Book | Guide for the Jewish Undecided

What makes a belief or a lifestyle rational? How much evidence do you need before deciding to act on a belief? If your religious beliefs are tightly bound up with your particular experiences and upbringing, doesn’t that undermine their reliability? All these questions, and more, come to the fore in Samuel Lebens’ A Guide for the Jewish Undecided. Bringing cutting-edge philosophy, science, and decision theory into conversation with Jewish tradition, this book makes the case that Jews today have cogent reasons to embrace Judaism and its practices. Moreover, this embrace is the most viable way in which they can answer the call to human responsibility.

Samuel Lebens (machzor 2011) is associate Professor in the philosophy department at the University of Haifa. His first book was a study of Bertrand Russell's evolving theories about the nature of meaning. His second book is a study in the analytic philosophy of Judaism. As a Rabbi and Jewish educator, Sam regularly teaches at the Drisha Institute for Jewish Education. Sam is also adjunct faculty at the Pardes Institute for Jewish Studies and has been a scholar in residence for numerous communities around the world. He studied at Yeshivat Hakotel, Yeshivat Hamivtar, and Yeshivat Har Etzion before attaining his Rabbinic Ordination from Rabbi Zalman Nechemia Goldberg zt"l.