The world we engage with is a vibrant collage brought to consciousness by language and our creative imagination. It is through the symbolic forms of language that the human world of value is revealed—this is where religious scholar Michael Fishbane dwells in his latest contribution to Jewish thought.

In Fragile Finitude, Fishbane clears new ground for a theological life through a novel reinterpretation of the Book of Job. On this basis, he offers a contemporary engagement with the four classical types of Jewish Scriptural exegesis. The first focuses on worldly experience, the second on communal forms of practice and thought in the rabbinical tradition, the third on personal development, and the fourth on transcendent, cosmic orientations. Through these four modes, Fishbane manages to transform Jewish theology from within, at once reinvigorating a long tradition and moving beyond it. What he offers is nothing short of a way to reorient our lives in relation to the divine and our fellow humans. Written from within the Jewish tradition, Fragile Finitude is intended for readers across the religious spectrum.

Michael Fishbane is the Nathan Cummings Distinguished Service Professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Chicago. He is the author of many books, including Sacred Attunement: A Jewish Theology, also published by the University of Chicago Press.
 

Prologue

Part One: Introduction

Interlude One

Part Two: Peshat

Interlude Two

Part Three: Derash

Interlude Three

Part Four: Remez

Interlude Four

Part Five: Sod

Conclusion
 
Acknowledgments

Notes

Index