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URJ PRESS Releases Revised Edition of Finding God, What is God? Or, better yet, is there a God? Without preaching or suggesting what to believe, the authors of the newly revised Finding God: Selected Responses present a wide spectrum of approaches to the profound and puzzling questions about divine powers. True believers and agnostics, those for whom God is an everyday experience and those who find the their childhood definitions of God difficult to accept will find this historical review of the approaches to the deity an invaluable resource. For thousands of years, Jewish theologians and philosophers have debated the nature of God - how we can perceive God, how we can know God, and how God can fit into our everyday lives. The new edition of Finding God: Selected Responses introduces readers to the viewpoints of more than a dozen of these Jewish thinkers, including the authors of the Bible, philosophers such as Spinoza, Maimonides, and Martin Buber, and Jewish intellectuals who are still teaching and writing today. "This book will not attempt to tell you what to believe as a Jew," the authors write in the book's introduction. "Rather, it will present a spectrum of theological options that have been explored and affirmed by great Jewish thinkers, ancient and modern." Finding God was originally released in 1986. The new edition contains new chapters on the theologies of Abraham Joshua Hechsel, Alvin Reines, and contemporary Jewish thinkers such as Lawrence Kushner, Judith Plaskow, and Harold Schulweis, as well as additional information on Jewish mysticism, Jewish feminism, and Jewish spirituality. Authored by Rabbi Rifat Sonsino, rabbi of Temple Beth Shalom in Needham, MA, and Rabbi Daniel B. Syme, spiritual leader of Temple Beth El in Bloomfield Hills, MI, Finding God can be used as part of the curriculum for Jewish high school classes, adult education courses, and "Introduction to Judaism" classes for potential Jews-by-choice. Each of the book's first twelve chapters focuses on one particular thinker or system of belief, beginning with the Bible and continuing through the Talmud to focus on thinkers including Philo Judaeus, Isaac Luria, Milton Steinberg, Mordecai Kaplan, and Erich Fromm. Sonsino and Syme approach their subjects from an unbiased perspective, offering summations of their major ideas and taking care to point out that, in the Jewish tradition, there is no one "correct" way to think of God. From Maimonides, whose spiritual concept of God was heavily influenced by Aristotle, to Hechsel's "Depth Theology," which sees God as a marvelous power whose "question is more than our mind can answer," each viewpoint is explored with an emphasis on how each thinker saw the nature of God, the power of prayer, the question of immortality, and the problems of evil. According to the authors, Finding God was written to help learners explore the many concepts of God, helping them recognize their own ideas about faith in the words of some of Judaism's greatest thinkers. "If we make it possible for one Jew to reclaim his or her Jewish spiritual identity, if we help others to begin to talk about God without ambivalence or embarrassment, if we serve as a catalyst for further study of these and other Jewish thinkers, we will consider our work worthwhile," write Sonsino and Syme in the book's introduction. Finding God is available in paperback from the URJ PRESS, and retails for $12. It can be ordered by contacting the Press toll-free, at (888) 489-UAHC (8242), or by visiting the Press's Web page at www.URJPress.com. The URJ PRESS is the publishing arm of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, the central body of Reform Judaism in North America. The UAHC represents 1.5 million Jews in more than 900 congregations across the United States and Canada, and offers programs and services including youth camping, adult education, outreach to intermarried and unaffiliated Jews, and the Religious Action Center in Washington, DC. The URJ PRESS is the publishing arm of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, the central body of Reform Judaism in North America. which represents1.5 million Reform Jews in 906 congregations in the United States and Canada. Other UAHC services include camps, outreach to unaffiliated and intermarried Jews, adult education programs, and the Religious Action Center in Washington, DC. ### 5/02
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