Entertainment Books

Monday, March 14, 2011

Judaism, into, Encountering
The Way into Encountering God in Judaism (Way Into...)

The Way Into â€¦ Series offers an accessible and highly usable "guided tour" of the Jewish faith, people, history, and beliefsâ€"in total, an introduction to Judaism that will enable you to understand and interact with the sacred texts of the Jewish tradition.

Each volume is written by a leading contemporary scholar and teacher, and explores one key aspect of Judaism.

The Way Intoâ€¦ enables all readers to achieve a real sense of Jewish cultural literacy through guided study.

Volume 3
The Way Into Encountering God in Judaism by Neil GillmanIn 4,000 years of reading, writing, and talking, Jews have imagined countless images of God. The Way into Encountering God in Judaism is an introductory survey of this imaginative tradition. Neil Gilman, a philosophy professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, freely asserts that that "nothing that we human beings say about God or God's activities in the world is literally true." Given that, Gilman asserts, "To think and talk of God ... is to think and talk metaphorically. We must make our peace with that conclusion and then trace its implications." The image of God as presented in the Bible and in Jewish tradition is "a complex metaphorical system" whose main characteristics are plurality and fluidity. The metaphors change over time, as God's people come to understand God in new ways. (Feminists, for example, have questioned or rejected male images of God; Jews living after the Holocaust have questioned or rejected the notion of a God who is "beneficent, caring, all-powerful, and, above all, just.") The chapters highlight traditional understandings of God, such as "God Is Person," "God Is Nice (Sometimes)," "God Is Not Nice (Sometimes)." And Gilman peppers his clear, accessible, survey with more contemporary thoughts, such as the idiosyncratic, beautiful idea of a theological student who thinks of God as Fred Astaire (and herself as Ginger Rogers).

When we miss a step, it's always my fault. He dances in flats; I have to dance in heels; he's on the ceiling, I'm on the floor; he can be late, I can't. He pinches me in the clinches; I mustn't. And Cyd Charisse is waiting for me to fail. But when we get it together, it's sheer ecstasy.

--Michael Joseph Gross

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