Overview

The story of Abraham smashing his father's idols might be the most important Jewish story ever told and the key to how Jews define themselves. In a work at once deeply erudite and wonderfully accessible, Rabbi Jeffrey K. Salkin conducts readers through the life and legacy of this powerful story and explains how it has shaped Jewish consciousness. Offering a radical view of Jewish existence, The Gods Are Broken! views the story of the young Abraham as the ""primal trauma"" of Jewish history, one critical to the development of a certain Jewish comfort with rebelliousness and one that, happening in every generation, has helped Jews develop a unique identity. Salkin shows how the story continues to reverberate through the ages, even in its connection to the phenomenon of anti-Semitism. Salkin's work-combining biblical texts, archaeology, rabbinic insights, Hasidic texts (some never before translated), philosophy, history, poetry, contemporary Jewish thought, sociology, and popular culture-is nothing less than a journey through two thousand years of Jewish life and intellectual endeavor.

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9780827609310

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Reviews

Can a single story unfold the history of a nation and some of the deepest truths of tradition? Yes, if that story is the rabbis' tale of Abraham and its interpreter is Rabbi Salkin. There is much to learn in this absorbing, important book. David J. Wolpe, rabbi of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles and the author of Why Faith Matters Jeffrey Salkin takes us on a magical journey through Jewish history and texts, showing us how a simple, ancient postbiblical tale is essential for our understanding of the totality of the Jewish experience. It is full of insights that will challenge how we as readers view modern society and the idolatries that are inherent in it. Norman J. Cohen, rabbi and professor of Midrash at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, New York, and author of Masking and Unmasking Ourselves In tidy chapters and subchapters, and in a breezy, excited style, the author explores all aspects of the meaning of brokenness as a Jewish identifier... Smoothly weaving together contemporary scholarship, midrashic elaborations of scripture, and meditation on the key symbols that evoke his central issue, Rabbi Salkin provides a map of Judaic meaning. By comparing and contrasting Abraham's breaking of his father's idols with the breaking of the first set of tablets by Moses, he opens up a investigative mode that has far-reaching consequences for the world Jewish community, both present and future. - Philip K. Jason, Jewish Book Council

Jeffrey Salkin takes us on a magical journey through Jewish history and texts, showing us how a simple, ancient postbiblical tale is essential for our understanding of the totality of the Jewish experience. It is full of insights that will challenge how we as readers view modern society and the idolatries that are inherent in it. --Norman J. Cohen, rabbi and professor of Midrash at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, New York, and author of Masking and Unmasking Ourselves --Norman J. Cohen (09/19/2012)

Author Information

Rabbi Jeffrey K. Salkin is the author of numerous books, including Righteous Gentiles in the Hebrew Bible: Ancient Role Models for Sacred Relationships and Putting God on the Guest List, winner of the 1993 Benjamin Franklin Award for the best religion book published in the United States.

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