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.
In this wide-ranging discussion of Kabbalah—from the mystical trends of medieval Judaism to modern Hasidism—one of the world’s foremost scholars considers different visions of the nature of the sacred text and of the methods to interpret it. Moshe Idel takes as a starting point the fact that the postbiblical Jewish world lost its geographical center with the destruction of the temple and so was left with a textual center, the Holy Book. Idel argues that a text-oriented religion produced language-centered forms of mysticism. Against this background, the author demonstrates how various Jewish mystics amplified the content of the Scriptures so as to include everything: the world, or God, for example. Thus the text becomes a major realm for contemplation, and the interpretation of the text frequently becomes an encounter with the deepest realms of reality. Idel delineates the particular hermeneutics belonging to Jewish mysticism, investigates the progressive filling of the text with secrets and hidden levels of meaning, and considers in detail the various interpretive strategies needed to decodify the arcane dimensions of the text.
In Old Worlds, New Mirrors Moshe Idel turns his gaze on figures as diverse as Walter Benjamin and Jacques Derrida, Franz Kafka and Franz Rosenzweig, Arnaldo Momigliano and Paul Celan, Abraham Heschel and George Steiner to reflect on their relationships to Judaism in a cosmopolitan, mostly European, context.
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.
Gender Equality and American Jews studies gender equality in education, labor force participation, and occupational achievement among American Jews, based on the 1990 National Jewish Population Survey. It first focuses on education and training as key "gatekeepers" to roles in the economy, and then on the gender differences in labor force behavior and occupational attainment. To place American Jews in perspective, they are compared to the wider American population, and to Israeli Jews, presenting a multi-dimensional analysis of American Jewishness in the 1990s. The difficulties of comparing Israel and American Jews are discussed, lending insights into the similarities and differences between the two cultures. The authors draw on a solid base of sociological literature, placing American Jews in the wider American context with comparative data. The book discusses the conclusions that can be drawn from the analysis along with some policy implications.
In this original study, Moshe Idel, an eminent scholar of Jewish mysticism and thought, and the cognitive neuroscientist and neurologist Shahar Arzy combine their considerable expertise to explore the mysteries of the Kabbalah from an entirely new perspective: that of the human brain. In lieu of the theological, sociological, and psychoanalytic approaches that have generally dominated the study of ecstatic mystical experiences, the authors endeavor to decode the brain mechanisms underlying these phenomena. Arzy and Idel analyze first-person descriptions to explore the Kabbalistic techniques employed by most prominent Jewish mystics to effect bodily reduplications, dissociations, and other phenomena, and compare them with recent neurological observations and modern-day laboratory experiments. The resultant study offers readers a scientific, more brain-based understanding of how ecstatic Kabbalists achieved their most precious mystical experiences. The study further demonstrates how these Kabbalists have long functioned as pioneering investigators of the human self.
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.
In this book, the world's foremost scholar of Kabbalah explores the understanding of erotic love in Jewish mystical thought. Encompassing Jewish mystical literatures from those of late antiquity to works of Polish Hasidism, Moshe Idel highlights the diversity of Kabbalistic views on eros and distinguishes between the major forms of eroticism. The author traces the main developments of a religious formula that reflects the union between a masculine divine attribute and a feminine divine attribute, and he asks why such an "erotic formula" was incorporated into the Jewish prayer book. Idel shows how Kabbalistic literature was influenced not only by rabbinic literature but also by Greek thought that helped introduce a wider understanding of eros. Addressing topics ranging from cosmic eros and androgyneity to the affinity between C. J. Jung and Kabbalah to feminist thought, Idel's deeply learned study will be of consuming interest to scholars of religion, Judaism, and feminism.
Rabbi Yehuda Loewe (1512 1607), known as the Maharal of Prague, was one of the greatest sages of the Jewish people. However, his profound Torah insights have been inaccessible to the English-speaking public until now. The second and third volumes of Gur Arye, Maharal's commentary on Rashi, are for the first time available to English readers, complete with source annotations for further in-depth study.
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
Life is filled with a seemingly endless host of moments and events from which man can potentially draw inestimable meaning and inspiration. Yet in order for a Jew to make the most of these precious moments, it is necessary to take a step back and appreciate the depth and inherent spiritual beauty that is vested in each of them. In Matters of the Heart, Rabbi Moshe Silberstein provides the reader with such an opportunity. Viewing life through the all-encompassing lens of the Torah, this unique work offers the reader a rare glimpse into the inner essence of many facets of life, transforming them from mere matters into Matters of the Heart."--Page 4 of cover.
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.
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