Religious Responses to Modernity

Catalog description

This course will examine the responses of several leading rabbinic figures of the 19th and 20th centuries to the social and cultural changes wrought by modernity, specifically, either the incorporation of previously self-contained autonomous Jewish communities into the political and civic life of the states in which they developed, or communities that developed in the State of Israel. Three key issues will be stressed: the value of modern culture; the legitimacy of the notion of historical progress (scientific and ethical); and the extent to which Judaism is a truly universalist system which incorporates the welfare of every human being in the purview of its religious concerns and historical vision. Each thinker\'s conceptualization of halakhah will be examined. Thinkers include: Rabbis S. R. Hirsch, Zvi Hirsch Chajes, Elijah Benamozegh; Rabbis Yehiel Yaakov Weinberg, Eliezer Berkovits, Nachum Rabinovitch, Jonathan Sacks.