Margie Jacobs
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Mel discusses his book The Radical American Judaism of Mordecai M. Kaplan in a podcast.
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The Journals of Mordecai M. Kaplan Edited by Mel Scult Available for purchase (see below)
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This diary entry from Kaplan illustrates the spiritual doubts of a number of rabbinical students from the early forties. The entry is significant on many levels not the least of which is the fact that Jack Cohen and Sidney Morgenbesser were in the group. Kaplan’s response is significant in that it illustrates that though he…
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Kaplan has been accused of a naive optimism that belongs to a previous era. But the truth is that we desperately need his faith in our ability to overcome the difficulties that life presents to us. We will not survive much less achieve salvation [sheleymut] if we succumb to despair, self-pity and doubt. We must…
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(August 12, 2019) Kaplan is much undervalued as a theologian. We think of him as a sociological thinker, with his central concept of “Judaism as a Civilization.” But, of course, he is much more than that. We might refer to him as the sociologist become theologian. Below we will see the theologian at work. Kaplan…