Since the post-Enlightenment, Jews have fragmented into a variety of sub-groups, each with their own religious ideology. This book provides a description as well as a critique of these various Jewish religious groups and offers an alternative model of Judaism based on an assessment of the nature of contemporary Jewish life. As will be seen, modern Jews are deeply divided on a wide variety of issues. Given this situation, no uniform pattern of Jewish existence can be imposed from above, nor is it likely to emerge from within the body of Israel. What is required instead is a philosophy of Jewish autonomy which legitimizes Jewish subjectivity and personal decision-making. This philosophy of Judaism - which is referred to in this study as 'Open Judaism' - provides a new foundation for Jewish life as Jews stand on the threshold of the third millennium.
"I could not reconcile anything these people were talking about with anything that made sense: miracles, prohibitions - keep the whole thing! There was one thing that set the seeds in motion very early on. I used to go to the Science Museum. The folks took me; I went there all the time. I loved it. You see these prehistoric things, and all that stuff. When I learnt how to read, I see these things are sixty million years old. They got dates on 'em. How come then, in religion school, the calendar is 5,000 and some years old? So I start thinking about it. This was when I was prob- ably seven or eight. And I say, 'There's something wrong here. These people are telling me the world started 5,000 years ago and· these things are sixty million years old! So I go in to the rabbi and say, 'How come?' He says, 'That's the way it is.' And I say, How can you say that's the way it is. I'm reading the Bible already, and I don't see anything about dinosaurs in there. Somewhere, somebody's got something wrong. I don't know who, but somebody's got something wrong.' (D. and L. Cohn- Sherbok, 1994,246)"