Aryeh Kaplan, Moznaim, 1990
Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, one of the most well-known modern teachers of profound Jewish concepts, left many essays and ideas in manuscript and in the notes of his students. This collection, in common with several others, was published posthumously. Like all of his writings, the ideas are lucid and fascinating, easily engaging readers of all types. This particular collection is divided into two parts, ‘Man and God’ and ‘The Jew and Society’. Although I read the essays when they were fist published, a number of them have stuck in my mind. In ‘Meet the real you’, Kaplan challenges the reader to consider the real nature of human existence and the nature of immortality. This is a springboard for a serious of easily readable, yet very serious, pieces on the nature of existence and Man’s relationship with God. In an essay entitled ‘The end of death’, he takes a new look at the subject of immortality, and in the final piece of the collection, Kaplan utilises his scientific background in combination with his Torah scholarship to discuss a way in which the resuscitation of the dead could come about. A wonderful collection from the master in the field.
