Social Vision: The Lubavitcher Rebbe's Transformative Paradigm for the World

by Philip Wexler

Overview

Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson (1902-1994), known as the Lubavitcher Rebbe, was one of the most influential personalities of the 20th century and the only rabbi ever awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. Despite wide recognition of Schneerson's impact, this is the first volume to seriously explore his social ideas and activism. Schneerson not only engineered a global Jewish renaissance but also became an advocate for public education, criminal justice reform, women's empowerment, and alternative energy. From the personal to the global his teachings chart a practical path for the replacement of materialism, alienation, anxiety and divisiveness with a dignified and joyous reciprocity. Social Vision delves into the deep structures of social reality and the ways it is shaped and reshaped by powerful ideologies. Juxtaposed with sociologist Max Weber's diagnosis of "inner worldly asceticism" as "the spirit of capitalism," Schneerson's socio-mystical worldview is compellingly framed as a transformative paradigm for the universal repair of society. The library of Schneerson's talks and writings is voluminous, but critics have described this distillation as artful, engaging, ambitious, bracing, relevant, and imperative.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780824597054
Publisher:	Herder & Herder
Publication date:	11/15/2022
Series:	Jewish Spiritual Traditions and Contempo
Pages:	300
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.66(d)

About the Author

Philip Wexler, is Executive Director of the Institute of Jewish Spirituality and Society, and emeritus Professor of Sociology of Education and Unterberg Chair in Jewish Social and Educational History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He was formerly at the University of Rochester as the Scandling Professor of Education and Sociology, where he was also Founding Dean of the Warner Graduate School (1989-2000). He later served as Director of the School of Education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2002-2010), Visiting Bronfman Professor at Brandeis University (2010-2012), and Professor of Social Pedagogy and Social Policy at the Bergische University, Wuppertal, Germany (2012-2014). He received his Ph.D. in Sociology and Anthropology from Princeton University, where he was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow and Woodrow Wilson Dissertation Fellow. He has published eighteen books on sociology, education, postmodernism and religion.

Eli Rubin is an editor and research writer at Chabad.org, and a graduate research student in the Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies, University College London. He has studied Hasidic literature and Jewish Law at the Rabbinical College of America, and at yeshivot in the UK, the US and Australia.

Michael Wexler is a Princeton University graduate with a degree in English Literature and a master's of fine arts (MFA) in creative writing. He has published six books of both fiction and non-fiction, including the acclaimed young-adult fantasy series "The Seems." He has served as an Adjunct Professor of writing at The University of Missouri-Kansas City and is the creator of projects for Fox, ABC, Microsoft, AFLAC, SiriusXM Radio, and more.

Table of Contents

Introduction: In Search of Spirituality and Society 1. Shattering the Iron Cage: From the Protestant Ethic to the Hasidic Ethos 2. From Catastrophe to Renaissance: The Rebbe and Hasidism in America 3. The Social Constitution of Hasidism and the Divinization of the Cosmos 4. The Principle of Reciprocity Between Self, Community and Cosmos 5. Learning How to Live: Public Education as Social Repair 6. Socio-Mystical Justice, Humanism, and Ecology Conclusion: The Dynamic of Disenchantment and Reenchantment in the Past and Future Index

Editorial Reviews

"'The Lubavitcher Rebbe’s Transformative Paradigm for The World,' is the aptly-worded subtitle of this 265 page, meticulously researched book." —RABBI SHOLOM CIMENT, Sun Sentinel Journal


"Social Vision is a book that has something for everybody. For all people whatever affiliation or nationality it’s a breath of fresh air, the oxygen to revive and heal the world in which we live." —Tzvi Freeman, www.chabad.org/


"During my several visits with Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, I experienced firsthand his kindness and his compassion for all humanity…(his) social vision is a timeless message that should be an inspiration for all people." —David N. Dinkins, former Mayor of New York City


"A consistently insightful account of how Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson’s understanding of Judaism offered a vision to transform the life of the individual and, through the individual, the world. This book can elevate your mind and your soul." —Joseph Telushkin, author of New York Times bestseller Rebbe: The Life and Teachings of Menachem M. Schneerson, the Most Influential Rabbi in Modern History


"Moving from the biographical depictions of Schneerson’s remarkable life, Philip Wexler offers us a Schneerson who was a social reformer, setting his sights not exclusively on the Jewish people, but on global transformation." —Shaul Magid, Tablet

From the Publisher