Wayne Allen – författare

2022 Top Five Reference Book from Academy of Parish Clergy The most comprehensive book on the topic, Thinking about Good and Evil traces the most salient Jewish ideas about why innocent people seem to suffer, why evil individuals seem to prosper, and God’s role in such matters of (in)justice, from antiquity to the present.Starting with the Bible and Apocrypha, Rabbi Wayne Allen takes us through the Talmud; medieval Jewish philosophers and Jewish mystical sources; the Ba’al Shem Tov and his disciples; early modern thinkers such as Spinoza, Mendelssohn, and Luzzatto; and, finally, modern thinkers such as Cohen, Buber, Kaplan, and Plaskow. Each chapter analyzes individual thinkers’ arguments and synthesizes their collective ideas on the nature of good and evil and questions of justice. Allen also exposes vastly divergent Jewish thinking about the Holocaust: traditionalist (e.g., Ehrenreich), revisionist (e.g., Rubenstein, Jonas), and deflective (e.g., Soloveitchik, Wiesel).Rabbi Allen’s engaging, accessible volume illuminates well-known, obscure, and novel Jewish solutions to the problem of good and evil.

As a dynamic tradition, Judaism has always relied on experts to interpret sacred texts for modern times. Responding to the questions posed to him from congregants, other rabbis, and Jews around the world, Rabbi Allen blends his special sensitivity with profound scholarship in addressing a wide range of religious issues. This book is a window into how an ancient tradition can still keep its relevance today.

A Reader on Race & Ethnic Relations: Harmonizing Indigenous and Immigrant Voices is a unique academic undertaking in that it is not the standard academic reader that relies solely on so-called academic "experts." And while it does include contributors with expertise in their fields, it is also an attempt to include the voices of a diverse population of scholars— professors, junior faculty, and students—who all have a stake in the project of studying the plethora of issues surrounding the topics of race and ethnicity in the larger world.The articles in this work are intended to challenge and stimulate the reader to ask questions, both of themselves and of each other, but also of our society, our nation, and our world. A Reader on Race & Ethnic Relations: Harmonizing Indigenous and Immigrant Voices is a unique academic undertaking in that it is not the standard academic reader that relies solely on so-called academic "experts." And while it does include contributors with expertise in their fields, it is also an attempt to include the voices of a diverse population of scholars— professors, junior faculty, and students—who all have a stake in the project of studying the plethora of issues surrounding the topics of race and ethnicity in the larger world.The articles in this work are intended to challenge and stimulate the reader to ask questions, both of themselves and of each other, but also of our society, our nation, and our world.

In 1924, an Australian minister observed that while the world may be getting better off, the world is not getting better. Almost one hundred years have passed and little has changed. No doubt people today are healthier and wealthier than ever before. But people do not seem to be any more virtuous. New technologies have changed the way people live, but violence, torture, terrorism, cruelty, deception, dishonesty, and disrespect continue to threaten how well people live. Wayne Allen argues that while humanity may be ailing, it is not beyond treatment and cure. By embracing ten essential principles rooted in the Bible and putting them into practice it is possible to make people better. Allen takes the reader through a tour of the sad state of moral health of humanity and suggests a remedy. With remarkable humor and sharp insight, Allen will bring readers to an appreciation of how the world can be transformed.

Wayne Allen traces the evolution of the office of synagogue cantor as reflected in the primary sources of Jewish law as well as in Jewish lore from the third century to the present day. Allen explores the ambivalence of both Jewish authorities and the Jewish public toward the cantor and speculates on the future of the position.