Review of the book ‘Must a Jew Believe Anything?’ by Menachem Kellner

Date

1999

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

(RCA) Rabbinical Council of America

YU Faculty Profile

Abstract

As the Introduction to this stimulating book draws to a close, Kellner reiterates its provocative title and encapsulates the thesis in three sentences: Must a Jew believe anything? If belief is a matter of trust in God expressed in obedience to the Torah, my answer to the question is that a Jew must believe everything. If "belief' is the intellectual acquiescence in carefully defined statements of dogma, the answer is that there is nothing that a Jew must believe (p. 9). The alert reader will immediately notice that the key final sentence contains a qualifying expression with an ironic effect. The term "care fully defined" blurs careful definition, so that we do not know if the author means to deny that a Jew need assent to any dogmatic proposition at all. If he does not mean to deny this, the word "anything" is, to put it mildly, rather misleading. (from Conclusion).

Description

Book review

Keywords

Jewish belief, Maimonides, Moses, 1135-1204. 13 ʻiḳre ha-emunah., Judaism --Doctrines., Orthodox Judaism., Ani maʼamin (Jewish creed)

Citation

Berger, D. (1999, Summer). [Review of the book ‘Must a Jew Believe Anything?’ by Menachem Kellner]. Tradition: A Journal of Orthodox Jewish Thought, 33(4), 81-89