The American Jewish Archives Journal, Volume LXI 2009, Number 1

Scrolls. Saperstein has been a pioneer in advocating the use of topical rabbinical
sermons as primary source material to enrich our understanding of the past:
As a historian,… my interest in past sermons is [that they] bring us back to
a unique moment in the past and allow us to recover the complex dynamics,
the agonizing dilemmas, the deep passions of a point in time that seems ever
more elusive.… While no single sermon may deserve the description “historic,”
I would imagine that in their totality [topical sermons] significantly enhance
the historical record of American Jewry. 4
In this documentary analysis, Saperstein and Kalman focus on two sermons
written by Marc Saperstein’s father, Rabbi Harold I. Saperstein (1910–2001),
in 1955 and 1968, respectively. By serving as an interpreter and transmitter of
modern scholarly research, Harold Saperstein explains why twentieth-century
(and, by implication, twenty-first century) Reform Jews should be interested in
the Dead Sea Scrolls. These two sermons provide us with a useful case study as
to how the Dead Sea Scrolls became a salient topic for American Jewry.
Jacob Rader Marcus repeatedly asserted that the study of history provides
us with “perspective” on contemporary circumstances. With the benefit of
historical knowledge, we become better able “to assess what is happening, to
sense the direction in which [we are] moving.” Wise and reflective leaders will
inevitably rely on historical perspective to assess and prepare for the unfolding
future. By studying the past, we fortify ourselves to meet the future. “A
perceptive community can then plan socially and, if successful, assert itself as
the subject, not merely the object, of history.” 5
The articles in this journal vividly demonstrate how the faculty, students,
and library of the Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion
influenced the course of biblical scholarship over the last half of the twentieth
century. What role will HUC-JIR play in shaping the scholarly agenda during
the twenty-first century? Will the school continue to assert itself as the
subject and not the object of history? The answers to these questions will be
evident many years from now. In the meantime, the American Jewish Archives
will continue to promote the study of the American Jewish past, unalterably
committed to the conviction that “a people that is not conscious of its past has
no assurance of a future.” 6
G.P.Z.
Cincinnati, Ohio
Volume LXI Number 1 • ix