A window into the Jewish idea of responsibility to care for the world
written especially for Christians.

The concept of repairing the world ("tikkun olam") is an integral part of Jewish life. It helps shape Jewish social and family relationships, and even mandates how Jews should speak to others. But why is it important for Christians to understand this Jewish approach to life? And what kind of impact can understanding this fundamental aspect of Judaism have on Christians seeking to develop a deeper understanding of their own faith? With insight and wisdom, award-winning author Rabbi Elliot Dorff provides an accessible, honest and thorough exploration of this important Jewish concept. With easy-to-understand explanations of Jewish terms, practices and history, each chapter explores a different facet touched by the tradition of "tikkun loam." Rabbi Dorff also addresses parallel themes and practices in the Christian tradition, helping you better understand the roots of Christianity and how the fundamentals of Judaism relate and reflect your own aspirations to repair the world. Caring for the Poor The Power of Words The Ministry of Presence Duties of Spouses to Each Other Children s Duties to Their Parents Parent s Duties to Their Children The Traditional Jewish Vision of the Ideal World

Rosa Manus (1881-1942) uncovers the life of Dutch feminist and peace activist Rosa Manus, co-founder of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, vice-president of the International Alliance of Women, and founding president of the International Archives for the Women's Movement (IAV) in Amsterdam, revealing its rootedness in Manus's radical secular Jewishness. Because the Nazis looted the IAV (1940) including Manus's large personal archive, and subsequently arrested (1941) and murdered her (1942), Rosa Manus has been almost unknown to later generations. This collective biography offers essays based on new and in-depth research on pictures and documents from her archives, returned to Amsterdam in 2003, as well as other primary sources. It thus restores Manus to the history from which the Nazis attempted to erase her. Contributors include: Margot Badran, Mineke Bosch, Ellen Carol DuBois, Myriam Everard, Karen Garner, Francisca de Haan, Dagmar Wernitznig, and Annika Wilmers. "The volume touches on all of the important themes of that history-the centrality of peace activism, the impact of the world wars and the rise of fascism, the tensions over imperialism and nationalist resistance in colonized countries, the importance of resources to the persistence of the movement, the vital glue of intimate relationships-and brings to the fore additional ones, including the role of Jewish women, the centrality of Dutch feminists in transnational feminism, and the struggle over preserving the history of the movement." - Leila J. Rupp, University of California, Santa Barbara, in: Women's History Review (2018)

Praeger, in collaboration with the distinguished International Center for University Teaching of Jewish Civilization, Jerusalem, and in association with Israeli's Open University, has undertaken the publication of this multi-volume series. Binah brings together for the first time in English seminal articles in Jewish history, thought, and culture. This landmark series, edited by Joseph Dan and under the general supervision of Moshe Davis, will provide resource materials for students enrolled in courses in Jewish studies, religion, history, literature, sociology, cultural anthropology, and philosophy. Binah includes topics from the Biblical period through the 20th century. Each volume of articles is approximately 300 pages in length. An introduction explains the criteria for selecting the articles and indicates their contribution to Jewish history, thought, and culture. The articles, not previously translated, are adapted from their original Hebrew sources in order to make them more accessible to the undergraduate reader, but the editors have made every effort to remain faithful to the intent of the original authors. Each article is preceded by a statement that indicates the original source, a brief biographical sketch of the author placing the article within the framework of his life-work, and the name of the translator/adaptor. The series is bound in both a hardcover library version and in a loose-leaf format, allowing the instructor maximum flexibility in utilizing the materials. By special agreement, purchasers acquire the right to make copies of the articles for student use. Thus, instructors can virtually build a package of readings for their students.

Where Judaism and health intersect, healing may begin.

Essential reading for people interested in the Jewish healing, spirituality and spiritual direction movements, this groundbreaking volume explores the Jewish tradition for comfort in times of illness and Judaism s perspectives on the inevitable suffering with which we live.

Pushing the boundaries of Jewish knowledge, scholars, teachers, artists and activists examine the aspects of our mortality and the important distinctions between curing and healing. Topics discussed include: The Importance of the Individual Health and Healing among the Mystics Hope and the Hebrew Bible From Disability to Enablement Overcoming Stigma Jewish Bioethics

Drawing from literature, personal experience, and the foundational texts of Judaism, these celebrated thinkers show us that healing is an idea that can both soften us so that we are open to inspiration as well as toughen us like good scar tissue in order to live with the consequences of being human.

Forgiveness is not an emotion or a destination but the restoration of what you have lost. It's a spiritual path that you embark on with intention and vision, purposefully seeking to bridge the gap between your hurt and suffering and your sense of wholeness and resilient inner light?the light of God. In this inspiring guide for healing and wholeness, Karyn Kedar supplies you with a map to help you along your forgiveness journey. Through heartfelt stories and comforting prayers, she gentle guides you through the loss, anger, acceptance, learning, forgiveness, and restoration that is the evolution of forgiving. She tells eloquent, personal stories from the lives of ordinary people who, like all of us, wrestle with the darkness and hurt that forgiveness so often involves, and taps both ancient and contemporary sources for the strength we need to nourish our souls as we seek to rekindle inner peace. More than a self-help guide, this deeply moving book is a spiritual companion that you w

This is the first book in English to discuss the changing attitudes of the Chilean Right toward Jewish immigrants and the State of Israel from the 1930s onwards. Jewish Chileans have ascended rapidly from the status of undesirable immigrants to middle and upper-middle class, facing less obstacles than their Argentine coreligionists. Particular emphasis is given to the failed struggle to extradite war criminal Walther Rauff and to the years of the military dictatorship headed by General Augusto Pinochet. By the 1970s, Israel seemed a strong pro-Western barrier to the expansion of communism and Islamic fundamentalism.

During the high Middle Ages, the tosafists flourished in northern Europe and revolutionized the study of the Talmud. These Jewish scholars did not participate in the philosophical and religious thought that concerned Christendom, and today they are seen as having played a limited role in mystical or esoteric studies. Ephraim Kanarfogel now challenges this conventional view of the tosafists, showing that many individuals were influenced by ascetic and pietistic practices and were involved with mystical and magical doctrines. He traces the presence of these disciplines in the pre-Crusade period, shows how they are intertwined, and suggests that the widely available Hekhalot literature was an important conduit for this material. He also demonstrates that the asceticism and esotericism of the German Pietists were an integral part of Ashkenazic rabbinic culture after the failure of Rashbam and other early tosafists to suppress these aspects of pre-Crusade thinking. The identification of these various forms of spirituality places the tosafists among those medieval rabbinic thinkers who sought to supplement their Talmudism with other areas of knowledge such as philosophy and kabbalah, demonstrating the compatibility of rabbinic culture and mysticism. These interests, argues Kanarfogel, explain both references to medieval Ashkenazic rabbinic figures in kabbalistic literature and the acceptance of certain ascetic and mystical practices by later Ashkenazic scholars. Drawing on original manuscript research, Kanarfogel makes available for the first time many passages produced by lesser known tosafists and rabbinic figures and integrates the findings of earlier and contemporary scholarship, much of it published only in Hebrew. "Peering through the Lattices" provides a greater appreciation for these texts and opens up new opportunities for scholarhship in Jewish history and thought.

Modern biblical scholarship interprets the Song as a collection of love lyrics. For Edmee Kingsmill, on the contrary, the essence of the Song is mystical. A principal concern of this study, however, is to uncover the relationship between the 117 verses of the Song and those biblical books to which they point. Beneath the metaphors a network of allusions is being woven, conveying a picture opposite to that we find in the prophets who, confronted with the continual 'adultery' of Israel, poured forth their condemnations with unwearying passion.
In dramatic contrast, the Song presents a paradisal picture: 'For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear in the land, and the time of singing is come' (Song 2: 11-12). Thus, in presenting the ideal, the intention of the Song's author is shown to be encouragement. The inclusion of this poem in the biblical canon is understood, therefore, to be central to the purpose of the biblical literature: to bring all people to love the God of love.
The book is in two parts. The first and longer part is concerned with themes, including the relationship of the Song to the early Jewish mystical literature. The second part is a short commentary intended for the reader interested in the text as much as in the related questions to which the text gives rise."

An accessible introduction to the Jewish concept of our responsibility
to care for others and repair the world.

For everyone who wants to understand the meaning and significance of "tikkun olam" (repairing the world) in Jewish spiritual life, this book shows the way into an essential aspect of Judaism and allows you to interact directly with the sacred texts of the Jewish tradition.

Guided by Dr. Elliot N. Dorff, Rector and Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of Judaism, this comprehensive introduction explores the roots of the beliefs and laws that are the basis of the Jewish commitment to improve the world. It looks at the various motivations that the sacred texts provide for caring for others, the ways the Jewish tradition seeks to foster such concerns in our social and family relationships, and the kind of society that Jews should strive to create as partners with God. What "tikkun olam" is. Ancient idea? New concept? The underlying theory has developed over time and branched into related terms and concepts that Judaism has used over thousands of years to describe the duties we now identify as acts of "tikkun loam." Why we engage in acts of "tikkun loam." Reasons include, but go far beyond, a general humanitarian feeling that we might have or the hope that if we help others, others will be there to help us. How we repair the world. The concrete expressions of "tikkun olam" in our families, our communities, the wider Jewish community, and the world at large help shape one of the most important aspects of the Jewish tradition.

By illuminating Judaism s understanding of the components of an ideal world, and the importance of justice, compassion, education, piety, social and familial harmony and enrichment, and physical flourishing for both the individual and society, we see how this ancient quest for a world with all these elements helps us define Jewish identity and mission today.

This book is a study of the parables unique to the Third Gospel, aiming in particular to establish a link between Luke's choice of these parables and his overall purpose in writing. In comparison to the synoptic kingdom parables, one distinguishing feature of the Lukan parables is their more personal portrait of the character and the nature of God himself. Luke's desire is to demonstrate to his readers, whoever they are, that in Christianity the realization of the Jewish hope has occurred. The parables promote this idea by offering both continuity (OT) and contrast (contemporary Judaism) in their portrait of God. Thus, as well as operating in a parenetic sense, the parables also help to legitimize Luke's argument regarding fulfilment.

This is the second volume of the hard-copy edition of a journal that has been published online (www.macdiv.ca/jgrchj) since 2000. Volume 1 was for 2000, Volume 2 is for 2001-2005, and Volume 3 will be for 2006. As they appear, the hard-copy editions will replace the online materials. The scope of JGRChJ is the texts, language and cultures of the Graeco-Roman world of early Christianity and Judaism. The papers published in JGRChJ are designed to pay special attention to the 'larger picture' of politics, culture, religion and language, engaging as well with modern theoretical approaches. Zeba Crook The Divine Benefactions of Paul the Client Hans Forster 7Q5 = Mark 6.52-53: A Challenge for Textual Criticism? Malcolm Choat and Alanna Nobbs Monotheistic Formulae of Belief in Greek Letters on Papyrus from the Second to the Fourth Century Galen K. Johnson The Tribulation in Revelation and its Literary-Theological Milieu Douglas C. Mohrmann Boast Not in your Righteousness from the Law: A New Reading of Romans 10.6-8 Jintae Kim The Concept of Atonement in Hellenistic Thought and 1 John Jintae Kim The Concept of Atonement in Early Rabbinic Thought and the New Testament Writings Craig Keener 'Let the Wife Have Authority over her Husband' (1 Corinthians 11.10) Patrick James Participial Complementation in Roman and Byzantine Documentary Papyri: ejpivstamai, manqavnw, euJrivskw Jesper Svartvik How Noah, Jesus and Paul Became Captivating Biblical Figures: The Side Effects of the Canonization of Slavery Metaphors in Jewish and Christian Texts

CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE SOCIOLOGY OF LANGUAGE brings to students, researchers and practitioners in all of the social and language-related sciences carefully selected book-length publications dealing with sociolinguistic theory, methods, findings and applications. It approaches the study of language in society in its broadest sense, as a truly international and interdisciplinary field in which various approaches, theoretical and empirical, supplement and complement each other. The series invites the attention of linguists, language teachers of all interests, sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists, historians etc. to the development of the sociology of language.

Perhaps no declaration incites more theological and moral outrage than a human's claim to be divine. Those who make this claim in ancient Jewish and Christian mythology are typically represented as the most hubristic and dangerous tyrants. Their horrible punishments are predictable and still serve as morality tales in religious communities today. But not all self-deifiers are saddled with pride and fated to fall. Some who claimed divinity stated a simple and direct truth. Though reviled on earth, misunderstood, and even killed, they received vindication and rose to the stars. This book tells the stories of six self-deifiers in their historical, social, and ideological contexts. In the history of interpretation, the initial three figures have been demonized as cosmic rebels: the first human Adam, Lucifer (later identified with Satan), and Yaldabaoth in gnostic mythology. By contrast, the final three have served as positive models for deification and divine favor: Jesus in the gospel of John, Simon of Samaria, and Allogenes in the Nag Hammadi library. In the end, the line separating demonization from deification is dangerously thin, drawn as it is by the unsteady hand of human valuation.

Each time Bubbie gets diverted from making charoses for the Passover seder, family members add their own secret ingredient until the charoses is atrocious.

The series Religion and Society (RS) contributes to the exploration of religions as social systems- both in Western and non-Western societies; in particular, it examines religions in their differentiation from, and intersection with, other cultural systems, such as art, economy, law and politics. Due attention is given to paradigmatic case or comparative studies that exhibit a clear theoretical orientation with the empirical and historical data of religion and such aspects of religion as ritual, the religious imagination, constructions of tradition, iconography, or media. In addition, the formation of religious communities, their construction of identity, and their relation to society and the wider public are key issues of this series.

The historical involvement of Jews in the political Left is well known, but far less attention has been paid to the political and ideological factors which attracted Jews to the Left. After the Holocaust and the creation of Israel many lost their faith in universalistic solutions, yet lingering links between Jews and the Left continue to exist.

"Imagining Creation " is a collection of views on creation by noted authors from different disciplines. Topics include creation accounts and iconography from Mesopotamia and Egypt, and cosmologies from India and Africa. Special attention is devoted to creation in the Scriptures (Bible and Koran) and related oral traditions on Genesis from Slavonic Europe, as well as Kabbalah. Some of the creations myths are earlier and some later than the Bible, while a number of the discussed texts offer alternative approaches to the beginnings of the universe. The contributions provide many new perspectives on the origins of man and his world from diverse cultures. The volume is the proceedings of a symposium on creation stories held at University College London. This book is also available in hardcover.

This volume suggests that reading and writing about literature are ways to gain an ethical understanding of how we live in the world. Postmodern narrative is an important way to reveal and discuss who are society's victims, inviting the reader to become one with them. A close reading of fiction by Toni Morrison, Patrick Suskind, D.M. Thomas, Ian McEwan and J.M. Coetzee reveals a violence imposed on gender, race and the body-politic. Such violence is not new to the postmodern world, but reflects Western culture's religious traditions, as this book demonstrates through a reading of stories from the Hebrew Bible and the Christian New Testament.

Explore the connections between God, wilderness and Judaism. This comprehensive how-to guide to the theory and practice of Jewish wilderness spirituality unravels the mystery of Judaism's connection to the natural world and offers ways for you to enliven and deepen your spiritual life through wilderness experience. Over forty practical exercises provide detailed instruction on spiritual practice in the natural world, including: Mindfulness exercises for the trail Meditative walking Four-Winds wisdom from Jewish tradition Wilderness blessings Soul-O Site solitude practice in wilderness Wilderness retreat For wilderness lovers and nature novices alike, this inspiring and insightful book will lead you through experiences of awe and wonder in the natural world. It will show you the depth and relevance of Judaism to your spiritual awareness in wilderness and teach you new ways to energize your relationship with God and prayer."