Challenge and Continuity

Rabbi Birnbaum''s well-organised treatment of the relationship between Torah and science provides insightful guidance. Ã? ?Ã? ?--Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis ***[A]n enlightening and inspiring account of how Orthodox rabbis responded to some of the unprecedented stresses of modernity.--Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks ***A clear discussion of the nature of orthodox rabbinic response to challenge, considering three key areas: modernity, science, and the Holocaust, written by an excellent scholar.--Dr. Naftali Loewenthal, Adjunct Lecturer in Jewish Spirituality ***One of the central roles of rabbinic leadership has been the ability to analyze the key issues of the day and provide an appropriate response. Great weight is given to both precedent and community tradition, as well the views of earlier rabbinic scholars. This work highlights a variety of rabbinic responses to critical issues presented by modernity and science, as well as examples of spiritual leadership in the course of the tragedy of the Holocaust. It also establishes the continuity of the methodological principles utilized in rabbinic response through a focus on the works of two of the greatest rabbinic scholars of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the Chatam Sofer and Rabbi Moshe Feinstein respectively. [Subject: Judaism, Jewish Studies, Religious Studies]