by Jack Wertheimer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2018
A frank and grave analysis that at times trembles with concern and worry.
An authority on American Judaism returns with a comprehensive report—descriptive, analytical, predictive—on today’s Jewish religious practices.
Wertheimer (American Jewish History/Jewish Theological Seminary; The New Jewish Leaders: Reshaping the American Jewish Landscape, 2011, etc.) bases this work on numerous interviews with practicing rabbis, members of synagogues, and others, as well as his comprehensive scholarship in the field (he includes more than 90 pages of notes at the end of the book). Maintaining a neutral tone throughout—he neither attacks nor excessively praises—Wertheimer surveys the broad range of practice currently available, from Orthodox to Conservative to Reform to just about every other form (some of the less conventional he calls “Pop Ups”). He also notes troubling trends: declining attendance, an aging population of those who do attend, the fierce competition of cultural clutter (the internet, social media, etc.). He describes how some synagogues are modifying their approaches, trying to accommodate the young and the uncertain, offering more music, bountiful offerings of food, and “looser” behavior in the services. He examines the difficulties of inclusion of interfaith married families, of the LGBTQ community, and of women, who, of course, were long denied principal roles in synagogue activities. The author also shows how Orthodox groups, especially, are working hard to attract more people to the synagogue, and he shows us what is a surprising Jewish presence at such cultural events as Burning Man. In a similar vein, he points out the struggles that Christian congregations are having with many of the same issues. As membership in the traditional denominations declines, Christians have turned in ever greater numbers to less conventional congregations. Wertheimer’s style is straightforward and highly organized (bullet lists are common), and he ends with some glances into an uncertain future as our culture becomes increasingly secular and self-absorbed.
A frank and grave analysis that at times trembles with concern and worry.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-691-18129-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Princeton Univ.
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2018
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by Albert Camus ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 26, 1955
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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by Albert Camus ; translated by Justin O'Brien & Sandra Smith
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by Albert Camus ; translated by Ellen Conroy Kennedy & Justin O'Brien
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by Albert Camus translated by Arthur Goldhammer edited by Alice Kaplan
by Stephen Batchelor ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 18, 2020
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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