Maimonides

Maimonides PDF Author: Moshe Halbertal
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400848474
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 399

Get Book Here

Book Description
A comprehensive and accessible account of the life and thought of Judaism's most celebrated philosopher Maimonides was the greatest Jewish philosopher and legal scholar of the medieval period, a towering figure who has had a profound and lasting influence on Jewish law, philosophy, and religious consciousness. This book provides a comprehensive and accessible introduction to his life and work, revealing how his philosophical sensibility and outlook informed his interpretation of Jewish tradition. Moshe Halbertal vividly describes Maimonides's childhood in Muslim Spain, his family's flight to North Africa to escape persecution, and their eventual resettling in Egypt. He draws on Maimonides's letters and the testimonies of his contemporaries, both Muslims and Jews, to offer new insights into his personality and the circumstances that shaped his thinking. Halbertal then turns to Maimonides's legal and philosophical work, analyzing his three great books—Commentary on the Mishnah, the Mishneh Torah, and the Guide of the Perplexed. He discusses Maimonides's battle against all attempts to personify God, his conviction that God's presence in the world is mediated through the natural order rather than through miracles, and his locating of philosophy and science at the summit of the religious life of Torah. Halbertal examines Maimonides's philosophical positions on fundamental questions such as the nature and limits of religious language, creation and nature, prophecy, providence, the problem of evil, and the meaning of the commandments. A stunning achievement, Maimonides offers an unparalleled look at the life and thought of this important Jewish philosopher, scholar, and theologian.

Maimonides

Maimonides PDF Author: Moshe Halbertal
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400848474
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 399

Get Book Here

Book Description
A comprehensive and accessible account of the life and thought of Judaism's most celebrated philosopher Maimonides was the greatest Jewish philosopher and legal scholar of the medieval period, a towering figure who has had a profound and lasting influence on Jewish law, philosophy, and religious consciousness. This book provides a comprehensive and accessible introduction to his life and work, revealing how his philosophical sensibility and outlook informed his interpretation of Jewish tradition. Moshe Halbertal vividly describes Maimonides's childhood in Muslim Spain, his family's flight to North Africa to escape persecution, and their eventual resettling in Egypt. He draws on Maimonides's letters and the testimonies of his contemporaries, both Muslims and Jews, to offer new insights into his personality and the circumstances that shaped his thinking. Halbertal then turns to Maimonides's legal and philosophical work, analyzing his three great books—Commentary on the Mishnah, the Mishneh Torah, and the Guide of the Perplexed. He discusses Maimonides's battle against all attempts to personify God, his conviction that God's presence in the world is mediated through the natural order rather than through miracles, and his locating of philosophy and science at the summit of the religious life of Torah. Halbertal examines Maimonides's philosophical positions on fundamental questions such as the nature and limits of religious language, creation and nature, prophecy, providence, the problem of evil, and the meaning of the commandments. A stunning achievement, Maimonides offers an unparalleled look at the life and thought of this important Jewish philosopher, scholar, and theologian.

The Story of Hebrew

The Story of Hebrew PDF Author: Lewis Glinert
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691183090
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 296

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Story of Hebrew explores the extraordinary hold that Hebrew has had on Jews and Christians, who have invested it with a symbolic power far beyond that of any other language in history. Preserved by the Jews across two millennia, Hebrew endured long after it ceased to be a mother tongue, resulting in one of the most intense textual cultures ever known. Hebrew was a bridge to Greek and Arab science, and it unlocked the biblical sources for Jerome and the Reformation. Kabbalists and humanists sought philosophical truth in it, and Colonial Americans used it to shape their own Israelite political identity. Today, it is the first language of millions of Israelis. A major work of scholarship, The Story of Hebrew is an unforgettable account of what one language has meant and continues to mean.

Torah and Sophia

Torah and Sophia PDF Author: Raphael Jospe
Publisher: Hebrew Union College Press
ISBN: 0878201505
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 525

Get Book Here

Book Description
The century following the death of Maimonides (1204) witnessed widespread upheaval and turmoil as anti-rationalist Jews attempted to ban the study of philosophy. For such rationalist philosophers as Shem Tov ibn Falaquera (c. 1225-1291), however, Judaism could not be restricted to the confines of the spiritual and intellectual ghetto; the free minds of Jews could not be shackled in the name of Judaism. In many respects, Falaquera epitomizes the way in which philosophy succeeded in finding a home in Judaism in the Middle Ages. The pioneering philosophical efforts of earlier luminaries made an enduring impact on the course of Jewish history and the religious and intellectual life of the Jewish people through their Hebrew translation and cultural consolidation at the hands of Jewish philosophers like Falaquera. As a prolific Hebrew poet, translator, popularize of science and philosophy, encyclopedist, defender of Maimonides, Bible commentator, historian of philosophy, and philosopher in his own right, Falaquera manifested a loving commitment to both Torah and secular wisdom (hokhmah, Sophia) and the conviction that both Torah and Sophia ultimately must be in harmony, if not identical. Raphael Jospe's exhaustive study of the life and thought of Shem Tov ibn Falaquera provides students of medieval Jewish and Islamic philosophy for the first time with a systematic and comprehensive presentation of Falaquera's philosophy. Reflecting Falaquera's own philosophic and curricular priorities, the book focuses in particular depth on his psychology, in light of and in comparison to his Arabic sources. In the tradition of scholarly text analysis, the book also offers a critical Hebrew edition and annotated English translation of Falaquera's systematic psychological study, Sefer Ha-Nefesh (Book of the Soul), as well as a critical and annotated edition of his previously unpublished ethical work, Shelemut Ha-Ma'asim (Perfection of Actions), and - also for the first time - the surviving fragments, with English translation, of Falaquera'a Bible commentary.

A Best-Selling Hebrew Book of the Modern Era

A Best-Selling Hebrew Book of the Modern Era PDF Author: David B. Ruderman
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 0295805595
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 193

Get Book Here

Book Description
The history of a single book sheds light on the beginnings of modern Jewish thought In 1797, in what is now the Czech Republic, Pinḥas Hurwitz published Book of the Covenant. Nominally an extended commentary on a sixteenth-century kabbalist text, Pinḥas’s publication was in fact a compendium of scientific knowledge and a manual of moral behavior. Its popularity stemmed from its ability to present the scientific advances and moral cosmopolitanism of its day in the context of Jewish legal and mystical tradition. Describing the latest developments in science and philosophy in the sacred language of Hebrew, Hurwitz argued that an intellectual understanding of the cosmos was not at odds with but actually key to achieving spiritual attainment. In A Best-Selling Hebrew Book of the Modern Era, David Ruderman offers a literary and intellectual history of Hurwitz’s book and its legacy. Hurwitz not only wrote the book, but also was instrumental in selling it, and his success ultimately led to the publication of more than forty editions in Hebrew, Ladino, and Yiddish. Ruderman provides a multidimensional picture of the book and the intellectual tradition it helped to inaugurate. Complicating accounts that consider modern Jewish thought to be the product of a radical break from a religious, mystical past, Ruderman shows how, instead, a complex continuity shaped Jewish society’s confrontation with modernity.

Hebrew Thought Compared with Greek

Hebrew Thought Compared with Greek PDF Author: Thorleif Boman
Publisher: London : SCM Press
ISBN:
Category : Jewish philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 232

Get Book Here

Book Description


The Human Challenge

The Human Challenge PDF Author: Rabbi Avraham Edelstein
Publisher: Mosaica Press
ISBN: 1952370302
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 393

Get Book Here

Book Description
Every human being is presented with the ''human challenge'': How do I grow? How do I become wise? How do I sanctify the world around me and make it a better place? How do I work on my character? How do I integrate work and food and intimacy into my life's goals? This volume is an attempt to answer these questions for the intelligent and sensitive adult reader. It draws significantly on deeper Jewish thought, balancing brevity with profundity. The Human Challenge provides a rich and exciting entry point for those who are at the early stages of their relationship with Judaism as well as significant benefit to those with an extensive background, as it provides a methodical and sourced overview of topics that may otherwise remain as fragmented insights.

Jewish Thought in Dialogue

Jewish Thought in Dialogue PDF Author: David Shatz
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781934843420
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 442

Get Book Here

Book Description
The essays collected in this volume present carefully crafted and often creative interpretations of major Jewish texts and thinkers, as well as original treatments of significant issues in Jewish theology and ethics. Conversant with both Jewish philosophy and the methods and literature of analytic philosophy, the author frequently seeks to bring them into dialogue, and in addition taps the philosophical dimensions of Jewish law.. The book opens with a philosophical analysis of biblical narratives. It then investigates the relationship between Judaism and general culture as conceived by Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook and Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, followed by interpretations of Maimonides' moral theory and his views on human perfection. The remainder of the volume examines both critically and constructively the relationship between religious anthropology and theories of providence; the problem of evil; the challenges that neuroscience poses to religion; law and morality in Judaism; theological dimensions of 9/11; the limits of altruism; concepts of autonomy in Jewish medical ethics; and the epistemology of religious belief.

The Life and Thought of Hans Jonas

The Life and Thought of Hans Jonas PDF Author: Christian Wiese
Publisher: UPNE
ISBN: 9781584656388
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 300

Get Book Here

Book Description
An analysis of the Jewish background of an eminent philosopher

Human Nature & Jewish Thought

Human Nature & Jewish Thought PDF Author: Alan L. Mittleman
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400865786
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 233

Get Book Here

Book Description
What Jewish tradition can teach us about human dignity in a scientific age This book explores one of the great questions of our time: How can we preserve our sense of what it means to be a person while at the same time accepting what science tells us to be true—namely, that human nature is continuous with the rest of nature? What, in other words, does it mean to be a person in a world of things? Alan Mittleman shows how the Jewish tradition provides rich ways of understanding human nature and personhood that preserve human dignity and distinction in a world of neuroscience, evolutionary biology, biotechnology, and pervasive scientism. These ancient resources can speak to Jewish, non-Jewish, and secular readers alike. Science may tell us what we are, Mittleman says, but it cannot tell us who we are, how we should live, or why we matter. Traditional Jewish thought, in open-minded dialogue with contemporary scientific perspectives, can help us answer these questions. Mittleman shows how, using sources ranging across the Jewish tradition, from the Hebrew Bible and the Talmud to more than a millennium of Jewish philosophy. Among the many subjects the book addresses are sexuality, birth and death, violence and evil, moral agency, and politics and economics. Throughout, Mittleman demonstrates how Jewish tradition brings new perspectives to—and challenges many current assumptions about—these central aspects of human nature. A study of human nature in Jewish thought and an original contribution to Jewish philosophy, this is a book for anyone interested in what it means to be human in a scientific age.

Spinoza’s Challenge to Jewish Thought

Spinoza’s Challenge to Jewish Thought PDF Author: Daniel B. Schwartz
Publisher: Brandeis University Press
ISBN: 158465712X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 297

Get Book Here

Book Description
Arguably, no historical thinker has had as varied and fractious a reception within modern Judaism as Baruch (Benedict) Spinoza (1632–77), the seventeenth-century philosopher, pioneering biblical critic, and Jewish heretic from Amsterdam. Revered in many circles as the patron saint of secular Jewishness, he has also been branded as the worst traitor to the Jewish people in modern times. Jewish philosophy has cast Spinoza as marking a turning point between the old and the new, as a radicalizer of the medieval tradition and table setter for the modern. He has served as a perennial landmark and point of reference in the construction of modern Jewish identity. This volume brings together excerpts from central works in the Jewish response to Spinoza. True to the diversity of Spinoza’s Jewish reception, it features a mix of genres, from philosophical criticism to historical fiction, from tributes to diary entries, providing the reader with a sense of the overall historical development of Spinoza’s posthumous legacy.