Centrist Orthodox theologians here reject the "God's judgment theory" of the Holocaust. Contributors include Rabbis J.B. Soloveitchik, Norman Lamm, Emanuel Rackman, Haskel Lookstein, Louis Bernstein, Reuven Bulka, Emanual Feldman and Eliezer Berkovits.

Avi Sagi is Professor of Philosophy at Bar Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel, and Senior Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, Israel. A philosopher, literary critic, scholar of cultural studies, historian and philosopher of halakhah, public intellectual, social critic, and educator, Sagi has written most lucidly on the challenges that face humanity, Judaism, and Israeli society today. As an intertextual thinker, Sagi integrates numerous strands within contemporary philosophy, while critically engaging Jewish and non-Jewish philosophers. Offering an insightful defense of pluralism and multiculturalism, his numerous writings integrate philosophy, religion, theology, jurisprudence, psychology, art, literature, and politics, charting a new path for Jewish thought in the twenty-first century.

An honest, fair, and thorough discussion of the issues raised in Jewish Christian apologetics, covering thirty-five objections on general and historical themes.

How Jews think about and work with objects is the subject of this fascinating study of the interplay between material culture and Jewish thought. Ken Koltun-Fromm draws from philosophy, cultural studies, literature, psychology, film, and photography to portray the vibrancy and richness of Jewish practice in America. His analyses of Mordecai Kaplan's obsession with journal writing, Joseph Soloveitchik's urban religion, Abraham Joshua Heschel's fascination with objects in The Sabbath, and material identity in the works of Anzia Yezierska, Cynthia Ozick, Bernard Malamud, and Philip Roth, as well as Jewish images on the covers of Lilith magazine and in the Jazz Singer films, offer a groundbreaking approach to an understanding of modern Jewish thought and its relation to American culture.

The Hebrew book of Job is by all accounts an exquisite piece of literary art that holds its rightful place among the most outstanding compositions in world literature. Yet it is also widely recognized as an immensely difficult text to understand. In elucidating that ancient text, this inaugural Illuminations commentary by C. L. Seow pays close attention to the reception history of Job, including Jewish, Muslim, Christian, and Western secular interpretations as expressed in theological, philosophical, and literary writings and in the visual and performing arts. Seow offers a primarily literary-theological interpretation of Job, a new translation, and detailed commentary.

Why do we hurt? This is a question asked all through history by the rich and the poor, the slave and the free, the weak and the powerful, and the intellectuals and the dreamers. All of us experience pain and the physical and emotional suffering that it can bring. For many, this question has deep theological undertones and has posed a challenge to their faith in God. Why is there so much evil and suffering, and how can we stop it? What is the purpose of pain? Is there even a purpose? If there is a god, why is all this pain allowed to continue? Why Do We Hurt? is a biblically rooted and deeply practical exploration of these questions and more. Readers will find spiritual nourishment, inspiration, and insight on each page. Using clinical stories to illustrate main themes, author C. Nathan Vannatta addresses the many problems posed by the reality of pain. Combining arguments from logic, philosophy, neuroscience, and biblical exegesis, the issue of pain and suffering is addressed from various perspectives to lead readers to the hope we have in Christ.

This book is a first attempt to examine the thought of key contemporary Jewish thinkers on the meaning of tradition in the context of two models. The classic model assumes that tradition reflects lack of dynamism and reflectiveness, and the present’s unqualified submission to the past. This view, however, is an image that the modernist ethos has ascribed to the tradition so as to remove it from modern existence. In the alternative model, a living tradition emerges as open and dynamic, developing through an ongoing dialogue between present and past. The Jewish philosophers discussed in this work—Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Yeshayahu Leibowitz, David Hartman, and Eliezer Goldman—ascribe compelling canonic status to the tradition, and the analysis of their thought discloses the tension between these two models. The book carefully traces the course they have plotted along the various interpretations of tradition through their approach to Scripture and to Halakhah.