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A River Flows from Eden
Par Melila Hellner-Eshed. 2005
In theZohar, the jewel in the crown of Jewish mystical literature, the verse "A river flows from Eden to water…
the garden" (Genesis 2:10) symbolizes the river of divine plenty that unceasingly flows from the depths of divinity into the garden of reality. Hellner-Eshed's book investigates the flow of this river in the world of the Zoharic heroes, Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai and his disciples, as they embark upon their wondrous spiritual adventures. By focusing on theZohar's language of mystical experience and its unique features, the author is able to provide remarkable scholarly insight into the mystical dimensions of theZohar, namely the human quest for an enhanced experience of the living presence of the divine and theZohar's great call to awaken human consciousness.Living Letters of the Law
Par Jeremy Cohen. 1999
In Living Letters of the Law, Jeremy Cohen investigates the images of Jews and Judaism in the works of medieval…
Christian theologians from Augustine to Thomas Aquinas. He reveals how--and why--medieval Christianity fashioned a Jew on the basis of its reading of the Bible, and how this hermeneutically crafted Jew assumed distinctive character and power in Christian thought and culture. Augustine's doctrine of Jewish witness, which constructed the Jews so as to mandate their survival in a properly ordered Christian world, is the starting point for this illuminating study. Cohen demonstrates how adaptations of this doctrine reflected change in the self-consciousness of early medieval civilization. After exploring the effect of twelfth-century Europe's encounter with Islam on the value of Augustine's Jewish witnesses, he concludes with a new assessment of the reception of Augustine's ideas among thirteenth-century popes and friars. Consistently linking the medieval idea of the Jew with broader issues of textual criticism, anthropology, and the philosophy of history, this book demonstrates the complex significance of Christianity's "hermeneutical Jew" not only in the history of antisemitism but also in the broad scope of Western intellectual history.Beyond the Pale: The Jewish Encounter with Late Imperial Russia
Par Benjamin Nathans. 2002
A surprising number of Jews lived, literally and figuratively, "beyond the Pale" of Jewish Settlement in tsarist Russia during the…
half-century before the Revolution of 1917. Thanks to the availability of long-closed Russian archives, along with a wide range of other sources, Benjamin Nathans reinterprets the history of the Russian-Jewish encounter. In the wake of Russia's "Great Reforms," Nathans writes, a policy of selective integration stimulated social and geographic mobility among the empire's Jews. The reaction that culminated, toward the turn of the century, in ethnic restrictions on admission to universities, the professions, and other institutions of civil society reflected broad anxieties that Russians were being placed at a disadvantage in their own empire. Nathans's conclusions about the effects of selective integration and the Russian-Jewish encounter during this formative period will be of great interest to all students of modern Jewish and modern Russian history.Language, Eros, Being: Kabbalistic Hermeneutics and Poetic Imagination
Par Elliot R. Wolfson. 2004
This long-awaited, magisterial study-an unparalleled blend of philosophy, poetry, and philology-draws on theories of sexuality, phenomenology, comparative religion, philological writings…
on Kabbalah, Russian formalism, Wittgenstein, Rosenzweig, William Blake, and the very physics of the time-space continuum to establish what will surely be a highwater mark in work on Kabbalah. Not only a study of texts, Language, Eros, Being is perhaps the fullest confrontation of the body in Jewish studies, if not in religious studies as a whole. Elliot R. Wolfson explores the complex gender symbolism that permeates Kabbalistic literature. Focusing on the nexus of asceticism and eroticism, he seeks to define the role of symbolic and poetically charged language in the erotically configured visionary imagination of the medieval Kabbalists. He demonstrates that the traditional Kabbalistic view of gender was a monolithic and androcentric one, in which the feminine was conceived as being derived from the masculine. He does not shrink from the negative implications of this doctrine, but seeks to make an honest acknowledgment of it as the first step toward the redemption of an ancient wisdom. Comparisons with other mystical traditions-including those in Christianity, Buddhism, and Islam-are a remarkable feature throughout the book. They will make it important well beyond Jewish studies, indeed, a must for historians of comparative religion, in particular of comparative mysticism. Praise for Elliot R. Wolfson: "Through a Speculum That Shines is an important and provocative contribution to the study of Jewish mysticism by one of the major scholars now working in this field."-SpeculumWith Heart in Mind
Par Alan Morinis. 2014
A weekly spiritual practice for developing a strong and open heart--drawn from Judaism's Mussar tradition Mussar draws from the vast…
storehouse of Jewish wisdom, law, revelation, and text and brings it right home in a way that is completely practical. Judaism teaches that Torah (the collective wisdom of the tradition) provides the blueprint for human experience--and so the more of it we acquire, the more we gain a clearer, truer perspective on life and learn how to navigate its pathways. The phrase "acquiring Torah" is code for the process of internalizing this wisdom to bring about a genuine transformation of the inner self. In short, accessible chapters, this book describes forty-eight methods through which we can acquire Torah--and turns them into a straightforward practice. These methods include cultivating humility, joy, awe, goodheartedness, closeness with friends, not taking credit for oneself, judging others favorably, and so on. The fruits of working through each quality or method are a refined soul and a strong and open heart.Our Immoral Soul: A Manifesto of Spiritual Disobedience
Par Nilton Bonder. 2001
Rabbi Bonder turns a few conventional ideas on their heads as he identifies the forces at play in individual, social,…
and spiritual transformation. Many people believe that obedience to the established moral order leads to the well-being of society as well as the salvation of their souls. On the contrary, says Bonder, the human spirit is nourished by the impulse to betray and transgress the ways of the past. Even the Bible legitimizes our God-given urge to disobey in order to evolve, grow, and transcend. It is this "immoral" soul of ours that impels us to do battle with God—and out of this clash, Bonder predicts, a new humanity will emerge. In the course of discussion, he examines a variety of intriguing issues touching on religion, science, and culture, including the findings of evolutionary psychology; the relation of body and soul; infidelity in marriage; the stereotype of Jew as traitor; sacrifice and redemption in Judaism and Christianity; and the Messiah as archetypal transgressor.Every Day, Holy Day: 365 Days of Teachings and Practices from the Jewish Tradition of Mussar
Par Alan Morinis. 2010
The myriad events and interactions that make up our everyday life provide a rich opportunity for us to examine our…
impulses and actions and grow spiritually, according to the Jewish practice of Mussar. Mussar is an eminently wise, practical, and effective way to cultivate awareness, gratitude, personal growth, and ethical action on a daily basis. The path has its origins in Orthodox Judaism but it has become popular with Jews of all affiliations who are interested in a practice that can infuse daily life with more purpose and meaning. This daybook will be an essential companion to anyone who wants to experience this life-changing contemplative practice. Using a "soul trait" such as honesty, courage, enthusiasm, honor, and equanimity as a starting point, each practice page includes: * a teaching that illuminates the trait of the day * an affirmation phrase focused on that trait * a practical exercise to expand our experience of the trait * a space for journaling about experiences with the trait To learn more, visit www.mussarinstitute.org.Gonzo Judaism: A Bold Path for Renewing an Ancient Faith
Par Rabbi Niles Elliot Goldstein. 2006
Here is a book that is both clarion call for a new Jewish agenda and a blueprint for an adventurous…
but genuine path toward spiritual growth and religious wisdom. Rabbi Niles Elliot Goldstein, founder and Rabbi Emeritus of The New Shul in New York City, says that most conventional Jewish institutions are out-of-touch and have relied too much on nostalgia, guilt, and fear--none of which resonate with modern Jews. He challenges Jews to adopt the "gonzo" spirit--the rebellious, risk-taking attitude associated with the gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson--and to take creative, innovative steps to reshape and revitalize contemporary Judaism. Goldstein urges readers to take a fresh look at Judaism, to become educated about its history and tradition, to discover what is authentic, yet what also feels spiritually relevant and meaningful, and to create a Jewish culture and community rooted in affirmation, joy, and celebration. He provides a wealth of information on numerous organizations, institutions, synagogues, grassroots groups, and networks that can help get you started on the gonzo path. To learn more about the author, visit his website at www.nilesgoldstein.com.The Girl from Human Street
Par Roger Cohen. 2015
An intimate and profoundly moving Jewish family history--a story of displacement, prejudice, hope, despair, and love.In this luminous memoir, award-winning…
New York Times columnist Roger Cohen turns a compassionate yet discerning eye on the legacy of his own forebears. As he follows them across continents and decades, mapping individual lives that diverge and intertwine, vital patterns of struggle and resilience, valued heritage and evolving loyalties (religious, ethnic, national), converge into a resonant portrait of cultural identity in the modern age. Beginning in the nineteenth century and continuing through to the present day, Cohen tracks his family's story of repeated upheaval, from Lithuania to South Africa, and then to England, the United States, and Israel. It is a tale of otherness marked by overt and latent anti-Semitism, but also otherness as a sense of inheritance. We see Cohen's family members grow roots in each adopted homeland even as they struggle to overcome the loss of what is left behind and to adapt--to the racism his parents witness in apartheid-era South Africa, to the familiar ostracism an uncle from Johannesburg faces after fighting against Hitler across Europe, to the ambivalence an Israeli cousin experiences when tasked with policing the occupied West Bank.At the heart of The Girl from Human Street is the powerful and touching relationship between Cohen and his mother, that "girl." Tortured by the upheavals in her life yet stoic in her struggle, she embodies her son's complex inheritance. Graceful, honest, and sweeping, Cohen's remarkable chronicle of the quest for belonging across generations contributes an important chapter to the ongoing narrative of Jewish life.From the Hardcover edition.The Catskills
Par Stephen M. Silverman, Raphael D. Silver. 2015
The Catskills ("Cat Creek" in Dutch), America's original frontier, northwest of New York City, with its seven hundred thousand acres…
of forest land preserve and its five counties--Delaware, Greene, Sullivan, Ulster, Schoharie; America's first great vacationland; the subject of the nineteenth-century Hudson River School paintings that captured the almost godlike majesty of the mountains and landscapes, the skies, waterfalls, pastures, cliffs . . . refuge and home to poets and gangsters, tycoons and politicians, preachers and outlaws, musicians and spiritualists, outcasts and rebels . . . Stephen Silverman and Raphael Silver tell of the turning points that made the Catskills so vital to the development of America: Henry Hudson's first spotting the distant blue mountains in 1609; the New York State constitutional convention, resulting in New York's own Declaration of Independence from Great Britain and its own constitution, causing the ire of the invading British army . . . the Catskills as a popular attraction in the 1800s, with the construction of the Catskill Mountain House and its rugged imitators that offered WASP guests "one-hundred percent restricted" accommodations ("Hebrews will knock vainly for admission"), a policy that remained until the Catskills became the curative for tubercular patients, sending real-estate prices plummeting and the WASP enclave on to richer pastures . . . Here are the gangsters (Jack "Legs" Diamond and Dutch Schultz, among them) who sought refuge in the Catskill Mountains, and the resorts that after World War II catered to upwardly mobile Jewish families, giving rise to hundreds of hotels inspired by Grossinger's, the original "Disneyland with knishes"--the Concord, Brown's Hotel, Kutsher's Hotel, and others--in what became known as the Borscht Belt and Sour Cream Alps, with their headliners from movies and radio (Phil Silvers, Eddie Cantor, Milton Berle, et al.), and others who learned their trade there, among them Moss Hart (who got his start organizing summer theatricals), Sid Caesar, Lenny Bruce, Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, and Joan Rivers. Here is a nineteenth-century America turning away from England for its literary and artistic inspiration, finding it instead in Washington Irving's "Rip Van Winkle" and his childhood recollections (set in the Catskills) . . . in James Fenimore Cooper's adventure-romances, which provided a pastoral history, describing the shift from a colonial to a nationalist mentality . . . and in the canvases of Thomas Cole, Asher B. Durand, Frederick Church, and others that caught the grandeur of the wilderness and that gave texture, color, and form to Irving's and Cooper's imaginings. Here are the entrepreneurs and financiers who saw the Catskills as a way to strike it rich, plundering the resources that had been likened to "creation," the Catskills' tanneries that supplied the boots and saddles for Union troops in the Civil War . . . and the bluestone quarries whose excavated rock became the curbs and streets of the fast-growing Eastern Seaboard. Here are the Catskills brought fully to life in all of their intensity, beauty, vastness, and lunacy.From the Hardcover edition.From Enemy to Brother
Par John Connelly. 2012
In 1965 the Second Vatican Council declared that God loves the Jews. Before that, the Church had taught for centuries…
that Jews were cursed by God and, in the 1940s, mostly kept silent as Jews were slaughtered by the Nazis. How did an institution whose wisdom is said to be unchanging undertake one of the most enormous, yet undiscussed, ideological swings in modern history? The radical shift of Vatican II grew out of a buried history, a theological struggle in Central Europe in the years just before the Holocaust, when a small group of Catholic converts (especially former Jew Johannes Oesterreicher and former Protestant Karl Thieme) fought to keep Nazi racism from entering their newfound church. Through decades of engagement, extending from debates in academic journals, to popular education, to lobbying in the corridors of the Vatican, this unlikely duo overcame the most problematic aspect of Catholic history. Their success came not through appeals to morality but rather from a rediscovery of neglected portions of scripture. "From Enemy to Brother" illuminates the baffling silence of the Catholic Church during the Holocaust, showing how the ancient teaching of deicide-according to which the Jews were condemned to suffer until they turned to Christ-constituted the Churchs only language to talk about the Jews. As he explores the process of theological change, John Connelly moves from the speechless Vatican to those Catholics who endeavored to find a new language to speak to the Jews on the eve of, and in the shadow of, the Holocaust.Judaism Despite Christianity: The 1916 Wartime Correspondence between Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy and Franz Rosenzweig
Par Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy. 1935
Before they were both internationally renowned philosophers, Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy and Franz Rosenzweig were young German soldiers fighting in World War…
I corresponding by letter and forming the foundation of their deep intellectual friendship. Collected here, this correspondence provides an intimate portrait of their views on history, philosophy, rhetoric, and religion as well as on their writings and professors. Most centrally, Rosenstock-Huessy and Rosenzweig discuss, frankly but respectfully, the differences between Judaism and Chiristianity and the reasons they have chosen their respective faiths. This edition includes a new foreword by Paul Mendes-Flohr, a new preface by Harold Stahmer along with his original introduction, and essays by Dorothy Emmet and Alexander Altmann, who calls this correspondence "one of the most important religious documents of our age" and "the most perfect example of a human approach to the Jewish-Christian problem. "Socrates and the Jews: Hellenism and Hebraism from Moses Mendelssohn to Sigmund Freud
Par Miriam Leonard. 2012
"What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?" Asked by the early Christian Tertullian, the question was vigorously debated in the…
nineteenth century. While classics dominated the intellectual life of Europe, Christianity still prevailed and conflicts raged between the religious and the secular. Taking on the question of how the glories of the classical world could be reconciled with the Bible, Socrates and the Jews explains how Judaism played a vital role in defining modern philhellenism. Exploring the tension between Hebraism and Hellenism, Miriam Leonard gracefully probes the philosophical tradition behind the development of classical philology and considers how the conflict became a preoccupation for the leading thinkers of modernity, including Matthew Arnold, Moses Mendelssohn, Kant, Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud. For each, she shows how the contrast between classical and biblical traditions is central to writings about rationalism, political subjectivity, and progress. Illustrating how the encounter between Athens and Jerusalem became a lightning rod for intellectual concerns, this book is a sophisticated addition to the history of ideas.The Genealogical Science: The Search for Jewish Origins and the Politics of Epistemology
Par Abu El-Haj, Nadia. 2001
The Genealogical Science analyzes the scientific work and social implications of the flourishing field of genetic history. A biological discipline that…
relies on genetic data in order to reconstruct the geographic origins of contemporary populations--their histories of migration and genealogical connections to other present-day groups--this historical science is garnering ever more credibility and social reach, in large part due to a growing industry in ancestry testing. In this book, Nadia Abu El-Haj examines genetic history's working assumptions about culture and nature, identity and biology, and the individual and the collective. Through the example of the study of Jewish origins, she explores novel cultural and political practices that are emerging as genetic history's claims and "facts" circulate in the public domain and illustrates how this historical science is intrinsically entangled with cultural imaginations and political commitments. Chronicling late-nineteenth- to mid-twentieth-century understandings of race, nature, and culture, she identifies continuities and shifts in scientific claims, institutional contexts, and political worlds in order to show how the meanings of biological difference have changed over time. In so doing she gives an account of how and why it is that genetic history is so socially felicitous today and elucidates the range of understandings of the self, individual and collective, this scientific field is making possible. More specifically, through her focus on the history of projects of Jewish self-fashioning that have taken place on the terrain of the biological sciences, The Genealogical Science analyzes genetic history as the latest iteration of a cultural and political practice now over a century old.The Coming of Lilith
Par Judith Plaskow, Donna Berman. 2005
This first collection of Judith Plaskow's essays and short writings traces her scholarly and personal journey from her early days…
as a graduate student through her pioneering contributions to both feminist theology and Jewish feminism to her recent work in sexual ethics.Accessibly organized into four sections, the collection begins with several of Plaskow's foundational essays on feminist theology, including one previously unavailable in English. Section II addresses her nuanced understanding of oppression and includes her important work on anti-Judaism in Christian feminism. Section III contains a variety of short and highly readable pieces that make clear Plaskow's central role in the creation of Jewish feminism, including the essential "Beyond Egalitarianism." Finally, section IV presents her writings on the significance of sexual ethics to the larger project of transforming Judaism.Intelligently edited with the help of Rabbi Donna Berman, and including pieces never before published, The Coming of Lilith is indispensable for religious studies students, fans of Plaskow's work, and those pursuing a Jewish education.Rebbe: The Life and Teachings of Menachem M. Schneerson, the Most Influential Rabbi in Modern History
Par Joseph Telushkin. 2014
In this enlightening biography Joseph Telushkin offers a captivating portrait of the late Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson a…
towering figure who saw beyond conventional boundaries to turn his movement Chabad-Lubavitch into one of the most dynamic and widespread organizations ever seen in the Jewish world At once an incisive work of history and a compendium of Rabbi Schneerson s teachings Rebbe is the definitive guide to understanding one of the most vital intriguing figures of the last centuries From his modest headquarters in Crown Heights Brooklyn the Rebbe advised some of the world s greatest leaders and shaped matters of state and society Statesmen and artists as diverse as Ronald Reagan Robert F Kennedy Yitzchak Rabin Menachem Begin Elie Wiesel and Bob Dylan span the spectrum of those who sought his counsel The Rebbe was the only rabbi ever to receive the Congressional Gold Medal and to have an American national day Education and Sharing Day proclaimed in his honor No one has succeeded him in his position Nevertheless twenty years after his death his movement has doubled in size spreading to more than eighty countries and his impact resonates still But what was the secret of the Rebbe s success and influence What principles of leadership guided him And how did he rally such extraordinary devotion and resolve Rebbe explores Schneerson s overarching philosophies against the backdrop of treacherous history revealing his clandestine operations to rescue and sustain Jews in the Soviet Union and his critical role in the expansion of the food stamp program throughout the United States More broadly it examines how he became in effect an ambassador for Jews globally and how he came to be viewed by many as not only a spiritual archetype but a savior Telushkin also delves deep into the more controversial aspects of the Rebbe s leadership analyzing his views on modern science and territorial compromise in Israel and how in the last years of his life many of his followers believed that he would soon be revealed as the Messiah a source of contention until this day Epic intimate and masterfully told Rebbe is the definitive work on a monumental and multifaceted leader written by one of today s most prominent and respected Jewish scholarsThe Jews in America: The Roots, History And Destiny Of American Jews
Par Max I. Dimont. 1978
"The Jews in the United States are the inheritors of a four-thousand-year-old culture. Into their willing--or unwilling--hands, history has placed…
the symbolic scepter of this heritage. Will this Jewish culture--entrusted to the American Jews either by blind permutations of events or by a manifest destiny--wither in a wasteland of indifference? Or will there be a renaissance--a humanistic rebirth--to ensure this culture continued growth?Jabotinsky's Children: Polish Jews and the Rise of Right-Wing Zionism
Par Daniel Kupfert Heller. 2017
How interwar Poland and its Jewish youth were instrumental in shaping the ideology of right-wing ZionismBy the late 1930s, as…
many as fifty thousand Polish Jews belonged to Betar, a youth movement known for its support of Vladimir Jabotinsky, the founder of right-wing Zionism. Poland was not only home to Jabotinsky’s largest following. The country also served as an inspiration and incubator for the development of right-wing Zionist ideas. Jabotinsky’s Children draws on a wealth of rare archival material to uncover how the young people in Betar were instrumental in shaping right-wing Zionist attitudes about the roles that authoritarianism and military force could play in the quest to build and maintain a Jewish state.Recovering the voices of ordinary Betar members through their letters, diaries, and autobiographies, Jabotinsky’s Children paints a vivid portrait of young Polish Jews and their turbulent lives on the eve of the Holocaust. Rather than define Jabotinsky as a firebrand fascist or steadfast democrat, the book instead reveals how he deliberately delivered multiple and contradictory messages to his young followers, leaving it to them to interpret him as they saw fit. Tracing Betar’s surprising relationship with interwar Poland’s authoritarian government, Jabotinsky’s Children overturns popular misconceptions about Polish-Jewish relations between the two world wars and captures the fervent efforts of Poland’s Jewish youth to determine, on their own terms, who they were, where they belonged, and what their future held in store.Shedding critical light on a vital yet neglected chapter in the history of Zionism, Jabotinsky’s Children provides invaluable perspective on the origins of right-wing Zionist beliefs and their enduring allure in Israel today.As Light Before Dawn: The Inner World of a Medieval Kabbalist
Par Eitan P Fishbane. 2009
As Light Before Dawn explores the mystical thought of Isaac ben Samuel of Akko, a major medieval kabbalist whose work…
has until now received relatively little attention. Through consideration of an extensive literary corpus, including much that still remains in manuscript, this study examines an array of themes and questions that have great applicability to the comparative study of mysticism and the broader study of religion. These include prayer and the nature of mystical experience; meditative concentration directed to God; and the power of mental intention, authority, creativity, and the transmission of wisdom.A History of German Jewish Bible Translation
Par Abigail Gillman. 2018
Between 1780 and 1937, Jews in Germany produced numerous new translations of the Hebrew Bible into German. Intended for Jews…
who were trilingual, reading Yiddish, Hebrew, and German, they were meant less for religious use than to promote educational and cultural goals. Not only did translations give Jews vernacular access to their scripture without Christian intervention, but they also helped showcase the Hebrew Bible as a work of literature and the foundational text of modern Jewish identity. This book is the first in English to offer a close analysis of German Jewish translations as part of a larger cultural project. Looking at four distinct waves of translations, Abigail Gillman juxtaposes translations within each that sought to achieve similar goals through differing means. As she details the history of successive translations, we gain new insight into the opportunities and problems the Bible posed for different generations and gain a new perspective on modern German Jewish history.