of social advantage by institutions describing what is beautiful and what is ugly. Ugliness, on this account, would be an injustice, as an unchosen form of institutionally mediated disadvantage. (Certainly, different societies have had different visions of beauty, all of them reinforced by institutions such as television and mass media.) Why, then, is ugliness not a matter of justice, even on the moderated, institutional form of luck egalitarianism Tan endorses? Tan wants to avoid this result, of course, and focus only on economic goods; I worry, though, that this exclusion seems somewhat ad hoc. If this is right, though, then Tan's institutional egalitarianism may not avoid some of the difficulties that led many of us to abandon it in the first place. Tan's book, then, may not convince all of those who are hostile to luck egalitarianism; it is, however, eminently worth reading, and represents the best current defense that view has to offer. Michael Blake University of Washington Philosophical Review, Vol. 125, No. 1, 2016 DOI 10.1215/00318108-3321771 Samuel Fleischacker, Divine Teaching and the Way of the World: A Defense of Revealed Religion. New York: Oxford University Press. x þ 559 pp. In this substantial book, Samuel Fleischacker-a prominent historian of modern ethical and political theory-attempts to develop and defend a theory of revealed religion that eschews the dangers of religious fundamentalism. The chief claim of the book is stated clearly on its very first page: "revealed religions can offer us something of great importance, but stand in danger of corruption or fanaticism unless they are combined with secular scientific practices and a secular morality" (by "secular," Fleischacker seems to mean religiously neutral). In the first two parts of the book, Fleischacker attempts to establish the claim that strict commitment to scientific truth and morality must precede religion and that revelation cannot make claims against morality and science. Yet, revelation has something important to offer us that secular morality and science cannot provide and that is, claims Fleischacker, the satisfaction of our "telic yearnings," or "a conception of what we live for" (4). The third part of the book is dedicated to a critical evaluation of various secular answers to the question of what makes life worth living. In the fourth part, Fleischacker studies the notion of revelation and the nature of revelatory texts as the ground of various religions from Judaism and Christianity to Hinduism, Buddhism, and ConfuB O O K R E V I E W S 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 151 06/11/2015 PR125_1_04Bookreviews_1pp.pdf cianism and argues that revealed religion succeeds precisely in the place where secular morality fails-that is, in satisfying one's "telic yearnings" and providing an adequate account for what makes life worth living (309). In the fifth and last part of the book, Fleischacker spells out the political implications of his theory, arguing that while secular morality suffices "to define and ground politics" (433), sincere commitment to revelatory texts-and specifically, the deep sense of humility imbedded in these texts-should point the religious person in the direction of liberal politics. The book is written from a somewhat unique angle. On the one hand, Fleischacker's significant engagement with Biblical and rabbinic texts reflects his own commitments as an observant Jew. On the other hand, he puts much effort in trying to present his claims in ecumenical and inclusive terms. Overall, the book is well written, clear, and systematic. Fleischacker's interpretation of rabbinic and Biblical sources is frequently insightful and rich, and the author's frequent appeals to a very personal phenomenology are both engaging and inviting. I also found Fleischacker's discussion of the Enlightenment critique of revealed religion valuable. Regrettably, however, the book contains a few imprecise factual claims as well as inadequately motivated arguments. Thus, for example, in his discussion of revelation, Fleischacker makes the rather strong claim that "revelation must be couched in poetry" (301; italics mine) and then argues that "the Torah is largely an epic poem . . . and even its legal and narrative sections are compressed, enigmatic, and suffused with metaphor and allusion" (307). The portions of the Pentateuch that are ordinarily counted as poetry (Exodus 15 and Deuteronomy 32) do not exceed more than a quarter of a percent. Of course, one can, in principle, treat any text as poetry, but I do not see in what sense Numbers 33 (or the entire book of Leviticus) is any more poetic than, say, a shopping list (the kernel of truth in this claim of Fleischacker's is that the Biblical text has been treated by rabbinic interpreters with hermeneutic principles that are otherwise commonly associated with poetry, taking every tiny nuance of the text as significant). Instead of listing the claims and arguments I found inadequate-many of these have been highlighted as such by Gellman (2012)-I would prefer to concentrate here on one crucial issue: the notion of revelation and Fleischacker's adoption of the common Enlightenment characterization of Judaism as a religion of revelation. Though Fleischacker presents his book as a defense of revelation from the Enlightenment critique, to my mind, he accepts much of this critique too easily. An example of this is Fleischacker's espousal of Enlightenment rhetoric against enthusiasm or Schwärmarei (9) without noting the role of this rhetoric in justifying Enlightenment prejudices against non-European cultures/religions and without acknowledging the indispensable role of enthusiasm in the founding of modern mathematics and the rehabilitation of actual infinity by a certain Schwärmer by the name of Georg Cantor. B O O K R E V I E W S 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 152 06/11/2015 PR125_1_04Bookreviews_1pp.pdf Before we confront the issue of revelation, let me turn first to a crucial methodological point that Fleischacker astutely notes. "Theorists of religion tend to take Christianity as the paradigm religion and then pinch and squeeze other traditions to fit that mold. Two features of this bias are (1) an over-emphasis on belief as opposed to practice . . . and (2) a view of religions as always proclaiming themselves to be the one right view for all humanity" (12). Fleischacker further develops his argument and claims that this form of cultural colonialism "is not only condescending, but most likely false" (14). I share this evaluation and have witnessed the pattern described numerous times. Yet, I tend to see it not so much as a result of malicious intent but rather as an indication of genuine distress on the part of Christian writers who attempt to escape parochialism by making these gestures of rather shallow openness and ecumenicity. Let's now return to the issue of revelation. Enlightenment authors who described "Judaism" as a religion of revelation had, at best, a very superficial knowledge of rabbinic literature. For figures like Kant and Lessing, "Judaism" was primarily associated with the Old Testament (and the characterization of the Jews in the New Testament). It would definitely make sense for someone relying on these sources to describe Judaism as a religion of revelation. However, once we look at rabbinic literature-which historically was, and is, the main text of study for traditional Jews-the story gets far more complicated. Let us begin with the linguistic observation that the Hebrew term for revelation (hitgalut) is very rare in pretwentieth-century Hebrew (this point is conceded by Fleischacker on p. 305). Similarly, there is hardly any noun in Yiddish for revelation. If revelation was the core of traditional Judaism, how could it be that the two main Jewish languages did not develop a distinct term for it? Consider next one of the essential features of revelation according to Fleischacker: "What we mean by revelation in the course of religious life is a text . . . that corrects us, but that we do not correct, something that teaches us from a position beyond us, rather than from a position to which we have access" (306). The last characterization does not fit, to my mind, many parts of the Bible in which exemplary biblical figures present demands to God-think of Abraham's words with regard to the people of Sodom: "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" (Gen 18:25)-and this attitude is just intensified by the Talmudists who frequently explicate implicit harsh critiques of God by prominent biblical figures, such as Moses, Elijah, and Hannah (see Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Brachot, 31a–b). Indeed, in one of the stunning narratives of the Talmud, God reveals himself and intervenes in a debate among Talmudic sages. The Talmudists listen carefully to God's revealed opinion, and . . . reject it (Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Bava Metzia, 59b. See also Fleischacker's perceptive discussion of this source [389–90]). B O O K R E V I E W S 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 153 06/11/2015 PR125_1_04Bookreviews_1pp.pdf The gift of the Torah in Sinai has paramount importance in rabbinic literature. Yet, interestingly, quite a few rabbinic authors attempted to limit and minimize the direct contact with the divine. Though I cannot develop this issue here, I suspect that the main motivation behind this move is the fear of idolatry and fanatic cults guided by divine voices. In one of the most radical statements of this tendency, a late eighteenth-century Hassidic master by the name of Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Riminow argued that the Children of Israel heard, directly from God at Mount Sinai, nothing more than "kamatz Alef "-namely, the vowel "a"; all the rest was humanly interpreted (Asher Yeshaya of Rufshitz 1876, 5a). Let me conclude by stressing that I learned much from Fleischacker's book. This is an insightful, original, rich, and serious work. It makes an important contribution to the development of a more open and egalitarian religious discourse, and I am confident that it will engage scholars and philosophers for some years to come. References Asher Yeshaya of Rufshitz. 1876. Sefer Or Yesha. Lemberg: U.W. Salat et J. M. Nik. Gellman, Jerome. 2012. "Review of Divine Teaching and the Way of the World, by Samuel Fleischacker." Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, March 9. Yitzhak Y. Melamed Johns Hopkins University Philosophical Review, Vol. 125, No. 1, 2016 DOI 10.1215/00318108-3321781 B O O K R E V I E W S 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 154 06/11/2015 PR125_1_04Bookreviews_1pp.pdf