Truth and Compassion: Essays on Judaism and Religion in Memory of Rabbi Dr. Solomon Frank

Brian Champion was Reference Librarian, Humanities and Social Sciences Library, University of Alberta, Edmonton.

Rabbi Frank officiated at the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in Montreal; this Festschrift was compiled for his eightieth birthday. The essays are intended to be a metaphor of Rabbi Frank’s catholic interests and studies; they range in topicality from a comparison of charity in Christianity and Judaism to reflections on “whig” interpretations of Jewish history, to some theological reflections on the Holocaust. Frederik Bird’s lead-off study of comparative philanthropy highlights differences in biblical and early rabbinic Judaism with that of early Christianity and concludes that standards of charity are different — for the Tannaiom charity was a cultural norm, and for the Christian it was heroic self-sacrifice. Co-editor Lightstone’s treatment of Judaism of the Second Commonwealth is intended to move reformist historians along the road to understanding the scholarly tradition in Judaism. Michael Desplond’s captivating essay on Rousseau’s attitude toward religion is suggested as a key to understanding the intersection of religious histories and the romantic literary school of the nineteenth century. An interpretive biography of Walter Benjamin, a German Jewish writer and neo-marxist philosopher who swallowed morphine tablets at the closed French-Spanish border rather than face internment by the advancing Nazis, is heavily philosophic. It delves into and requires some reading of the materialist nature of history. Michael Oppenheim exposes some underlying issues of modern Jewish philosophy: the essence or character of Judaism; the Jewish identity in the modern, secular world; the value of Judaism in so depersonalized a world as our own, just to mention a few. He considers Franz Rosenzweig, among others, as one of the main contemporary apologists for Judaism. Gershon David Hundert reflects on Jewish history using Herbert Butterfield’s The Whig Interpretation of History as a paradigm. Joseph B. Soloveitchik is considered the foremost contemporary rabbinic scholar in modern orthodoxy; Jerome Eckstein’s essay explores Soloveitchik’s “lonely man of faith,” which he calls Adam I and Adam II. In an interesting and innovative interpretation of faith, Barry Levy examines the phenomenon of the art scroll. Howard Joseph expresses some thoughts on the theological nature and implication of the Holocaust. His essay is especially useful as a bibliographical source for other interpretive works on the literature of Holocaust experiences. An interesting and authentic touch is added by Shimon Levy’s article, written entirely in Hebrew. This collection is important for its contribution to the assessment of the relevance of Judaism for modern believers. It is a fine tribute to Rabbi Frank and is a credit to the contributors.