Listening for God in Torah and Creation: A Weekly Encounter with Conscience and Soul

Reading and studying the Torah is integral to Judaism, but it can feel challenging for liberal Jews in the 21st century. Rabbi Wittenberg’s (Learning To Listen) book is grounded in textual study and addresses that tradition within the context of current and past social justice movements against racism, xenophobia, and religious persecution. He supplies commentary and perspective for each portion of the Torah, working from both historic and text-critical frameworks, incorporating Talmudic interpretations of the material. This book offers a deeply personal understanding as well, with examples drawn from Wittenberg’s rabbinical work, along with his family’s experiences as refugees during and after the Holocaust. The result is a moving picture of how readers might apply the sometimes strange and upsetting scenes they find in the Torah to their own lives and their understandings of religious faith.