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This book in two volumes is devoted to examining the first encounter between traditional Judaism and modern European culture, and the first thinkers who sought to combine the Torah with science, revelation with reason, prophecy with philosophy, Jewish ethics with European culture, worldliness with sanctity, and universalism with the particular redemption of the Jews. These religious thinkers of the nineteenth century struggled with challenges of the modern age that continue to confront the modern Jews to this day. This objective work of scholarship, neither simplistic and isolationist nor destructive and arrogant, will be of interest to the modern thinker and to scholars of the history of religions. It is relevant to comparative study between Judaism and the various denominations of Christianity and other faiths that seek to find a middle way between their traditions and modernity.
About the author
Dr. Ephraim Chamiel holds a doctorate in Jewish thought from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He currently researches Jewish thought in the modern era.
Summary
Examines the first encounter between traditional Judaism and modern European culture, and the first thinkers who sought to combine the Torah with science, revelation with reason, prophecy with philosophy, Jewish ethics with European culture, worldliness with sanctity, and universalism with the particular redemption of the Jews.
Additional text
"Having broadened the scope considerably, Chamiel provides interested readers with an indispensable study of what he calls “The Middle Way,” that is, the approach among Jewish thinkers which championed the Golden Mean and avoided the extremes of both religious skeptic and uber fundamentalists ... Chamiel posits that it is not clear what value the Land of Israel will hold at the end of days, if the prerequisite for returning there is the dramatic transformation of all mankind and the removal of all evil tendencies from human society ... Chamiel’s two-volume study is an indispensable contribution to our understanding of the emergence of varieties of traditionalist responses to modernity. His interpretation of R. Chajes is the most compelling and at least some readers may emerge with a greater appreciation for, and interest in the writings of, this great Galician Torah sage."
