A Great Religious Tapestry
Berenbaum, Michael
BOOKS A Great Religious Tapestry The Jewish Way: Living the Holidays by Irving Greenberg Summit Books, 1988 463 pp, $22.95 Reviewed by Michael Berenbaum Reports of the demise of modern...
...The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership...
...Though Greenberg defines himself as an Orthodox Jew, his faith is dialectical, marked by moments of doubt and belief...
...Either way, there is much to be learned...
...Greenberg demonstrates how this message is proclaimed in the careful orchestration of Jewish festivals and holidays...
...Michael Wyschograd once wrote: "The God of Israel is a redeeming God...
...Moreover, Greenberg's work is more readily comprehensible to the non-specialist reader since it grapples with Jewish festivals—biblical and historic, ancient and modern...
...arm only a minor part of Greenberg's work and are perhaps the least unifying lection of the book...
...Most impressive of all is Greenberg's treatment of the two newest holidays, Yom haShoah and Yom ha'Atzmaut...
...This reviewer is grateful that an oral master has put his teaching on paper...
...Those who do not know Greenberg's thought well may be surprised at the Order of the work and the priority of his concern) The hut one* I pilgrimage festivals, which center on the Eioduv dominate the early part of Tht Jtu-ufi Wmj...
...Jewish dreams of redemption, dreams but not illusions...
...Or one can read the book whole, as the mature statement of one of America's most gifted Jewish teachers, who reaches beyond Orthodox tradition and speaks to the totality of Jewish concern...
...Tall and lanky, with an unorthodox sense of humor, "Yitz" has made his reputation on the oral word...
...Hit nuy on the Shabbat ti a model of clarity describing Jewish life, lore and law and suggesting other ways of lasting the messianic moment offered once a week to the observing Jew...
...To the non-observant Jew, Greenberg offers entry into the rich world of Jewish observance, with menu red levels of interim y and a commit iwirrnrw of the plural palhilhat one may lake 10 achieve a rich tpiritual life...
...and pamphlets galore for his organization, CLAL,** Greenberg's reputation has remained oral...
...Furthermore, Greenberg consciously speaks to multiple audiences with different messages...
...this is the only message we are authorized to proclaim...
...There are two ways to read The Jewish Way: One can read it chapter by chapter, in preparation for a holiday or on the afternoon of a festival, tasting slowly the richness of interpretation, adding to one's sense of enjoyment and spiritual anticipation...
...Irving Greenberg's The Jewish Way* joins David Hartman's A Living Covenant as sterling examples of the best of modern covenantal thought...
...Greenberg never forged that while the detaili of the law are important, "all halachic behavior* are dramatic/ mimetic gesture* articulating a central metaphor of living...
...Unlike traditional halachk work...
...It is God's entry into history, and "a revelation of human dignity and the right to freedom and foreshadows the end of absolute power with all its abuses...
...The High Holiday...
...He struggles to find coherence between the message of meaning and hope that is the core of Jewish faith, and the events of history, which more than occasionally seem to belie that faith...
...BOOKS A Great Religious Tapestry The Jewish Way: Living the Holidays by Irving Greenberg Summit Books, 1988 463 pp, $22.95 Reviewed by Michael Berenbaum Reports of the demise of modern Orthodoxy are premature—at least if we are to judge from the quality of some recent publications...
...He weaves his specific topic into a statement on the totality of Jewish history—and memory...
...One can only admire the man who dares to seek a synthesis—albeit a dialectical one—between the messianic hope of Judaism and the reality of this unredeemed world...
...He suggests innovations in traditional observances so that they faithfully grapple with the twin revolutions of modern Jewish history: the Holocaust and the rebirth of Israel...
...thought—but no longer...
...Naturally, Greenberg begins with Passover, for in his thought the Exodus is the core event of Jewish history...
...No matter what the topic, from Israel to Soviet Jewry, from Jewish unity to feminism, Greenberg's addresses always include a greater vision of the whole...
...There ii alio no leme of Orthodox triumphalitm...
...He it clearly more concerned with history than individual piety...
...To traditional Jews, he offers an openness to history and, more daringly, a willingness to confront new revelations in history...
...The shattered paradigm of the Holocaust becomes the occasion for the presentation of Greenberg's entire theology—faith shattered and renewed...
...the call to human responsibility and the presence of an absent God in redemptive human action...
...Greenberg is masterful when he moves from biblical festivals to the historical holidays, especially Puhm, which speaks of the relationship between ¦ concealed God and the assimilating Jew...
...Despite the fact that he has published some scholarly articles, widely influential newspaper pieces (including his award-winning essay, "Will There Be One Jewish People by the Year 2000...
...For the past two decades, Greenberg has been traveling across the country and speaking of the third great era of Jewish history (the other two were biblical and rabbinic) ushered into being by the Holocaust and characterized by human responsibility for the covenant between God and Israel...
...Occasionally, one yeams for Abraham Joshua Heschel's The Sabbath...
...He demonstrates the evolution of the holy life over time and demands that rituals observed by rote point beyond themselves as fragments of a great religious tapestry...
...One had to hear him to understand the richness of his learning, the cleverness of his mind and the disciplined systematic character of his * An excerpt from Greenberg's chapter on Yom haShoah can be found on p. 34...
...Michael Berenbaum is project director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Hymen Goldman Adjunct Associate Professor of Theology at Georgetown University...
...So, loo, the reader will learn the many meanings of Chanukah, as history, politics and religious values clash...
...The reader is in for a treat for the work has scope, depth, power and poignancy—everything other than poetry...
...For The Jewish Way is a stimulating, systematic presentation of the holidays as the embodiment of Judaism's hopes and dreams, its frustrations and its defeats, its tragedies and its triumphs...
Vol. 14 • June 1989 • No. 4
