The Gods Are Broken!: The Hidden Legacy of Abraham

by Jeffrey K. Salkin

Overview

The story of Abraham smashing his father’s idols might be the most important Jewish story ever told and the key to how Jews define themselves. In a work at once deeply erudite and wonderfully accessible, Rabbi Jeffrey K. Salkin conducts readers through the life and legacy of this powerful story and explains how it has shaped Jewish consciousness.

Offering a radical view of Jewish existence, The Gods Are Broken! views the story of the young Abraham as the “primal trauma” of Jewish history, one critical to the development of a certain Jewish comfort with rebelliousness and one that, happening in every generation, has helped Jews develop a unique identity. Salkin shows how the story continues to reverberate through the ages, even in its connection to the phenomenon of anti-Semitism.

Salkin’s  work—combining biblical texts, archaeology, rabbinic insights, Hasidic texts (some never before translated), philosophy, history, poetry, contemporary Jewish thought, sociology, and popular culture—is nothing less than a journey through two thousand years of Jewish life and intellectual endeavor.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780827609310
Publisher:	The Jewish Publication Society
Publication date:	04/01/2013
Pages:	176
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Rabbi Jeffrey K. Salkin is the author of numerous books, including Righteous Gentiles in the Hebrew Bible: Ancient Role Models for Sacred Relationships and Putting God on the Guest List, winner of the 1993 Benjamin Franklin Award for the best religion book published in the United States.

Table of Contents

Introduction vii

1 Out of Ur 1

2 Abraham the Iconoclast 17

3 Which Gods Shall We Break Today? 33

4 Three Paths to the Sacred 49

5 The Primal Trauma of the Jewish People 65

6 (Re) Embracing Terah 81

7 From Broken Idols to Broken Tablets 101

8 The Sound of Broken Glass: Jewish Iconoclasm and Anti-Semitism 115

Notes 135

Bibliography 149

What People are Saying About This

Norman J. Cohen

“Jeffrey Salkin takes us on a magical journey through Jewish history and texts, showing us how a simple, ancient postbiblical tale is essential for our understanding of the totality of the Jewish experience. It is full of insights that will challenge how we as readers view modern society and the idolatries that are inherent in it.”—Norman J. Cohen, rabbi and professor of Midrash at Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion, New York, and author of Masking and Unmasking Ourselves

David J. Wolpe

“Can a single story unfold the history of a nation and some of the deepest truths of tradition? Yes, if that story is the rabbis’ tale of Abraham and its interpreter is Rabbi Salkin. There is much to learn in this absorbing, important book.”—David J. Wolpe, rabbi of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles and the author of Why Faith Matters

Editorial Reviews

Although it involves biblical characters, the widely known story of Abraham’s smashing the idols in the shop of his father, Terah, is not in the Bible. Nevertheless, according to author Salkin (The Modern Men’s Torah Commentary), it is the forerunner of monotheism, the beginning of Jewish history, and may “be the most important Jewish story ever told.” His book tries to demonstrate the truth of these contentions by examining commentaries on the story by theologians, poets, writers, philosophers, a composer, and an artist. He examines the implications of the story for Christians and Muslims and its relationship to anti-Semitism. Salkin, a Reform rabbi, gave up his congregational pulpit to become director of the Anti-Defamation League’s New Jersey office, claiming that this move gives him a new opportunity to fight against bigotry in general and anti-Semitism in particular. He makes impressive claims for the overriding significance of this story, but surely many biblical stories can arguably be considered to be “the most important Jewish story.” (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

“Jeffrey Salkin takes us on a magical journey through Jewish history and texts, showing us how a simple, ancient postbiblical tale is essential for our understanding of the totality of the Jewish experience. It is full of insights that will challenge how we as readers view modern society and the idolatries that are inherent in it.”—Norman J. Cohen, rabbi and professor of Midrash at Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion, New York, and author of Masking and Unmasking Ourselves

Norman J. Cohen

"The text is filled with quotations from throughout Jewish history; Talmud and Midrash, medieval sages and modern scholars have all had important things to say about this small vignette. Salkin has skillfully woven them into a useful and comprehensible tapestry."—Fred Issac, Association of Jewish Libraries Review

Association of Jewish Libraries Review - Fred Issac

"Mining the vast troves of Jewish legendry and midrashim, Salkin expands and deepens knowledge and understanding of the biblical Abram."—Ray Olson, Booklist

Booklist - Ray Olson

"Salkin's work—combining biblical texts, archaeology, rabbinic insights, Hasidic texts (some never before translated), philosophy, history, poetry, contemporary Jewish thought, sociology, and popular culture—is nothing less than a journey through two thousand years of Jewish life and intellectual endeavor."—Dov Peretz Elkins, Jewish Media Review

Jewish Media Review - Dov Peretz Elkins

"Smoothly weaving together contemporary scholarship, midrashic elaborations of scripture, and meditation on the key symbols that evoke his central issue, Rabbi Salkin provides a map of Judaic meaning. By comparing and contrasting Abraham’s breaking of his father’s idols with the breaking of the first set of tablets by Moses, he opens up a investigative mode that has far-reaching consequences for the world Jewish community, both present and future."—Phillip K. Jason, Jewish Book Council

Jewish Book Council - Phillip K. Jason

Can a single story unfold the history of a nation and some of the deepest truths of tradition? Yes, if that story is the rabbis’ tale of Abraham and its interpreter is Rabbi Salkin. There is much to learn in this absorbing, important book.”—David J. Wolpe, rabbi of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles and the author of Why Faith Matters

David J. Wolpe

A rabbi delivers a thoughtful homily on the iconoclasm of Scripture's proto-Hebrew. The old story is comfortably familiar: Young Abraham destroyed the idols that were his father's stock in trade and became the world's first monotheist. That early episode served as foreshadowing of the subsequent career of the biblical patriarch, yet the Abrahamic back story, a primal tale as integral to Christianity and Islam as it is to Judaism, is not found in the Hebrew Bible. Rather, the tale originated with a rabbinic expository narrative dating from the first century of the Common Era. The shattering of those graven images is a foundational legend essential to the Abrahamic faiths, but particularly for Jews, whose religious job description, as noted by Salkin (Text Messages: A Torah Commentary for Teens, 2012, etc.), entails the smashing of icons. The mission of the Jews, as outsiders, is to act as exemplars. The author sees that, today, the false gods of consumerism and materialism need to be broken, and the vocation of Abraham's co-religionists, "the Other," is still the setting of standards. That may explain, in part at least, anti-Semitism. In passionate prose (that often switches tense, even in mid-sentence), Salkin follows the theme of fire, as a form of punishment, and the theme of shattering, from Creation to the destruction by Moses of the first edition of the Ten Commandments to Kristallnacht and the glass-shattering by the Nazis. Remarkably, and despite all the evidence, the author declares that the Holocaust was not a war against the Jews or Judaism. It was a war, he asserts, against God. His sermon purports to call all the monotheistic faiths to renewed iconoclastic spirit, though it appears most urgently and clearly directed to members of his own faith. An earnest exegesis of a powerful legend of the first Jew, designed for the faithful--not for atheist or pagan readers.

Kirkus Reviews