The principal concern of Jewish philosophers over the centuries were theological and ethical in nature. Social philosophy, and particularly its political components of Jewish thought during the last two millennia. In recent years Sol Roth has undertaken the task of analyzing social conceptions and of doing so with contemporary methods of philosophical analysis. This volume, Halakhah and Politics: The Jewish Idea of a State, is a companion to his earlier book, The Jewish Idea of Community. It focuses on crucial political concepts such as power, land, sovereignty, justice, freedom, equality, human rights, dissent, revolution, etc., in order to clarify these ideas from a halakhic perspective, and to contrast, where appropriate, Jewish conceptions with their secular-democratic counterparts. The results are striking and illuminating.
by Sol Roth