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GOD WAS NOT IN THE FIRE

THE SEARCH FOR A SPIRITUAL JUDAISM

Rabbi Gordis (Univ. of Judaism) leads us through the main areas of Jewish life, rebutting the charge that Judaism does not offer a spiritual path and suggesting answers to the question, Why be Jewish? Suburban Jewish life, with its emphasis on social action and a sanitized religious experience, has left many Jews unsure of Judaism's relevance, states Gordis. Writing for these Jews, Gordis moves beyond appeals to obligation or nostalgia and opens up a vision of Judaism as intellectually and spiritually compelling. He defines spirituality as the quest to feel God's presence and portrays Judaism in terms of a spiritual odyssey, exemplified by the patriarch Jacob, who struggled with God in the course of a journey. Gordis does not invoke any one denomination but simply encourages his readers to discover the tradition for themselves. He begins with the sacred texts and commentaries, ``the admission tickets to Jewish spiritual life,'' and recommends that, instead of submitting blindly, one grapple with them and so enter into a passionate and enduring dialogue with God and one's fellow Jews. Next he shows how the traditional rituals can give a sense of wonder and connectedness, with the power to transform us and show us a better world toward which we can work. Gordis sees daily observance of the many Jewish commandments (mitzvot), such as the dietary laws, as primarily a spiritual discipline and a healthy corrective to the self-absorption of our society. As for prayer, he sagely warns that this is a matter of personal struggle and growth, rather than comfort, and explores the dialectic between fixed formulas and personal feelings. Doubt and discussion, Gordis emphasizes, are grist to the mill of Jewish religious growth. There is an excellent glossary and suggestions for further reading. An accessible, attractive guide for the returning Jew.

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1995

ISBN: 0-684-80390-9

Page Count: 256

Publisher: Scribner

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1995

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THE MYTH OF SISYPHUS

AND OTHER ESSAYS

This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.

Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955

ISBN: 0679733736

Page Count: 228

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955

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THE ART OF SOLITUDE

A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.

A teacher and scholar of Buddhism offers a formally varied account of the available rewards of solitude.

“As Mother Ayahuasca takes me in her arms, I realize that last night I vomited up my attachment to Buddhism. In passing out, I died. In coming to, I was, so to speak, reborn. I no longer have to fight these battles, I repeat to myself. I am no longer a combatant in the dharma wars. It feels as if the course of my life has shifted onto another vector, like a train shunted off its familiar track onto a new trajectory.” Readers of Batchelor’s previous books (Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World, 2017, etc.) will recognize in this passage the culmination of his decadeslong shift away from the religious commitments of Buddhism toward an ecumenical and homegrown philosophy of life. Writing in a variety of modes—memoir, history, collage, essay, biography, and meditation instruction—the author doesn’t argue for his approach to solitude as much as offer it for contemplation. Essentially, Batchelor implies that if you read what Buddha said here and what Montaigne said there, and if you consider something the author has noticed, and if you reflect on your own experience, you have the possibility to improve the quality of your life. For introspective readers, it’s easy to hear in this approach a direct response to Pascal’s claim that “all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Batchelor wants to relieve us of this inability by offering his example of how to do just that. “Solitude is an art. Mental training is needed to refine and stabilize it,” he writes. “When you practice solitude, you dedicate yourself to the care of the soul.” Whatever a soul is, the author goes a long way toward soothing it.

A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.

Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020

ISBN: 978-0-300-25093-0

Page Count: 200

Publisher: Yale Univ.

Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019

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