Rupture and Reconstruction

The essay that formsthe core of this book is an attempt to understand the developments that haveoccurred in Orthodox Jewry in America in the last seventy years, and to analysetheir implications. The prime change is what is often described as ‘the swing tothe right’, a marked increase in ritual stringency, a rupture in patterns ofbehaviour that has had major consequences not only for Jewish society but alsofor the nature of Jewish spirituality. For Haym Soloveitchik, the key featureat the root of this change is that, as a result of migration to the ‘New Worlds’ of England, the US,and Israel and acculturation to its new surroundings, AmericanJewry—indeed, much of the Jewish world— had to reconstruct religious practicefrom normative texts: observance could no longer be transmitted mimetically, onthe basis of practices observed in home and street. In consequence, behaviouronce governed by habit is now governed by rule. This new edition allows theauthor to deal with criticisms raised since the essay, long established as aclassic in the field, was originally published, and enables readers to gain afuller perspective on a topic central to today’s Jewish world and itsdevelopment.

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