Accepting and Excepting: On Pluralism Chosenness out of the Sources Judaism

Accepting and Excepting: On Pluralism and Chosenness Out of the Sources of Judaism argues for religious pluralism. Language, culture, religion, and gender color our cognition. Exclusive, absolute truth claims are meaningless. Revaluation enables Jews to affirm the Chosen People concept as internally directed, and observe traditional sancta without traditional theism. Accepting and Excepting: On Pluralism and Chosenness Out of the Sources of Judaism is a collection of essays examining the need for inter-religious pluralism. So long as religions compete with each other by exclusive claims to absolute truth and salvation, how can they cooperate as forces for peace in an era of the global village and weapons of mass destruction? Our cognition of reality is necessarily colored and shaped by language, culture, religion, and gender. Given inevitable epistemological (not moral) relativism, exclusive and absolute truth claims are meaningless. By a process of revaluation, Jews can affirm the concept of the Chosen People as internally directed with no claims of superiority, and observe traditional sancta without traditional theism.