This will probably be the most important Jewish book to publish this year or even in the last few. Its message is essential, important for a Christian-centric world that seems to perceive the Christian tradition as all about love, while considering Judaism to be about law and justice. Shai Held — with a PhD from Harvard and rabbinic ordination through the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York — is one of the most articulate rabbis and scholars in North America today.
It is a long book: 400 pages of text followed by 130 pages of notes. I want to point to just a few chapters in the hope of encouraging more people to read it despite its bulk.
Chapter titles succinctly tell the story: Chapter 1 is “We Are Loved,” explaining in clear terms the Jewish understanding of creation and God and humankind. Chapter 5 is “Loving Our Neighbor: Judaism’s Great Principle,” revealing — to those who didn’t already realize it — that the commandment Jesus made famous for Christians was one that he took, as a rabbi would, from the Torah of ancient Judaism. Held explores in detail what this means for people in their lives, answering questions such as whether something like love can actually be commanded and the difference between love as an emotion and love as something we should, and sometimes shouldn’t, do.
And chapter 13, “The God of Judaism (and of the 'Old Testament') Is a God of Love,” offers a theological understanding of both ancient and modern Judaism that comes from its sources but runs counter to both the anti-Judaism that undergirds Christian replacement theologies (teachings that Christianity 'replaced' Judaism) and antisemitism of many forms.
Held goes deeply into biblical and Talmudic sources, and quotes Musar sages and kabbalistic mystics, to explore these themes and others. But he does so always with a deft touch, writing for a non-scholar reader.
He is good at teachings texts, explaining traditions, and he’s great at answering questions of objection. Often, a chapter is punctuated with something like this: “Every once in a while, when I give a class or a lecture about hesed [loving kindness] in a Jewish setting, someone will object, 'But a commitment to acts of kindness is not uniquely Jewish!' ” Or, “When I teach some of the texts we’ve been discussing, on occasion someone reacts dismissively, even condescendingly: 'So what you’re really saying is that I should be a good person'…”
The theme of love winds throughout, from beginning to end, because, as Held explains, that is what Judaism is all about. His intention is not only to counter mistaken notions of his religious tradition but to encourage those within his faith, and anyone else who is reading this book, to cleave (from the Hebrew word and ideal, devekut) to God’s love in such a way that it changes them for the good of themselves and others. “Embodying God’s love is a profound — arguably the profoundest — expression of closeness to God,” he writes.
