ABSTRACT
Max Lerner's formal training at Yale University and then at Washington University—two schools at which a legal education was prominent—gave intellectual substance to his instincts. Max was acutely aware of the extent to which the law was a touchstone for doing good or evil. In the special concern with justice, Max was able to fuse with remarkable ease a Jewish covenantal faith, an American pragmatic credo, and a European conscience of history. Lerner may have learned much from radical and conservative traditions, but he was suspicious of extremism. He understood its harsh consequences for the Jewish people, for minorities in general. And this suspicion of extremism also moved him to a high regard for the law as a source of political legitimacy as well as decision-making, something that both radical and reactionary theorists tend to minimize if not altogether disregard.
