At age 30 Evan Moffic became the leader of a large congregation. He had great success. But he couldn't find happiness. Then he found a 2000-year-old prayer. In it were hidden elements of Jewish wisdom. They became a part of his life and those of his congregation and transformed them and him.

What if we had a clear path to follow when life disappointed us? What if we had a time-tested guide for a life of deeper meaning and happiness? That is what Rabbi Moffic discovered in an ancient Jewish prayer.

Based on ten practices any person can follow, the prayer has helped thousands of people-couples, teenagers, empty nesters struggling with loss, divorce, and ruptured relationships-find renewed meaning and purpose in their lives.

Moffic discovered the power of the prayer when he was called to become the youngest rabbi to lead a large US synagogue at just thirty years of age.

In a global context of widespread fears over Islamic radicalisation and militancy, poor Muslim youth, especially those socialised in religious seminaries, have attracted overwhelmingly negative attention. In northern Nigeria, male Qur'anic students have garnered a reputation of resorting to violence in order to claim their share of highly unequally distributed resources. Drawing on material from long-term ethnographic and participatory fieldwork among Qur'anic students and their communities, this book offers an alternative perspective on youth, faith, and poverty. Mobilising insights from scholarship on education, poverty research and childhood and youth studies, Hannah Hoechner describes how religious discourses can moderate feelings of inadequacy triggered by experiences of exclusion, and how Qur'anic school enrolment offers a way forward in constrained circumstances, even though it likely reproduces poverty in the long run. A pioneering study of religious school students conducted through participatory methods, this book presents vital insights into the concerns of this much-vilified group.

In this book, Molly Zahn investigates how early Jewish scribes rewrote their authoritative traditions in the course of transmitting them, from minor edits in the course of copying to whole new compositions based on prior works. Scholars have detected evidence for rewriting in a wide variety of textual contexts, but Zahn's is the first book to map manuscripts and translations of biblical books, so-called 'parabiblical' compositions, and the sectarian literature from Qumran in relation to one another. She introduces a new, adaptable set of terms for talking about rewriting, using the idea of genre as a tool to compare and contrast different cases. Although rewriting has generally been understood as a vehicle for biblical interpretation, Zahn moves beyond that framework to demonstrate that rewriting was a pervasive textual strategy in the Second Temple period. Her book contributes to a powerful new model of early Jewish textuality, illuminating the rich and diverse culture out of which both rabbinic Judaism and early Christianity eventually emerged.

A 2011 NIV Bible bound in tactile brown satchel leather with colourful, Bauhaus-inspired end-papers and magnetic clasp. With over 400 million Bibles in print, the New International Version is the world's most popular modern English Bible. It is renowned for its combination of reliability and readability. Fully revised and updated for the first time in 25 years, the NIV is ideal for personal reading, public teaching and group study. This Bible also features: - clear, readable 6.75pt text - easy-to-read layout - shortcuts to key stories, events and people of the Bible - reading plan - timeline - book by book overview - quick links to find inspiration and help from the Bible in different life situations This edition uses British spelling, punctuation and grammar to allow the Bible to be read more naturally. More about the translation This revised and updated edition of the NIV includes three main types of change, taking into account changes in the way we use language day to day; advances in biblical scholarship and understanding; and the need to ensure that gender accurate language is used, to faithfully reflect whether men and women are referred to in each instance. The translators have carefully assessed a huge body of scholarship, as well as inviting peer submissions, in order to review every word of the existing NIV to ensure it remains as clear and relevant today as when it was first published. Royalties from all sales of the NIV Bible help Biblica in their work of translating and distributing Bibles around the world.

The author of this unique volume, Dr. Ronald W. Pies is a psychiatrist with a long-standing inerest in Jewish thought. Readers will surely note Dr. Pies's efforts to connect the teachings found within Pirkei Avot with the larger fabric of psychology, philosophy, and literature. While Pirkei Avot is a unique and specific expression of Judaic values, it is nevertheless true that the world's great religions often resonate with the values found within them. In some instances, this may reflect a direct historical/cultural interaction; in other cases, it reflects what may be called "convergent evolution." In any case, as the author writes, "Many values articulated in the world's major faiths are seen to mirror those embraced in Pirkei Avot.

Discover the Talmud and its universal values for all people. While the Hebrew Bible is the cornerstone of Judaism, it is the Talmud that provides many central values for living. The Talmud sets out specific guidelines and lyrical admonitions regarding many of life's ordinary events, and offers profound words of advice for life s most intractable dilemmas. This accessible introduction to the Talmud explores the essence of Judaism through reflections on the words of the rabbinic sages, from one of American Judaism s foremost teachers and writers, Rabbi Dov Peretz Elkins. Dr. Elkins provides fresh insight into ancient aphorisms and shows you how they can be applied to your life today. Topics include: Kindness through Giving, Welcoming and Sharing; Human Relationships; Personal Values; Family Values; Teaching and Learning; and Life s Puzzles. Enlightening and inspiring, the values of the Talmud can be appreciated not just by Jews, but by anyone seeking a greater understanding of life and its mysteries."

This book examines the emergence of self-knowledge as a determining legal consideration among the rabbis of Late Antiquity, from the third to the seventh centuries CE. Based on close readings of rabbinic texts from Palestine and Babylonia, Ayelet Hoffmann Libson highlights a unique and surprising development in Talmudic jurisprudence, whereby legal decision-making incorporated personal and subjective information. She examines the central legal role accorded to individuals' knowledge of their bodies and mental states in areas of law as diverse as purity laws, family law and the laws of Sabbath. By focusing on subjectivity and self-reflection, the Babylonian rabbis transformed earlier legal practices in a way that cohered with the cultural concerns of other religious groups in Late Antiquity. They developed sophisticated ideas about the inner self and incorporated these notions into their distinctive discourse of law.

First Order: Zeraim / Tractate Peah and Demay is the second volume in the edition of the Jerusalem Talmud. It presents basic Jewish texts on the organization of private and public charity, and on the modalities of coexistence of the ritually observant and the non-observant. This part of the Jerusalem Talmud has almost no counterpart in the Babylonian Talmud. Its study is prerequisite for an understanding of the relevant rules of Jewish tradition.

After World War II, Ernst Ludwig Ehrlich (1921-2007) published works in English and German by eminent Israeli scholars, in this way introducing them to a wider audience in Europe and North America. The series he founded for that purpose, Studia Judaica, continues to offer a platform for scholarly studies and editions that cover all eras in the history of the Jewish religion.

The ninth volume of this edition, translation, and commentary of the Jerusalem Talmud contains two Tractates. The first Tractate, "Documents", treats divorce law and principles of agency when written documents are required. Collateral topics are the rules for documents of manumission, those for sealed documents whose contents may be hidden from witnesses, the rules by which the divorced wife can collect the moneys due her, the requirement that both divorcer and divorcee be of sound mind, and the rules of conditional divorce. The second Tractate, "Nazirites", describes the Nasirean vow and is the main rabbinic source about the impurity of the dead. As in all volumes of this edition, a (Sephardic rabbinic) vocalized text is presented, with parallel texts used as source of variant readings. A new translation is accompanied by an extensive commentary explaining the rabbinic background of all statements and noting Talmudic and related parallels. Attention is drawn to the extensive Babylonization of the Gittin text compared to genizah texts.

Volume 12 in the edition of the complete Jerusalem Talmud. Tractates Sanhedrin and Makkot belong together as one tractate, covering procedural law for panels of arbitration, communal rabbinic courts (in bare outline) and an elaborate construction of hypothetical criminal courts supposedly independent of the king's administration. Tractate Horaiot, an elaboration of Lev. 4:1-26, defines the roles of High Priest, rabbinate, and prince in a Commonwealth strictly following biblical rules.

This book examines the emergence of self-knowledge as a determining legal consideration among the rabbis of Late Antiquity, from the third to the seventh centuries CE. Based on close readings of rabbinic texts from Palestine and Babylonia, Ayelet Hoffmann Libson highlights a unique and surprising development in Talmudic jurisprudence, whereby legal decision-making incorporated personal and subjective information. She examines the central legal role accorded to individuals' knowledge of their bodies and mental states in areas of law as diverse as purity laws, family law and the laws of Sabbath. By focusing on subjectivity and self-reflection, the Babylonian rabbis transformed earlier legal practices in a way that cohered with the cultural concerns of other religious groups in Late Antiquity. They developed sophisticated ideas about the inner self and incorporated these notions into their distinctive discourse of law.

The Cross of Christ: Foundational Islamic Perspectives takes an in-depth look at all of the medieval Muslim scholars considered to have affirmed Jesus' crucifixion. Each chapter provides the important historical and intellectual context for the commentators. As well, critical new translations of key texts are provided, offering important access to vital documents and schools of thought. The author argues that, rather than affirming the historicity of the crucifixion, the Isma'ilis tend to assume its historicity, in order to advance important Isma'ili doctrines. The author also contends that the commentators who explored ways to affirm the crucifixion, nonetheless made extensive use of traditional substitution legends that deny the crucifixion. In order to orient the reader, the book starts by introducing the reader to the Jesus of the Qur'an. It then compares him to the Jesus of the New Testament and the Jesus of extra canonical literature. Upon this Qur'anic skeleton, the author layers a myriad of details found in seventeen works of classic Islamic literature, so that a truly unique, authentic and authoritative Jesus of Islam emerges.

This volume, the second of a five-volume edition of the third order of the Jerusalem Talmud, deals in part I (Sotah) with the ordeal of the wife suspected of adultery (Num 5) and the role of Hebrew in the Jewish ritual. Part II (Nedarim) is concerned with Korban and similar expressions, vows and their consequences, and vows of women (Num 30).