The Glory Of God Is Intelligence, Four Lectures on the Role of Intellect in Judaism By Jacob Neusner 68 pages
“The theme of these lectures is the distinctive conception of Judaism that we serve God through the use of our minds,” says Jacob Neusner. That same notion is embraced in the Mormon expression, “The glory of God is intelligence, or, in other words, light and truth.”
In this book’s four brilliant approaches to the Jewish stress on extending both the vision and the Law of Moses (Torah) to every phase of life, Jacob Neusner points to the kinships of the two traditions: Learning is a form of devotion to God. The Temple and its ritual exercise of purity was the common concern of the ancient Pharisees and was the most systematic Jewish attempt at intense symbolic infusion of intelligence and light. In the absence of the Temple, after 70 A.D. observant Jews sought to extend the Temple purification process to their own homes and then restructured their ritual into “acts of loving-kindness” and patient study not only of the meaning but the structure of Torah. Today the Mishnah is the continual revelation “element” of Jewish study, open-ended and adaptive and bringing into focus the incidents and acts of all-inclusive religious life.
Such “learning,” both in Judaism and in Mormonism, is a form of higher learning—even the highest learning—bringing one in touch not simply with words or codes but with the implicit and living awareness of God. Under its influence, mind ceases to be the enemy of religion and becomes instead its essence and power. It is against the background of such impressive concepts that Jacob Neusner here discusses the theological, historical, and literary aspects of the ideal of learning in Judaism.
