Non­fic­tion

Faith Find­ing Mean­ing A The­ol­o­gy of Judaism

Byron L. Sherwin
  • Review
By – August 7, 2013

Byron Sher­win wants Jews to take Judaism seri­ous­ly. This can­not be done in the abstract. Where­as the phi­los­o­phy (or philoso­phies) of Judaism may be stud­ied by a non-prac­ti­tion­er, the the­ol­o­gy (or the­olo­gies) of Judaism can only be ful­ly under­stood by one who is com­mit­ted to Jew­ish prac­tice and obser­vance. One can only find mean­ing in one’s faith if one is prac­tic­ing that faith. Grap­pling with reli­gious faith, prac­tice, and expe­ri­ence, espe­cial­ly try­ing to under­stand God’s rela­tion to the world, is a nec­es­sary adjunct to mak­ing one’s reli­gious prac­tice meaningful.

In the first sev­er­al chap­ters the author laments the shal­low­ness of con­tem­po­rary Jew­ish expe­ri­ence and demon­strates how sec­u­lar val­ues have been sub­sti­tut­ed for gen­uine Jew­ish ones. Accord­ing to Sher­win, most Jews today are cul­tur­al­ly, con­cep­tu­al­ly, and seman­ti­cal­ly dis­placed from the con­sti­tu­tive texts, ideas, and tra­di­tions of Judaism” and this pos­es a seri­ous threat to the con­tin­u­a­tion of the Jew­ish peo­ple. Cit­ing Solomon Schechter and Abra­ham Joshua Hes­chel before him, Sher­win states that Judaism remains an unknown reli­gion to most Amer­i­can Jews.

Sub­sti­tute forms of Judaism, JCCs, fed­er­a­tions, social action groups, etc. form­ing a civ­il reli­gion, is not Judaism. Judaism is more than a sys­tem of laws. It is also a belief sys­tem which address­es the the­o­log­i­cal pre­sump­tions upon which the law is based. Reduc­ing Judaism to prac­tice alone mar­gin­al­izes the­ol­o­gy, when in fact a halakhic way of life is mean­ing­less with­out under­stand­ing or “…con­sid­er­ing the the­o­log­i­cal pre­sup­po­si­tions upon which the halakha rests, such as a belief in res­ur­rec­tion and in the author­i­ta­tive role of rab­binic inter­pre­tive tra­di­tion.” He goes on to cas­ti­gate inau­then­tic forms of lib­er­al Jew­ish think­ing as idol­a­trous, not viable, and as threats to the sur­vival of gen­uine Judaism. The­ol­o­gy bespeaks a pri­or com­mit­ment. Jews are bid­den to do what they believe and believe what they do.

Halakha is faith in the form of deeds. Per­for­mance of the com­mand­ments rep­re­sents belief artic­u­lat­ed as action. In a sense, halakha may be con­sid­ered the prac­ti­cal the­ol­o­gy” of Judaism, that is, Jew­ish the­o­log­i­cal ideas expressed as spe­cif­ic con­crete acts.

This con­cept is summed up by Louis Jacobs as: The whole ques­tion of whether one can choose with­in Judaism only aris­es if one has first cho­sen Judaism.” It should be not­ed here that Dr. Sher­win was ordained as a Con­ser­v­a­tive rabbi.

It is only in the sec­ond half of the book that we get down to the­ol­o­gy. Sher­win makes the case that the­o­log­i­cal cre­ativ­i­ty derives from the abil­i­ty to cre­ate new mean­ings from old texts. We need to pro­duce Jew­ish nar­ra­tives that are authen­tic, coher­ent, con­tem­po­rary, and com­mu­ni­ca­ble. Torah study does not only con­vey infor­ma­tion but is trans­for­ma­tive. The informed and trans­formed read­er can then gen­er­ate a reimag­ined the­ol­o­gy of Judaism. This idea is con­tained in the Torah bless­ing describ­ing God as a notain haTorah” in the present tense, con­tin­u­ous­ly giv­ing the Torah and per­pet­u­al­ly reveal­ing it while we con­tin­u­ous­ly receive it.

After estab­lish­ing that expe­ri­enc­ing the life of faith must pre­cede the­o­log­i­cal spec­u­la­tion, we are treat­ed to a pre­sen­ta­tion of depth-the­ol­o­gy, descrip­tive or con­struc­tive the­ol­o­gy, and philo­soph­i­cal the­ol­o­gy. The ideas are pre­sent­ed in a forth­right, clear, and con­cise man­ner bely­ing the schol­ar­ship behind them. The excel­lent notes and bib­li­og­ra­phy will guide the read­er who wish­es to explore these ideas in more depth.

Orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished in 2009, this book has been reis­sued as a paper­back. It is high­ly rec­om­mend­ed for rab­bini­cal stu­dents, vet­er­an rab­bis, and any­one who takes the­o­log­i­cal Judaism seriously.

Wal­lace Greene, Ph.D., has held sev­er­al uni­ver­si­ty appoint­ments, and cur­rent­ly writes and lec­tures on Jew­ish and his­tor­i­cal subjects.

Discussion Questions