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When a Rabbi Reads Review Essay

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Lincoln's Gettysburg Address unexpectedly illuminates modern Jewish religious practice and Conservative Judaism's intellectual approach through its masterful blend of Greek funeral rhetoric and transformative textual interpretation. Drawing from Garry Wills' Pulitzer Prize-winning "Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words that Remade America," a rabbinical analysis reveals striking parallels between Lincoln's rhetorical strategies and both classical Greek funeral oratory and Jewish burial customs. Through comparative textual analysis, the Address emerges as an exemplar that follows formal Greek guidelines while offering a practical template for contemporary eulogies. Lincoln's pivotal reframing of the Declaration of Independence as America's foundational text mirrors Conservative Judaism's approach to historical development and scriptural interpretation. Further examination of textual variants in both the Gettysburg Address and Torah manuscripts demonstrates how sacred and historical texts inherently invite interpretation. The findings underscore a crucial imperative: Conservative Jewish leaders must engage with secular scholarship to effectively reach educated modern audiences, as interdisciplinary understanding enriches rather than diminishes religious teaching and comprehension.

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    Published 1996

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    Benjamin Scolnic