Jeffery Goldberg of the Atlantic writes:
William Kolbrener, an Orthodox Jewish Milton scholar (not a huge special-interest group) from Jerusalem, though originally, like Goldblog, from Long Island, has written a beautiful book called “Open Minded Torah: Of Irony, Fundamentalism and Love.” ”Beautiful” is Jonathan Rosen’s word (but also mine). Rosen calls the book “an exhilarating hybrid, steeped in traditional learning but at home in the modern world, centered on universal questions and yet deeply personal.” Rosen goes on for a while with enthusiasm, as he should: Kolbrener is a deep-dish scholar. But he is also wonderfully engaging. He engages his readers, and he engages with the Torah, and one of the great values of this book is that he introduces his readers to the Torah in unexpected ways. The Torah is not a closed book for Kolbrener. I’m always looking for writers who will help me gain wisdom about my tradition, and of course I’m always looking for writers who tell interesting stories, and Kolbrener does: About Shakespeare and baseball and raising a son with Down Syndrome. See the full Atlantic interview here.
The Jewish Daily Forward recommends Open Minded Torah for summer reading: Kolberener draws on anecdotes about and makes analogies to everything from Shakespeare to the stock market to sports teams, from physics to psychoanalysis to parenting a special needs child to explain why open-mindedness is the pathway to a meaningful and tolerant Jewish existence. Kolbrener is also the co-editor of a volume on the 17th-century British proto-feminist Mary Astell. Read about it here.
Jonathan Rosenblum in the Jewish weekly Mishpacha writes about Open Minded Torah here.
This beautiful book is an exhilarating hybrid, steeped in traditional learning but at home in the modern world, centered on universal questions and yet deeply personal, informed by theology and philosophy and yet guided quite humbly by the challenge of living each day with wisdom and kindness.
– Jonathan Rosen, author of The Talmud and the Internet
William Kolbrener is adept at finding Torah in places where you don’t expect it and at finding the unanticipated in the Torah. This is a book for people who want help listening for the elusive, important silences that course beneath the clamor of everyday life.
– Judith Shulevitz, author of The Sabbath World
When a great and capacious mind, blessed with sensibility and sensitivity, engages in conversation with the timeless texts of Torah, the result is both enlightening and enthralling. That is what William Kolbrener’s new book represents, and all whose Judaism is reflective and thoughtful will be enlarged by it.
– Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks
