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NEW YORK, NY, March 12, 2023 /24-7PressRelease/ — The American Jewish expertise is positioned underneath a microscope in a brand new, thought-provoking e-book by a rabbi who can also be celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the legendary, best-selling e-book, The Jewish Catalog, which has bought over 300,000 copies since he edited the 1973 version.
Rabbi Michael Strassfeld, the creator, retired from the pulpit after 25 years of serving as a Reconstructionist rabbi in New York Metropolis. He grew up in Boston in an Orthodox house. His father was a rabbi who was born in Ukraine and raised in Germany till his rapid household left just a few years earlier than World Warfare II. The remainder of his household was murdered within the Holocaust by the Nazis. Strassfeld grew up with the burden of figuring out Judaism was at all times underneath risk from the surface world.
Right now, he believes it’s underneath a distinct risk, one from inside. Just a few generations faraway from the Holocaust, America has develop into much less spiritual throughout all religions, and homes of worship wrestle to maintain membership and keep afloat. Fewer individuals really feel engaged with their religion.
“This e-book – Judaism Disrupted: A Non secular Manifesto for the twenty first Century (February 2023, Ben Yehuda Press) – is my try and reply a query: Why trouble?” says Rabbi Strassfeld. “I wrote it from the angle of somebody who has had an evolving dedication to Judaism over the course of my life. I turned a rabbi on the age of 41, however have at all times been concerned in Jewish life. From the Orthodox world during which I grew up, I now embrace a Judaism that attracts upon the richness of the custom in addition to insights drawn from the modern second.”
Judaism Disrupted is certain to stir some heated discussions. It seeks to spark a dialog that embraces the essence of Judaism, nevertheless it’s practiced — and to re-invigorate it. The e-book supplies a framework for a brand new paradigm and helps the reader discover the evolution of an historical religion. It exhibits how it may be reinvigorated and practiced anew.
Rabbi Strassfeld is obtainable to debate the next:
• The 11 core ideas that ought to outline at the moment’s Judaism.
• The aim of life and the way Judaism helps us reside it and discover success.
• The way to create a significant Jewish life, maintain a group, and reside extra spiritually.
• What has modified within the 50 years since The Jewish Catalog was printed?
• How the Jewish religion helps us pursue compassion and social justice on the earth.
• How we will re-invent the notion of Torah in our lives.
• Whether or not the rituals are meaningless, if conventional prayer nonetheless works, and whether or not rabbinic Judaism suits into the trendy Jew’s pursuit of that means, the sacred, and the holy.
• How faith can improve our lives and never really feel like an anchor of guilt and obligation.
• Why Judaism isn’t just an historical observe comprised of legal guidelines and rituals.
• Why we should unite towards the rising tide of anti-Semitism.
• How we would come to see God in a brand new mild.
• How we will efficiently steadiness custom with the modern second.
“The aim of Judaism is to not be a great Jew by doing numerous its rituals,” says Rabbi Strassfeld. “The aim of Judaism is to be a great individual, a mensch.” Judaism Disrupted is a heartfelt, fascinating, trustworthy, and deeply expressive fruits of thought and expertise in an ever-changing lifetime journey touring Judaism. It could even be a blueprint for retaining the religion related and purposeful.
“To be disrupted is to expertise a break with the previous and concurrently reconnect in a brand new solution to the previous,” says the rabbi. “That is what this e-book is about – taking Judaism as it’s being disrupted to the world round it, and fascinating in a renewed examination of the custom that has been my house all my life. I hope others will supply their very own variations of Judaism disrupted. Simply as after we went from biblical Judaism to rabbinic Judaism, we’re on the cusp of one other kind of Judaism. We every will come to outline what that’s.”
Rabbi Michael Strassfeld has served the Jewish group for over 5 many years, in quite a few capacities, together with as an educator, author, editor, rabbi, and group chief.
He earned a PH.D. in Jewish Historical past, and an MA and a BA in Close to Japanese and Judaic Research. All three of his levels come from Brandeis College. He resides together with his spouse, Pleasure, in New York Metropolis. For extra data, please seek the advice of: www.michaelstrassfeld.com.
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