Max Kadushin (Belarusian: Макс Кадушын; December 6, 1895 – July 23, 1980) was a Conservative rabbi best known for his organic philosophy of rabbinics.
Born in Minsk, Max Kadushin grew up in Seattle; his father operated a store for gold miners going to the Klondike.
Their older son, (Solomon) Phineas Kadushin, also became a Rabbi, and later went to Yeshiva University for his graduate work in Psychology.
Kadushin sees more practical value in normal mysticism, the complex but decidedly non-supernatural everyday religious experience of any pious and observant Jew.
In this work, Lauterbach outlined his approach to understanding and analyzing Rabbinic texts, specifically the Aggada, and henceforth utilized his principles to provide a commentary to the Mekhilta d'Rabbi Ishmael (utilized the critical Lauterbach edition), divided into segments from Tractate Pisha and Tracate Beshalach.
These two volumes represent Kadushin's efforts to apply his system of hermeneutics to classic rabbinic texts.
Left to itself, uncontrolled, it may manifest itself in the most absurd of human vagaries and sanctify not only unsocial but anti-social behavior and utterly callous selfishness.