Jacob Agus

Jacob Bernard Agus(November 8, 1911 – September 26, 1986) was a Polish-born American liberalConservativerabbiandtheologianwho played a key role in the ConservativeRabbinical Assembly.

Rabbi Jacob Bernard Agus
Jacob Agus
Personal
Born	November 8, 1911 Poland
Died	September 26, 1986
Nationality	American
Spouse	Miriam Shore (m. 1940)
Denomination	Conservative Judaism
Main interest(s)	Jewish theology, interfaith dialogue
Notable work(s)	Modern Philosophies of Judaism,Guideposts in Modern Judaism,Dialogue and Tradition
Alma mater	Yeshiva College (Yeshiva University),Harvard University
Occupation	Rabbi, theologian, author

Life

Jacob Agus was a leading thinker of the Conservative movement's liberal wing, heading Rabbinical Assembly committees on the sabbath, prayerbook, and ideology of the Conservative movement. He was also a rabbi ofBeth El CongregationinBaltimore, Maryland,and a promoter of interfaith communication, which he referred to as "dialogue" or "trialogue".

Agus (the family name was originally Agushewitz), was born in Poland in 1911 and his family emigrated to the United States in 1927. He attended theTalmudic Academy,New York, graduating in 1929, received his BA fromYeshiva Collegein 1933, and receivedsemichabyMoshe Soloveichikat theRabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological SeminaryofYeshiva Universityin 1935.In 1940, he received a PhD in Jewish Thought fromHarvard Universityand married Miriam Shore the same year. His elder brother, Irving A. Agus, taught medieval Jewish History at Yeshiva University.

Agus's rabbinic career included Congregation Beth Abraham,Norfolk, Virginia,1934–1936; Temple Ashkenaz,Cambridge, Massachusetts,1936–1940; Agudas Achim North Shore Congregation,Chicago,1940–1942; and Beth Abraham United Synagogue Center,Dayton, Ohio,1942–1950. In 1945, Agus formally affiliated with the Conservative movement by joining the Rabbinical Assembly. In 1950 he became the rabbi of Beth El Congregation in Baltimore, where he remained for thirty years, retiring in 1980. As a member of the Conservative movement's Rabbinical Assembly he was active in the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, chaired the Prayer Book Committee (1952–1956) and worked to define Conservative Jewish ideology through a series of conferences, committees and other gatherings, including the Continuing Conference on Conservative Ideology (1956–1963). With Morris Adler and Theodore Friedman, he co-authored the 1950Responsum on the Sabbaththat allowed Conservative Jews to drive to a synagogue on the Sabbath if there was none within walking distance.He taught at theReconstructionist Rabbinical College,St. Mary's Seminary and Ecumenical Institute(where he was also a founder of the Interfaith Roundtable), and at bothTemple UniversityandDropsie CollegeinPhiladelphia.In 1965, he accepted an invitation to teach at the Seminario Rabinico Latinoamerico inBuenos Aires.He remained in Argentina for two months, then traveled to Brazil where he spent two weeks lecturing under the auspices of the American Jewish Committee and the Brazilian Institute for Culture and Information. In Latin America, he developed continuing ties with students and colleagues – among themMarshall Meyer,then director of the Seminario. These ties are documented by correspondence in this collection.

In addition to his rabbinical and scholarly work, Agus adopted the cause of interfaith and interracial relations, dubbing his forays into Jewish/Christian and Jewish/Christian/Muslim relations "dialogue" and "trialogue." He also served on the boards of the Baltimore National Council on Christians and Jews, and the predominantly African-American Morgan State University, also in Baltimore. Professor Steven Katz described him as "a remarkable American Rabbi and scholar, illuminating Agus' commitment to Jewish people everywhere, his profound and unwavering spirituality, his continual reminders of the very real dangers of pseudo-Messianism and misplaced romantic zeal, and his willingness to take politically and religiously unpopular stands."

Interfaith

Agus was one of the principal theologians of the American Jewish-Christian dialogue. He developed adual covenant theorybased on the thought ofFranz Rosenzweig.He envisioned a symbiosis of the two religions.

Rosenzweig’s view was remarkable, in that, the Christian community was engaged in fulfilling Israel's mission. The people Israel are like the sun; the Christian community was the effluence of Divine rays permeating the nations with the spirit of monotheism. The boundary line between Judaism and Christianity was not along the plane of intellectual thought, since the divine being could only be caught figuratively or symbolically within the meshes of human reason.

Works

• Modern Philosophies of Judaism(1941)
• Banner of Jerusalema biography of Abraham Isaac Kook, Chief Rabbi of Palestine in the 1930s.(1946)
• Guideposts in Modern Judaism(1954)
• The Evolution of Jewish Thought(1959)
• The Meaning of Jewish History(1963)
• The vision and the way; an interpretation of Jewish ethics
• Dialogue and Tradition: The Response of Judaism to the Major Challenges of the Contemporary World

Bibliography

• Agus, Jacob Bernard.Dialogue and Tradition: The Challenges of Contemporary Judeo-Christian Thought.Dorley House Books, Inc.;ISBN9780200715492.