Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson (1902-1994), known to many simply as “the Rebbe,” was one of the most remarkable personalities of the 20th century. In 1994 he was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in recognition of his “extraordinary life and work.” Despite the Rebbe’s fame as the inspiring leader of a global movement, Social Vision is the first book to seriously explore his social ideas and activism, persuasively demonstrating that he was a keen social analyst whose ideas are as original as they are practical. Schneerson’s engagement with the American counterculture of the 1960s, his vocal and controversial championship of a cabinet-level Department of Education, his advocacy for criminal justice reform, and his ecological philosophy, all bear directly on current policy debates in the 21st century.
Social Vision is a breakthrough work of scholarship by Professor Philip Wexler, a leading sociologist and expert on education. Wexler distills Schneerson’s voluminous public teachings, letters, and private conversations to make his ideas accessible to the general reader, and demonstrates the enduring relevance of Schneerson’s teachings to the manifold crises of modern life, politics, and culture. Wexler delves deeply into the ways that religious ideas seminally shape society. Juxtaposed with what Max Weber called “the spirit of capitalism,” Schneerson’s Hasidic worldview is compellingly framed as a practical path that can help us create a better future for all humanity. Schneerson was not simply a religious figure, but also a great philosopher who boldly upended conventional polarizations between tradition and progress, religion and science, mysticism and society. Social Vision tells the story of how Schneerson not only channeled his ideas into a global Jewish renaissance in the aftermath of the Holocaust, but also articulated a universal vision whose influence continues to shape better policymaking for a better world.
GET THE BOOK!
GET THE BOOK!
PRAISE FOR SOCIAL VISION
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Philip Wexler is Executive Director of the Institute of Jewish Spirituality and Society, and emeritus Professor of Sociology of Education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he held the Unterberg Chair in Jewish Social and Educational History. He was formerly at the University of Rochester as the Scandling Professor of Education and Sociology, where he was also Founding Dean of the Warner Graduate School (1989-2000). He later served as Director of the School of Education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2002-2010), Visiting Bronfman Professor at Brandeis University (2010-2012), and Professor of Social Pedagogy and Social Policy at the Bergische University, Wuppertal, Germany (2012-2014). He received his Ph.D. in Sociology and Anthropology from Princeton University, where he was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow and Woodrow Wilson Dissertation Fellow. He has published eighteen books on sociology, education, postmodernism and religion.
Eli Rubin is an editor and research writer at Chabad.org, and a graduate research student in the Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies, University College London. He has studied Hasidic literature and Jewish Law at the Rabbinical College of America, and at yeshivot in the UK, the US and Australia.
Michael Wexler is a Princeton University graduate with a degree in English Literature and a master’s of fine arts (MFA) in creative writing. He has published six books of both fiction and non-fiction, including the acclaimed young-adult fantasy series The Seems. He has served as an Adjunct Professor of writing at The University of Missouri-Kansas City and is the creator of projects for Fox, ABC, Microsoft, AFLAC, SiriusXM Radio, and more.
Social Vision: The Lubavitcher Rebbe's Transformative Paradigm for the World
Philip Wexler, Eli Rubin, Michael Wexler | Series: Jewish Spiritual Traditions and Contemporary Society
Hardcover, 300 pages | Herder & Herder (July 6, 2019) | English | ISBN-10: 0-8245-5038-2 | ISBN-13: 978-0-8245-5038-7 | 6 x 9 inches