaspora 1, 18-19, 21, 44, 85-111
• dietary laws 5, 6, 9, 122, 149, 172
• Disraeli, Benjamin 118
• divorce 9, 19, 90-1, 122, 149, 168-70, 172
• Don-Yehiya, Eliezer 101
• Dreyfus affair 13, 64
• Dubnow, Simon 10, 118, 236
• Durkheim, Emile 100, 104, 271

E

• Eckardt, A. Roy 32
• Eger, Rabbi Akiva 58
• Eichmann 261
• Eisen, Arnold 132
• Elazar, Daniel 1, 121, 127, 131, 149
• Elohim 259
• Elya, Reb 42, 43
• emancipation 2, 7-10, 57
• Enlightenment and universality 253-6
• Enoch 190
• epistemological pluralism 191
• Essenes 61, 121
• ethical monotheism 9
• Euclid 271
• euthanasia 152
• excommunication 153
• Exodus 55
• Ezekiel 16, 34, 48, 195, 209
• Ezra 2, 60, 89, 141, 181, 213
• Ezra, Abraham Ibn 183, 224

F

• Fackenheim, Emil 16, 17, 28, 32, 36, 43-6, 92, 123-30, 135, 140, 202, 240, 248, 273, 274
• Falk, Joshua 168
• Final Solution see shoah
• Fisch, Harold 240
  • The Zionist Revolution 94
• Fishbane, Michael 218, 240
• flight from particularism 15
• Frankel, Zechariah 148
• Freehof, Solomon 151
• French Revolution 7, 86
• Freud, Sigmund 8, 14, 237, 271
• Friedmann, Georges; The End of the Jewish People 119
• Frost, Robert 107

G

• galut 18, 105-6, 108, 125, 133
• Gans, Eduard 235
• Gaon, Rav Nissim 263
• Gemeinschaft 4
• German Reform Movement 9, 11, 65
• Gersonides 39, 90
• Gesellschaft 4
• Glazer, Nathan 95
• Goethe 26
• goi 138
• goi kadosh 140
• Goldscheider, Calvin 94, 96, 97, 98, 157
• goral view of history 41, 136
• Gordis, Robert 158, 160-1
• Gordon, A. D. 64, 78
• Graetz, Heinrich 211, 235
• Great Sanhedrin 154, 155
• Green, Arthur 273
• Greenberg, Irving 17, 32, 92, 123, 127-31, 135, 140, 248, 274
• Gush Emunim 72
• Guttman, Julius 202

H

• Ha-Am, Ahad 64, 80, 100, 101, 102, 185, 187, 190
• halakhah 5-6, 9, 22
  • and autonomy 260-3
  • context of 152-7
  • flight from 146-9
  • and Holocaust 41-3
  • and modernity 144-72
  • non-Orthodox attitudes to 157-62
• halakhah le-Moshe mi-Sinai 215
• Halevi, Judah 1, 6, 42, 131, 134, 257, 259
• Halkin, Hillel; Letters to an American Jewish Friend 93
• Halpern, Ben 93
• Haman 28, 35
• Hartman, David 73, 74, 75, 80, 274
• Hartom, Menachem 31
• Hebrew language 10, 59, 81, 273
• Hegel 13, 14, 149, 234, 254, 268, 269
• Heidegger, Martin 134, 261, 269
• Heine, Heinrich 8, 202
• Heinemann, Yitzchak 226
• Herberg, Will 100
• Hertzberg, Arthur 93
• Herzl, Theodor 13, 63, 64, 66, 68
• Heschel, Abraham 186, 189
• Hess, Moses 10, 11, 13, 62
  • Rome and Jerusalem 63
• hester panim 137
• Hillel 223, 247
• Hirsch, Samson Raphael 58, 67, 150, 189, 257
• Hirschensohn, Chaim 193, 194, 196
• historicism 265-7
• Hitler, Adolf 36, 44, 123, 261
• Hobbes, Thomas 79, 254
• Hoffmann, Rabbi David Zvi 195
• Holdheim, Samuel 9, 147
• Holocaust see shoah
• Holzschuher, Friedrich von 14
• Homer 238
• Hume, David 254, 266, 267

I

• ikveta de-meshicha 69
• inheritance 117
• intermarriage 2, 6, 19, 44, 89-90, 96-7
  • children of 98
• Intifada 108
• Isaac 103
• Isaiah 209
• Ish ha-Haiakhah 150
• Ishmael, Rabbi 37, 45, 179, 186, 187, 223, 226, 247
• Israel, State of 54-82, 166
  • immigration 18, 55
  • Six Day War 43, 72, 96, 101, 107, 120, 273
  • State of, birth of 3, 17-18, 21, 33, 34
  • War of Independence 137
• Israel Meir ha-Cohen, Rabbi 35, 66, 169, 179

J

• Jacob 222
• Jacob, Benno 195
• Jacob, Walter 151
• Jacobs, Louis 158, 159, 160, 161
• Jeremiah 27, 115
• Jerusalem Talmud 145, 221
• Jewish Federations 101
• Jewish Theological Seminary of America 152
• Job 46
• Johnson, Paul; A History of the Jews 208, 276
• Josephus 61
• Joshua 141
• Joshua, Rabbi 36

K

• Kalischer, Rabbi Zvi Hirsch 59, 62, 64, 67
• Kant, Immanuel 13, 26, 149, 198, 234, 254-6, 260-5, 268, 269
  • Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals 260
• Kaplan, Mordecai 100, 102, 106, 107, 132, 148, 157, 185
• Kara, Rabbi Joseph 224
• Karaites 154, 180, 195, 201, 217 Karo, Joseph; Shuichan Aruch 164 Kaufman, Yehezkiel 195
• kehillot 117
• Ketubot, tractate of 62
• kiddush ha-chayyim 17
• kiddush ha-Shem 17
• Kisma, Rabbi Jose ben 176, 177 Klatzkin, Jacob 64, 78, 79, 88, 89, 94 Knesset 76, 77, 80
• Knesset Yisrael 119
• Koestler, Arthur 85-6, 94, 110 Kook, Rabbi Abraham Isaac 12, 62,
• 68-9, 72, 88, 89, 139, 140, 190,
• 191, 257 Koran 178 Kovno ghetto 42
• Krochmal, Nachman 235

L

• ‘Lakeville’ study 106
• Lakish, Rabbi Simeon ben 179
• Lamm, Rabbi Norman 39
• Lebanon campaign (1982) 108
• Leibowitz, Yeshayahu 74-5, 103, 104, 146, 162, 164-8, 171, 196-200, 274
• Levi, Rabbi Joshua ben 156
• Lichtenstein, Aharon 73, 74, 75
• Liebman, Charles 99-100, 101, 107
  • The Ambivalent American Jew 93
• Loewe, Raphael 224
• Lutheranism 198
• Luzzatto, Samuel David 183, 257

M

• Maclntyre, Alasdair 260
• Maimon, Rabbi Judah Leib 155
• Maimonides, Moses 35, 36, 39, 90, 133, 150, 154-5, 162, 164, 165, 169, 177-8, 180, 189-90, 226-7, 247, 256-8, 260, 262
  • Commentary to the Mishnah 193
  • Misneh Torah 164
• mamzer 159
• Marranos 271
• marriage 46, 117, 149, 172 see also intermarriage
• Marx, Karl 8, 14, 63, 271
• Maza, Bernard 34, 35
• Meir Simcha ha-Cohen, Rabbi 66
• Mencken, H. L. 257
• Mendelssohn, Moses 14, 15, 62, 146-7, 189, 263
• Mengele, Josef 28
• Merneptah stele 232
• Metzaveh 124
• Midrash 22, 57, 60, 202-42
  • concept of Torah 225-9
  • eclipse of 233-8
  • and time 221-5
• Midrash aggadah 223
• Midrash halakhah 223
• migration 17-18, 55
• mikvah 138
• Mill, John Stuart 254
• Miriam 46
• Mishnah 47, 145, 164, 168, 221, 236
• Mitnagdim 66
• mitzvah 124
• Mizrachi 68
• modern Orthodoxy 11
• Mohilewer, Rabbi Samuel 11, 67, 68
• monists 190
• Mordecai 138
• Moses 35, 38, 46, 60, 116, 141, 144, 154, 177, 180-3, 189, 193-4, 210, 212, 213, 222, 258, 259
• Moynihan, Daniel 95

N

• Nachmanides 39, 226, 247, 274
• Nagel, Thomas 254
• nefesh 139
• neo-Orthodoxy 11
• Neturei Karta 70
• Neusner, Jacob 34, 108, 110, 160
• Nietzsche 4, 13, 14, 28, 149, 234, 254, 255, 268, 269
• Nissenbaum, Rabbi Isaac 135
• Nissenbaum, Rabbi Yitzchak 17

O

• Operation Exodus 18
• Operation Ezra 18
• Operation Magic Carpet 18
• Operation Moses 18
• Operation Nehemiah 18
• Operation Solomon 18
• Or la-Yesharim 65
• Oral Torah 145, 154, 162-4, 168, 180, 190, 195, 197, 198, 201, 214-19, 221
• orthodoxy 10-12, 19, 22, 62, 121-2
  • and biblical criticism 194-201
  • East European 66
  • radical 162-7
  • and revelation 189-93
• Oshry, Rabbi Ephraim 42
• Oz, Amos 79, 157

P

• particularism, flight from 15
• Paul 217
• Pentateuch 20, 22, 60, 109, 180, 181, 186, 197, 200, 209, 220, 224
• Pesach 141
• peshat 224
• Pharisaic Judaism 1
• Pharisees 61-2, 121
• Philo of Alexandria 257
• Pinsker, Leon 13, 62, 63
• Plato 198, 249, 258
• pluralism 129, 190, 249-53
• postmodernity 14-19
• Priestly Code 195

R

• rabbinic Judaism 127-8
  • virtues of 16
• Rahner, Karl 126
• Raphael, Frederic 16
• Rashi 225
• Rawidowicz, Simon 218
• Reconstructionist Judaism 102
• Reform Judaism 16, 121-2, 123, 130, 148, 151, 184
  • in America 9, 11, 15, 58, 102, 147, 151, 272
  • attitudes to halakhah 157-8
  • in Germany 9, 11, 65
• Reines, Rabbi Isaac 11, 67, 68
• revelation 4
  • non-Orthodox approaches to 184-9
  • orthodoxy and 189-93
• Rosenberg, Shalom 198
• Rosenheim, Jacob 196
• Rosenzweig, Franz 157, 196, 197, 200, 239, 274
• Rotenstreich, Nathan 106, 266
• Roth, Joel 158, 159-60, 161
• Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 254
• ru ‘ach 139
• Rubinstein, Richard 33
• Russian pogroms 12, 13, 63

S

• Saadia Gaon 115-16, 117, 121, 123, 140, 144, 195, 263
• Sabbath 9, 79-80, 149, 167, 171-2, 215
• Sadducees 61, 121, 154, 180, 201, 216, 217
  • new 119-23, 139
• Sartre, Jean-Paul 86-7, 94, 254, 266, 267, 269
  • Reflexions sur la Question Juive 86
• Satmar 31
• Schechter, Solomon 106, 148, 151, 184
• Schenirer, Sarah 169
• Schleiermacher 13
• Schmelz, Uziel 98
• Schneersohn, Rabbi Shalom Baer 66
• Scholem, Gershom 106, 187-8, 189, 218
• Schopenhauer 234, 268
• Schweid, Eliezer 80, 106
• Second Temple, destruction of 2, 3, 4, 6, 15, 35-6, 37, 39, 45, 58, 60, 81, 116, 127, 144-5, 241
• Secular Judaism 10, 16, 31, 57, 69, 122, 123, 148
  • birth of 10, 63-4
• secularisation 2, 3-7, 8, 9
  • definition 4
  • of history 59-63
• Sefer Chassidim 168
• segregation 11
• Shammai 247
• Shapiro, Rabbi Kalonymos; Esh
  • Kodesh 40
• shelilat ha-golah 88, 93
• Shem 190
• Shevuot 141
• Shils, Edward 265
• Shmuel ben Meir (Rashbam), Rabbi 224, 274
• shoah 3, 14-16, 18, 21, 25-35, 37-8, 44, 49, 50, 86, 120, 126, 241
  • and halakhah 41-3
• shoah u-gevurah 34, 108
• Sholem, Gerhom 16
• Silberman, Charles 96-7
  • A Certain People 94
• Six Day War 43, 72, 96, 101, 107, 120, 273
• Smith, Stevie 19
• Sofer, Rabbi Moses 58, 65
• Soloveitchik, Rabbi Chaim 66, 150
• Soloveitchik, Rabbi Joseph 39, 40, 41, 75, 103, 123, 137-41, 149-51, 191-3, 222, 257, 274
  • The Halakhic Mind 150
  • Kol Dodi Dofek 73, 136
  • ‘The Lonely Man of Faith’ 104, 191, 240
• Spinoza, Benedict 7, 8, 9, 14, 131, 147, 162, 171, 178, 181-4, 188, 255, 270-1
  • Tractus Theologico-Politicus 132, 146, 182, 236
• Stangl, Franz 28
• Steiner, George 28, 71, 109, 157, 202, 209
• Steinheim, Solomon 185
• Steinschneider, Moritz 235
• Sternberg, Meir 231, 240
• Syrkin, Nahman 64, 78

T

• Talmud 36, 129, 168, 214
  • Babylonian 145, 155, 160, 164, 221
  • Jerusalem 145, 221
• tefillin 215
• Teichtal, Rabbi Yissachare Shlomo 47
• Teitelbaum, Rabbi Joel 31, 71, 72, 126
• Ten Commandments 1, 187
• teshuvah 34
• tikkun 125
• Tillich, Paul 126
• Torah 1, 5, 10, 11, 19-21, 27, 38, 145, 154, 162-70
  • midrashic concept of 225-9
  • Oral 145, 154, 162-4, 168, 180, 190, 195, 197, 198, 201, 214-19, 221
  • tradition and 179-81
  • Written 145, 154, 162, 164, 167, 190, 195, 197, 198, 214, 215, 221
• Torah min ha-shamayim 178, 186, 227, 229-30, 233, 239, 242, 255
• Toynbee, Arnold 232
• transformationists 97, 98
• Tuchman, Barbara 275
• tzimtzum 188

U

• Universal Synagogue 148, 151
• universality and covenant 263-5

V

• Vatican 26
• Vietnam War 152
• Voltaire 13, 14, 268, 269

W

• Wagner, Richard 13
• War of Independence, Israel 137
• Warsaw ghetto 17
• Wasserman, Rabbi Elchanan 29-30, 47, 69
  • ‘The Footsteps of the Messiah’ 29
• Weber, Max 7, 212
• Weiss, Meir 240
• Welihausen, Julius 195-6, 197, 199
• Wiesel, Elie 25, 26, 129
• women
  • education of 168-70
  • failure of halakhah and 164
  • ordination of 160
• Woocher, Jonathan 101, 120
• Written Torah 145, 154, 162, 164, 167, 190, 195, 197, 198, 214, 215, 221
• Wyschogrod, Michael 20, 36, 40, 123, 131-6, 140, 257, 264, 274
  • The Body of Faith: Judaism as Corporeal Election 131, 135

Y

• ye’ud view of history 41, 136
• Yehoshua, A. B. 78-9, 132, 157
• Yehudah, Rabbi Zvi 72
• Yerushalmi, Yosef Hayim 1, 221, 235, 236
• yeshivot 10, 34
• Yiddish culture 9-10
• Yitzchak, Rabbi 225
• Yom ha-Atzmaut 76
• Yom ha-Shoah 49
• Yom Kippur War 108

Z

• Zadok ha-Cohen, Rabbi 66
• Zakkai, Rabban Jochanan ben 61
• Zechariah 213
• Zevi, Shabbetai 62, 71
• Zimra, Rabbi David ibn Abi [Radbaz] 179
• Zionism 11, 12, 58
  • non-messianic religious 72-8
• Zunz, Leopold 235