THE POWER OF SCUDS
ISN'T IN THE BUILDINGS THEY RIP APART
BUT IN THE PEOPLE
THEY PULL TOGETHER.
Is Wolpe A Spiritualist
For Modern Times?
NOAM M.M. NEUSNER
Staff Writer
O
nce called a "Yuppie
Heschel," David
Wolpe is trying to
play matchmaker for Jews
and God.
With his book, The Healer
Of Shattered Hearts
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(Penguin), he has entered a
tradition of stressing man's
relationship with a personal
God.
It appears, from the heavy
sales of _the book (already
20,000 copies have been sold
and it is now in its sixth
hardcover printing) that the
idea has a hearing.
In an analysis that is part-
ly anecdotal and largely per-
sonal, Rabbi Wolpe writes
that God is a non-reality in
most Jews' lives.
"Jews are embarrassed to
talk about God," he said.
This embarrassment stems
from an education that
stresses the study of a cul-
ture and traditions that are
vital to the demonstration of
the faith. What is missing,
Rabbi Wolpe says, is the
faith itself.
"There is this great void at
the center of tradition that
nobody was talking about,"
he said. "God was a reflex,
not a reality."
His book, he says, is for
people who practice Judaism
without sensing the spirit of
God in their lives. He at-
tempts to link man and God
in eternal communication in
an often loving, personal re-
lationship.
"It's an attempt to present
the Jewish idea of God to
people who need it — and
want it," he said.
That is a vague way of put-
ting it. Rabbi Wolpe offers
several means of having a
close relationship with God.
What is crucial, he feels, is
the believing.
Once accomplished, ritual
takes on a whole new mean-
ing, he said. Traditions
reflect the spirit of God, not
just a routine.
Rabbi Wolpe, a library di-
rector and instructor at the
University of Judaism, is
guided not by scholarship
and systemic analysis, but
by picking from reams of
Jewish sources stories that
illustrate the pain of exis-
tence without spirituality.
Himself the son of a rabbi,
Rabbi Wolpe says American
Judaism has been drained of
its spirituality by over-
intellectualization. His
model of the ideal spiritual
David Wolpe
life: Buber's Chasid and
Heschel's Midrashic story-
teller.
Unlike Heschel, Rabbi
Wolpe is not a generalist.
His emphasis on addressing
a need, as opposed to for-
mulating a system of
Judaism, has won him sup-
port among rabbinic circles.
It has not, however, won
over Judaic studies scholars.
He admits, however, that
his book is not a scholarly —
or even an original — tract.
It is, he writes, "an attempt
to present some striking
images from the tradition
. . . and suggest that they
speak to our lives and situa-
tions in often unexpected
ways.' ' ❑
.
NEWS
1
1
Tehiya Member
Quits Post
Jerusalem (JTA) — Right-
wing firebrand Geula Cohen
resigned her government of-
fice but remained in the
Tehiya party, even though it
has not quit the Likud-led
coalition as she would have
liked it to do.
Ms. Cohen, who was depu-
ty minister of science and
energy, submitted her resig-
nation to the minister of
science and energy, Yuval
Ne'eman, the Tehiya leader.
But she will remain in
Tehiya to coordinate its
efforts against concessions
for peace.
Ms. Cohen is one of the
party's three-member
Knesset faction, which voted
last week to leave Prime
Minister Yitzhak. Shamir's
government in protest
against Israel's participa-
tion in the Middle East
peace conference in Madrid.