A memoir, biography, history, and philosophical explication in the sometimes excellent Jewish Encounters Series by the author of Plato at the Googleplex, which I think I bombed. I’m probably not smart enough to grok most of this, and some of it was screaming for me to write a question mark in the margin:

It may be objected that, as we understand God as the cause of all things, we by that very fact regard God as the cause of pain. But I make answer, that, in so far as we understand the causes of pain, it to that extent, ceases to be a passion, that is, it ceases to be pain; therefore in so far as we understand God to be the cause of pain, we to that extent feel pleasure. [Really?]

That is what the problem of evil comes down to: the stubborn stupidity of mankind. [A weak answer before the Theory of Evolution, but certainly inadequate now.]

This book certainly held my attention and it is an outstanding and clever overall production.