Faith and History: Essays on Prayer, Exile, and Return

"Rabbi Dr. Eliezer Berkovits has long been acknowledged as one of the most erudite Jewish philosophers of the twentieth century. For decades, Rabbi Berkovits’ scholarly work on the philosophy of Jewish law, faith in modern times, and Holocaust theodicy has attracted constructive conversations and debate. The present volume aims to reintroduce a different side of Rabbi Berkovits’ intellectual profile. In a carefully curated selection of some of his more popular writings, this collection reveals the “philosophic anthropology” of a concerned Jewish leader living through transformative moments in Jewish history. In these essays, Rabbi Berkovits does not operate as a scholar engaged in abstract ideas, but rather as an educator endeavoring to teach his students and readers how to apply Jewish teachings to their lives. The three sections, “Prayer,” “Exile,” and “Return,” focus on how modern Jews - particularly Orthodox Jews - might encounter the intentions of daily prayer, understand the unmoored religious existence in the United States, and, probably most fundamentally, relate to the unprecedented rise of the modern State of Israel, as well as its cultural and social realities. Reinforced by a dazzling array of biblical and rabbinic sources, this book offers a rare and accessible window into the mind and thinking of a great philosopher and Jewish leader."