God, Man and History

Born in 1908 in Romania, Berkovits was educated in Berlin before he was forced to flee Germany in the late 1930s. After serving in rabbinates in England, Australia and Boston, he joined the faculty of Hebrew Theological College in Chicago in 1958. Although he wrote 19 books and numerous articles, his name is less familiar today than some of his contemporaries like Martin Buber or Abraham Joshua Heschel. Perhaps the republication of this, his ""keystone"" work, will attract more attention to the Jewish philosopher, who died in 1992. ""In contrast to other twentieth-century thinkers, who employed the classic Jewish sources to defend a modernist outlook.... Berkovits's work offers an argument for the independence and validity of a traditional Jewish worldview in a style more reminiscent of Judah Halevi, Maimonides, and Sa'adia Gaon,"" writes Hazony, a Ph.D. candidate at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. As Hazony notes, Berkovits's writing is challenging and methodical, but intellectually rewarding.