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The author, who is identified only by name in the book, attempts to apply Jewish religious thought to twentieth century life and scientific thought, 'to forge a reconciliation with the terminology and methods of the predominant intellectual current'. He undertakes the task 'because Jewish scholarship has, for reasons I am not fully able to grasp, stopped reinterpreting itself to the world four centuries ago'. One is taken aback by this dismissal of the efforts of all the founders of reform, of Buber, of Achad Ha'am, and of Mordecai Kaplan.
Adler supposes that there is in nature a tendency to equilibrium; that every step or action is nullified by an opposite counteraction; that therefore no change or progress is possible. (Newton's Third Law is quoted.) This is frustrating for Man, who needs to create and to expand his world. Man is 'material and spiritual', and the material has to be curbed to allow freedom to the spiritual if creation is to be unhampered. To this end, restrictions are placed upon the material side of man ('Tumah', uncleanliness); the Sabbath is instituted to give freedom for higher activities; sacrifice of one's natural wishes is essential; Israel is to be the model.
These familiar ideas are less arresting than the method of demonstration, which is one vast begging of the question. The whole argument