Preacher Man

Mordecai Kaplan, founder of Reconstructionist Judaism, took his sermons very, very seriously
By Jenna Weissman Joselit

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Every other week, Arc Magazine's editor-in-chief, Mark Oppenheimer, is joined by guests to talk religion, politics, et cetera.

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Rescued: The Lost Treasures of Klezmer

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Preacher Man

By Jenna Weissman Joselit
Mordecai Kaplan (1881–1983) shook things up. A self-styled “theological maverick,” the rabbi and founder of the Reconstructionist movement within Judaism challenged American Jews of the twentieth century to think differently, more expansively and fluidly: out with blind faith and sentimentality, in with reason and intentionality. Best known for his magisterial Judaism as a Civilization (1934), he reached even more people through his sermonizing. In this excerpt from my new biography of Kaplan, I go behind the scenes to look at his way with words. At his best and most relaxed when prepared, Kaplan preferred to rely on notes, outlines, and…

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Blake Smith: How does Christianity help us mediate, as you suggest, between the worst sort of collectivism and the worst sort of individualism? Or perhaps mediate is the wrong word, since these two “worsts” do so often go together! Let’s say, transcend?
Julius Krein: I don’t think it’s anything more complicated than Christianity’s consciousness of the division between the City of God and the City of Man, “render unto Caesar,” and so on. But this distinguishes Christianity from the other monotheistic religions as well as ancient paganism and, I would argue, “rational” philosophy. This distance allows for another dimension or perspective from which to approach the relationship between the individual and the collective.