Recovering Judaism: The Universal Dimension of Judaism »

Judaism today is too often thought to represent a religious backwater, a highly particularistic religion with its own esoteric tales and traditions, practices and norms. First Christians, then Jews themselves, have succumbed to this characterization, resulting in the dismissal of Judaism's universal religious significance. Bereft of its religious import, Judaism is increasingly thought of as merely an ethnic designation-and a quickly dissipating one at that.

Neusner pleas for vindication of "the universal character and appeal of Judaic monotheism in the mainstream of humanity." Of the three great monotheistic religions, only Judaism has survived without political power, military might, or great numbers of adherents and has done so because its method and message aim to persuade the world of God's dominion and the marks of God's rule.
Author Bio: Jacob Neusner is Distinguished Research Professor of Religious Studies at the University of South Florida, Tampa, and Professor of Religion at Bard College, Anondale-on-Hudson, New York. Author, editor, or translator of more than 300 volumes, he most recently co-wrote the award-winning volume Jewish-Christian Debates (Fortress Press, 1998) with Bruce Chilton.

Tikkun

Jacob Neusner, a prodigious writer and respected Talmud scholar, uses his deep knowledge of classical texts to highlight the universal dimension of Judaism. Counter to those who have argued that universalism is a Jewish assimilationist accommodation to modernity, Neusner's careful textual readings prove that this has been a central strand of Jewish thinking.

Preface

1. The Universalistic Message of Judaic Monotheism
Dunn's Representation of Judaism as Particularistic
A Different Way of Addressing All of Humanity
Demonstrating the Universalistic Character of Judaism
The Starting Point
Israel as Counterpart to Humanity
The Monotheist Theology of the Torah: Four Principles
The Universalistic Character of Judaic Monotheism
"Israel" as Ethnic, as Supernatural: The Issue Joined

2. The Legal Medium: From the Case to the Governing Rule
Norms of Behavior, Norms of Belief
How Does the Halakah Speak to Humanity at Large?
The Particular as the Medium for the General
Rational Analysis of Data: Classes of Things
Natural History in Mishnaic Analysis
Where Does God Abide in Reasoned Analysis?
Science: The Universal Knowledge
Rules of Natural History: Aristotle and the Sages
Where the Sages Part Company from Aristotle
Where Material Things Become Means of Revelation

3. The Legal Message: Restoring Eden through Israel
God's Unity and Dominion
Between Israel and God: Shebi'it
Israel's Social Order: Sanhedrin-Makkot and the Death Penalty
Inside the Israelite Household: Shabbat-[Erubin
What These Cases Tell Us

4. The Narrative-Exegetical Medium: Paradigmatic Thinking
Scripture's Narratives and Laws: Governing Principles of the Social Order
Judaism Rejects Historical Thinking
The Modes of Paradigmatic Thinking
How to Find Paradigms
How Paradigms Replace Historical Time
Past and Present
Philosophy Replaces History
The Universalization of the Patriarchs andMatriarchs
"Israel" as the Paradigm
Paradigms Discerned through Particular Cases
Particular Historical Narrative to Exemplary Social Generalization
The Four Principal Models for Organizing Events
Supernatural Israel Transcending the Tides of Time
The Purpose of Paradigmatic Thinking
From Scripture to Torah
The Character of the Torah's Paradigms

5. The Narrative-Exegetical Message: Restoring Adam to Eden, Israel to the Land
Restoring Israel to the Land, Humanity to Eden
The Resurrection of the Dead and Judgment
Standing under God's Judgment
The Restoration of Humanity to Eden
Exile and Return
Redemption from Egypt, for the World to Come
Creation the Model of Redemption
Humanity at Large in the Eschatology of Judaism
Who and What Then is Israel?
From Concrete Event to Evocative Symbol
Life in the World to Come
Idolaters = Gentiles and the World to Come

6. Rational Israel: God's Justice, Humanity's Reason
Humanity Explains the Reason Why
Everyone Has the Power to Understand
God's Justice: The Reason
Scripture: God Obeys the Rules of Justice
The Reason Why Not
When Israel ("Those Who Know God") Sins
Measure for Measure
Predestination and Free Will
Suffering Is Reasonable Too
Anomalies in the Just Order
Beyond Reason, the Human Condition

Epilogue: Recovering Judaism
Notes
Glossary
Index