The essay that forms
the core of this book is an attempt to understand the developments that have
occurred in Orthodox Jewry in America in the last seventy years, and to analyse
their implications. The prime change is what is often described as ‘the swing to
the right’, a marked increase in ritual stringency, a rupture in patterns of
behaviour that has had major consequences not only for Jewish society but also
for the nature of Jewish spirituality. For Haym Soloveitchik, the key feature
at the root of this change is that, as a result of migration to the ‘New Worlds’ of England, the US,
and Israel and acculturation to its new surroundings, American
Jewry—indeed, much of the Jewish world— had to reconstruct religious practice
from normative texts: observance could no longer be transmitted mimetically, on
the basis of practices observed in home and street. In consequence, behaviour
once governed by habit is now governed by rule. This new edition allows the
author to deal with criticisms raised since the essay, long established as a
classic in the field, was originally published, and enables readers to gain a
fuller perspective on a topic central to today’s Jewish world and its
development.