Download or read book Mentor of Generations written by Zev Eleff and published by KTAV Publishing House, Inc.. This book was released on 2008 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Rabbi Israel Salanter and the Mussar Movement written by I. Etkes and published by Jewish Publication Society. This book was released on 1993 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Israel Salanter was one of the most original and influential Jewish leaders and thinkers of Eastern European Jewry in the modern period. One of Salanter’s most striking innovations was the transformation of the issue of ethics from the domain of theology to the realm of psychology. Immanuel Etkes traces Salanter’s unique view of Mussar doctrine, especially his introduction of modern psychology to the traditional understanding of personal ethical development.

Download or read book A Midrash and a Maaseh written by Hanoch Teller and published by Feldheim Publishers. This book was released on 1996 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: V. 1: Bereishis, Shemos v. 2: Vayikra, Bemidbar, Devarim.

Download or read book The Gaon of Vilna written by Immanuel Etkes and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2002-05-30 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A legendary figure in his own lifetime, Rabbi Eliahu ben Shlomo Zalman (1720-1797) was known as the "Gaon of Vilna." He was the acknowledged master of Talmudic studies in the vibrant intellectual center of Vilna, revered throughout Eastern Europe for his learning and his ability to traverse with ease seemingly opposed domains of thought and activity. After his death, the myth that had been woven around him became even more powerful and was expressed in various public images. The formation of these images was influenced as much by the needs and wishes of those who clung to and depended on them as by the actual figure of the Gaon. In this penetrating study, Immanuel Etkes sheds light on aspects of the Vilna Gaon's "real" character and traces several public images of him as they have developed and spread from the early nineteenth century until the present.

Download or read book The Burnt Book written by Marc-Alain Ouaknin and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2024-05-14 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A profound look at what it means for new generations to read and interpret ancient religious texts In this book, rabbi and philosopher Marc-Alain Ouaknin offers a postmodern reading of the Talmud. 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 Lévinas, Blanchot, and Jabès 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 Lévinas and dedicated to new readings of traditional texts. 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 recreate 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?

Download or read book Families Rabbis and Education written by Shaul Stampfer and published by Liverpool University Press. This book was released on 2010-02-01 with total page 429 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Viewing the Jewish history of eastern Europe through the prism of the lives of ordinary people produces findings that are sometimes surprising but always stimulating.

Download or read book Contemporary Halakhic Problems written by J. David Bleich and published by KTAV Publishing House, Inc.. This book was released on 1977 with total page 442 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Genius written by Eliyahu Stern and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2013-01-08 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: DIV Elijah ben Solomon, the "Genius of Vilna,” was perhaps the best-known and most understudied figure in modern Jewish history. This book offers a new narrative of Jewish modernity based on Elijah's life and influence. While the experience of Jews in modernity has often been described as a process of Western European secularization—with Jews becoming citizens of Western nation-states, congregants of reformed synagogues, and assimilated members of society—Stern uses Elijah’s story to highlight a different theory of modernization for European life. Religious movements such as Hasidism and anti-secular institutions such as the yeshiva emerged from the same democratization of knowledge and privatization of religion that gave rise to secular and universal movements and institutions. Claimed by traditionalists, enlighteners, Zionists, and the Orthodox, Elijah’s genius and its afterlife capture an all-embracing interpretation of the modern Jewish experience. Through the story of the “Vilna Gaon,” Stern presents a new model for understanding modern Jewish history and more generally the place of traditionalism and religious radicalism in modern Western life and thought. /div

Download or read book Beyond a Code of Jewish Law written by Simcha Fishbane and published by Academic Studies PRess. This book was released on 2021-12-14 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Ḥayei Adam, an abridged code of Jewish law, was written by Rabbi Avraham Danzig (1748-1820) and was first published in 1810. This code spread quickly throughout Europe, and the demand for it required a second publishing which the author printed in 1818. Beyond a Code of Jewish Law attempts to understand the implicit message of its author and discuss various approaches of its writer to both Judaism and Jewish law. While the Ḥayei Adam without any doubt unveils Rabbi Danzig to be a brilliant rabbinic scholar, with a comprehensive knowledge of Jewish law as well as a coherent and concise system of presentation, it also expresses his great concern for the Jewish community and each individual Jew. Aspects of this concern such as Hasidism, musar, kabbalah, are explored.

Download or read book Rescuing the Rebbe of Belz written by Yosef Israel and published by Mesorah Publications. This book was released on 2005 with total page 568 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recounts the Holocaust experiences of the Belzer Rebbe, Aharon Rokach (born in 1880), and his brother Mordechai, the Bilgorai Rebbe, who shared his fate. They fled from Belz (in Ukraine) to nearby Sokal and then to Peremyshliany, where several family members were killed. They found temporary refuge in Poland, in Wisnicz and then in Bochnia and Kraków, in both of which the rebbes were interned in the ghettos. In Bochnia the Belzer Rebbe survived in the guise of a "master tailor", while preserving, as he did throughout the Holocaust, his devotion to a life of Torah. After an escape to Slovakia failed, one to Hungary succeeded. In Budapest, the Rebbe was able to publicly lead his followers and other ultra-Orthodox Jews. At times he was sought by the Gestapo, but he was also respected by some Nazis as a "wonder rabbi". Efforts to rescue him centered in Eretz Israel, but also involved Belzer hasidim around the world. In Hungary, the Rebbe attempted to encourage rescue efforts for the remnants of Polish Jewry. In Palestine, Berish Ortner convinced Jewish religious and political figures to grant an immigration certificate to the Rebbe, who then made his way to Palestine. There he and his brother made strenuous efforts to inform the Jewish community about the dire situation in Europe and how they might still save part of Hungarian Jewry. Includes many examples of total religious dedication on the part of the Rebbe and those inspired by him to the point of martyrdom. The last chapter recounts the rescue activities in the Bochnia ghetto-labor camp of Eliezer Landau, who used bribes and cleverness to save the lives of thousands of his fellow Jews.

Download or read book The Conceptual Approach to Jewish Learning written by Yosef Blau and published by KTAV Publishing House, Inc.. This book was released on 2006 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Apocalyptic and Merkavah Mysticism written by Gruenwald and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2018-11-26 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Preliminary Material /Ithamar Gruenwald -- Two Essential Qualities of Jewish Apocalyptic /Ithamar Gruenwald -- The Mystical Elements in Apocalyptic /Ithamar Gruenwald -- The Attitude Towards the Merkavah Speculations in the Literature of the Tannaim and Amoraim /Ithamar Gruenwald -- The Hekhalot Literature /Ithamar Gruenwald -- Introduction /Ithamar Gruenwald -- Reʾuyot Yeḥezkel /Ithamar Gruenwald -- Hekhalot Zutreti /Ithamar Gruenwald -- Hekhalot Rabbati /Ithamar Gruenwald -- Merkavah Rabbah /Ithamar Gruenwald -- Maʻaseh Merkavah /Ithamar Gruenwald -- 'Hekhalot ' Fragments /Ithamar Gruenwald -- Seper Hekhalot (3 Enoch) /Ithamar Gruenwald -- Masekhet Hekhalot /Ithamar Gruenwald -- Shjʻur Qomah /Ithamar Gruenwald -- Physiognomy, Chiromancy and Metoposcopy /Ithamar Gruenwald -- Seper Ha-Razim /Ithamar Gruenwald -- Appendices /Saul Lieberman -- Indices /Ithamar Gruenwald.

Download or read book The Light and Fire of the Baal Shem Tov written by Yitzhak Buxbaum and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2006-09-05 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a life, in stories, of Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov (1700-1760), the founder of Hasidism. The Baal Shem Tov, or the Besht, as he is commonly called, led a revival in Judaism that put love and joy at the center of religious life and championed the piety of the common folk against the rabbinic establishment. He has been recognized as one of the greatest teachers in Jewish history, and much of what is alive and vibrant in Judaism today, in all denominations, derives from his inspiration. Abraham Joshua Heschel, who was descended from several illustrious Hasidic dynasties, wrote: "The Baal Shem Tov brought heaven to earth. He and his disciples, the Hasidim, banished melancholy from the soul and uncovered the ineffable delight of being a Jew.">

Download or read book The Limits of Orthodox Theology written by Marc B. Shapiro and published by Liverpool University Press. This book was released on 2003-12-01 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book takes issue with the widespread assumption that Maimonides' famous Thirteen Principles are the last word in Orthodox Jewish theology.

Download or read book Mishnah Berurah written by Israel Meir (ha-Kohen) and published by Feldheim Publishers. This book was released on 1989 with total page 474 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Formation of the Babylonian Talmud written by David Weiss Halivni and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-07-15 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: David Weiss Halivni's The Formation of the Babylonian Talmud, originally published in Hebrew and here translated by Jeffrey L. Rubenstein, is widely regarded as the most comprehensive scholarly examination of the processes of composition and editing of the Babylonian Talmud. Halivni presents the summation of a lifetime of scholarship and the conclusions of his multivolume Talmudic commentary, Sources and Traditions (Meqorot umesorot). Arguing against the traditional view that the Talmud was composed c. 450 CE by the last of the named sages in the Talmud, the Amoraim, Halivni proposes that its formation took place over a much longer period of time, not reaching its final form until about 750 CE. The Talmud consists of many literary strata or layers, with later layers commenting upon and reinterpreting earlier layers. The later layers differ qualitatively from the earlier layers, and were composed by anonymous sages whom Halivni calls Stammaim. These sages were the true author-editors of the Talmud. They reconstructed the reasons underpinning earlier rulings, created the dialectical argumentation characteristic of the Talmud, and formulated the literary units that make up the Talmudic text. Halivni also discusses the history and development of rabbinic tradition from the Mishnah through the post-Talmudic legal codes, the types of dialectical analysis found in the different rabbinic works, and the roles of reciters, transmitters, compilers, and editors in the composition of the Talmud. This volume contains an introduction and annotations by Jeffrey L. Rubenstein.

Download or read book Law and Custom in Hasidism written by Aharon Ṿerṭhaim and published by KTAV Publishing House, Inc.. This book was released on 1992 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite their importance, works of Hasidism tend to ignore the innovative halakhic aspect of the early hasidic movement. Rabbi Wertheim's book is unique for its emphasis on hasidic practices, Hasidism on the ground, so to speak. From changes in dress to prayers, the establishment of a relationship with the rebbe, and its observance of holidays, the author provides not only detailed and carefully footnoted information, but provides an historical perspective which allows the reader to understand these innovations in context.