A Concise Guide to Judaism: History, Practice, Faith

It might be futile and meaningless to write a review on an out-of-print book. But I had to respond to the indefensible critique by Mr. Silver in the Library Journal review excerpted above. For the record, I am a college teacher; the tradition of Judaism, broadly considered, was one of my major fields of study in graduate school. This is the best, most succinct introduction to Judaism I have ever used. It restates complex judgments of scholarship in simple language. I do not understand Mr. Silver's complaint about organization: it is a straightforward historical one, the best one to use in introducing Judaism. After an introductory chapter, he looks at *Ancient Israel *The Hebrew Scriptures (their basic content, their later use in the tradition) *The Development of Judaism (distinct from ancient Israel) *The Rabbinic Writings (the development of the Talmudim) *Philosophy and Mysticism (both of which developed after the rabbinic tradition) *Modern Judaism *The Jewish Household (Prayer, Sabbath, Kosher, etc.) *the Calendar and Holy Days --A preeminently coherent presentation. He complains about two inaccuracies: monotheism and Rosenzweig. I agree that Rabbi Rosenberg's presentation of the latter is not very insightful or coherent, but that would not make any difference to the typical user or reader of such a text as this. I reread the pages having to do with monotheism, I simply don't see what he was objecting to, unless it be a moderate use of the historical-critical method in explaining how monotheism came about. Again, Rabbi Rosenberg's explanation, although necessarily condensed and elliptical in referring to the salient issues, is still defensible today. I very much wish it was back in print.