Читать книгу The Essential Agus - Steven T. Katz - Страница 12

The selections from R. Agus’ writings in this volume and the selectors’ original essays in the new companion volume titled American Rabbi: The Life and Thought of Jacob B. Agus (New York, 1996) consider the main aspects of Agus’ life and work in more detail. They flesh out the broad and repercussive themes adumbrated in a schematic way in this Introduction. And taken as a whole, they present a broad and substantial picture of a remarkable American rabbi and scholar. One does not have to agree with all of Agus’ views—I, for one, disagree with aspects of his writings on Zionism, nonpropositional revelation, the Torah, the vitality and future of Conservative Judaism, and the basis for revising (or not revising) the halakah in our time—but one has to admire his commitment to the Jewish people everywhere, his profound and unwavering spirituality, his continual reminders of the very real dangers of pseudomessianism and misplaced romantic zeal, his devotion to “Talmud Torah” in all of its guises, his personal piety, his willingness to take politically and religiously unpopular stands, his defense of such men as Owen Lattimore and Arnold Toynbee, his consistent faith in reason, his erudition in Western philosophy, and his tenacious ethical humanism, which knew no ethnic or racial boundaries. In sum, much of the best of Jewish and Western tradition was incarnated in a yeshiva bocher from Sislevitch. May his memory be for a blessing.