In a profound look at what it means for new generations to read and interpret ancient religious texts, rabbi and philosopher Marc-Alain Ouaknin offers a postmodern reading of the Talmud, one of the first of its kind. Combining traditional learning and contemporary thought, Ouaknin dovetails discussions of spirituality and religious practice with such concepts as deconstruction, intertextuality, undecidability, multiple voicing, and eroticism in the Talmud. On a broader level, he establishes a dialogue between Hebrew tradition and the social sciences, which draws, for example, on the works of Levinas, Blanchot, and Jabes as well as Derrida. "The Burnt Book" represents the innovative thinking that has come to be associated with a school of French Jewish studies, headed by Levinas and dedicated to new readings of traditional texts, which is fast gaining influence in the United States.

The Talmud, transcribed in 500 C.E., is shown to be a text that refrains from dogma and instead encourages the exploration of its meanings. A vast compilation of Jewish oral law, the Talmud also contains rabbinical commentaries that touch on everything from astronomy to household life. Examining its literary methods and internal logic, Ouaknin explains how this text allows readers to transcend its authority in that it invites them to interpret, discuss, and re-create their religious tradition. An in-depth treatment of selected texts from the oral law and commentary goes on to provide a model for secular study of the Talmud in light of contemporary philosophical issues.

Throughout the author emphasizes the self-effacing quality of a text whose worth can be measured by the insights that live on in the minds of its interpreters long after they have closed the book. He points out that the burning of the Talmud in anti-Judaic campaigns throughout history has, in fact, been an unwitting act of complicity with Talmudic philosophy and the practice of self-effacement. Ouaknin concludes his discussion with the story of the Hasidic master Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav, who himself burned his life achievement--a work known by his students as "the Burnt Book." This story leaves us with the question, should all books be destroyed in order to give birth to thought and renew meaning?"

The voice traverses Beckett's work in its entirety, defining its space and its structure. Emanating from an indeterminate source situated outside the narrators and characters, while permeating the very words they utter, it proves to be incessant. It can alternatively be violently intrusive, or embody a calming presence. Literary creation will be charged with transforming the mortification it inflicts into a vivifying relationship to language. In the exploration undertaken here, Lacanian psychoanalysis offers the means to approach the voice's multiple and fundamentally paradoxical facets with regards to language that founds the subject's vital relation to existence. Far from seeking to impose a rigid and purely abstract framework, this study aims to highlight the singularity and complexity of Beckett's work, and to outline a potentially vast field of investigation.

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ++++ The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to ensure edition identification: ++++ The Superintendent And His Work; Volume 7 Of Worker And His Work Series Frank Llewellyn Brown, Methodist Episcopal Church. Board of Sunday Schools Printed for the board by Jennings and Graham, 1914 Religion; Christian Education; General; Religion / Christian Education / Children & Youth; Religion / Christian Education / General; Sunday schools

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Primates - including man - are the ones to watch. In the jungle it is men or related primates who can be dangerous. It shouldn't happen to a vet, but in Richard Jones's case it invariably does - whether he's in Belize or Banffshire: an orang-utan called Josh, fractious bulls, bellowing heifers, lambless ewes, three Caesarean calvings in one night, odd goings-on in the Glacks of Garrough, a strange use for a hock bottle, a hint when Jack Russells are about to bite and a safe method of extracting an egg from a nine-foot African rock python! Yet the ones to watch in this beautifully drawn novel are, the author suggests, the humans. Why can't some people let sleeping dogs lie - especially when they're dead! And why exactly does Richard's ferocious Classics teacher reappear in his life and insist on working in the practice? Are his motives benign, or is an excision required? Read on, for laughter and indeed information, as this highly detailed and humorous picture of rural life offers both in large measure. R Llewellyn Brown was born in Tanzania in 1957 and spent much of his childhood in the tropics of Africa, Asia and South America. Educated at Marlborough College, Wiltshire and St John's College, Cambridge, he qualified as a veterinary surgeon in 1981. In the same year he met his future wife on a farm in Scotland. They have two children. After two tours working for the Belize and Hong Kong governments the family returned to Scotland. He and his wife practice in Aberdeenshire as a vet and a lawyer respectively while the children attend the local secondary school. At present he divides his time between his family, running a practice, church commitments, writing humorous articles, hockey andnumerous hobbies.

Forming a pair with the voice, the gaze is a central structuring element of Samuel Becketts creation. And yet it takes the form of a strangely impersonal visual dimension testifying to the absence of an original exchange of gazes capable of founding personal identity and opening up the world to desire. The collapse of conventional reality and the highlighting of seeing devices -- eyes, mirrors, windows -- point to the absence of a unified representation. While masks and closed spaces show the visible to be opaque and devoid of any beyond, light and darkness, spectres -- manifestations without origin -- reveal a realm beyond the confines of identity, where nothing provides a mediation with the seen, or sets it within perspective. Finally, Becketts use of the audio-visual media deepens his exploration of the irreducibly real part of existence that escapes seeing. This study systematically examines these essential aspects of the visual in Becketts creation. The theoretical elaborations of Jacques Lacan -- in relation with corresponding developments in the history and philosophy of the visual arts -- offer an indispensible framework to understand the imaginary not as representation, but as rooted in the fundamental opacity of existence.