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| isadore twersky: A Maimonides Reader Moses Maimonides, 1972 Major selections from Maimonides' writings, including Guide to the Perplexed, Mishneh Torah, his essays, correspondence, and commentaries. The definitive one-volume English presentation. This book will provide a deeper understanding of Maimonides with translations of the original text. |
| isadore twersky: Studies in Medieval Jewish History and Literature Isadore Twersky, 1979 critical edition and annotated translation of one of the classics of Jewish biblical interpretation. The collection will be indispensable to all students of Jewish history and culture. |
| isadore twersky: Rabad of Posquières Isadore Twersky, 1980 Provence during the twelfth century was the scene of a remarkable renaissance in Jewish scholarship. Cities such as Lunel, Carcassonne, and Montpellier became centers of learning--pivotal points of contemporary Jewish life whose influence was important in the evolution of Jewish culture in general and the development of Jewish law in particular. Rabad of Posquieres--Rabbi Abraham ben David--was one of the most creative Talmudic scholars of this period. Although celebrated for his criticism of Maimonides' Mishneh Torah, the nature and significance of his halakic work have never before been clarified nor have his achievements been fully assessed. This biographical treatise on Rabad captures his personality, chronicles his role in the intellectual history of the Jews in southern France during the twelfth century, and outlines his influence on subsequent generations. Rabad's disciples and followers are discussed, as well as his reaction to the philosophic literature of Spanish Judaism and his relation to the emerging medieval kabbalah. Characterization of his works, description of his halakic methodology, and analysis of his literary sources focus attention on basic problems of medieval Jewish history. |
| isadore twersky: An Introduction to Judaism Jacob Neusner, 1991-01-01 An ancient religion practiced through most of recorded history and having profound influence on both Christianity and Islam, Judaism is also a modern religion that still transforms the lives of many people. Neusner surveys how Judaism took shape as people responded to political and religious crises and describes how Judaism is practiced in American today. |
| isadore twersky: Introduction to the Code of Maimonides (Mishneh Torah) Isadore Twersky, Maimonides, 1980 This book is a literary-historical study of the Mishneh Torah, Maimonides' great Code of Jewish law, organized around five characteristics repeatedly emphasized by Maimonides himself: codificatory form, scope, classification, language and style, philosophy and law. The analysis attempts to correlate his own self-perception, his own characterization and evaluation of his work, with the actual product--an objective assessment of the constructs, categories, and conclusions of his work, shaken free of struts and preconceptions. |
| isadore twersky: The Jewish Expression Judah Goldin, 1976-01-01 In this classic collection, leading modern scholars examine and interpret 3,000 years of Jewish literature and history. The essays study the actions and institutions of the Jewish people as well as their literary tradition. Included are essays on medieval poetry (Shalom Spiegel), Jewish thought and Jewish learning (Harry Austryn Wolfson and Louis Ginzberg); Spinoza (Leo Strauss); the Kaddish (S. Y. Agnon), and many more. Each essay reveals the diverse ways in which the Judaic tradition interacts with contemporary events, so that the Jewish expression remains vital and immediate. |
| isadore twersky: Rabbi Moses Naḥmanides (Ramban) Isadore Twersky, 1983-01-01 This rich little volume, which substantively enhances our knowledge and appreciation of R. Moses Nahmanides, contains an introduction by Isadore Twersky and five original and learned articles by well-known scholars: David Berger, Brooklyn College (Miracles and the Natural Order in Nahmanides); Ezra Fleischer, The Hebrew University (The 'Gerona School' of Hebrew Poetry); Moshe Idel, The Hebrew University ('We Have No Kabbalistic Tradition on This'); Bezalel Safran, Harvard University (Rabbi Azriel and Nahmanides: Two Views of the Fall of Man); and Bernard Septimus, Harvard University ('Open Rebuke and Concealed Love': Nahmanides and the Andalusian Tradition). Ramban's attitude to aggadah, poetry, exegesis and rationalism, his coupling of genuine conservatism and powerful originality, his views on the nature of man, law of nature, miracles, history of kabbalah, dialectics of halakah, his relation to the Spanish intellectual-spiritual background, Proencal culture, and French Talmudism--these are some of the topics explored in these pages. In connection with these specific topics of Nahmanides research, some broader historical issues are also touched upon: continuities and differences between Islamic and Christian Spain; varieties of thirteenth-centurey kabbalah; preoccupations of medieval halakists; root problems of Scriptural exegesis; the re-orientation of Hebrew poetry in Christian Spain; the relation of philosophy and mysticism. Anyone interested in the luminous achievement and enduring influence of Ramban, probably the greatest figure in 13th century Jewish history, will turn to this volume. |
| isadore twersky: Studies in the History of Philosophy and Religion Harry Austryn Wolfson, 1973 Readers familiar with the luminous scholarly contributions of Harry Austryn Wolfson will welcome this rich collection of essays that have been previously published in widely dispersed journals and books, The articles range over Aristotle and Plato; Philo; the Church Fathers; and Arabic, Jewish, and Christian philosophers of the Middle Ages: Averroes and Avicenna, Maimonides, and Thomas Aquinas. The twenty-eight pieces are arranged in such a manner that ideas develop and are pursued from one article to the next, forming a coherent whole. According to the editors, This volume reflects the most basic biographical fact about Wolfson: his life has been one of unflagging commitment, uninterrupted creativity, and truly remarkable achievement...Wolfson's scholarship will be viewed with awe and admiration and his impact will be durable. He has added new dimensions to philosophical scholarship and illuminated wide areas of religious thought, plotting the terrain, blazing trails, and erecting guideposts for scores of younger scholars. |
| isadore twersky: Repercussions of the Kalam in Jewish Philosophy Harry Austryn Wolfson, 1979 In his monumental Philosophy of the Kalam the late Harry Wolfson--truly the most accomplished historian of philosophy in our century--examined the early medieval system of Islamic philosophy. He studies its repercussions in Jewish thought in this companion book--an indispensable work for all students of Jewish and Islamic traditions. Wolfson believed that ideas are contagious, but that for beliefs to catch on from one tradition to another the recipients must be predisposed, susceptible. Thus he is concerned here not so much with the influence of Islamic ideas as with Jewish elaboration, adaptation, qualification, and criticism of them. To this end he examines passages reflecting Kalam views by a wide variety of Jewish thinkers, including Isaac Israeli, Judah Halevi, Abraham ibn Ezra, and Maimonides. As always in Wolfson's work, two aspects are apparent: the special dimensions of Jewish thought as well as its relation to other traditions. And as always his prose is both graceful and precise. |
| isadore twersky: Opening the Gates of Interpretation Mordechai Z. Cohen, 2011-08-25 The biblical hermeneutics of the illustrious philosopher-talmudist Moses Maimonides (1138-1204) has long been underappreciated, and viewed in isolation from the celebrated philological schools of “plain sense” (peshat) Jewish Bible exegesis. Aiming to redress this imbalance, this study identifies Maimonides’ substantial contributions to that interpretive movement, assessing its achievements in cultural context. Like others in the rationalist Geonic-Andalusian school, Maimonides’ understanding of Scripture was informed by Arabic learning. Drawing upon Greco-Arabic logic, poetics, politics, physics and metaphysics, as well as Muslim jurisprudence, he devised sophisticated new approaches to key issues that occupied other exegetes, including a variety of interpretive cruxes, the reconciliation of Scripture with reason, a legal hermeneutics for deriving halakhah (Jewish law) from Scripture, and the nature of interpretation itself. It is a valuable contribution to the entire study of medieval biblical exegesis and will undoubtedly serve as the basis of all subsequent discussions of Maimonides' hermeneutics. Daniel J. Lasker, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev |
| isadore twersky: American Post-Judaism Shaul Magid, 2013-04-09 Articulates a new, post-ethnic American Jewishness |
| isadore twersky: The Radical Enlightenment of Solomon Maimon , 2006-09-14 With extraordinary chutzpah and deep philosophical seriousness Solomon ben Joshua of Lithuania renamed himself after his medieval intellectual hero, Moses Maimonides. This is a study of Maimon, perhaps the most controversial figure of the late 18th century Jewish Enlightenment. |
| isadore twersky: 3 Jewish Philosophers Yochanan Lewy, Yiẓḥak Heinemann, 2006 This anthology brings together the most important works of three Jewish Philosophers of the Middle Ages. It includes selections of the writings of Philo of Alexandria, edited with an introduction by Hans Lewy; Sa'adia Gaon's Book of Doctrine's and Beliefs, abridged, introduced and translated from the Arabic by Alexander Altmann; and Yehuda Halevi's influential Kuzari, abridged and with an introduction and commentary by Isaak Heinemann, with a selection of Halevi's poetry. All educated students of Jewish thought should be familiar with these seminal writers. |
| isadore twersky: God Spoke Once, I Heard Twice Rabbi Dr. Hillel Goldberg, 2024-12-15 Moving from cosmology to creativity to criminology, the Torah explores the breadth of human existence: ethics and ritual, narratives of Patriarchs and Matriarchs, history and a philosophy of history--all of these drive the first five books of Hebrew Scripture. But as Rabbi Hillel Goldberg explains in this probing and insightful commentary, these sacred texts are governed by one idea—one God. God blesses the human being with power, and also imposes limits. A human being may not kill, not commit any sacrilege, not act unjustly. God retains ultimate power, including the prerogative to make ethical, ritual, and spiritual laws, which fill the Torah. The Torah is a kaleidoscope, and Rabbi Goldberg refracts it through its fifty-four prisms—its fifty-four chapters. But a single reality undergirds all—one God. Rabbi Goldberg’s exploration of the diversity of disciplines in the Torah demonstrates how naturally the idea of monotheism emerges. In Genesis, God chooses one family to carry out His mission in history. The book of Exodus narrates God’s liberation of this family’s descendants in order to bring His mission to fruition. Leviticus details the laws by which God’s people serve Him through ethics, ritual, even agriculture. Numbers begins with the metahistory of God’s people as He sustains it with manna and guides it with a pillar of fire and a pillar of cloud; then resumes the history of His people as it wages war and prepares to conquer the promised land. Fearful of idolatry there, Moses in Deuteronomy concludes his exhortation to remain faithful to the invisible presence of God. Bible commentary, according to Rabbi Goldberg, should mirror the many ways God enters into the human experience. Offering philosophic inquiry, personal reflection, and fresh exegesis—plus a touch of poetry, humor, and storytelling—God Spoke Once, I Heard Twice is a brilliant, learned, and inspired contribution to an ongoing chronicle of faith. |
| isadore twersky: The En Yaaqov Marjorie Lehman, 2011-10-15 Examines the origins of the En Yaaqov in the tumultuous medieval period and the motivations of its creator, exiled Spanish rabbi Jacob ibn Habib. After his expulsion from Spain in 1492, Jacob ibn Habib created the En Yaaqov, a collection of Talmudic aggadah (non-legal material), by removing the majority of the Talmud’s legal portions but preserving the chapter order of the remaining material and adding his own introduction and running commentary. In The En Yaaqov: Jacob ibn Habib’s Search for Faith in the Talmudic Corpus author Marjorie Lehman argues that the En Yaaqov’s anthologizer, Jacob ibn Habib, purposely sought to create a Talmud look-alike in order to prove that Judaism’s foundational legal tract could also be seen as a theological document. By considering the factors that influenced ibn Habib, Lehman argues that his En Yaaqov was a reaction to the way that the Talmud was perceived and studied during the late medieval period among Spanish Jewry. In four chapters, Lehman explores the first printed edition of the En Yaaqov, delving into the intellectual culture and theological intricacies surrounding its creation and elaborating on the contributions of the En Yaaqov to the development of faith. Chapter 1 considers the political turmoil and challenges of resettlement that ibn Habib encountered after expulsion and that prompted him to produce the En Yaaqov. Chapter 2 focuses on the intellectual framework within which ibn Habib’s attitude toward Talmudic aggadah developed and explains why few running commentaries on the aggadot of the Talmud existed prior to his work. Chapter 3 discusses ibn Habib’s editorial decisions in choosing to construct the En Yaaqov as a Talmud look-alike. In Chapter 4, Lehman analyzes key passages in ibn Habib’s commentary to the En Yaaqov to examine how he integrated text and context to provide a resource that Jews could utilize for spiritual growth and continuity of faith. In her conclusion, Lehman addresses the evolving printing history of the collection, which was quite different from that of the Talmud. Lehman argues that ibn Habib’s experiences as a Spanish Jew who was forced to flee Spain prompted him to make decisions not only about how the Talmud should be studied in the name of spiritual restoration but also about how Jews could survive future expulsions by cultivating a sustainable faithful relationship with God. This insightfully researched book will be informative to scholars of Talmud and Rabbinic Literature, late-medieval intellectual history and culture, Sephardic history, and the history of the Jewish book as well as to readers interested in the still-popular En Yaaqov. |
| isadore twersky: Understanding Rabbinic Judaism Jacob Neusner, 2003-04-15 |
| isadore twersky: Maimonides—Essential Teachings on Jewish Faith & Ethics , 2012-01-24 The teachings of Judaism's greatest medieval philosopher can be a companion on your own spiritual journey. No Jewish thinker has had a more significant impact on Jewish religious thought than Moses Maimonides (1138–1204). A medieval philosopher whose vision covered an extensive range, he created a method of mediating between revelation and reason that laid the groundwork for a rational, philosophically sophisticated Judaism. He also provided an approach to biblical interpretation and philosophy that remains relevant for people of all faiths who follow a religion based on sacred text and oral interpretation. In this accessible examination of Maimonides’s theological and philosophical teachings, Rabbi Marc D. Angel opens up for us Maimonides’s views on the nature of God, providence, prophecy, free will, human nature, repentance and more. He explores basic concepts of faith that Maimonides posits must serve as the basis for proper religious life. He also examines Maimonides’s insights on reward and punishment, messianic days, the world to come and other tenets of Jewish faith. Now you can experience the wisdom of Maimonides even if you have no previous knowledge of Judaism or Jewish philosophy. SkyLight Illuminations provides insightful yet unobtrusive commentary that reveals why Maimonides’s teachings continue to have profound relevance to those seeking an intellectually vibrant understanding of Judaism. |
| isadore twersky: Maimonides' Essential Teachings on Jewish Faith and Ethics , 2011 No Jewish thinker has had a more significant impact on Jewish religious thought than Moses Maimonides. In this examination of Maimonides's theological and philosophical teachings, Rabbi Marc D. Angel opens up for us Maimonides's views on the nature of God, providence, prophecy, free will, human nature, repentance, and more. |
| isadore twersky: Isaac Polqar – A Jewish Philosopher or a Philosopher and a Jew? Racheli Haliva, 2020-06-08 To date, scholars have skilfully discussed aspects of Polqar’s thought, and yet none of the existing studies offers a comprehensive examination that covers Polqar’s thought in its entirety. This book aims to fill this lacuna by tracing and contextualizing both Polqar’s Islamic sources (al-Fārābī, Avicenna, and Averroes) and his Jewish sources (Maimonides and Isaac Albalag). The study brings to light three of Polqar’s main purposes; (1) seeking to defend Judaism as a true religion against Christianity; (2) similarly to his fellow Jewish Averroists, Polqar wishes to defend the discipline of philosophy. By philosophy, Polqar means Averroes' interpretation of Aristotle. As a consequence, he offers an Averroistic interpretation of Judaism and becomes one of the main representatives of Jewish Averroism; (3) defending his philosophical interpretation of Judaism. From a social and political point of view, Polqar's unreserved embrace of philosophy raised problems within the Jewish community; he had to refute the Jewish traditionalists’ charge that he was a heretic, led astray by philosophy. The main objective guiding this study is that Polqar advances a systematic naturalistic interpretation of Judaism, which in many cases does not agree with traditional Jewish views. Haliva’s lucid, learned, and incisive monograph on the thought of Isaac Polqar is the first comprehensive study devoted to this important, but neglected fourteenth century Jewish Averroist. It makes a significant contribution to our knowledge of post-Maimonidean medieval Jewish philosophy. Haliva convincingly shows that while Polqar claims to follow Maimonides, he consistently pushes his thought in a more radical direction, offering a severely naturalistic interpretation of Jewish religious principles and refusing to make any concessions to more traditional theological modes of thought. Her study leads us to ask whether it is possible to uphold such an uncompromising philosophical and naturalistic reading of Judaism as that of Polqar, that is, whether it does justice to the Jewish religious principles it purports to interpret and enables us to maintain the authority of traditional Halakhah. Lawrence J. Kaplan, McGill University, Montreal Racheli Haliva's excellent book is the first comprehensive study of the philosophy of Isaac Polqar (late thirteenth-early fourteenth century). Polqar emerges as a radical and creative thinker–a fascinating link between the philosophy of Averroes and Maimonides and that of Spinoza. Warren Zev Harvey, Hebrew University of Jerusalem Haliva's groundbreaking book is the first comprehensive study of Polqar's intellectual world, forged in the crucible of the late Middle Ages where Greco-Arabic philosophy and the Maimonidean legacy meet inner-Jewish and anti-Christian polemics. Polqar, Haliva demonstrates, was a formidable thinker in his own right who critically engages with Maimonides and Averroes. At the same time, he defends the Jewish faith as the only true religion of reason--against Kabbalists and Jewish traditionalists and against his former teacher, Abner of Burgos, whose conversion to Christianity was a major intellectual shock. This is a meticulously researched and lucidly argued scholarly contribution that fills a crucial gap in the history of Jewish philosophy. Carlos Fraenkel, McGill University, Montreal |
| isadore twersky: Reading Maimonides' Mishneh Torah David Gillis, 2015-01-08 David Gillis’s highly original study of Maimonides’ Mishneh torah demonstrates that its form reflects a belief that observance of the divine commandments of the Torah brings the individual and society into line with the cosmic order. He shows that the Mishneh torah is intended to be an object of contemplation as well as a prescription for action, with the study of it in itself bringing the reader closer to knowledge of God. |
| isadore twersky: Knowledge of God and the Development of Early Kabbalah Jonathan Dauber, 2012-08-01 In Knowledge of God and the Development of Early Kabbalah, Jonathan Dauber offers a fresh consideration of the emergence and early development of Kabbalah against the backdrop of a re-evaluation of the relationship between early Kabbalistic and philosophic discourse. He argues that the first Kabbalists adopted a philosophic ethos that was foreign to traditional Rabbinic Judaism but had taken root in Languedoc and Catalonia under the influence of newly available philosophical materials. In this ethos, the act of investigating God was accorded great religious significance, and it was its adoption by the first Kabbalists that helped spur them to engage in their investigations of God and, in so doing, develop Kabbalah. |
| isadore twersky: Politics and the Limits of Law Menachem Lorberbaum, 2002-11-01 This book explores the emergence of the fundamental political concepts of medieval Jewish thought, arguing that alongside the well known theocratic elements of the Bible there exists a vital tradition that conceives of politics as a necessary and legitimate domain of worldly activity that preceded religious law in the ordering of society. Since the Enlightenment, the separation of religion and state has been a central theme in Western political history and thought, a separation that upholds the freedom of conscience of the individual. In medieval political thought, however, the doctrine of the separation of religion and state played a much different role. On the one hand, it served to maintain the integrity of religious law versus the monarch, whether canon law, Islamic law, or Jewish law. On the other hand, it upheld the autonomy of the monarch and the autonomy of human political agency against theocratic claims of divine sovereignty and clerical authority. Postulating the realm of secular politics leads the author to construct a theory of the precedence of politics over religious law in the organization of social life. He argues that the attempts of medieval philosophers to understand religion and the polity provide new perspectives on the viability of an accommodation between revelation and legislation, the holy and the profane, the divine and the temporal. The book shows that in spite of the long exile of the Jewish people, there is, unquestionably, a tradition of Jewish political discourse based on the canonical sources of Jewish law. In addition to providing a fresh analysis of Maimonides, it analyzes works of Nahmanides, Solomon ibn Adret, and Nissim Gerondi that are largely unknown to the English-speaking reader. Finally, it suggests that the historical corpus of Jewish political writing remains vital today, with much to contribute to the ongoing debates over church-state relations and theocratic societies. |
| isadore twersky: Philosophy and Rabbinic Culture Gregg Stern, 2013-09-05 Philosophy and Rabbinic Culture is a study of the great, and curiously underappreciated, engagement of a Medieval European Jewish community with the philosophic tradition. This lucid description of the Languedocian Jewish community's multigenerational cultivation of - and acculturation to - scientific and philosophic teachings into Judaism fulfils a major desideratum in Jewish cultural history. In the first detailed account of this long-forgotten Jewish community and its cultural ideal, the author gives an expansive reappraisal of the role of the philosophic interpretation in rabbinic culture and medieval Judaism. Looking at how the cultural ideal of Languedocian Jewry continued to develop and flourish throughout the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, with particular reference to the literary style and religious teaching of the great Talmudist, Menahem ha-Meiri, Stern explores issues such as Meiri’s theory of civilized religions, including Christianity and Islam, controversy over philosophy and philosophic allegory in Languedoc and Catalonia, and the cultural significance of the medical use of astrological images. This book will be of great interest to scholars and students of Religion, of Judaism in particular, and of Philosophy, History and Medieval Europe, as well as those interested in Jewish-Christian relations. |
| isadore twersky: Leadership and Conflict Marc Saperstein, 2014-10-30 A multifaceted analysis of how Jewish leaders in medieval and early modern times responded to the challenges they faced. Based largely on the study of sermons and responsa—genres that show Jewish leaders addressing real situations in the lives of their people—it reveals how rabbis have handled intellectual, social, and political diversity and conflict in various vibrant Jewish communities. |
| isadore twersky: The Virtue Ethics of Levi Gersonides Alexander Green, 2016-11-29 This book argues that Levi Gersonides articulates a unique model of virtue ethics among medieval Jewish thinkers. Gersonides is recognized by scholars as one of the most innovative Jewish philosophers of the medieval period. His first model of virtue is a response to the seemingly capricious forces of luck through training in endeavor, diligence, and cunning aimed at physical self-preservation. His second model of virtue is altruistic in nature. It is based on the human imitation of God as creator of the laws of the universe for no self-interested benefit, leading humans to imitate God through the virtues of loving-kindness, grace, and beneficence. Both these models are amplified through the institutions of the kingship and the priesthood, which serve to actualize physical preservation and beneficence on a larger scale, amounting to recognition of the political necessity for a division of powers. |
| isadore twersky: A Vigilant Society Javier Roiz, 2013-03-01 A Vigilant Society presents a provocative hypothesis that argues that Western society as we know it emerged from the soil of Jewish intellectual advances in the thirteenth century, especially those formulated on the Iberian Peninsula. A paradigmatic shift began to occur, one that abandoned the pre–Gothic Sephardic wisdom found in, for example, the writings of Maimonides in favor of what author Javier Roiz calls the vigilant society. This model embraces a conception of politics that includes a radical privatization of an individual's interior life and—especially as adopted and adapted in later centuries by Roman Catholic and Calvinist thinkers—is marked by a style of politics that accepts the dominance of power and control as given. Vigilant society laid the foundation for the Western understanding of politics and its institutions and remains pervasive in today's world. |
| isadore twersky: Joseph Ibn Kaspi Adrian Sackson, 2017-07-03 Joseph Ibn Kaspi was among the most prolific philosophical writers in one of the most vibrant, productive, creative periods in the history of Jewish philosophy. Born around 1280 in Provence, Ibn Kaspi penned works engaging a broad range of fields, including philosophy, theology, grammar, logic, biblical exegesis, and interreligious polemics. In Joseph Ibn Kaspi: Portrait of a Hebrew Philosopher in Medieval Provence, Adrian Sackson asks the question: What was Ibn Kaspi’s overarching intellectual project? The book focuses on several key themes: Ibn Kaspi’s conception of the formative (not just discursive) function of philosophy; his multi-layered esotericism; his distinct approach to the interpretation of Maimonides; his Maimonidean-philosophical approach to the interpretation of religious texts and practices; his Platonic political thought; his approach to messianism, and his attendant conception of the nature of human history. |
| isadore twersky: Majesty and Humility Reuven Ziegler, 2017-07-17 Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik was not only one of the outstanding Talmudists and religious leaders of the 20th century, but also one of its most creative and seminal Jewish thinkers. This comprehensive study of Rabbi Soloveitchik's religious philosophy offers a broad perspective and balanced understanding of his work. By interpreting and analyzing both individual essays and overarching themes in an accessible and engaging manner, it uncovers the depth, majesty, and fascination of his thought. |
| isadore twersky: Traditional Jewish Sex Guidance: A History Evyatar Marienberg, 2022-07-25 When Jews literate in Hebrew (a group that until recently was mostly men) wanted to learn from traditional Jewish sources how to behave in their conjugal bed, what did they find? Did the guidance differ between generations, places, or cultural contexts? How did thinkers in a tradition based on supposedly binding texts deal with changing sensibilities, needs, and realities in this intimate domain? This study explores sources from the Bible to contemporary publications, showing both stability and change in what Jews were instructed to do, or to avoid doing, when having sex with their spouse. |
| isadore twersky: Creating Judaism Michael L. Satlow, 2006 How can we define Judaism, and what are the common threads uniting ancient rabbis, Maimonides, the authors of the Zohar, and modern secular Jews in Israel? Michael L. Satlow offers a fresh perspective on Judaism that recognizes both its similarities and its immense diversity. Presenting snapshots of Judaism from around the globe and throughout history, Satlow explores the links between vastly different communities and their Jewish traditions. He studies the geonim, rabbinical scholars who lived in Iraq from the ninth to twelfth centuries; the intellectual flourishing of Jews in medieval Spain; how the Hasidim of nineteenth-century Eastern Europe confronted modernity; and the post-World War II development of distinct American and Israeli Jewish identities. Satlow pays close attention to how communities define themselves, their relationship to biblical and rabbinic texts, and their ritual practices. His fascinating portraits reveal the amazingly creative ways Jews have adapted over time to social and political challenges and continue to remain a Jewish family. |
| isadore twersky: Rashi's Commentary on the Torah Eric Lawee, 2019-04-09 Winner of the Jewish Book Council Nahum M. Sarna Memorial Award in Scholarship This book explores the reception history of the most important Jewish Bible commentary ever composed, the Commentary on the Torah of Rashi (Shlomo Yitzhaki; 1040-1105). Though the Commentary has benefited from enormous scholarly attention, analysis of diverse reactions to it has been surprisingly scant. Viewing its path to preeminence through a diverse array of religious, intellectual, literary, and sociocultural lenses, Eric Lawee focuses on processes of the Commentary's canonization and on a hitherto unexamined--and wholly unexpected--feature of its reception: critical, and at times astonishingly harsh, resistance to it. Lawee shows how and why, despite such resistance, Rashi's interpretation of the Torah became an exegetical classic, a staple in the curriculum, a source of shared religious vocabulary for Jews across time and place, and a foundational text that shaped the Jewish nation's collective identity. The book takes as its larger integrating perspective processes of canonicity as they shape how traditions flourish, disintegrate, or evolve. Rashi's scriptural magnum opus, the foremost work of Franco-German (Ashkenazic) biblical scholarship, faced stiff competition for canonical supremacy in the form of rationalist reconfigurations of Judaism as they developed in Mediterranean seats of learning. It nevertheless emerged triumphant in an intense battle for Judaism's future that unfolded in late medieval and early modern times. Investigation of the reception of the Commentary throws light on issues in Jewish scholarship and spirituality that continue to stir reflection, and even passionate debate, in the Jewish world today. |
| isadore twersky: Jewish Life in Medieval Spain Jonathan Ray, 2023-03-28 Jewish Life in Medieval Spain is a detailed exploration of the Jewish experience in medieval Spain from the dawn of Sephardic society in the ninth century to the expulsion of 1492. An important contribution of the book is the integration of the rise and fall of Jewish life in Muslim al-Andalus into the history of the Jews in medieval Christian Spain. It traces the collapse of Jewish life in Muslim Spain, the emigration of Andalusi Jewry to the lands of Christian Iberia, and the long and difficult confluence of these two distinct Jewish subcultures. Focusing on internal developments of Jewish society, it offers a narrative of Jewish history from the inside out, bringing to light the various divisions and rivalries within the Jewish community. This approach, in turn, allows for a deeper understanding of the complex relations between Spanish Jews and their Muslim and Christian neighbors. Jonathan Ray’s original perspective on the Jewish experience is particularly instructive when considering the widescale anti-Jewish riots of 1391. The combination of violence and mass conversion of the Jews irrevocably shifted the dynamics of inter-religious relations as well as those within the Jewish community itself. Yet even in the wake of these tragic events, the Jews of Spain continued to flourish, fostering a culture that they would carry into exile and that would preserve the memory of Jewish Spain for centuries to come. |
| isadore twersky: 20th Century Jewish Religious Thought Arthur A. Cohen, Paul Mendes-Flohr, 2010-01-01 JPS is proud to reissue Cohen and Mendes-Flohr’s classic work, perhaps the most important, comprehensive anthology available on 20th century Jewish thought. This outstanding volume presents 140 concise yet authoritative essays by renowned Jewish figures Eugene Borowitz, Emil Fackenheim, Blu Greenberg, Susannah Heschel, Jacob Neusner, Gershom Scholem, Adin Steinsaltz, and many others. They define and reflect upon such central ideas as charity, chosen people, death, family, love, myth, suffering, Torah, tradition and more. With entries from Aesthetics to Zionism, this book provides striking insights into both the Jewish experience and the Judeo-Christian tradition. |
| isadore twersky: A Philosopher of Scripture Raphael Dascalu, 2019-08-05 Tanḥum b. Joseph ha-Yerushalmi (d. 1291, Fusṭāṭ, Egypt) was a rigorous linguist and philologist, philosopher and mystic, and a biblical exegete of singular breadth. As well as providing us with an insight into the inner world of a profound and original thinker, his oeuvre sheds light on a Jewish historical and cultural milieu that remains relatively poorly understood: the Islamic East in the post-Maimonidean period. In A Philosopher of Scripture: The Exegesis and Thought of Tanḥum ha-Yerushalmi, Raphael Dascalu presents the first detailed intellectual portrait of Tanḥum ha-Yerushalmi. Tanḥum emerges as a polymath with a clear intellectual program, an eclectic thinker who brought multiple traditions together in his search for the philosophical meaning of Scripture. |
| isadore twersky: Maimonides on the "Decline of the Generations" and the Nature of Rabbinic Authority Menachem Kellner, 2012-02-01 Moses Maimonides, medieval Judaism's leading legist and philosopher, and a figure of central importance for contemporary Jewish self-understanding, held a view of Judaism which maintained the authority of the Talmudic rabbis in matters of Jewish law while allowing for free and open inquiry in matters of science and philosophy. Maimonides affirmed, not the superiority of the moderns (the scholars of his and subsequent generations) over the ancients (the Tannaim and Amoraim, the Rabbis of the Mishnah and Talmud) but the inherent equality of the two. The equality presented here is not equality of halakhic authority, but equality of ability, of essential human characteristics. In order to substantiate these claims, Kellner explores the related idea that Maimonides does not adopt the notion of the decline of the generations, according to which each succeeding generation, or each succeeding epoch, is in some significant and religiously relevant sense inferior to preceding generations or epochs. |
| isadore twersky: Method and Metaphysics in Maimonides' Guide for the Perplexed Daniel Davies, 2011-09-15 This book investigates the substance and presentation of major metaphysical themes in Maimonides' Guide for the Perplexed. Using rigorous philosophy it seeks to refute the view that the Guide hides an ''esoteric'' philosophical meaning beneath a traditional veneer, and offers a new explanation of his esotericism. |
| isadore twersky: Towards a Jewish-Christian-Muslim Theology David B. Burrell, 2011-03-23 Towards a Jewish-Christian-Muslim Theology delineates the ways that Christianity, Islam, and the Jewish tradition have moved towards each another over the centuries and points to new pathways for contemporary theological work. Explores the development of the three Abrahamic traditions, brilliantly showing the way in which they have struggled with similar issues over the centuries Shows how the approach of each tradition can be used comparatively by the other traditions to illuminate and develop their own thinking Written by a renowned writer in philosophical theology, widely acclaimed for his comparative thinking on Jewish and Islamic theology A very timely book which moves forward the discussion at a period of intense inter-religious dialogue |
| isadore twersky: Torah of the Mind, Torah of the Heart Isadore Twersky, 2020 A collection of thoughts from Professor Rabbi Yitzhak (Isadore) Twersky, the Talner Rebbe, on the weekly Torah portion. The volume focuses upon religious-philosophical themes, including humility of behavior, avoiding routinization in our religious life, developing sensitivity to spirituality in our daily encounters, and the centrality of holiness within society-- |
| isadore twersky: The Anthology in Jewish Literature David Stern, 2004-10-07 The anthology has been a ubiquitous presence in Jewish literature throughout its history, and has played a seminal role in the creation, transmission, and preservation of Jewish culture since ancient times. This book comprises 18 essays devoted to anthological works in Jewish literature from the Bible to the present. |
| isadore twersky: Jewish Rhetorics Michael Bernard-Donals, Janice W. Fernheimer, 2014-12-02 This volume, the first of its kind, establishes and clarifies the significance of Jewish rhetorics as its own field and as a field within rhetoric studies. Diverse essays illuminate and complicate the editors' definition of a Jewish rhetorical stance as allowing speakers to maintain a resolute sense of engagement with their fellows and their community, while also remaining aware of the dislocation from the members of those communities. Topics include the historical and theoretical foundations of Jewish rhetorics; cultural variants and modes of cultural expression; and intersections with Greco-Roman, Christian, Islamic, and contemporary rhetorical theory and practice. In addition, the contributors examine gender and Yiddish, and evaluate the actual and potential effect of Jewish rhetorics on contemporary scholarship and on the ways we understand and teach language and writing. The contributors include some of the world's leading scholars of rhetoric, writing, and Jewish studies. |
Isadore and Sadie Dorin Forum | University of Illinois Chicago
The Isadore & Sadie Dorin Forum is a multi-purpose facility located on the East Campus of the University of Illinois at Chicago at the intersection of Halsted St. & Roosevelt Rd. The UIC …
Isadore and Sadie Dorin Forum - University of Illinois Chicago
The Isadore & Sadie Dorin Forum is a multi-purpose facility located on the East Campus of the University of Illinois at Chicago at the intersection of Halsted St. & Roosevelt Rd.
Isadore and Sadie Dorin Forum - University of Illinois Chicago
Meet the UIC Dorin Forum staff dedicated to providing excellent service and a welcoming environment for all guests and events. Contact details included.
Isadore and Sadie Dorin Forum - University of Illinois Chicago
Host your large-scale events at the UIC Dorin Forum’s Main Hall, a flexible space accommodating up to 3,000 guests. Configurable into one, two, or three sections, it suits various event needs …
Isadore and Sadie Dorin Forum - University of Illinois Chicago
Benefit from a range of services at the UIC Dorin Forum, designed to support your event needs. From setup to technical assistance, we provide comprehensive support for successful events.
HEELS HAVE EYES III | Isadore and Sadie Dorin Forum | University …
DOORS OPEN AT 6:00PM SAT • NOV 2 2024 • 7:00PM UIC DORIN FORUM, CHICAGO, IL
Isadore and Sadie Dorin Forum - University of Illinois Chicago
Meeting Rooms Explore UIC Dorin Forum’s six meeting rooms, perfect for small events or breakout sessions. Flexible configurations available to meet your needs.
Isadore and Sadie Dorin Forum - University of Illinois Chicago
Isadore and Sadie Dorin Forum Contact Us The UIC Dorin Forum staff work to provide excellent customer service for our clients, as well as contribute to creating a safe and welcoming …
Isadore and Sadie Dorin Forum - University of Illinois Chicago
Isadore and Sadie Dorin Forum Graduation Packages The UIC Dorin Forum hosts several graduation ceremonies for multiple organizations each semester. In order to streamline the …
North Grand High School Commencement | Isadore and Sadie …
North-Grand High School’s graduation ceremony will take place Tuesday, May 30, 2023. Doors open at 6:00 PM and the ceremony begins at 7:00 PM. Graduates should arrive at the venue …
Isadore and Sadie Dorin Forum | University of Illinois Chicago
The Isadore & Sadie Dorin Forum is a multi-purpose facility located on the East Campus of the University of Illinois at Chicago at the intersection of Halsted St. & Roosevelt Rd. The UIC …
Isadore and Sadie Dorin Forum - University of Illinois Chicago
The Isadore & Sadie Dorin Forum is a multi-purpose facility located on the East Campus of the University of Illinois at Chicago at the intersection of Halsted St. & Roosevelt Rd.
Isadore and Sadie Dorin Forum - University of Illinois Chicago
Meet the UIC Dorin Forum staff dedicated to providing excellent service and a welcoming environment for all guests and events. Contact details included.
Isadore and Sadie Dorin Forum - University of Illinois Chicago
Host your large-scale events at the UIC Dorin Forum’s Main Hall, a flexible space accommodating up to 3,000 guests. Configurable into one, two, or three sections, it suits various event needs …
Isadore and Sadie Dorin Forum - University of Illinois Chicago
Benefit from a range of services at the UIC Dorin Forum, designed to support your event needs. From setup to technical assistance, we provide comprehensive support for successful events.
HEELS HAVE EYES III | Isadore and Sadie Dorin Forum | University …
DOORS OPEN AT 6:00PM SAT • NOV 2 2024 • 7:00PM UIC DORIN FORUM, CHICAGO, IL
Isadore and Sadie Dorin Forum - University of Illinois Chicago
Meeting Rooms Explore UIC Dorin Forum’s six meeting rooms, perfect for small events or breakout sessions. Flexible configurations available to meet your needs.
Isadore and Sadie Dorin Forum - University of Illinois Chicago
Isadore and Sadie Dorin Forum Contact Us The UIC Dorin Forum staff work to provide excellent customer service for our clients, as well as contribute to creating a safe and welcoming …
Isadore and Sadie Dorin Forum - University of Illinois Chicago
Isadore and Sadie Dorin Forum Graduation Packages The UIC Dorin Forum hosts several graduation ceremonies for multiple organizations each semester. In order to streamline the …
North Grand High School Commencement | Isadore and Sadie …
North-Grand High School’s graduation ceremony will take place Tuesday, May 30, 2023. Doors open at 6:00 PM and the ceremony begins at 7:00 PM. Graduates should arrive at the venue …
