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“A highly readable addition to contemporary Torah commentaries from a liberal perspective.” —Kirkus Reviews
A leading scholar of Jewish mysticism with Hasidic insight for every Shabbat
Arthur Green has been the leader of a neo-Hasidic revival in modern American Judaism for the last half-century. All of that comes together in this new book of Torah interpretation.
His reflections on the weekly Torah portions are replete with the sense that the text is torah, teaching, and we are here to learn from it. This is done by entering the text and its reality. The frequent refrain of the early Hasidic sources (“Torah is eternal, speaking to each generation. What does this text have to teach us today?”) is echoed loudly, here, for a new generation of listeners determined to set its own course.
Even in original Hasidism, while the vocabulary of postmodernism hadn’t yet emerged, there was a growing sense of the readers’ right to take an active role in allowing the text to speak. Twin understandings of this process, one seeing a new generation of seekers wanting to enter the text, and the other seeing the ancient sources in quest of new and creative readers and interpreters, have continued to emerge in tandem over the past half-century. This way of reading Torah has entered many synagogues as well. And that is the spirit in which the present collection of divrey torah is offered.
Rabbi Green does not need to call for a new renaissance of the midrashic art or the Hasidic boldness in reading scripture. This rebirth is already underway—and here it is being noticed and nurtured.
“Green is steeped in the classical sources of Jewish and especially kabbalistic tradition, and his writing is informed by the insights of scientists and secular thinkers.” —Daniel J. Rettberg, AJL Newsletter
“Green draws richly from the Jewish mystical tradition, but also writes from the heart of his own experience.” —Harvey Cox, author of The Future of Faith
“Arthur Green rescues Kabbalah from fundamentalists on the one hand and faddists on the other.” —Daniel C. Matt, author of Zohar: Annotated & Explained
“The author offers a set of essays on the weekly Torah portion that reflects his deep background in neo-Hasidic thought. The volume features commentaries of various lengths, mostly addressing both familiar and more obscure aspects of each portion of the Jewish cycle. Green assumes that his readers already have a knowledge of Jewish Torah study, but he also pointedly invites Christian readers into the dialogue.” —Kirkus Reviews
Arthur Green, PhD, is recognized as one of the world’s preeminent authorities on Jewish thought and spirituality. He is the retired Irving Brudnick professor of philosophy and religion at Hebrew College and rector of the Rabbinical School, which he founded in 2004, and professor emeritus at Brandeis University. He also taught at the University of Pennsylvania and the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, where he served as dean and president. Green is author of several books including Judaism’s Ten Best Ideas: A Brief Guide for Seekers; Ehyeh: A Kabbalah for Tomorrow; Seek My Face: A Jewish Mystical Theology; and Radical Judaism. He is long associated with the Havurah movement and a neo-Hasidic approach to Judaism.