Maybe we can each take one book off the other's list...
I'm halfway through Continuity and Innovation: Esriel Hildesheimer and the Creation of a Modern Jewish Orthodoxy., by David Ellenson. A Conservative Rabbi with great insight into the great Rav Hildesheimer, who totally doesn't get enough props nowadays. Rav Hildesheimer (the other great German rabbi in the 19th century) could learn circles around Rav Hirsch, and without him, we wouldn't be able to say "Wissenshaft de Judentums." [WDJ] And who would want to live in a world without Wissenshaft de Judentums? [By the way - whats the equivalent in TIR to WDJ? A comparative study of the writing of James Taylor and Rabi Eliezer HaKalir?].
I'm also in the midst of Sliding to the Right: The Contest for the Furute of American Jewish Orthodoxy, by Samuel Heilman. You know, the only thing more annoying than whiny MO Jews complaining about how all their kids are flipping out is a whiny MO Jew who writes a supposedly academic book complaining about how MO kids are turning to mindless chareidi orthodoxy. I mean, I agree and all, but stop complaining - do something about it (like making MO Judaism inspiring and meaningful, perhaps?)! I'm told he wrote this book because one of his kids went chareidi - which makes a LOT of sense.
Finally, I'm rereading Tolerance and the Jewish Tradition, by Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo. Its short (more a pamphlet than a book), and I hope to use it for a shiur. Rabbi Lopes rocks, and thats that.
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I read the Ellenson book years ago during the arduous process of extracting my psyche from the yeshiva world (aka liberation or enlightenment). Very good book about a very great man who is increasingly irrelevant today, for all practical purposes. (BTW Ellenson is reform, not conservative.) Is WDJ practiced anywhere in orthodoxy today? Maybe in Chovevei if anywhere, I'm not sure though. I think R. Soloveitchik snuffed it out.
ReplyDeleteI'm not arguing that R. Hildesheimer should be irrelevant, just observing that he is. But I'll stop here, this is getting way too intellectual for TIR.
While I haven't looked at the Heilman book you mention, a few years ago I started "Defenders of the Faith: Inside Ultra-Orthodox Jewry" by the same author, and didn't finish it because I was so turned off. What bothered me the most was the extent to which the author, who bills himself as a frum (MO) guy, was *such* an outsider in the charedi world. It was very clear that he was so far from relating to or understanding charedi Jews it seemed he was of completely different religion. But, to be fair, at this point I might have similar trouble relating; I'd imaging I certainly would if I'd been raised to think the way I do now.
WDJ is actually alive and well in Revel and BAr Ilan, among other places. Though the Rav certainly did try to snuff it out...
ReplyDeleteR Hildesheimer didn't write user friendly books like Rav Hirsch, so his reputation has suffered. But his influence has been huge, even if we don't recognize it.
About Heilman - I can forgive his being an outsiider, and not really "getting it", if thats all it actually was. But I think that having a very clear agenda damages his work, so that it loses legitimacy.