Compassionate Judaism: The Life and Thought of Samuel David Luzzatto - Softcover

Marc Gopin was ordained as a rabbi at Yeshiva University in 1983 and has served in several congregations. Ten years after his ordination, he graduated with honors from Brandeis University, receiving a PhD in Jewish ethics.

Gopin is currently the James H. Laue professor in the School for Conflict Analysis at George Mason University. He also directs the Center for World Religions, Diplomacy, and Conflict Resolution and has spearheaded CRDC projects in Israel, Syria and Iran.

Gopin’s research into values dilemmas and conflict resolution has led him to engage in back-channel diplomacy with religious, military, and political leaders the world over. He has trained thousands in complex conflict mediation and peace building and has appeared on numerous media outlets.

Gopin gave a TED lecture, “Peace Steps: One Rabbi’s Life Journey to the Heart of His Enemies,” in 2015 and is the author of several books. Rabbi Dr. Marc Gopin is an extraordinary scholar and mensch and the release of this new work is very exciting not only because of the importance of Luzzatto's thought but because of the significance of Gopin as the one delivering the Torah. Indeed, we are in desperate need of "Compassionate Judaism" today when we must urgently channel the most crucial traditional Jewish values to address the most pressing moral issues of our time. We have a debt of gratitude to Dr. Gopin for producing this Jewishly accessible and morally challenge work."  - Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz is the President & Dean of Valley Beit Midrash, President and CEO of Uri L’Tzedek, and Founder of The Shamayim V'Aretz Institute. Twice chosen as one of America’s top rabbis by Newsweek.

“Marc Gopin is a rabbi, scholar, philosopher, activist, and visionary who has dedicated his life to building bridges between individuals, communities, and nations. Rabbi Gopin in his previous writings and community outreach as argued that religion is not necessarily reactionary force of insularity and fundamentalism, but rather a foundational force for ethics and moral behavior. In this profound and new study of Luzzatto, Rabbi Gopin reveals Luzzatto as an intellectual who interprets traditional texts and nature as revelations of the centrality of ethics, compassion and social justice. This engagement with Luzzatto allows Rabbi Gopin to make a contemporary argument for the importance of religion and compassion in guiding our individual and collective worlds.”

Ted Kaptchuk, professor of medicine and director of the Program of Placebo Studies and Therapeutic Encounter at Harvard Medical School.
“My father, Abraham Joshua Heschel, used to say that compassion is the central teaching of Judaism. In his brilliant study of Jewish philosopher, S.D. Luzzatto, Marc Gopin, who has dedicated his life to peace making, gives us new ways to achieve a secular society that embraces religious diversity.”

Susannah Heschel, Eli Black Professor of Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College
"Rabbi Dr. Marc Gopin, one of the foremost scholars and practitioners of religious and peacebuilding, and author of numerous books has written a long awaited scholarly master piece. *Compassionate Judaism* not only opens a window into the fascinating past of one of Judaism’s greatest ethicists, Rabbi Samuel David Luzzatto, but also a window into the future of what a compassionate and ethical Judaism could look like if Luzzatto’s teachings could be truly internalized."

Rabbi Dr. Daniel Roth, Director of the Pardes Center for Judaism and Conflict Resolution, Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies, Teaching Faculty, Bar Ilan University.
"Marc Gopin in *Compassionate Judaism* has brought to American public awareness the passionate life and work of the Jewish religious and Enligtenment thinker, Samuel David Luzzatto, as a model of the possibility and vital importance of integrating and reconciling the life of traditional faith with a commitment to both the universal value of compassion toward all and to a respect for empirical and scientific inquiry and outlook. This book serves as the underlying bedrock and spring of Gopin’s own passionate commitment and, I must say also, noble life devoted to bringing different and opposing religious figures and communities together into compassionate and practical mutual understanding and common projects in his ongoing practice and teaching of Citizen Diplomacy. I recommend this book most highly to anyone and everyone who cares about of resolving world conflicts."

Heidi M. Ravven, Ph.D., Bates & Benjamin Professor of Classical & Religious Studies and Professor of Jewish Philosophy, Chair, Department of Religious Studies, Hamilton College; Fellow in Neurophilosophy, Integrative Neurosciences Research Program
"Rabbi Dr. Marc Gopin is an extraordinary scholar and mensch and the release of this new work is very exciting not only because of the importance of Luzzatto's thought but because of the significance of Gopin as the one delivering the Torah. Indeed, we are in desperate need of "Compassionate Judaism" today when we must urgently channel the most crucial traditional Jewish values to address the most pressing moral issues of our time. We have a debt of gratitude to Dr. Gopin for producing this Jewishly accessible and morally challenge work."

- Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz is the President & Dean of Valley Beit Midrash, President and CEO of Uri L’Tzedek, Twice chosen as one of America’s top rabbis by Newsweek.
As someone who has known and admired Marc Gopin's work in the service of conflict resolution and international human rights for decades, I could not be happier that he is publishing this latest book. *Compassionate Judaism *is a look into the life and thought of Shmuel David Luzzato, a nineteenth Jewish exegete and philosopher. The book raises the central questions of Jewish ethics, but more importantly, most importantly it challenges Judaism and all religions to be forces for good—to be sources of compassion. Gopin has invested years working on the front lines of the movement for human rights and the fight to use the resources of religion to nurture our better angels. He has documented this work in his previous books. In this book, he takes a deep dive into Jewish sources and the Jewish textual tradition as seen through the thought of one powerful thinker. This book is an important contribution especially at this moment in this place.” Rabbi Aryeh Cohen is Professor of Rabbinic Literature at the Ziegler School for Rabbinic Studies at the American Jewish University.