Dialogue with Deviance

Mordechai Rotenberg, who is known for his work on the impact of Protestant ethics on the Western social sciences, presents here a systematic study derived from, and based upon, Judeo-Hasidic ethics. Proceeding from the cabalistic-Hasidic concept of contraction, according to which God's voluntary withdrawal into Himself to evacuate space for the world serves as a model for human behaviour, the author shows that it is not personal-social construction, but self- and social contraction that explains how the "is" and the "ought" of society are developed and maintained.