Abstract
Seek My Face, Speak My Name: A Contemporary Jewish Theology is a presentation, in highly spiritual and poetic terms, of the basic faith claims of Judaism by one of the most influential Jewish thinkers of our time. Rabbi Arthur Green, president of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, is a well-known student of Jewish mysticism. This work, much influenced by the mystical traditions of Judaism, and especially Chasidism, is at the same time thoroughly contemporary in. Its outlook and its willingness to confront modern reality. The four sections of this book are built around the four-letter Hebrew name of the Divine, Yod, Heh, Vav, and Heh. The first section, Yod, deals with God. Yod represents reality at its starting point, as God represents the oneness of the universe before it unfolds into being. Rabbi Green speaks of the holy name and images of the divine/human face as two central symbols of Jewish spirituality. This section.
Explores the two aspects of the divine self, the unchanging one and the ever-changing core of being that underlies reality. The second section, corresponding to the letter Heh, discusses Creation, or the birth of the world out of the oneness that is God. Here the author makes special use of the Jewish mystical idea of Emanation, as he seeks to redefine the relationship between God and the world. The author also turns from the realm of theology to that of practice, asking.
What the demands of a renewed faith in God as Creator would make upon contemporary Jews. The third section, corresponding to Vav, discusses Revelation as the central faith claim of Judaism. Religion is conceived by Rabbi Green as the result of a meeting between God and the individual mind and self of the prophet. Torah is seen as Divinity expressed in language. The final section, the second Heh of the divine name, represents the return to God. Here the author follows.
Those Jewish mystical traditions that see all of reality engaged in the process of return to its Source. Redemption is viewed as an act of homecoming. For the Jew, this takes place through a return to Torah and through participation in the ongoing process of tikkun or the restoration of God. Rabbi Green has created in this book a moving and deeply personal statement of the eternal truths of Jewish mysticism and has placed them in a framework that speaks honestly to.
Contemporary Jews. The book is at once a beginner's invitation to the profundity of Jewish spirituality and a rich rethinking of texts and positions for those who have already walked some distance along the Jewish path.