"Putting God First: Jewish Humanism after Heidegger" by Rabbi Alick Isaacs offers a thought-provoking exploration of Jewish identity amidst the backdrop of Western humanism. Isaacs presents a compelling argument that the Holocaust serves as a poignant reminder of the broader implications of contemporary humanism, urging the Jewish community to confront and disentangle from elements of Western humanist tradition that may threaten their survival. Through a philosophical lens, Isaacs proposes a path towards achieving a harmonious relationship between Westernism and Jewish identity, advocating for a nuanced understanding that acknowledges and preserves core Jewish values.

The book delves into a meticulous analysis of modern and postmodern thought, drawing from the works of prominent philosophers such as Immanuel Kant, Jacques Derrida, and Hannah Arendt. Central to the discourse is a profound examination of Martin Heidegger's "Being and Time," contextualized within the period of his ideological alignment with Nazism. Isaacs skillfully navigates Heidegger's ontological framework to elucidate the onto-theological significance of key Jewish concepts, offering a fresh perspective on spirituality and politics within the Jewish state. Through rich engagement with Jewish texts and philosophical discourse, Isaacs presents a compelling vision for a Jewish state characterized by the ethos of Tikun Olam, inviting readers to contemplate the intersection of Jewish tradition and contemporary humanistic ideals. ( )

This is a well written book. If you are a Christian or if you’re Jewish this is an amazing book that will help you on your journey.

I really appreciate and respect all Jews by reading this book it really open my mind to them, there religion. thumps up author. I also really recommended this book to my relatives. ( )

Two questions began the process that culminated in this book:
1) How was the Holocaust Humanly possible?
2) How was it Humanly possible for Holocaust Survivors to find the spiritual energy to dedicate and sacrifice to rebuild the Jewish State?
Isaacs is concerned that Jewish identity in a post-Holocaust and Zionist era has been entangled and distorted by modern liberalism and the liberal environment of the West. This entanglement and distortion is seen in modern anti-semitism, assimilationism, and anti-Zionism.
The Jewish and Western ways of thinking about individual and collective identity, space, time, territory, and God and the Torah are not commensurable. Jews must access the Torah's ontology of Jewish Identity. The Hellenistic shell concerning notions of individual and collective identity must be removed/purged from Jewish consciousness.

All considered it is an exhilarating examination, exposition and application of the insights of Wittgenstein, Derrida, Foucault, J. Haidt, and many others, and pre-eminently that of Heidegger in "Being and Time". as Isaacs seeks to uncover and recover the true identity of Jews from the concealing structures of Western liberal thought. ( )

This book was a struggle for me. To begin with, I am in no way, shape or form a fan of the typically philosophy texts … most of which hurt my head trying to understand the wordy, sesquipedalian attempts to describe such existential basics such as Why is there air? Here my struggle was aggravated by my lack of familiarity with both German and Hebrew, which served to compound the number of words that had no clear meaning or understanding for me. That is a long winded way to say that this text is not very accessible to the average reader … but if you are a glutton for head games, there are some interesting concepts that you still might be able to tease out here.
The book is divided into four (4) parts, each dedicated to some aspect of Jewish life: Segulah (Being Jewish), Galut (Exile), Churban (Destruction) and Tikkun (Rehabilitation) and how they relate to the the humanism of Nazi existentialists Heidegger (I should have down a deeper dive on this guy as existentialism is my least favorite tradition within philosophy in general). The central concept used is Heidegger’s Dasein (Being) and the various ways to interact with this with an apparently focus and the how and why Dasein hides from itself to permit such evils (corruption) as the Holocaust … and why [zionist] Israel provides an opportunity to purge the “Greek” influences of "Survival and System” (Conformity) that were derived from the Age of Enlightenment from their collective spiritual life. In other words, the author wants to rehabilitate God’s role in politics … and more specially, convince western jews that they need to make their own way with Torah and stop relying upon conformation to Western, humanist ideals.
That is not to say that you won’t find gems within … I especially enjoyed the treatment of Haidt and his moral framwork … which I believe I understood okay (more or less). The problem for me is the my near total lack of comprehension with respect to the connecting text between them and how all of this relates to “putting God first.” To use Issacs own words to describe the issue: "Meaning derives not from what the words stand for but from the ways in which we use them.” … When after re-reading several sentences that use a considerable number of terms with which I am unfamiliar enough to miss how they related to each other, I still don’t know what he is trying to say … but I think I can still get the overall gist … ( )