Marcia Pally
Description
"This book begins with a brief overview of traditional theodicy followed by a more detailed look at Cohen's covenantal theology. Covenant grounds Cohe
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n's understanding of our relationships with God and other persons and is the basis for his theodicy: if we are by creation covenantal, bound to God and each other in covenant, why do we have such difficulty sustaining covenantal bonds? Cohen was rent by his own inability to maintain bond with God and other persons, often women he loved. While theodicy traditionally holds this is a human failing, Cohen proposes that it must also be God's. God is the source of humanity's covenantal breaches as he is source of humanity itself. Cohen's commitment to covenant and his anger at this God who made us so prone to failing it undergird the faith, frustration, and sardonic taunting of Cohen's work. Both his faith and ire are traced through (i) Cohen's unorthodox use of Jewish and Christian imagery, (ii) his writings about women, politics, and the Holocaust, and (iii) in his magisterial final theology, You Want It Darker, released three weeks before his death"--
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