On Jewish Learning

On Jewish Learning collects essays, speeches, and letters that express Rosenzweig's desire to reconnect the profound truths of Judaism with the lives of ordinary people. An assimilated Jew and scholar of German philosophy, Rosenzweig was on the point of conversion to Christianity when the experience of a Yom Kippur service in 1913 brought him back to Judaism, and he began to study with philosopher Hermann Cohen. Seeking how to be an observant Jew in the modern world, Rosenzweig refused to reduce the traditions of Jewish law to mere rituals, customs, and folkways. His aim for himself and for others was to find Judaism by living it, and to live it by knowing it more deeply.