Riders to the Dawn: From Holocaust to Hope.

I am not quite sure how to characterize Friedlander's book. It is, in one sense, a broad-brushed survey of reactions to the Nazi extermination campaign against the Jews and, at the same time, a kind of terminus a quo for those who wish to honor the fact of that terrible event and yet not be paralyzed by it. He captures that latter purpose in his title; the riders are those who emerge from darkness and gallop toward a dawn of some possible hope.

The broad survey I mentioned above is by far the most satisfactory part of the book. Friedlander gives us a fair account of the whole spectrum of Jewish theological opinion about the meaning of the Shoah as well as a survey of the halakic responses of the rabbis who have been called upon to interpret the Law in its shadow. To the overview of the theologians, he adds a generous history of literary attempts to articulate what the camps were like (Elie Wiesel, Primo Levi, Schwartz-Bart, etc.) or poetic attempts to capture its horror (Celan, Sachs, etc.) or reflections on how culture is shaped by that experience (George Steiner, Levinas, etc.). In addition--this is a panoramic work--Friedlander provides snapshots of various countries and their connection to the Shoah, ranging from the naive Sabra machismo of Israelis (how could they have walked so passively to the ovens?) to the reluctant Italian partners of those who pressed for the Final Solution.

In the last part of the book, Friedlander argues that we should seek a "dawn rider" (or more than one) in order to live toward the future with some sense of trust or hope. Friedlander chooses Elie Wiesel, George Steiner, and the late Leo Baeck. His book is meant for a wide audience; he is eminently fair to the "dawn riders" who are Christians (his favorite Christian writer seems to be the German theologian Dorothy Soelle, although he writes sympathetically of a whole range of Christian thinkers). His harshest criticisms are directed toward those of his coreligionists who have so bound themselves to orthodoxy (Friedlander is a Reform rabbi) that they effectively excommunicate those who do not stand within the tradition of the Heradim. That view explains his broad sympathy for a dialogically open Orthodox thinker like Michael Wyschogrod.

I have learned so much from this book that I must make one pointed criticism of it because it held me back from learning even more: Friedlander's notes are sparse to the point of unhelpfulness. Why could he not have helped us by telling us what writings of Nelly Sachs or Paul Celan or Dan Pagis (a stunning Israeli poet who was new to me) were available? Or, at least, provide us with the sources of his direct quotations? Why not a bibliography for further reading?

Ewert Cousins deserves high praise for one of the best ideas in recent religious publishing. With his collaborator, Richard Payne, Cousins developed the series "The Classics of Western Spirituality," which has been one of the most useful set of texts for the study of spirituality available in English. He went beyond that project (which still flourishes) to found the World Spirituality encyclopedia, which is still in progress.

Cousins is not just a producer of the series. He has a vision of religious experience which serves as the foundation for both projects. Recasting some of his earlier essays, he lays out that foundational paradigm in this book. Briefly, Cousins's vision is that the first axial period, as out-lined by Karl Jaspers, is now giving way to a second. The first axial period, emerging roughly in the six centuries before the time of Christ, moved human consciousness toward the self and to metaphysics. The great achievements of the Greeks, the Hebrew prophets, Confucius, the Buddha, and the writers of the Upanishads all moved toward this goal.