Beis Knesses Los Angeles

What This Project Is — and Why It Matters

This campaign is raising funds to publish my forthcoming book, The Divine and the Dumb: Jewish Perspectives on Idolatry — a scholarly yet accessible study of avodah zarah and its conceptual world. It addresses questions like: What's so bad about avodah zarah? Why did people worship idols? Was idolatry effective in any way? How did pagan polytheists see the world differently than the Bible does? It also explores topics like:

My previous book, G-d versus Gods:Judaism in the Age of Idolatry, focused primarily on the historical and exegetical (parshanut) dimensions of idolatry as they appear in Tanach. That work explored different incidents in Tanach involving avodah zarah (like Lavan's terafim, the Golden Calf, and Jewish idolworship in the First Temple period) and had an encyclopedia of all the idols mentioned in Tanach, based on traditional and academic sources.

This new volume takes the next step. Its focus is not history so much as ideas.

What Is This Book About?

The Divine and the Dumb explores the philosophical and theological logic behind idolatry — how paganism and polytheism actually “worked” as belief systems, and why they were so compelling to intelligent, religious people for millennia. Along the way, the book addresses the related and often misunderstood topics listed above.

A central motif running through the book is free will: how human agency operates in a world that people believed was filled with divine forces, powers, and hierarchies—and why the Torah’s rejection of idolatry is inseparable from its vision of moral responsibility.

As with my other works, this book is based on a broad, diverse range of classical Torah sources, drawing from Tanach, Chazal, medieval Jewish philosophy, and modern scholarship; and enriched with academic research.

The Journey So Far

I’ve been working on this project on and off for many years. When COVID hit, I was forced to put it aside and focus on my other professional responsibilities. About a year ago, Dr. Ammiel Shimon Sanchez — who appreciated God versus Gods — generously enabled me to return to this project. Since the beginning of 2025, I’ve been working steadily on the manuscript. At this point the manuscript is undergoing final editing and is almost ready to be submitted to a publisher.

Why I’m Raising Funds

The total cost of publishing this 400+ page book amounts to $20,000.

All funds raised through this campaign will go directly to the publisher to cover those costs. I personally will only receive standard royalties from book sales.

Why Support This?

It’s always difficult to measure the impact of a book, but God versus Gods offers some indication of the reach this kind of work can have:

My hope is that The Divine and the Dumb will contribute meaningfully to Jewish thought by clarifying one of the Torah’s most central — and most misunderstood — themes.

How You Can Help

By supporting this campaign, you’re making a serious work of scholarship accesible to the public—one that aims to illuminate how Jews and others have understood idolatry, belief, and free will across the ages.

I’m deeply grateful for your support, whether through a contribution, sharing this campaign with others, or simply praying that we have siyata dishmaya that we be blessed with success.

Special thanks to Rabbi Elchanan Shoff from BKLA for helping make this crowdfunding project a reality!

Thank you all for being part of this journey.