This book presents a new, contemporary introduction to medieval philosophy as it was practiced in all its variety in Western Europe and the Near East. It assumes only a minimal familiarity with philosophy, the sort that an undergraduate introduction to philosophy might provide, and it is arranged topically around questions and themes that will appeal to a contemporary audience. In addition to some of the perennial questions posed by philosophers, such as "Can we know anything, and if so, what?", "What is the fundamental nature of reality?", and "What does human flourishing consist in?", this volume looks at what medieval thinkers had to say, for instance, about our obligations towards animals and the environment, freedom of speech, and how best to organize ourselves politically. The book examines certain aspects of the thought of several well-known medieval figures, but it also introduces students to many important, yet underappreciated figures and traditions. It includes guidance for how to read medieval texts, provokes reflection through a series of study questions at the end of each chapter, and gives pointers for where interested readers can continue their exploration of medieval philosophy and medieval thought more generally. Key Features Covers the contributions of women to medieval philosophy, providing students with a fuller understanding of who did philosophy during the Middle Ages Includes a focus on certain topics that are usually ignored, such as animal rights, love, and political philosophy, providing students with a fuller range of interests that medieval philosophers had Gives space to non-Aristotelian forms of medieval thought Includes useful features for student readers like study questions and suggestions for further reading in each chapter

A seminal text in Jewish thought accessible to English readers for the first time. The diagnosis of Jewish self-hatred has become almost commonplace in contemporary cultural and political debates, but the concept's origins are not widely appreciated. In its modern form, it received its earliest and fullest expression in Theodor Lessing's 1930 book Der judische Selbsthass. Written on the eve of Hitler's ascent to power, Lessing's hotly contested work has been variously read as a defense of the Weimar Republic, a platform for anti-Weimar sentiments, an attack on psychoanalysis, an inspirational personal guide, and a Zionist broadside. "The truthful translation by Peter Appelbaum, including Lessing's own footnotes, manages to make this book more readable than the German original. Two essays by Sander Gilman and Paul Reitter provide context and the wisdom of hindsight."-Frank Mecklenburg, Leo Baeck Institute From the forward by Sander Gilman: Theodor Lessing's (1872-1933) Jewish Self-Hatred (1930) is the classic study of the pitfalls (rather than the complexities) of acculturation. Growing out of his own experience as a middle-class, urban, marginally religious Jew in Imperial and then Weimar Germany, he used this study to reject the social integration of the Jews into Germany society, which had been his own experience, by tracking its most radical cases.... Lessing's case studies reflect the idea that assimilation (the radical end of acculturation) is by definition a doomed project, at least for Jews (no matter how defined) in the age of political antisemitism.

The volume contributes to the knowledge of the Samaritan history, culture and linguistics. Specialists of various fields of research bring a new look on the topics related to the Samaritans and the Hebrew and Arabic written sources, to the Samaritan history in the Roman-Byzantine period as well as to the contemporary issues of the Samaritan community.

The series Beihefte zur Zeitschrift fur die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft (BZAW) covers all areas of research into the Old Testament, focusing on the Hebrew Bible, its early and later forms in Ancient Judaism, as well as its branching into many neighboring cultures of the Ancient Near East and the Greco-Roman world.

American church-related liberal arts colleges are dedicated to two traditions: Christian thought and liberal learning. According to Haynes, the moral continuity of these traditions was severed by the Holocaust. Because so many representations of these traditions contributed to the Nazis' ideological and physical efforts to annihilate millions of men, women, and children, it is unclear whether these traditions can any longer be said to facilitate human flourishing. Haynes presents a convincing argument that the post-Holocaust church-related college can participate in the restoration of these ruptured traditions through a commitment to Holocaust Education. This book provides valuable information for teachers who already offer a Holocaust course or for those who are considering doing so. In addition, the author presents an accurate picture of Holocaust Education at church-related colleges through an analysis of his nationwide survey. This book will be an important resource for scholars, teachers, and administrators.

An up-to-date discussion of early Christian paraenesis in its Graeco-Roman and Hellenistic Jewish contexts in the light of one hundred years of scholarship, issuing from a research project by Nordic and international scholars. The concept of paraenesis is basic to New Testament scholarship but hardly anywhere else. How is that to be explained? The concept is also, notoriously, without any agreed-upon definition and it is even contested. Can it at all be salvaged? This volume reassesses the scholarly discussion of paraenesis - both the concept and the phenomenon - since Paul Wendland and Martin Dibelius and argues for a number of ways in which it may continue to be fruitful.

A peculiar aspect of High Holy Day liturgy is the medieval poetry that expands the number of prayerbook pages with lessons and imagery that most modern worshipers find baffling. At the top of this list is Un'taneh Tokef, a warning that at every New Year, God establishes, in advance, "who will live and who will die ... who by fire and who by water"not to mention by such deaths as "strangulation and warfare." To be sure, "repentance, prayer and charity" can help, but how? With actual relief from dire fate? That hardly rings true to people who lost loved ones in tragic events such as 9/11, for example; or to cancer at a tragically young age. How then can we even say this most famous of New Year prayers?

Who By Fire, Who By Water examines the prayer's theology, authorship, and poetry through a set of lively essays, all written in accessible language by over thirty contributors who span three continents and all major Jewish denominations. They are men and women; scholars and rabbis, arti

A study of the growth of Joshua and Judges illustrates how the theme of divine anger has been used differently, according to different historical and social settings. In the deuteronomistic texts the main reason for God's anger is idolatry, which symbolizes a totally negative attitude to everything that God has done or given to the Israelites. This theology of anger is deeply bound to experiences of national catastrophes or threats of crises, and reflects the theological enigma of the exile. A century later, post-deuteronomistic theology gives a wholly different view: the anger of God becomes an instrument of the power struggles between the Israelite parties, or is used for protecting existing leadership.

The series Beihefte zur Zeitschrift fur die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft (BZAW) covers all areas of research into the Old Testament, focusing on the Hebrew Bible, its early and later forms in Ancient Judaism, as well as its branching into many neighboring cultures of the Ancient Near East and the Greco-Roman world.

Environmental concerns are at the top of the agenda around the world. Judaism, like the other world religions, only rarely raised issues concerning the environment in the past. This means that modern Judaism, the halakhic tradition no less than others, must build on a slim foundation in its efforts to give guidance. The essays in this volume mark the beginning of a new effort to face questions and formulate answers of vital importance.

This volume of essays constitutes a critical evaluation of Martin Buber's concept of dialogue as a trans-disciplinary hermeneutic method. So conceived, dialogue has two distinct but ultimately convergent vectors. The first is directed to the subject of one's investigation: one is to listen to the voice of the Other and to suspend all predetermined categories and notions that one may have of the Other; dialogue is, first and foremost, the art of unmediated listening. One must allow the voice of the Other to question one's pre-established positions fortified by professional, emotional, intellectual and ideological commitments. Dialogue is also to be conducted between various disciplinary perspectives despite the regnant tendency to academic specialization. In recent decades' an increasing number of scholars have come to share Buber's position to foster cross-disciplinary conversation, if but to garner, as Max Weber aruged, "useful questions upon which he would not so easily hit upon from his own specialized point of view." Accordingly, the objective of this volume is to explore the reception of Buber's philosophy of dialogue in some of the disciplines that fell within the purview of his own writings: Anthropology, Hasidism, Religious Studies, Psychology and Psychiatry.

Rabbi Levi ben Gershom (Ralbag, Gersonides; 1288-1344), one of medieval Judaism's most original thinkers, wrote about such diverse subjects as astronomy, mathematics, Bible commentary, philosophical theology, "technical" philosophy, logic, Halakhah, and even satire. In his view, however, all these subjects were united as part of the Torah. Influenced profoundly by Maimonides, Gersonides nevertheless exercised greater rigor than Maimonides in interpreting the Torah in light of contemporary science, was more conservative in his understanding of the nature of the Torah's commandments, and was more optimistic about the possibility of wide-spread philosophical enlightenment. Gersonides was a witness to several crucial historical events, such as the expulsion of French Jewry of 1306 and the "Babylonian Captivity" of the Papacy. Collaborating with prelates in his studies of astronomy and mathematics, he apparently had an entree into the Papal court at Avignon. Revered among Jews as the author of a classic commentary on the latter books of the Bible, Kellner portrays Gersonides as a true Renaissance man, whose view of Torah is vastly wider and more open than that held by many of those who treasure his memory.

This book contains a compelling discussion of transformations within British Jewry in recent times. The first study of contemporary British Jewry since the 1970s, "Turbulent Times: The British Jewish Community Today" examines the changing nature of the British Jewish community and its leadership since 1990. Keith Kahn-Harris and Ben Gidley contend that there has been a shift within Jewish communal discourse from a strategy of security, which emphasized Anglo-Jewry's secure British belonging and citizenship, to a strategy of insecurity, which emphasizes the dangers and threats Jews face individually and communally.

Jews and Judaism played a significant role in the history of the expansion of Europe to the west as well as in the history of the economic, social, and religious development of the New World. They played an important role in the discovery, colonization, and eventually exploitation of the resources of the New World. Alone among the European peoples who came to the Americas in the colonial period, Jews were dispersed throughout the hemisphere; indeed, they were the only cohesive European ethnic or religious group that lived under both Catholic and Protestant regimes, which makes their study particularly fruitful from a comparative perspective. As distinguished from other religious or ethnic minorities, the Jewish struggle was not only against an overpowering and fierce nature but also against the political regimes that ruled over the various colonies of the Americas and often looked unfavorably upon the establishment and tleration of Jewish communities in their own territory. Jews managed to survive and occasionally to flourish against all odds, and their history in the Americas is one of the more fascinating chapters in the early modern history of European expansion.

Are you facing the kind of illness that makes you think about your life? Are you a caregiver for a loved one? Are you a medical professional who wants to do more than aid a person's body? Are you struggling with what the word "God" might mean when your life has been changed by illness?

Through the lenses of personal stories and Jewish tradition, this guide can help you cope with the difficulties of disease, whether you are facing illness yourself, serving as a caregiver, or simply questioning where God is when we get sick. The sages of Judaism advocated having realistic expectations about illness while also seeking out the spirituality of relationships.

Judaism has traditionally understood healing to not only be a physical process but also a spiritual journey. While it is easy to be overwhelmed by the physical nature of illness, also neglecting the human spirit allows our sense of self to become threatened. To address these realities, Jewish tradition asks us to bring both those who

Pirke de-Rabbi Eliezer represents a late development in "midrash", or classical rabbinic interpretation, that has enlightened, intrigued and frustrated scholars of Jewish culture for the past two centuries. Pirke de-Rabbi Eliezer's challenge to scholarship includes such issues as the work's authorship and authenticity, an asymmetrical literary structure as well as its ambiguous relationship with a variety of rabbinic, Islamic and Hellenistic works of interpretation. This cluster of issues has contributed to the confusion about the work's structure, origins and identity. Midrash and Multiplicity addresses the problems raised by this equivocal work, and uses Pirke de-Rabbi Eliezer in order to assess the nature of "midrash", and the renewal of Jewish interpretive culture, during its transition to the medieval era of the early "Geonim".

This pioneering study is the first full-length exploration of the relationship between Judaism and the world's religions. After tracing the history of Jewish views of other religious traditions, the author formulates a new Jewish theology of religious pluralism. This is a vital source for all those who seek to understand Judaism among the universe of faiths.

Covenant & Conscience A Groundbreaking Journey to the Heart of Halakha

"Anyone curious about the Jewish way of life, yet dissatisfied with much of contemporary Jewish theology and practice repelled, perhaps, by the cheap and vulgar apologetics of those who seek to justify and sustain some of the tradition's systematic immoralities, who smugly deny expression to any doubt or uncertainty, claiming a monopoly on absolute truth is invited to join me on this pilgrimage." from the Introduction

In this deeply personal look at the struggle between commitment to Jewish religious tradition and personal morality, Dr. David Hartman, the world s leading Modern Orthodox Jewish theologian, probes the deepest questions at the heart of what it means to be a human being and a Jew.

Dr. Hartman draws on a lifetime of learning, teaching and experience as a social activist to present an intellectual framework for examining covenantal theology as it is applied to religious life. As much an expression of his impassioned commitment to Jewish law as it is testament to a lifetime of intellectual questioning and courage, this bold examination of the halakhic system offers fresh insights into Judaism and the quest for spiritual nourishment."

An essential volume of 12th to 17th century papers on the Jewish mysticism of Kabbalah As recently as 1915, when the legendary scholar of Jewish mysticism Gershom Scholem sought to find someone-anyone-to teach him Kabbalah, the study of Jewish mysticism and Kabbalah was largely neglected and treated with disdain. Today, this field has ripened to the point that it occupies a central place in the agenda of contemporary Judaic studies. While there are many definitions of Kabbalah, this volume focuses on the discrete body of literature which developed between the twelfth and seventeenth centuries. The basis for most of this kabbalistic literature is the concept of the ten sefirot, the complex schema depicting the divine persona, and speculation about the inner life of God. It maintains the conviction that all human action reverberates in the world of the sefirot, and thus influences the life of divinity. Proper action helps to restore harmony and unity to the world of God, while improper action reinforces the breach within God brought about originally through human transgression. Collected here in one volume are some of the most central essays published on the subject. The selections provide the reader with a sense of the historical range of Kabbalah, as well as examples of various kinds of approaches, including those of intellectual and social history, history and phenomenology of religions, motif studies, ritual studies, and women's studies. Sections discuss mystical motifs and theological ideas, mystical leadership and personalities, and devotional practices and mystical experiences.

A comprehensive, inspiring and fascinating discovery of what Jews believe about the Messiah and why you might believe in the Messiah, too.

"The conviction that the Messiah is coming is a promise of meaning. It is a source of consolation. It is a wellspring of creativity. It is a reconciliation between what is and what should be. And it is perhaps our most powerful statement of faith in God, in humanity and in ourselves." from Chapter 1, The Messiah Is Coming

The coming of the Messiah the promise of redemption is among Judaism's gifts to the world. But it is a gift about which the world knows so little. It has been overshadowed by Christian belief and teaching, and as a result its Jewish significance has been all but lost. To further complicate matters, Jewish messianic teaching is enthralling, compelling, challenging, exhilarating yet, up until now, woefully inaccessible. This book will change that.

Rabbi Elaine Rose Glickman brings together, and to life, this three-thousand-year-old tradition as never before. Rather than simply reviewing the vast body of Jewish messianic literature, she explores an astonishing range of primary and secondary sources, explaining in an informative yet inspirational way these teachings significance for Jews of the past and infuses them with new meaning for the modern reader, both Jewish and non-Jewish."