From the Congregational Library, Bob Locke, Librarian

Sacred Fragments – Recovering Theology for the Modern Jew
Rabbi Neil Gillman

How do we know that God exists? To whom do we pray? Where was Adonai during the Shoah? What is the point of ritual? How is it possible to believe Adonai revealed the Torah?

For the modern Jew, living in a world of shattering beliefs and competing ideologies, these are a new urgency. For many—even those who want to believe—the traditional answers no longer seem to work.

Sacred Fragments is for the Jew who still cares enough to continue the struggle. Rabbi Gillman addresses the most difficult theological questions of our time and shows that there still are viable Jewish answers, even for the greatest skeptics. Retaining the sacred fragments of the traditional belief system, he explains how they can be rethought and reformulated despite the strains and tensions of modernity.

Each chapter of the book addresses one of the perplexing issues for Jewish theology today. For each issue Rabbi Gilman presents a range of authentic Jewish perspectives, examining their strengths and limitations. In the process, he explicates the theologies of the most influential Jewish thinkers of the 20th century, including Mordecai Kaplan, Franz Rosenweig, and Martin Buber.

Throughout his book, Rabbi Gilman deals with two issues essential to personally “doing theology”: What makes a theological statement authentic, and who decides? The author maintains “We all do”!

The call number for this book is:
655
Gil