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PREFACE TO THE 1967 EDITION
- Jewish Publication Society
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PREFACE TO THE 1967 EDITION Characterizing JUDAISM AS A CIVILIZATION as a classic, though meant to be a compliment, is likely to shelve it in a library where it can peacefully gather dust. By the same token, telling its author that he is ahead of his time is likely to serve his contemporaries as an excuse for not taking him seriously. The purpose, therefore, of this Preface to the new edition of his first major work is to disavow either compliment by emphasizing the timeliness of his book and the continued contemporaneity of its author. Factually, seeing Judaism as a totality, and therefore as more than a religion, was made possible as a result of the latest perspective which the human mind has been able to achieve-that of holistic or organismic thinking. Holistic or organismic thinking is what Matthew Arnold described as "seeing things integrally and seeing them whole," i.e., in their totality. In other words, when we deal with a living entity like a civilization, we should take cognizance of each of its aspects, to note what it contributes to the entire civilization and what the civilization as a whole does to each of them to render the whole more than the sum of its aspects. That holistic or organismic approach enabled Matthew Arnold to arrive at his classic description of the difference between Hebraism and Hellenism. Organismic thinking is the latest stage in the maturation of tbe human mind. First came mythology, then philosophy, then science, and now we are learning to think organismically. Accordingly, whoever attempts to write about Judaism in organismic terms must take into account the entire Jewish situation at the time he writes, particularly if he writes from a normative point of view, for the purpose of improving the situation. That is why the opening chapter of this book, which was first published in 1934, gives a survey of the American-Jewish situation of that decade. The worst aspect of the present situation is the alienation from Jewish life and religion of American intellectuals ofJewish parentage -of scientists, writers, and academicians-and the bottomless ignorance of Judaism on the part of some of the leading laity. Due to the xxv xxvi PREFACE TO THE ]967 EDITION worsening of the situation, the opening chapter of this book is somewhat dated. However, the main body of the book, dealing as it does with the normative aspects of Judaism, is still timely, for the simple reason that while the proposed program has been approved by a considerable number of men and women of light and leading, it has not yet been translated into action. MORDECAI M. KAPLAN ...