Books For Life Newsletter
Dear friends, Shalom U-vrakhah! Welcome to Issue Number 9 of 'Sefer Ha-Hayim - Books for Life' Newsletter. In this issue you will find out about some new books, including one about Torah, the age of the universe and evolution that will most likely be very controversial. You will also learn about whether all rabbis have equal standing and difficult end-of-life decisions. Thank you, Gil Student Find out more about Yashar Books at Vol. 1, No. 9 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. CREATION AND THE AGE OF THE UNIVERSE The book is out! The Zoo Rabbi's controversial new book about evolution and the age of the universe is now available to the public and it is quickly becoming a bestseller. Readers interested in having a copy from the first printing should hurry to buy their copy from their local bookstore soon. Rabbi Natan (Nosson) Slifkin has completely revised and vastly expanded his book The Science of Torah, republished as The Challenge of Creation: Judaism's Encounter with Science, Cosmology, and Evolution, with a foreword by Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb of the Orthodox Union. The Challenge of Creation builds upon The Science of Torah's approach, covering more issues and in greater depth. Carefully, methodically, and eschewing sensationalistic or dogmatic claims in favor of reasoned analysis, it shows how some of the greatest Jewish thinkers explained Judaism and Genesis in a way that complements modern science rather than conflicts with it. The Challenge of Creation is an invaluable resource for anyone grappling with conflicts between science and religion. It is a profound work that is sure to become a classic. Readers might recall that The Science of Torah was banned by a number of rabbis in 2004. The Challenge of Creation does not lack any of the material that was considered "objectionable" by the banners, but the entire book was carefully reviewed by experts in Torah and science before publication. However, it is written for those who take the conclusions of science seriously and are looking for a Torah framework in which to understand them. Based almost entirely on explicit statements from sages throughout the ages, Rabbi Slifkin presents a comprehensive approach to understanding the scientific challenges to the Torah’s account of Creation. You can see pictures from the book's launch at: You can learn more about the book at: 2. MAIMONIDES FOR TODAY Yashar Books is proud to have published a new book that surveys the impact of Maimonides and attempts to apply his unique approaches to today's world. The book is titled The Legacy of Maimonides: Religion, Reason and Community and was edited by Rabbis Yamin Levy and Shalom Carmy. Rabbi Moses Maimonides (1135-1204), known as Rambam, is widely known as a profound philosopher and authoritative legal scholar. However, Rambam’s contributions are not merely remnants of medieval scholarship but a vibrant legacy that gives compelling guidance in modern man’s spiritual search. In The Legacy of Maimonides, leading scholars present surveys of Rambam’s thinking and his impact on Judaism, and apply Rambam’s approach to various issues of critical contemporary importance. Community, tradition, self-perfection, Bible interpretation, messiah and dogma are among the timely subjects covered in this important work. Contributors include names from a Who's Who of Orthodox academics, including the late Prof. Isadore Twersky, Dr. Norman Lamm, Dr. Arthur Hyman, Dr. Gerald Blidstein, Dr. David Berger and many more. This beautiful book is not only important reading for every educated Jew but it also represents guideposts for the future of the community. Find out more about this book at: 3. ONLINE BOOK BUYING Buying online from Yashar has sometimes been frustrating, with some customers having to wait too long for books to arrive. No more. Yashar has now contracted with a new company to fulfill orders quickly and send customers e-mail confirmations of shipment with tracking numbers. This is in addition to the most obvious way to buy books from Yashar, at your local bookstore. You can purchase books online from Yashar at: 4. ARE ALL RABBIS CREATED EQUAL? Are all rabbis created equal? No. Some rabbis are more expert than others. The acquisition of rabbinical certification does not imply mastery on all matter of Torah. Some scholars have attained higher levels of expertise and there are leading scholars who simply know more than almost all others. This is as it is in all fields of knowledge. R. Chaim Jachter quotes a number of sources on this in his Gray Matter volume II, p. 192: [T]he beit din must not allow rabbis of ordinary stature to rule on matters of great complexity or import (see Teshuvot Meishiv Davar 4:50). For example, the Noda Biy'hudah (vol. 2, Y.D. 88) criticizes an ordinary rabbi for ruling on a case of ro'eh machmat tashmish, a complex area of the laws of family purity that can potentially result in forcing a couple to divorce (see Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah 187). Rav Moshe Feinstein (Teshuvot Igrot Moshe, Even Ha'ezer 1:64) similarly writes that ordinary rabbis should not rule on matters of contraception.[13] [13] Regarding the pervasiveness of this problem in our generation, see Nishmat Avraham (4:13-16) and Rav Tzvi Gartner's essay in Tradition (32:3:94-95). See also Pitchei Teshuvah (Y.D. 99:6). For more information on this book, see here: 5. STORIES FROM YESHIVA COLLEGE What happens when sixty-four former students, teachers and friends get together to reminisce about their Yeshiva College days? - Founded in 1928 as the first college of liberal arts and sciences in America under Jewish auspices, Yeshiva College has served, for over seventy-five years, as the central address for Torah u-Madda-the combination of Jewish and secular learning-in the United States and around the world. With only a first graduating class of less than twenty, Yeshiva College today boasts close to eight hundred students, all enrolled in the undergraduate dual program. From within its hallowed walls on Yeshiva University’s Washington Heights campus, Yeshiva College continues to educate and fashion some of the most significant and renown leaders of today and tomorrow. My Yeshiva College: 75 Years of Memories celebrates the past seventy-years of Yeshiva College, written from the perspective of former students and faculty members-many of whom still teach at and are involved with Yeshiva today. The volume follows the course of the College’s history, beginning with the nascent years under founder and first president Rabbi Dr. Bernard Revel, into the years of rapid growth under Rabbi Dr. Samuel Belkin, and into the last two and half decades of leadership under Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm. The memories shared highlight the panoptic fabric of Yeshiva’s intellectual tapestry-roshei yeshiva and professors, the beit midrash and the academy, the combined ethos of the Yeshiva and the College. In their depictions, each contributor explores what Yeshiva meant to them then and now. In doing so though, the writers featured in this volume collectively highlight the essence of the Yeshiva College education, and the continued pursuit of the Torah u-Madda ethos, illustrated by a will to succeed in the communal and professional world and the desire to cultivate lives of profound meaning. Their portrayals of life at Yeshiva remarkably convey the commonalities inherent among those who have studied here, while affirming the distinctive individuality of each experience. Drawing on various events, personalities, and memories, My Yeshiva College presents a vibrant portrait of the many that have lived, taught, and learned at Yeshiva College. This book of vivid, personal memories reveals the influential role Yeshiva College has played in the educating generations of American Jews, and the intellectual, social, and religious challenges it continues to face. You can learn more about the book at: 6. WHOSE LIFE IS IT ANYWAY? Rabbi David M. Feldman in Where There's Life, There's Life, pp. 100-102: The physical hastening of death, especially for reasons of pain or diminished quality of life, is the more obvious apprehension. The issue was captured in terms of “Whose Life Is It, Anyway?,” to quote the title of literary and theatrical dramatizations. From the perspective of Judaism, the answer is—not the one implied by the rhetorical “anyway.” If “anyway” is deleted, and the question is asked innocently, the answer, to begin with, is that life is not the patient’s. It’s not his or her life to take, because suicide is as forbidden as is homicide of someone else. Hence, a deed which brings about death, or merely accelerates it unduly, actively or passively, is rejected in principle. Whose life is it? If life is not the questioner’s, is it then for one’s family to determine what to do? No, neither is life the family’s to take, because members of the family are naturally prejudiced, either in favor or against. Either they care too much for the patient and want the doctors to “try everything,” actually to prolong the dying rather than the living, something also to be avoided; or they would hasten death out of genuine, altruistic compassion for the loved one. Conversely, the family could care too little for the patient, consciously or unconsciously, and care too much for ulterior considerations—material, emotional, or otherwise. Prof. Yale Kamisar wrote recently, and counterintuitively, in the Los Angeles Daily [Law] Journal, that “the family should be the last to be asked.” Members of the family may seem to be objective, but how can they really be? He points to the husband tending his cancerous wife who, in desperation, appeals to the doctor to “put her out of her misery.” What he is often really saying, subconsciously, is “It’s time to get on with my own life.” Others would understand his words, “Let’s put her out of her misery,” as meaning possibly, again without conscious awareness, “Let’s put her out of my misery.” Nor is life the doctor’s to take, from the Jewish and indeed from a cross-cultural standpoint. The doctor’s mandate is to heal and relieve, not to kill for whatever reason. Halakhah yields to the physician’s judgment only when he or she offers an opinion that is medical, not personal. It accepts a medical opinion offered about the state of a patient’s health or risks for life or death, but never a personal opinion about whether that life, of diminished quality, is worth saving. In fact, because of the doctor’s mandate to heal, even most advocates of euthanasia have opposed the idea of physician-assisted suicide. This would violate the physician-patient relationship of trust, as well as that mandate to heal. The trust relationship is, in fact, a problem: The New York State Task Force on Law and Life raises the possibility that this trust might lull us into accepting an assisted suicide from someone whose authoritarian or paternalistic view we might accept implicitly. Similarly, for reasons of preserving the healing function of medicine, the American Medical Association has declined to allow its members to administer lethal injections in criminal executions. And for the rest of us, the recent series of assisted suicides by Dr. Jack Kevorkian illustrates the difference between his course of action and that of respectable physicians. In the case of his first client, Janet Adkins, it is clear that she only feared possible, future pain; moreover, he took no time to acquaint himself with her real situation, her diagnosis, or her prognosis. As to his later clients, none of them even pointed to physical pain as the reason they sought his help. Whose life is it, then? Not the patient’s, not the family’s, not the doctor’s. Life is God’s, or, stated in different terms, life belongs to the principle that the right to life is inalienable, that it is a gift from the Creator, that it would be blasphemous to cast that gift back ungratefully, and that we, being creatures rather than Creator, are not the arbiters of the end of life for ourselves or fellow humans. And we are creatures “in the image of God,” which gives life a sanctity beyond our own estimations thereof, and beyond our right to dispense with. Find out more about this book here: Please join us. "Books for Life" is meant to be your newsletter. Send us your thoughts on our books or suggestions for new ones. From time to time, we will quote reader's letters. Thanks again for joining us! Gil Student Reader Service Update your email preferences. Refer a friend ©2006 Yashar Books
Volume 1, Number 9
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President, Yashar Books
http://www.YasharBooks.com/AboutUs.html
1. Creation and the Age of the Universe
2. Maimonides for Today
3. Online Book Buying
4. Are All Rabbis Created Equal?
5. Stories from Yeshiva College
6. Whose Life Is It Anyway?
http://www.yasharbooks.com/2006/07/launch-of-challenge-of-creation_19.html
http://www.yasharbooks.com/Challenge.html
http://www.yasharbooks.com/Legacy.html
http://www.yasharbooks.com/shop
http://www.yasharbooks.com/Gray.html
http://www.yasharbooks.com/Yeshiva.html
My article in The Jewish Press about the book can be found at:
http://www.jewishpress.com/page.do/18489/Stories_of_Yeshiva_College.htm
http://www.yasharbooks.com/Life.html
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