In this book, Kaplan enlarges on his notion of functional reinterpretation and then actually applies it to the entire ritual cycle of the Jewish year-a rarity in modern Jewish thought. This work continues to function as a central text for the Reconstructionist movement, whose influence continues to grow in American Jewry.

The Meaning of God in Modern Jewish Religion

History

Kaplan, Mordecai M.

World

Wayne State University Press

Mordecai M. Kaplan (1881-1983), founder of Reconstructionism, is the preeminent American Jewish thinker and rabbi of our times. His life embodies the American Jewish experience of the first half of the twentieth century. With passionate intensity and uncommon candor, Kaplan compulsively recorded his experience in his journal (some 10,000 pages).This first volume of Communings of the Spirit covers Kaplan's early years as a rabbi, teacher of rabbis, and community leader. Kaplan, who trained rabbis for half a century, gives us an inside picture of life at the Jewish Theological Seminary, the center of Conservative Judaism in America. He records his masterful weekly sermons, which were attended regularly by his students. With unflinching candor, he reveals his successes and failures, uncertainties and self-doubts. Undeterred by attacks on his radical beliefs, he never wavered in the pursuit of a more dynamic Judaism.

Communings of the Spirit: Exploring the Journals of Mordecai M. Kaplan, 1913-1934 (American Jewish Civilization)

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

Wayne State University

Mordecai M. Kaplan (1881-1983), founder of Reconstructionism, is the preeminent American Jewish thinker and rabbi of our times. His life embodies the American Jewish experience of the first half of the twentieth century. With passionate intensity and uncommon candor, Kaplan compulsively recorded his experience in his journal (some 10,000 pages). This first volume of Communings of the Spirit covers Kaplan's early years as a rabbi, teacher of rabbis, and community leader. Kaplan, who trained rabbis for half a century, gives us an inside picture of life at the Jewish Theological Seminary, the center of Conservative Judaism in America. He records his masterful weekly sermons, which were attended regularly by his students. With unflinching candor, he reveals his successes and failures, uncertainties and self-doubts. Undeterred by attacks on his radical beliefs, he never wavered in the pursuit of a more dynamic Judaism.

Leaders & Notable People

New Haggadah for the Pesah Seder

Behrman House

Not So Random Thoughts

Religion & Spirituality

Reconstructionist Press

The classic text that focuses on the talmudic perspective of the Jewish path to holiness. Bilingual edition (Hebrew and English).

The Path of the Upright: Mesillat Yesharim

Politics & Social Sciences

Philosophy

Jason Aronson, Inc.

Mordecai Kaplan, the co-founder of the Reconstructionist movement, defines that movement for the reader in this classic volume, which can serve as a contemporary account of the beginning of the Reconstructionist movement.

Questions Jews Ask: Reconstructionist Answers (Classics in Judaica)

Academic Studies Press

Throughout history, Judaism has been under attack by other religions, attacks which strengthened the identification of the group as a whole. Modern challenges, however, are coming from different directions, and are producing different results. Jewish identification is declining at the same time as more and more Jewish groups to identify with are rising. Rather than being a disaster, Kaplan argues that the multiplicity of threads in Jewish life today represents the process of a radical transformation “nothing less than metamorphosis.” It is in this way that Judaism is creating its own future, the greater Judaism in the making.

The Greater Judaism in Making: A Study of Modern Evolution of Judaism (Classics in Judaica)

Based on the original edition first published in 1934, Judaism as a Civilization: Toward a Reconstruction of American-Jewish Life is a work on Judaism and American Jewish life by Rabbi Mordecai M. Kaplan, the founder of Reconstructionist Judaism. The book is Kaplan's most notable work and has influenced a number of American Jewish thinkers. Kaplan's work centers around the concept that Judaism ought not to be defined as the religion of the Jews, but the sum of Jewish religion, culture, language, literature and social organization.

Judaism as a Civilization: Toward a Reconstruction of American-Jewish Life

Must Have Books

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Kaplan, Mordecai M.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Kaplan, Mordecai M.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Kaplan, Mordecai M.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Meaning of God in Modern Jewish Religion

Communings of the Spirit: Exploring the Journals of Mordecai M. Kaplan, 1913-1934 (American Jewish Civilization)

Communings of the Spirit: Exploring the Journals of Mordecai M. Kaplan, 1913-1934 (American Jewish Civilization)

New Haggadah for the Pesah Seder

Not So Random Thoughts

The Path of the Upright: Mesillat Yesharim

Questions Jews Ask: Reconstructionist Answers (Classics in Judaica)

The Greater Judaism in Making: A Study of Modern Evolution of Judaism (Classics in Judaica)

Judaism as a Civilization: Toward a Reconstruction of American-Jewish Life