Background
Green, Arthur was born on March 21, 1941.
( “A major contribution to the understanding of Hasidic W...)
“A major contribution to the understanding of Hasidic Wisdom and thought; it brings the reader closer to Hasidism’s greatest teller of tales.” ―Elie Wiesel The search for spiritual meaning drives great leaders in all religions. This classic work explores the personality and religious quest of Nahman of Bratslav (1772–1810), one of Hasidism’s major figures. It unlocks the great themes of spiritual searching that make him a figure of universal religious importance. In this major biography, Dr. Arthur Green―teacher, scholar, and spiritual seeker―explores the great personal conflicts and inner torments that lay at the source of Nahman’s teachings. He reveals Nahman to have been marked at an early age by an exaggerated sense of sin and morbidity that later characterized his life and thought. While subject to rapid mood swings and even paranoia, Nahman is a model of spiritual and personal struggle who speaks to all generations. Green’s analysis of this troubled personality provides an important key to Nahman’s famous tales, making his teachings accessible for people of all faiths, all backgrounds. “If there is any single feature about Nahman’s tales, and indeed about Nahman’s life as well, that makes them unique in the history of Judaism, it is just this: their essential motif is one of quest. Nahman, both as teller and as hero of these tales, is Nahman the seeker. He has already told us, outside the tales, of his refusal ever to stand on any one rung, of his call for constant growth, of his need to open himself up to ever-new and more demanding challenges to his faith. The tales now affirm this endless quest…” ―from Excursus II. The Tales
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1879045117/?tag=2022091-20
( What was piety like before the commandments were reveal...)
What was piety like before the commandments were revealed? How did Abraham live in a way that fulfilled the ideals of piety without the Torah? This question, raised in the ancient Jewish theology of Philo and central to the struggle of Paul with his own Judaism and his emerging Christian faith, was raised once again by the Hasidic masters of Eastern Europe in the eighteenth century. In a series of powerful and spiritually searching sermons, the Hasidic masters reinterpret spiritually the ancient rabbis’ insistence that the patriarchs lived within the Law. In centering their spiritualization of Judaism around the figure of Abraham, these latter-day Jewish thinkers express a position that stands midway between the claims of the Talmud and those of the Christian apostle. Arthur Green uses this Hasidic debate on the patriarchs and the commandments as a point of departure for a wide-ranging consideration of the relationship between piety and commandment in Hasidic Judaism. The result of this effort is a series of rather remarkable mystical defenses of the commandments and an original contribution of Hasidic thought to the ongoing history of Judaism.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0878200517/?tag=2022091-20
(The crucial problem facing religion today is the massive ...)
The crucial problem facing religion today is the massive encounter between the monotheistic traditions of the west and the great religions of southern and eastern Asia. The essays in this volume, written by leading scholars in the field, explore how different religions - east and west - have dealt with two types of religious experiences. At the one pole is a confrontation with an external God - the thunderous speech of Mount Sinai, on the road to Damascus, in the night of Qadr. At the other pole is the encounter of the divine within man's soul, as expressed in much eastern thought. The Other Side Of God is a valuable contribution both to scholarship and to a dialogue between world religions.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0385174233/?tag=2022091-20
Green, Arthur was born on March 21, 1941.
Bachelor, Brandeis University, 1961. Doctor of Philosophy, Brandeis University, 1975. MHL, Jewish Theological Seminary, 1964.
Member faculty Havurat Shalom Community Seminary, 1968-1973. Lecturer University Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1973-1975, assistant professor, 1975-1980, associate professor, 1980-1987, adjunct associate professor, since 1987. Dean Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, 1984-1986, acting president, 1986-1987, president, since 1987.
Visiting lecturer Smith College, 1971-1972, Barnard College, 1976, 78. Visiting assistant professor Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, 1977. Commissioner North America Commission on Jewish Education, 1988-1990.
( What was piety like before the commandments were reveal...)
(The crucial problem facing religion today is the massive ...)
( “A major contribution to the understanding of Hasidic W...)
Board directors Jewish Foundation for Christian Rescuers, since 1988, Center for Jewish-Christian Studies and Relations, since 1990. Member American Academy Religion, Association for Jewish Studies, Society for Values in Higher Education (Kent fellow 1967), Rabbinical Assembly, Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association, Federation Reconstructionist Congregations and Havurot (board directors since 1986).
Married Kathy Held; 1 child, Hannah Leah.