Download or read book Avi Sagi Existentialism Pluralism and Identity written by Hava Tirosh-Samuelson and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2015-01-27 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Avi Sagi is Professor of Philosophy at Bar Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel, and Senior Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, Israel. A philosopher, literary critic, scholar of cultural studies, historian and philosopher of halakhah, public intellectual, social critic, and educator, Sagi has written most lucidly on the challenges that face humanity, Judaism, and Israeli society today. As an intertextual thinker, Sagi integrates numerous strands within contemporary philosophy, while critically engaging Jewish and non-Jewish philosophers. Offering an insightful defense of pluralism and multiculturalism, his numerous writings integrate philosophy, religion, theology, jurisprudence, psychology, art, literature, and politics, charting a new path for Jewish thought in the twenty-first century.
Download or read book Morality and Religion written by Avi Sagi and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-08-27 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The relationship between morality and religion has long been controversial, familiar in its formulation as Euthyphro’s dilemma: Is an act right because God commanded it or did God command it because it is right. In Morality and Religion: The Jewish Story, renowned scholar Avi Sagi marshals the breadth of philosophical and hermeneutical tools to examine this relationship in Judaism from two perspectives. The first considers whether Judaism adopted a thesis widespread in other monotheistic religions known as 'divine command morality,' making morality contingent on God’s command. The second deals with the ways Jewish tradition grapples with conflicts between religious and moral obligations. After examining a broad spectrum of Jewish sources—including Talmudic literature, Halakhah, Aggadah, Jewish philosophy, and liturgy—Sagi concludes that mainstream Jewish tradition consistently refrains from attempts to endorse divine command morality or resolve conflicts by invoking a divine command. Rather, the central strand in Judaism perceives God and humans as inhabiting the same moral community and bound by the same moral obligations. When conflicts emerge between moral and religious instructions, Jewish tradition interprets religious norms so that they ultimately pass the moral test. This mainstream voice is anchored in the meaning of Jewish law, which is founded on human autonomy and rationality, and in the relationship with God that is assumed in this tradition.
Download or read book Living With the Other written by Avi Sagi and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-01-13 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book grapples with one of the most difficult questions confronting the contemporary world: the problem of the other, which includes ethical, political, and metaphysical aspects. A widespread approach in the history of the discourse on the other, systematically formulated by Emmanuel Levinas and his followers, has invested this term with an almost mythical quality—the other is everybody else but never a specific person, an abstraction of historical human existence. This book offers an alternative view, turning the other into a real being, through a carefully described process involving two dimensions referred to as the ethic of loyalty to the visible and the ethic of inner retreat. Tracing the course of this process in life and in literature, the book presents a broad and lucid picture intriguing to philosophers and also accessible to readers concerned with questions touching on the meaning of life, ethics, and politics, and particularly relevant to the burning issues surrounding attitudes to immigrants as others and to the relationship with God, the ultimate other.
Download or read book The Future of Jewish Philosophy written by Hava Tirosh-Samuelson and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2018-08-13 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This anthology of original essays reflects on the future of Jewish philosophy in light of the Library of Contemporary Jewish Philosophers (Brill, 2013-2018). The volume assesses the strengths of Jewish philosophy, explores the place of Jewish philosophy within the Western academy as a critique of and contribution to the discipline of philosophy, and showcases the relevance of Jewish philosophy to contemporary Jewish culture. The volume argues that Jewish philosophy is more vibrant, diverse, and culturally significant than its public image implies. Special attention is paid to the interdisciplinary nature of Jewish philosophy, the institutional settings for generating Jewish philosophy, and the contribution of philosophizing to contemporary Jewish self-understanding.
Download or read book Routledge Handbook on Zionism written by Colin Shindler and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-06-28 with total page 739 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Handbook, the first of its kind, provides an in- depth examination of the evolution, ideology, history and culture of Zionism and its various movements. Distancing itself from the slogans and cliches of advocacy, the volume provides much-needed context and background on the emergence of Zionism. The Handbook is divided into eight parts – with contributions from some forty of the world’s leading scholars on Zionism –to elucidate its various strands. These include underrepresented areas such as Zionism in the Arab World before the establishment of the State of Israel, Zionism and Marxism, the emergence of the Zionist Right, the language war between Hebrew and Yiddish, the struggle for Jewish women’s suffrage, the poetry of Lea Goldberg, and Zionism in emerging new Jewish communities in locations like Papua New Guinea, Guatemala and Zimbabwe. Another section on Zionism in repressive states stretches from an examination of Zionism in Hitler’s Germany to the Ayatollahs’ Iran today; from subterranean Zionism in Stalin’s Russia to apartheid South Africa. The volume concludes by examining current issues, including the relationship between evangelicals and Zionism in the US, and the representation of Zionism in the age of the internet. Providing a sweeping overview of Zionism in its many forms, the volume will appeal to students, researchers and general readers interested in Jewish studies in the Middle East and beyond, as well as those seeking to understand the roots of contemporary Israel.
Download or read book Don Isaac Abravanel written by Cedric Cohen-Skalli and published by Brandeis University Press. This book was released on 2020-11-22 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "An intellectual biography of Don Isaac ben Judah Abravanel, a 15th century Portuguese rabbi, scholar, Bible commentator, philosopher, and statesman"--
Download or read book Understanding the Evolving Meaning of Reason in David Novak s Natural Law Theory written by Jonathan L. Milevsky and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2022-01-31 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How can one Jewish thinker's natural law theory explain morality, divine commandments, and human ordinances; and how do we assess the consistency of that theory when it is mentioned in connection with such diverse areas? The answer lies in the changing meaning of reason in Novak's writings.
Download or read book Abraham Abulafia s Esotericism written by Moshe Idel and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2020-10-12 with total page 636 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book focuses on Abraham Abulafia's esoteric thought in relation to Maimonides, Maimonideans, and Islamic thought in the line of Leo Strauss' theory of the history of philosophy. A survey of Abulafia's sources leads into an analysis of the esoteric meaning on the famous parable of the three rings, considering also the possible connection between this parable, which Abdulafia inserted into a book dedicated to his student, the 13th century rabbi Nathan the wise, and the Lessing's Play "Nathan the Wise." The book also examines Abulafia's universalistic understanding of the nature of the Bible, the Hebrew language, and the people of Israel (or the Sinaic revelation). The universal aspects of Abulafia’s thought have been put in relief against the more widespread Kabbalistic views which are predominantly particularistic. A number of texts have also been identified here for the first time as authored by Abulafia.
Download or read book The Philosopher s Index written by and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 568 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Vols. for 1969- include a section of abstracts.
Download or read book Eliezer Schweid The Responsibility of Jewish Philosophy written by Hava Tirosh-Samuelson and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2013-06-06 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume features Eliezer Schweid’s most original essays and an interview with him. Together they express his fundamental outlook: the faith of a secular Jew, articulating responsibility toward one’s neighbor, one’s people, the world, and God in a secular age.
Download or read book Moshe Idel Representing God written by Hava Tirosh-Samuelson and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2015-01-08 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Moshe Idel, the Max Cooper Professor Emeritus at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Senior Researcher at the Shalom Hartman Institute, is a world-renowned scholar of the Jewish mystical tradition. His historical and phenomenological studies of rabbinic, philosophic, kabbalistic, and Hasidic texts have transformed modern understanding of Jewish intellectual history and highlighted the close relationship between magic, mysticism, and liturgy. A recipient of two of the most prestigious awards in Israel, the Israel Prize for Jewish Thought (1999) and the Emmet Prize for Jewish Thought (2002), Idel’s numerous studies have uncovered persistent patterns of Jewish religious thought that challenge conventional interpretations of Jewish monotheism, while offering a pluralistic understanding of Judaism. His explorations of the mythical, theurgical, mystical, and messianic dimensions of Judaism have been attentive to history, sociology, and anthropology, while rejecting a naïve historicist approach to Judaism.
Download or read book A Covenant of Creatures written by Michael Fagenblat and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2010-06-03 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "I am not a particularly Jewish thinker," said Emmanuel Levinas, "I am just a thinker." This book argues against the idea, affirmed by Levinas himself, that Totality and Infinity and Otherwise Than Being separate philosophy from Judaism. By reading Levinas's philosophical works through the prism of Judaic texts and ideas, Michael Fagenblat argues that what Levinas called "ethics" is as much a hermeneutical product wrought from the Judaic heritage as a series of phenomenological observations. Decoding the Levinas's philosophy of Judaism within a Heideggerian and Pauline framework, Fagenblat uses biblical, rabbinic, and Maimonidean texts to provide sustained interpretations of the philosopher's work. Ultimately he calls for a reconsideration of the relation between tradition and philosophy, and of the meaning of faith after the death of epistemology.
Download or read book Jonathan Sacks Universalizing Particularity written by Hava Tirosh-Samuelson and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2013-08-30 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume features the thought and writings of Jonathan Sacks, one of today’s leading Jewish public thinkers. It brings together an intellectual portrait, four of his most original and influential philosophical essays, and an interview with him. This volume showcases the work of Sacks, a philosopher who seeks to confront and offer solutions to the numerous problems besetting Judaism and its confrontation with modernity. In addition, the reader will also encounter an important social philosopher and proponent of interfaith dialogue, who articulates how it is possible to cultivate a culture of civility based on the twin notions of the dignity of difference and the ethic of responsibility. Jonathan Sacks has been Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth from September 1991 to September 2013 and a member of the House of Lords since 2009.
Download or read book Transforming Identity written by Avi Sagi and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2007-11-29 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Of all Judaic rituals, that of giyyur is arguably the most radical: it turns a Gentile into a Jew - once and for all and irrevocably. The very possibility of such a transformation is anomalous, according to Jewish tradition, which regards Jewishness as an ascriptive status entered through birth to a Jewish mother. What is the internal logic of the ritual of giyyur, that seems to enable a Gentile to acquire an 'ascribed' identity? It is to this question, and others deriving from it, that the authors address themselves. Interpretation of a ritual such as giyyur is linked to broad issues of anthropology, religion and culture: the relation of 'nature' and 'culture' in the construction of group boundaries; the tension between ethnicity and religion; the interrelation of individual identity and membership in a collective. Fully aware of these issues, this groundbreaking study focuses upon a close reading of primary halakhic texts from Talmudic times down to the present as key to the explication of meaning within the Judaic tradition. In our times, the meaning of Jewish identity is a core issue, directly affecting the public debate regarding the relative weight of religion, nationality and kinship in determining basic aspects of Jewish life throughout the world. This book constitutes a seminal contribution to this ongoing discussion: it enables access to a wealth of halakhic sources previously accessible only to rabbinic scholars, fleshes out their meanings and implications within the cultural history of halakha, and in doing so situates halakha at the nexus of contemporary cultural discourse.
Download or read book Yearbook of the Maimonides Centre for Advanced Studies 2019 written by Yoav Meyrav and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2020-05-05 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Yearbook of the Maimonides Centre for Advanced Studies mirrors the annual activities of visiting fellows, staff, and affiliates of the Maimonides Centre of Advanced Studies—Jewish Scepticism, Universität Hamburg. Its main section contains scholarly articles about Judaism and scepticism, both individually and together, among different thinkers and within different areas of study. Each volume of the Yearbook also includes a section with an overview of the activities and events conducted at MCAS during a given academic year, as well as a report on its library.
Download or read book Camus written by David Sherman and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2009-01-30 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reflecting the profound influence he continues to exert on popular consciousness, Camus examines the complete body of works of French author and philosopher Albert Camus, providing a comprehensive analysis of Camus’ most important works—most notably The Myth of Sisyphus, The Stranger, The Fall, The Plague, and The Rebel—within the framework of his basic ethical orientation. Makes Camus’ concerns clear in terms that will resonate with contemporary readers Reveals the unity and integrity of Camus’ writings and political activities Discusses Camus’ ongoing relevance by showing how he prefigures many postmodern positions in philosophy, literature, and politics
Download or read book Rabbinic Discourse as a System of Knowledge written by Hannah Hashkes and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2015-03-10 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Rabbinic Discourse as a System of Knowledge Hannah Hashkes employs contemporary philosophy in describing rabbinic reasoning as a rational response to experience. Hashkes combines insights from the philosophy of Quine and Davidson with the semiotics of Peirce to construe knowledge as systematic reasoning occurring within a community of inquiry. Her reading of the works of Emmanuel Levinas and Jean-Luc Marion allows her to create a philosophical bridge between a discourse of God and a discourse of reason. This synthesis of pragmatism, hermeneutics and theology provides Hashkes with a sophisticated tool to understand Rabbinic Judaism. It also makes this study both unique and pathbreaking in contemporary Jewish philosophy and Rabbinic thought.
