COVENANTAL THINKING: ESSAYS ON THE PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY OF DAVID NOVAK. Edited by Paul E.Nahme and YanivFeller. University of Toronto Press, 2024. Pp. 336. Cloth, $80.00.

There is no more subtle way to say it: This volume is a masterclass in contemporary Jewish philosophy and theology, heartwarming proof that nuanced, thoughtful, and deeply learned debate is alive and well in the Anglophone academy. Ostensibly an appraisal and reappraisal of the lifetime of scholarship and theological insights of David Novak (professor emeritus, University of Toronto) by the big names in contemporary Jewish Studies, it is also (delightfully, unexpectedly) Novak’s own responses to their essays, which prompt new formulations of his ideas, clearer demarcations of his theological boundaries, and many instances in which the personalities of both sides are revealed to be as important for formulating beliefs and arguments as are the textual or historical sources themselves. And because of Novak’s magisterial learning and broad range of interests across his life’s work, there are few themes the essays in this volume do not at least allude to, if not speak directly about. It’s all there, from revelation and law to Zionism and gay marriage. Among Jewish studies scholars, Novak’s is a big name, and a book of essays on his work is of obvious importance. Nahme and Feller divide the volume into four parts: “Election” (about the status of Israel among the nations), “Natural Law” (about the relation between revealed and rational legal systems), “Polity” (about covenant and statehood), and “Reason” (which ranges a bit more broadly, covering topics such as interfaith and sexuality). Within each part, after the essays, Novak has an essay-long response, addressing the critiques and questions of each writer in turn. Almost every essay in this volume is strong in its own right, and many will go on to be cited by what will inevitably be the long tale of Novak scholarship down the coming decades. And Novak’s responses are models of a kind of gentle, learned, professorial firmness, a joy in the debate with his students and readers that rests on a foundation of shared humanity and shared love of God’s world. There is not the whiff of haughtiness or condescension in his writing, even while there is often a sharp demarcation of stance, belief, or interpretation. It takes a real mensch to separate a personal from an intellectual adversary, and to speak about complex philosophy in a way that conveys invitation rather than disdain. It is because of this tone of learned menschlichkeit (on all sides, by all authors) that this volume shines. Alongside its many merits in the service of contemporary Jewish studies and Jewish thought, Covenantal Thinking is, as the editors write in their introduction, a model of “a conversation that proceeds as an affectional reappraisal”—which is a politic way of saying that though many (all?) of the authors in this book disagree with Novak, they respect his ideas and his learning and believe their disagreements are made stronger for the strength of his own thought. “There are disagreements, and there are irreconcilable commitments to principles as well as methodological partings of ways, but there is always dialogue” (italics added), they continue. And without being quite as on the nose as I’ll be now, Nahme and Feller are saying that their book is a Jewish republic of letters, essays back and forth across time and space among people who like one another on two levels: because they’re genuinely good people and because they’re genuinely insightful people. The one couldn’t exist without the other. The shared humanity of the book’s contributors shines through just as brightly as does their overlapping textual and theological heritage. As I opened so I’ll close: You could not find a better model for a graduate seminar or a small conference or a long winter’s night Shabbos dinner conversation than what you’ll read between these two covers. The pangs of regret for those of us who weren’t there to originally contribute are offset by the hospitable tone of editorial welcome. The conversation trills to be continued.

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