Choices in Modern Jewish Thought

by Eugene B. Borowitz

Choices in Modern Jewish Thought [paperback] Borowitz, Eugene B. [Jan 01, 1983]

Genres: Jewish, Judaica, Judaism, Philosophy, Nonfiction

305 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

About the author

"Eugene B. Borowitz is Sigmund L. Falk Distinguished Professor of Education and Jewish Religious Thought at the Hebrew Union College — Jewish Institute of Religion in New York City, where he has taught since 1962. He is the author of numerous books and the first person to receive a National Foundation for Jewish Culture Achievement Award in Scholarship for work in the field of Jewish thought."
- from the 1996 paperback edition of Renewing the Covenant

Reviews

[Ruth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was originally assigned to read this book as part of an "Introduction to Judaism" class that I took to begin the process of converting. While it was one of the more difficult books we read for class, (Borowitz doesn't exactly write for the common reader) it was also one of my favorites. Borowitz's text is dense with ideas, as he packs two centuries of Jewish philosophy and theology and the work of dozens of thinkers into a fairly slim volume. His central thesis is that there are 6 main streams of modern Jewish thought (often originating in the work of a single person - Borowitz sheds light on many influential but largely forgotten Jewish intellectuals.) Most contemporary Jews' - and frankly most contemporary Western people's - view of God is characterized by one or more of these 6 streams, although they may be ignorant of the sources of their own beliefs. The six, according to Borowitz, are Rationalism, Existentialism, Naturalism (Borowitz's term for the philosophy of Mordicai Kaplan and the Reconstructionist movement) Zionism, Mysticism, and Feminism. While Borowitz' work can certainly be appreciated for purely academic value, as a historian of ideas, that is not his purpose. As a devout believer, he is articulating the sources of his own religious beliefs, and inviting the reader to articulate our own. This book helped me to put into words my own deeply felt but inchoate feelings about God, ethics and religion and put the disparate, sometimes conflicted aspects of my personal beliefs into a more coherent whole. As someone who was raised nominally Catholic, and studied Eastern philosophy and Vedic Hinduism before choosing Judaism, I think this book has universal value for anyone trying to find for themselves a theological / ethical belief system that will hold up under the challenges of living in a postmodern world (though of course Borowitz writes through a particular, Jewish lens.) Borowitz makes no claim to be objective, and his own opinions permeate the text, but this did not bother me, because he makes no claim to objectivity (the subtitle is, after all, "a partisan guide.") I also appreciated his humility in giving over the writing of the chapter on Jewish Feminism to a female, Jewish feminist scholar, in acknowledgement of his own limitation in writing about such a subject. While Borowitz makes a passionate case for Judaism, it is not at the exclusion of other philosophies. His metaphor, which I found helpful, is that of a marriage: you choose a particular person - or a particular religion - not because there aren't many other good people (or religions) in the world, but because you're committed to this one. It doesn't mean you can't acknowledge their flaws, or work together to become better, but that the good you receive from them far outweighs the aspects of them that sometimes irk you. So in summation: I highly recommend this book for anyone considering conversion, and anyone who wants to take a deeper look at the evolution of the idea of God in Western thought. While some academic training in Philosophy (particularly Kant, Hegel, the Existentialists, or even the Classical Greek philosophers (my own philosophic background) will help elucidate the prose, I don't think it's required. Borowitz' text is rewarding to any serious reader, willing to wrestle with its profound, unanswered, and unanswerable questions.

[Devanye Hansen · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was really great and insightful, but DENSE. Part of that is my fault, I've never taken a philosophy class and so I'd never heard of Neo-Kantianism, for instance, and the author is VERY good at describing the concepts he discusses in a way that is understandable and coherent to a layman. That being said, going in with a basic understanding of Neo-Kantianism, Existentialism, and the difference between Modernism and Post-Modernism would have probably helped a lot.

Read with a pen and notebook, you'll want to take notes!

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great overview; I found Borowitz's own ideas interested but not brilliantly expressed, but really appreciated the overview and contextualisation of names I already knew within modern philosophy and theology, and I think his reading list at the back is one of the clearest and most helpful I've ever seen.