“A Conversation on the Way” is, according to the author,
meant to introduce frum people to many of the problems in reconciling religion,
particularly Orthodox Judaism, with modern science and scholarship. It’s a sort
of anti-kiruv book. It doesn’t evangelize for the abandonment of religion, rather,
it shows how kiruv arguments fall short and exposes the reader to a wealth of
information that makes a traditional fundamentalist Orthodox understanding of Judaism
untenable. The book touches on many different topics relating to conflicts
between Torah and science/history. It doesn’t go into great detail on any
subject, but it provides enough information to whet the appetite of anyone who
might find these subjects interesting.
The book is framed as a conversation between two friends on
their way to shul Shabbos morning. It captures the feel of a conversation very
well. It’s very informal and bounces from topic to topic, touching on each briefly
before the conversation drifts to a new subject. Once you get past the introduction,
the book is all dialogue, and it’s a little dizzying to read. There’s no “…
said,” just a hundred and seventy pages of text inside quotes. It’s easy to
lose track of which of the two characters is speaking.
On the one hand, the conversational frame is a good way to
touch on a lot of topics without breaking the book up with dozens of headings
and sub-headings. On the other hand, it can get a bit confusing. Topics are brought
up and abandoned in no particular order, and the topic of conversation often
changes while still in the middle of a subject, with a promise to get back to
it later. At the end of the book, some of these aborted topics are briefly addressed,
but this is not at all a book for quick reference.
Character 1, the author’s avatar in the book, is full of
energy, lecturing, discussing, almost bouncing up and down in his eagerness to
talk about his favorite subjects. Character 2, who takes the traditional stance
on most subjects, while he does occasionally display some personality when
bantering with the author character, and every now and then is allowed to score
a point for the religious side of the debate, is more of a straight man. He
exists to interject at the appropriate points to give the impression of
dialogue. Much of the book is not so
much a conversation as it’s conversationally-toned exposition.
Early in the book, Character 2 asserts that, “Life exists
because God made it,” to which 1 responds, “I believe that too, but I also
believe that God made a natural functioning universe without hocus-pocus, and
embedded specific non-God-intervening explanations for everything.” While I
share much of the worldview of character 1, I wonder if 2’s isn’t more
coherent. He believes that God is the explanation, and it ends there. 1
believes in God despite being certain that there is no proof for His existence
– if there are “non-God-intervening explanations for everything” that leaves no
room for proof of God. So why does 1 still believe? (From the ending, it seems
the answer is, because he wants to.)
The book touches on Creationist arguments, making the point
that kiruv books often present one side of an argument as if it’s the last word
on the subject. It also touches on the Oomphalous hypothesis, Free Will, God
and morality, discusses “evolution is just a theory” and what evolution is actually
about, a very little bit of Biblical Criticism, obliquely references the
Problem of Evil, and points out that the Chumash never mentions an afterlife.
It’s a good, light-read introduction to these topics (and a few more). People
who’ve been hanging around the blogosphere for a while won’t find anything new,
but it’s a good starting point for someone who doesn’t know much about
science/Torah issues and is looking to learn what he should be looking to
learn.
As far as I can tell, the book is self-published, and it
suffers from the lack of a professional proofreader. There are a number of
typos, which I found jarring in a printed work, and several places where the
names of historical and contemporary figures are wrong, e.g., Moses Mendelssohn
is credited as the author of the Zohar instead of Moses DeLeon.
I think the audience for this book would be a MO or liberal yeshivish
guy who’s sitting on the fence. Those a bit further to the right would reject
the book outright, even if they were inclined to ask the uncomfortable
questions, because of its many pop-culture references, occasional minor
expletives, and insufficient reverence towards rabbonim.
