Shadows on the Hudson: Isaac Bashevis Singer on the Prospects for Faith and Virtue in Modern America

Abstract

Isaac Bashevis Singer's posthumously published novel Shadows on the Hudson contains his deepest, most sustained reflections on the moral and religious character of modernity. Using America as his paradigm, Singer argues that modern religious skepticism has destroyed the moral authority of the Ten Commandments. This depletion of moral capital has led to the growth of a powerful “underworld” culture that fosters the idolatrous worship of material well-being, reason, and Eros. Singer believes that ultra-orthodox Judaism is the only religion now able to check this evil in principle. Yet he fears that this religion can do little more in our post-biblical world than to highlight modernity's moral flaws. Thus, he offers an uncommonly bleak prognosis for the future unless modern poets can create a new religion that better meets the needs of our time.