I. Write a book review on any two of the following books using the format following:
Kugel, James. On Being a Jew. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1999.
Olitzky, Kerry M., and Daniel Judson. The Rituals and Practices of a Jewish Life: A Handbook for Personal Spiritual Renewal. Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights, 2002.
Goldstein, Niles E., and Peter S Knobel, eds. Duties of the Soul: The Role of Commandments in Liberal Judaism. New York: UAHC Press, 1999.
Rothschild, Fritz A. Between God and Man: An Interpretation of Judaism from the Writings of Abraham Joshua Heschel. New York: Free Press paperbacks, 1959.
Sonsino, Rifat. Six Jewish Spiritual Paths: A Rationalist Looks at Spirituality Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights, 2000.
BOOK REVIEW FORMAT
Your Name
Publishing Data: (Author, Title. Place, Publisher, Date)
Author info (who is the author? What should we know about him/her?:
Summary of book contents
Thesis (What viewpoint is the author seeking to promote or prove?)
Major sections of the book in short summary paragraphs, showing how each section develops an aspect of, or gives support to the main thesis.
Importance of the book's presentation for the development of Messianic Judaism.
React to the author's thesis and its development--positively, negatively, or both--in relation to own opinon, experience, and perspective on the subject matter presented.
Review to be typed, double-spaced, with one-inch margins. From one and a half to two pages in length—only!
II. Answer all three of the following questions
A. Take a position pro or con and on the following issue. “Should Messianic Jewish Congregations differentiate between the roles and lifestyle appropriate for Jewish and Gentile members?” Use biblical data in our answer, but not only biblical data Do not simply make this response a Bible study, but incorporate issues such as the specific calling of the people of Israel and the nations, the nature of the unity of the Body of Messiah, the One New Man spoken of in Ephesians two, issues of our relationship to the wider Jewish world, issues of integrity, the purpose of the Messianic Jewish Movement in the hand of God at this time in history, and pastoral realities. Response should be between three and five double-spaced pages.
B. Using the Cube of Messianic Jewish Spirituality as your base, draw up a proposal for your Messianic Jewish Synagogue, or of a hypothetical 75 percent Jewish majority Messianic Jewish Congregation as to why and how this cube should form the foundation of an Adult Bar/Mitzvah Class. Such a class provides an opportunity for people with at least one Jewish parent to lay claim to their Jewish identity when for one reason or another they never had a Bar or Bat Mitzvah as children. Alternately, such a class serves as an introduction to Messianic Judaism for people who want to understand it more deeply. This curriculum would cover a two year curriculum. Your task here is NOT to draw up the cuririculum but to (1) Explain each of the elements of the model; (2) indicate how they might be interrelated with each other; (3) Explain why the model is necessary and proper for such an educational program; (4) Defend the model as being substantially comprehensive as a basis for Messianic Jewish spirituality; (5) Indicate in what ways, if any, your find this model inadequate as a basis for such a program: what would you do differently and why? Wherever possible, make reference to materials from the required readings from this course. Your audience is primarily the Board of the congregation, and secondarily, the members of the congregation. Response should be between four and six double spaced pages.
C. Choose three insights or issues from this course that you believe have affected you most deeply or will have most impact on your life, and explain why. Indicate what plans you have for possible changes in your life as a result. Response should be two to three double-spaced pages.
If you at all familiar with it, use the Chicago Manual of Style as your guide for formatting. Formatting will not negatively effect your grade, but attentiveness to matters of formatting will push your grade higher!
2 comments:
I am reposting a comment I made on the last post regarding the Reform Movement because I think it really relates to us:
A couple times in the last few weeks the issue of converting non-Jews in our midst has arisen. And Rabbi Kinbar also raised the point in his last post:
"IMO conversion to Judaism should be an option (for most, this would be within Messianic Judaism, and the issue is identity and NOT whether other Jews accept the convert)."
This issue of primacy of identity for a particular Jewish Movement is being raised right now in Reform Judaism (and in some ways, always has been with them).
Just last week, in the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, was an article dealing with the Reform Movement's new campaign to actively prostelitize to non-Jews. Here they are desiring to be in our situation. The are actively seeking to recruit non-Jews into Reform Judaism. And they are not basing their decisions on the positions of other forms of Judaism accepting their conversions.
If they are successful, it will be interesting to watch how they begin to deal with the issues we are currently dealing with.
Steps must be taken. And I think there is precedence for taking these certain steps. If a large conversion of specifically commited non-Jews is a psossibility, maybe we should indeed seriously consider it?
Another observation related to our discussion of non-Jews, is that there seems to actually be halachic precedence in support of a non-Jew being called up for an aliyah and reading from the Torah:
Rabbi Judah ben Beteira used to say: “Words of Torah cannot become ritually impure (BT, Berachot 22b)."
On this basis, the Rambam ruled that “all those who are ritually impure, even menstruating women and even non-Jews, may hold a Torah scroll and read from it, because words of Torah cannot become ritually impure (Laws of Torah Scrolls 10:8).”
just thought this was interesting.
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