Prologue: Velvel, Govorovo, 1939 I. Desire and Self 1
Making Exceptions 2 Do it Again Denzel: Fantasy and
Second Chances 3 Caught in the Act: Torah and Desire 4 Just
Dreamin': The Talmud and the Interpretation of Dreams 5 The Big
Game: Baseball, John Milton and Making Choices 6 Of Rabbis and
Rotting Meat 7 Identity is Out! 8 Isaac's Bad Rap 9
Cheeseburger 10 Writing an Inspirational Story 11 Eros and
Translation 12 Swaying Towards Perfection: Torah, Worldliness and
Perversion 13 Jacob's Scar: Wounding and Identity 14 Torah and
the Pleasure Principle II. Dispute and Community
15 Oedipus in a Kippa 16 Open Minded Torah I: Judaism and
Fundamentalism 17 Irony Über Alles: An Episcopal Passover 18 Of
False Kabbalists and Conjurers:
Parenting and Idolatry 19 From Sinai to the Uzi: New and Old
Zionisms 20 Modernity is Hell: Korah and Hobbes 21 Lost and
Found 22 The Poetry of the World: God's Place 23 Open Minded
Torah II: Judaism and Postmodernism 24 Stepping Up 25 Prayer
and the People: A New Siddur 26 A Religion for Adults? 27 Of
Fundamentalists, Rabbis and Irony 28 Don't Take Away My Mitzva!
29 Fear and Loathing in Jerusalem 30 Open Minded Torah III:
Between Fundamentalism and Postmodernism III. Time and
Memory 31 Carpe Diem, Dude 32 The Antidote for
Religion: Fear of God 33 Speech in Exile and the Voice of the
Shofar 34 Back to the Future: Yom Kippur and Creative Repentance
35 Shades of Faith: My Sukka is Not Insured by AIG 36 'A Special
Conversation': Freud, the Maharal and the Sabbath 37 Lighting Up:
The Beauty of Hanuka 38 Whose Letter is it Anyway: Esther,
Aristotle and the Art of Letter-Writing 39 Cosmic Consciousness:
The Beatles, Passover and the Power of Storytelling 40 Trauma's
Legacy: On Israel's Memorial Day 41 Why I Gave Up Biblical
Criticism and Just Learned to Love 42 Faceless: the Ninth of Av
Epilogue: Shmuel, Jerusalem, 2011 Citations Select
Bibliography Index
In Open Minded Torah, William Kolbrener offers a voice advocating renewed Jewish commitment and openness for the twenty-first century.
William Kolbrener is a professor of English Literature at Bar Ilan University in Israel. An internationally renowned authority on Renaissance poetry and philosophy, with books on John Milton and the eighteenth-century proto-feminist Mary Astell, Kolbrener also publishes widely on Jewish life and learning. Visit his blog at www.openmindedtorah.com.
‘This collection of short personal essays covers a wide range of
topics, illustrating how open mindedness allows us to more
genuinely engage with our Judaism...' —JTNews: The Voice of Jewish
Washington
Reviewed in the Jewish Quarterly.
Recommendation on the Jewish Daily Forward Sisterhood blog,
http://blogs.forward.com/sisterhood-blog/139549/
Short article on author/book at
http://www.mishpacha.com/Browse/Article/1220/A-Vital-Relationship
Interview with the author at
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/animal/2011/07/27/billy-kolbrener
Author interview in The Jerusalem Post
The author... strives for Jewish engagement through
open-mindedness, for a point between today's extremes of strident
adherence to the letter of the law, and rejection of that law. His
premise- that in Judaism, there is space to let in the world around
us- is refreshing and welcome.
*Chicago Jewish Star*
Kolbrener will make an agreeable literary companion over a weekend,
an elegant exponent of 21st-century Torah im derech eretz, rooted
in traditional Jewish commitment while open to wider civilisation.
He moves effortlessly from personal experience to the world of
ideas... Arguing for a "Jewish multiculturalism" in Israel,
Kolbrener champions cultured complexity over over-restrictive
conformity. His cosmopolitan sensibility is a model for mainstream
Jewish day schools to aspire to.
http://www.thejc.com/judaism/judaism-book-reviews/61802/open-minded-torah
*Jewish Chronicle Online*
'This beautiful book is an exhilarating hybrid, steeped in
traditional learning but at home in the modern world, centered on
universal questions and yet deeply personal, informed by theology
and philosophy and yet guided quite humbly by the challenge of
living each day with wisdom and kindness.' - Jonathan Rosen, author
of The Talmud and the Internet
'When a great and capacious mind, blessed with sensibility and
sensitivity, engages in conversation with the timeless texts of
Torah, the result is both enlightening and enthralling. That is
what William Kolbrener's new book represents, and all whose Judaism
is reflective and thoughtful will be enlarged by it.'- Chief Rabbi
Lord Sacks
'William Kolbrener is adept at finding Torah in places where you
don't expect it and at finding the unanticipated in the Torah. This
is a book for people who want help listening for the elusive,
important silences that course beneath the clamor of everyday
life.'- Judith Shulevitz, author of The Sabbath World
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