Purity, Community, and Ritual in Early Christian Literature investigates the meaning of purity, purification, defilement, and disgust for Christian writers, readers, and listeners from the first to third centuries. Anthropological and sociological works over the past decades have demonstrated how purity and defilement rituals, practices, and discourses harness the power of a raw emotion in order to shape and manipulate cultural structures. Moshe Blidstein builds on such theories to explain how early Christian writers drew on ancient Jewish and Greco-Roman traditions on purity and defilement, using them to create new types of community, form Christian identity, and articulate the relationship between body, sin, and ritual. Blidstein discusses early Christian purity issues under several headings: dietary law, death defilement, purity of the heart, defilement of outsiders, and purity of the community. Analysis of the motivations shaping the development of each area of discourse reveals two major considerations: polemical and substantive. Thus, Christian writing on dietary law and death defilement is essentially polemical, constructing Christian identity by marking the purity practices and beliefs of others as false. Concerning the subjects of baptism, eucharist, and penance, however, the discourse turns inwards and becomes more substantive, seeking to create and maintain theories of ritual and human nature coherent with the theological principles of the new religion.
Forty-five scholars here combine their skills in tribute to their colleague, teacher, and friend. This collection includes 27 English and 18 Hebrew essays on literary criticism, rabbinic literature, Hebrew word studies, Septuagint, Qumran, textual criticism, and many other topics. Moshe Greenberg is perhaps best known for his commentary on Ezekiel in the Anchor Bible series.
A broad, systematic account of one of the most original and creative kabbalists, biblical interpreters, and Talmudic scholars the Jewish tradition has ever producedRabbi Moses b. Nahman (1194–1270), known in English as Nahmanides, was the greatest Talmudic scholar of the thirteenth century and one of the deepest and most original biblical interpreters. Beyond his monumental scholastic achievements, Nahmanides was a distinguished kabbalist and mystic, and in his commentary on the Torah he dispensed esoteric kabbalistic teachings that he termed “By Way of Truth.”This broad, systematic account of Nahmanides’s thought explores his conception of halakhah and his approach to the central concerns of medieval Jewish thought, including notions of God, history, revelation, and the reasons for the commandments. The relationship between Nahmanides’s kabbalah and mysticism and the existential religious drive that nourishes them, as well as the legal and exoteric aspects of his thinking, are at the center of Moshe Halbertal’s portrayal of Nahmanides as a complex and transformative thinker.
The parable has long been a favorite and very effective tool of some of our foremost leaders and teachers. Think of the Maggid of Dubno, the Chofetz Chaim, the Ben Ish Chai, Rabbi Shalom Schwadron - these great men were Mashal Masters, with the blessed knack of creating just the right story to make an essential point. Rabbi Yisroel Bronstein has learned their lessons well. In this valuable book, he has collected hundreds of parables from classic sources and arranged them by topic. Jewish Parables makes a delightful read, a welcome companion at the Shabbos table, and an invaluable source of material for speakers, teachers, parents, and anyone looking for a way to convey an idea or spice a talk.
Ascensions on high took many forms in Jewish mysticism and they permeated most of its history from its inception until Hasidism. The book surveys the various categories, with an emphasis on the archetectural images of the ascent, like the resort images of pillars, lines, and ladders.
Cast in the form of a dialogue between the Intellect and the Soul, this work teaches the true meaning of man's creation in the Divine Image and gives the student a vital background in bringing holiness into ordinary life. Vowelized Hebrew with facing English.
A scholar and a thinker, Dr. Moshe Finkelman emerges as an expert on Jewish faith in his book God Is Not Dead: Man's Pursuit of Faith in Judaism. For the first time since the eighteenth-century's The Path of the Upright of Ramhal, there is a book that describes a system of growth in faith, from the initial level to the ultimate level of knowledge of God, leading to closeness to God. Dr. Finkelman gradually and convincingly takes the reader through steps of growth in faith, leaving no argument unsettled and no subject unexplained. God Is Not Dead: Man's Pursuit of Faith in Judaism conveys messages that resonate with the worldview of a contemporary believer. Finkelman's system of growth in faith gives anyone the ability to create a bond with God. It offers Jews of every level of commitment a clear and accessible path to deepen his or her faith, and to do so by mastering it as the art form that it truly is. Presented as an easy-to-grasp actionable process, this system of growth in faith was inspired by the author's personal religious evolution. He draws mainly from religious and philosophical sources of Judaism, including the teachings of the twelfth-century Jewish philosopher Maimonides, the principles of the eighteenth-century scholar Ramhal, and the beliefs of Yeshayahu Leibowitz, the twentieth-century Israeli intellectual, a leading authority on Jewish faith. The work is further enlivened with anecdotes about both historic figures and everyday people alike. Providing a compelling, achievable blueprint for growth in faith, this fascinating work serves as a timely, essential contribution to contemporary Judaism. For more information please visit the author's website at www.god-is-not-dead.com
This book represents the first wide-scale presentation of a major Jewish mystic, the founder of the ecstatic Kabbalah. It includes a description of the techniques employed by his master, including the role of music. There is a discussion of the characteristics of his mystical experience and the erotic imagery by which it was expressed. Based on all the extant manuscript material of Abulafia, this book opens the way to a new understanding of Jewish mysticism. It points to the importance of the ecstatic Kabbalah for the later developments in mystical Judaism.
Purity, Community, and Ritual in Early Christian Literature investigates the meaning of purity, purification, defilement, and disgust for Christian writers, readers, and listeners from the first to third centuries. Anthropological and sociological works over the past decades have demonstrated how purity and defilement rituals, practices, and discourses harness the power of a raw emotion in order to shape and manipulate cultural structures. Moshe Blidstein builds on such theories to explain how early Christian writers drew on ancient Jewish and Greco-Roman traditions on purity and defilement, using them to create new types of community, form Christian identity, and articulate the relationship between body, sin, and ritual. Blidstein discusses early Christian purity issues under several headings: dietary law, death defilement, purity of the heart, defilement of outsiders, and purity of the community. Analysis of the motivations shaping the development of each area of discourse reveals two major considerations: polemical and substantive. Thus, Christian writing on dietary law and death defilement is essentially polemical, constructing Christian identity by marking the purity practices and beliefs of others as false. Concerning the subjects of baptism, eucharist, and penance, however, the discourse turns inwards and becomes more substantive, seeking to create and maintain theories of ritual and human nature coherent with the theological principles of the new religion.
This book focuses on Abraham Abulafia's esoteric thought in relation to Maimonides, Maimonideans, and Islamic thought in the line of Leo Strauss' theory of the history of philosophy. A survey of Abulafia's sources leads into an analysis of the esoteric meaning on the famous parable of the three rings, considering also the possible connection between this parable, which Abdulafia inserted into a book dedicated to his student, the 13th century rabbi Nathan the wise, and the Lessing's Play "Nathan the Wise." The book also examines Abulafia's universalistic understanding of the nature of the Bible, the Hebrew language, and the people of Israel (or the Sinaic revelation). The universal aspects of Abulafia’s thought have been put in relief against the more widespread Kabbalistic views which are predominantly particularistic. A number of texts have also been identified here for the first time as authored by Abulafia.
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