Reviewing the Covenant: Eugene B. Borowitz and the Postmodern Revival of Jewish Theology PDF
Preview Reviewing the Covenant: Eugene B. Borowitz and the Postmodern Revival of Jewish Theology
Reviewing the Covenant SUNY SERIES IN JEWISH PHILOSOPHY Kenneth Seeskin, Editor Reviewing the Covenant Eugene B. Borowitz and the Postmodern Renewal of Jewish Theology Peter Ochs, editor, with Eugene B. Borowitz Including responses by: Yudit Kornberg Greenberg Susan Handelman David Novak Thomas Ogletree Norbert Samuelson Edith Wyschogrod State University of New York Press Published by State University of New York Press, Albany © 2000 State University of New York All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without writ ten permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the pub lisher. For information, address State University of New York Press, State University Plaza, Albany, N.Y., 12246 Production by Michael Haggett Marketing by Anne M. Valentine Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Reviewing the covenant: Eugene B. Borowitz and the postmodern revival of Jewish theology / edited by Peter Ochs with Eugene Borowitz. p. cm. - (SUNY series in Jewish philosophy) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7914-4533-X (hc. : alk. paper). - ISBN 0-7914-4534-8 (pb. : alk. paper) I. Borowitz, Eugene B. Renewing the covenant. 2. Judaism-20th century. 3. Commandments (Judaism)-History of doctrines-20th century 4. Covenants-Religious aspects-Judaism-History of doctrines-20th century. 5. Postmodernism-Religious aspects- Judaism. 1. Ochs, Peter, 1950- II. Borowitz, Eugene B. III. Series. BM60I.B623R48 2000 296·3-dc21 CIP 109 8 7 6 543 21 Contents Preface Vll Introductory The Emergence ofP ostmodern Jewish Theology and Philosophy I. PETER OCHS 3 Postmodern Judaism: One Theologian's View 2. EUGENE B. BOROWITZ 35 Readings of Borowitz' Renewing the Covenant 3. Gene Borowitz' Renewing the Covenant: A Theology for the Postmodern Jew YUDIT KORNBERG GREENBERG 49 4. Reading the Covenant: Some Postmodern Reflections EDITH WYSCHOGROD 60 5. Post-Modern or Chastened Modern? Eugene B. Borowitz' Vision for Jewish Fidelity THOMAS W. OGLETREE 6. Is the Covenant a Bilateral Relationship? A Response to Eugene Borowitz'Renewing the Covenant DAVID NOVAK 81 7. A Critique ofB orowitz' Postmodern Jewish Theology NORBERT M. SAMUELSON 91 Vl Contents Readings of the Readings 8. Borowitz and the Postmodern Renewal ofT heology PETER OCHS III 9. 'Im biet, eyma-Since You Object, Let Me Put It This way EUGENE B. BOROW1TZ 145 Postmodern Theological Renewal: A Meditation ro. "Crossing and Recrossing the Void':· A Letter to Gene SUSAN HANDELMAN 173 Bibliography 201 Index 207 Index ofB iblical and Rabbinic Sources 213 Preface For decades, Eugene B. Borowitz has served as rabbi for America's liberal Jewish congregations, philosophic theologian for its liberal rabbis, and philosopher-rabbi for its Jewish intellectuals. His is one of the few voices heard and loved among all genres of Jewish life, from congregants to phil anthropic institutional workers, to rabbis, to academics. It is also one of the few voices that speak across temporal bounds, as well as institutional ones. Known for so many years as a philosophic and rabbinic spokesper son for the ideals of modern Judaism, Rabbi Borowitz has, in the past decade and a half, begun to speak as well to American Judaism in what he calls its "postmodern condition." In Renewing the Covenant: A Theology for the Postmodern Jew, he declares an end to the epoch of modern Jewry's ef forts to identifY its norms with enlightened reason's search for humanity's universal ideals. Disillusioned with that search, he says "and still in the shadow of Holocaust, we turn again to Judaism's classical traditions and texts and beliefs," not to turn our backs on the redeeming aspects of mod ernity, but to re-commit that modernity to the Covenant from which it had lost its way. A bold turn, indeed, and one which has already helped re center discussions of theology and religious conduct throughout the Re form movement. New questions are now on the agenda of liberal Jewish inquiry: Who is a postmodern Jew? How does she differ from the modern Jew and the traditional Jew? What does it mean to speak today of "Jewish theology"? What happens to reason when we speak of renewing the Cove nant? How can it be renewed after Shoa? These are pressing questions for everyday Jewish practice. But they are also heated questions for the Jewish academy. The new visions of Gene Borowitz the Rabbi-theologian are also the new argumenrs of Gene Preface Vlll Borowitz the philosopher-Jew, and these are arguments that make his work of urgent significance for contemporary Jewish academics, as well as their Christian peers. In this volume, Rabbi Borowitz' fellow academics receive his recent work in the academics' privileged language of love, which is a language of intense intellectual analysis, challenge, response, and dialogue. Here are leading Jewish scholars-and a Christian scholar-who are also driven to reconsider the relation of reason and religion in a postmodern age. Seek ing, on the side of the university, to challenge Western academic presump tions about the dividing line between disciplined reason and religious / communal life, these scholars are warmed by Prof. Borowitz' complemen taryefforts to maintain the religious community's engagements with rea son as well as tradition. And they are prepared to meet the challenge of his claims about just what "postmodernity" may mean to the practicing Jew. So they engage him here, in shared argument, and analysis, and care, and study. General readers may need to brace themselves here and there, since the academics gathered here have been stimulated to bursts of rather ab stract thinking, but more rigid academics may need to brace themselves as well; for the abstract is wedded on these pages to the concrete, the philo sophic to the empirical, the conceptual to the moment of faith. The style of religious philosophy on the pages may also be surprising; for Gene Bo rowitz has stimulated his colleagues to interactive, friendly, and dialogic expressions of their rigorous habits of reasoning. In these meetings of academy and community, modernity and rab binic covenant, rabbi and philosopher, we may very well see a glimpse of a new approach for the academy as well as a new discipline for everyday Jewish religion. Before proceeding to the conversation, perhaps some of you may like to hear first a little more formally about the conversation leader. David El lenson has recently written a biographical tribute to Gene Borowitz and, with the biographer's indulgence, we'll excerpt form his tribute the follow ing, brief biographical sketch: Eugene Borowitz received his B.A. from Ohio State University; was ordained rabbi in 1948 by Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, which also awarded him the degree of Doctor of Hebrew Letters in 1950. He also received the Ed.D in 1962 from Columbia University. During the 1950S, Professor Borowitz served as founding rabbi of The Community
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