A Modern Heretic and a Traditional Community

Mordecai Kaplan, the founder of the Reconstructionist movement, was the most influential and controversial radical Jewish thinker in the twentieth century. This book examines the intellectual influences that moved Kaplan from Orthodoxy and analyzes the combination of personal, strategic, and career reasons that kept Kaplan close to Orthodox Jews, posing a question crucial to the understanding of any religion: Can an established religious group learn from a heretic who has rejected its most fundamental beliefs?



Summary: My favorite book on Kaplan
Rating: 5

I'm one of those people who much prefer reading primary sources rather than secondary. I have not found many books on Kaplan to be nearly as illuminating as Kaplan himself. But this book blew me away. This is an extraordinarily well written, concise, well-researched, funny, and thoughtful book on Kaplan's life as an Orthodox rabbi at the same time as he was the gadfly of the Jewish Theological Seminary. If one wants to understand someone's philosophy, watch how they live, and in this, Kaplan's philosophy is shed in a very different light than the prescriptions found in his books.

Highly recommended. Great read for anyone interested in American Judaism, American Orthodoxy, Mordecai Kaplan, or even just the relationship between thinkers and their lives. A great tale.

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