 The “top-down” approach to Leibowitz’s theology taken so far places extreme limits on what one can say or know about God but does not yield a constructive account of the nature of Jewish faith. His positive formulation therefore proceeds from an altogether different direction. Taking a more “bottom-up” approach methodologically speaking, Leibowitz utilizes a historical argument in defining Jewish faith, arguing that throughout history, at least until the emancipation of European Jewry beginning at the end of the eighteenth century, Judaism was defined through adherence to Jewish practice, to the commandments of the Torah itself, and the subsequent development of these commandments into the all encompassing system of Jewish law, or Halakhah. Any definition of Jewish faith must therefore centre upon Jewish practice, on the mitzvoth that governed the everyday life of Jews until modern times. Moreover, Leibowitz’s historical account of faith makes no allowances for any theological accretions, be they mystical or philosophical, which would purport to define it. Jewish theology through the ages has always adapted itself to prevailing philosophical or mystical winds, and is seen by Leibowitz as “episodic and fleeting” (Judaism, 8). Whether the conceptual scaffolding was kabbalah or rationalist philosophy, Judaism “was never dependent upon some specific philosophy, ethic, world view, or theology” (Judaism, 8–9), though it is mysticism and not rationalism which, along with Reform Judaism, he classifies one of “the two great distortions of Jewish faith” (Judaism, 111).