This book is the result not of a sudden burst of inspiration but of years of teaching, studying, and writing on philosophic questions raised by the Torah. My opinions have changed over time and may well change again. I acknowledge the support of friends and colleagues who have helped shape my thinking. In no particular order they include Michael Morgan, Adriano Fabris, Menachem Kellner, Regina Schwartz, Lenn Goodman, Mira Balberg, Barry Wimpfheimer, Steven Nadler, Joseph Edelheit, David Novak, Martin Kavka, Haim Kreisel, David Shatz, Roslyn Weiss, Josef Stern, Charles Manekin, James Diamond, Alan Mittleman, Laurie Zoloth, Gary Saul Morson, Stefano Perfetti, and Leora Batnitzky. I would also like to thank Barry Schwartz and Carol Hupping of the Jewish Publication Society for valuable editorial assistance.
All quotations from the Hebrew Bible are taken from the NJPS translation of 1985 unless otherwise noted. All talmudic citations are from the Babylonian Talmud.
I have discussed some of the issues in chapters 1, 2, 7, and 9 at greater length or at a more advanced level in venues intended for specialized audiences. These venues are Jewish Messianic Thoughts in an Age of Despair (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012); “Monotheism at Bay: The Gods of Maimonides and Spinoza,” in Spinoza and Medieval Jewish Philosophy, ed. Steven Nadler (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014); “What the Hebrew Bible Can/Cannot Teach Us about God,” in Imagining the Jewish God, ed. Kenneth Koltun-Fromm and Len Kaplan (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, forthcoming); and “No One Can See My Face and Live,” in Negative Theology as Jewish Modernity, ed. Michael Fagenblat (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, forthcoming).