3G Practical Judaism
by Dr. Sarah Imhoff
Dr. Sarah Imhoff is an Assistant Professor in the
Religious Studies and Borns Jewish Studies Program at Indiana University,
Bloomington.
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How do people live Jewish lives? Historical and cultural
differences over time and space mean that there is no one single way of living
Jewishly, but there can be essential continuities. The idea of ritual, although
some of the details have changed, serves to create a cross-culturally and
transhistorically meaningful Judaism. A
Time to Every Purpose, Jonathan Sarna’s epistolary introduction to Judaism
and its rituals, provides an accessible and yet sophisticated route into
thinking about Jewish religious practice today. Abraham Joshua Heschel’s 1951
classic The Sabbath presents a
philosophical articulation of a time-centered approach to observance of Sabbath
laws in the modern world. Joseph Soloveitchik’s Halakhic Man and Lonely Man
of Faith likewise consider the place of the modern observant Jew within a
predominantly secular world.
Living a Jewish life also means theorizing how one can be Jewish
and also maintain other parts of one’s identity. The last three decades of the
twentieth century saw significant scholarship on the topic of Jewish theology
and its relationship to gender and sexuality. One strand, in which self-identified
Jewish feminists sought to envision a Judaism inclusive of women’s experiences
and authority and critique sexism, includes Rachel Adler’s Engendering Judaism, Judith Plaskow’s Standing Again at Sinai, Susannah Heschel’s On Being a Jewish Feminist, and Blu Greenberg’s On Women & Judaism. Another strand
hews more closely to traditional Judaism and asks how women and feminism might
fit with Jewish practice. Tova Hartman’s Feminism
Encounters Traditional Judaism provides essays relating to the challenges
of creating a community that incorporates both; Tamar Ross’s Expanding the Palace of Torah offers a
philosophical reading of traditional Jewish law that opens a space for women’s
distinctive experience. Other scholars describe and analyze how Jewish women
have negotiated their own lives and changed Jewish communal life. The edited
collections Jewish Women in Historical
Perspective, Women and American Judaism, and Women Remaking American Judaism are valuable here. Daniel Boyarin’s
Unheroic Conduct demonstrates the
construction of Jewish masculinity through text and culture in historical
context. The idea of sexuality and its relationship to Judaism has also become
a site of scholarly inquiry. Danya Ruttenberg’s Passionate Torah and Steven Greenberg’s Wrestling with God and Men both seek to highlight ways that Jewish
tradition might provide resources for positive sexualities of varying types.
Like
every religious tradition, Judaism has a history speckled with fascinating
characters. Biographies of religious leaders, thinkers, and even scholars
illuminate not only the lives of the individuals themselves, but also broader
patterns of community, interpretation, and authority. Maimonides, Joel Kraemer’s definitive biography of the
twelfth-century philosopher, presents a rich and wide-ranging account of the
rabbi and his life. Moshe Rosman’s biography of the Ba’al Shem Tov, Founder of Hasidism, tells the story of
the first Hasidic leader who left few writings but many followers and oral
teachings. Maiden of Ludmir,
Nathaniel Deutsch’s biography of an early nineteenth century Hasidic holy
woman, presents the fascinating life story of religious authority and charisma.
In the American context, Lance Sussman’s Isaac
Leeser and the Making of American Judaism describes the early nineteenth
century American Jewish leader and his relationship to a growing Jewish
community. Edward Kaplan’s Spiritual
Radical details the extraordinary life of rabbi, theologian, and social
activist Abraham Joshua Heschel. Mark Raider discusses another mid-twentieth
century American Jewish leader in Abba
Hillel Silver and American Zionism. A number of biographies of the seventh
Lubavitcher Rebbe make claims to interpreting his life and work. Even scholarly
works from outside the Chabad movement have been polarizing. Samuel Heilman and
Menachem Freedman’s biography, The Rebbe,
focuses on the rabbi’s life and community, while Elliot Wolfson’s Open Secret analyzes his religious
writings. David Biale’s biography Gershom
Scholem tells the story of how the scholar of Kabbalah made the ideas of
mysticism and messianism integral to the modern study of Judaism; Scholem’s Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism remains
a field-defining classic.