In this remarkable, and what promises to be a highly controversial, work, Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo suggests that Jewish Law must be seen as a discipline of resistance and courage. He pleads for the urgent return to authentic religiosity, which by now has been compromised by nearly all who claim to be religious. Rebelling against the rabbinical establishment, Rabbi Cardozo takes it to task for failing to liberate Halacha from its stagnancy and confinement. With ground-breaking suggestions, he shows how to make Jewish Law once again relevant to our modern society and to the State of Israel.
Out of love for Judaism and all human beings Rabbi Cardozo provokes, challenges, annoys and disturbs his readers, asking them to resist the corrupting effect of the ordinary and often hollow motions of today’s religious life. While focusing on Judaism and Jewish Law, much of what Rabbi Cardozo argues applies equally to other religions as well as to secularism.
A book that may trigger a new era of genuine introspection, laying the foundations for a better world in which the Divine will stand at the center of humanity.
Praise for Jewish Law As Rebellion:
“Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo has written a challenging, even provocative book, inviting us to restore the iconoclasm with which Judaism was born as a religion of protest against the status quo. Agree or disagree, you will find yourself thinking hard and deep about the current state of Jewish law and life, and that makes it a work well worth reading – a new chapter in one of the great Jewish traditions: the dignity of dissent.”
– Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks
“Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo is a rebel fighting for a most worthy cause – to reinvigorate Judaism and infuse it with real spiritual context. He inveighs against the over-codification of Halachah, a sort of pietistic OCD syndrome, which stifles the true spirit of Judaism. He calls for a return to the Talmud and its sources, with its openness, its bewildering variety of opinions, its multifaceted character, its liberality, and its halachic flexibility. This book is the powerful plea of a genuinely pious Jew deeply concerned for our Jewish future. The problems and challenges he presents are real and urgent, requiring creative rethinking on the part of our religious authorities. He is to be admired and congratulated for his courage and the clarity of his vision.”
– Rabbi Professor Daniel Sperber
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