Healing in the Jewish Tradition

In this recent work . . . Kaplan revisits a subject lost for at least a generation-the Jewish Science approach to physical and mental healing. His treatise is both a scientific and religio-cultural perspective on living. . . . For his research base Kaplan draws on the writings of Rabbis [Alfred Geiger Moses, Clifton Harvey Levy] . . . and Morris Lichtenstein. Additional works include Tehilla Lichtenstein's Applied Judaism, and Louis Gross and J.L. Zlotnick's What is Jewish Science and Jewish Science. Kaplan reminds us . . . that the Jewish approach to health-"A Divine gift"-is grounded in Torah. He further lays before the reader the "Ten Fundamentals" of Jewish Science, which provide landmarks for exploring his well-organized sequence of chapters. He then synthesizes his research findings and blends such ideas with a clerical advisory approach to living a richer existence. The author has produced a very readable volume in which he describes a lost subject and simultaneously offers a comforting antidote for living in the twenty-first century. -- Michael Gialanella, D.Litt., member of the Board of Associates, Center for Holocaust/Genocide Study, Drew University, adjunct associate professor of history,