"Sefer Yeṣirah" and Its Contexts

Author: Tzahi Weiss
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812249909
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
In "Sefer Yeṣirah" and Its Contexts, Tzahi Weiss explores anew the contested history of Sefer Yeṣirah, in the process extending our knowledge of Jewish intellectual traditions excluded from rabbinic canon.

"Sefer Yeṣirah" and Its Contexts

Author: Tzahi Weiss
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812249909
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 208

Get Book Here

Book Description
In "Sefer Yeṣirah" and Its Contexts, Tzahi Weiss explores anew the contested history of Sefer Yeṣirah, in the process extending our knowledge of Jewish intellectual traditions excluded from rabbinic canon.

The Cambridge Companion to Jewish Theology

The Cambridge Companion to Jewish Theology PDF Author: Steven Kepnes
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108415431
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 513

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Book Description
A comprehensive review of the entire tradition of Jewish Theology from the Bible to the present from leading world scholars.

Essays on Women in Western Esotericism

Essays on Women in Western Esotericism PDF Author: Amy Hale
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030768899
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 401

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Book Description
This book is the first collection to feature histories of women in Western Esotericism while also highlighting women’s scholarship. In addition to providing a critical examination of important and under researched figures in the history of Western Esotericism, these fifteen essays also contribute to current debates in the study of esotericism about the very nature of the field itself. The chapters are divided into four thematic sections that address current topics in the study of esotericism: race and othering, femininity, power and leadership and embodiment. This collection not only adds important voices to the story of Western Esotericism, it hopes to change the way the story is told.

Israel's 70th Anniversary: Insights and Perspectives

Israel's 70th Anniversary: Insights and Perspectives PDF Author: Regina Polak
Publisher: V&R Unipress
ISBN: 3847012061
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 203

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Book Description
The aim of the volume is to offer interdisciplinary insights unknown to many into the interior of the religious, cultural and political laboratory that is Israel. Europe can learn a lot from Israel: The handling of religious diversity within the country; the meaning of the Hebrew language; the integration of more than a million Jewish immigrants; the development of a dynamic economy; a flourishing education and science system; a rich culture in the field of literature and above all film; and last but not least the lively, constant and conflictual struggle for democracy. Additionally, the question of Israel-related anti-Semitism is debated from the perspective of Jewish studies, social sciences and Catholic theology.

Images of Torah: From the Second-Temple Period to the Middle Ages

Images of Torah: From the Second-Temple Period to the Middle Ages PDF Author: Jeong Mun. Heo
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004543228
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 462

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Book Description
This book explores the way that the Torah was appreciated and interpreted as a text and symbol in Christian and Jewish sources from the Second Temple period through the Middle Ages. It tracks the development and complex interactions of three images of Torah— “God-like,” “Angelic,” and “Messianic”— which are found in late-antique Jewish and Christian materials as well as in medieval kabbalistic and Jewish philosophic sources. It provides a unique template for tracing the development of theological ideas related to the images of Torah and offers a sophisticated and innovative analysis of the relationship between mystical experience, theology, and phenomenology.

Kabbalah in Print

Kabbalah in Print PDF Author: Andrea Gondos
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438479735
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
Demonstrates the impact of print culture on the spread of Jewish mysticism, focusing on Kabbalistic study guides by R. Yissakhar Baer of seventeenth-century Prague. How did Jewish mysticism go from arcane knowledge to popular spirituality? Kabbalah in Print examines the cultural impact of printing on the popularization, circulation, and transmission of Kabbalah in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The Zohar, in particular, generated a large secondary literature of study guides and reference works that aimed to ease the linguistic and conceptual challenges of the text. The arrival of printed classics of Kabbalah was soon followed by the appearance of new literary genres—anthologies, digests, lexicons, and other learning aids—that mediated mystical primary sources to a community of readers not versed in this lore. A detailed investigation of the four works by R. Yissakhar Baer (ca.1580–ca.1629) of Prague sheds light on the literary strategies, pedagogic concerns, and religious motivations of secondary elites, a new cadre of authors empowered by the opportunities that printing opened up. Andrea Gondos highlights shifting intellectual and cultural boundaries in the early modern period, when the transmission of Kabbalah became a meeting point connecting various strata of Jewish society as well as Jewish and Christian intellectuals. Andrea Gondos is Emmy Noether Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute of Jewish Studies at Free University Berlin, Germany. She is the coeditor (with Daniel Maoz) of From Antiquity to the Postmodern World: Contemporary Jewish Studies in Canada.

Kabbalah and Sex Magic

Kabbalah and Sex Magic PDF Author: Marla Segol
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271091053
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 311

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Book Description
In this provocative book, Marla Segol explores the development of the kabbalistic cosmology underlying Western sex magic. Drawing extensively on Jewish myth and ritual, Segol tells the powerful story of the relationship between the divine and the human body in late antique Jewish esotericism, in medieval kabbalah, and in New Age ritual practice. Kabbalah and Sex Magic traces the evolution of a Hebrew microcosm that models the powerful interaction of human and divine bodies at the heart of both kabbalah and some forms of Western sex magic. Focusing on Jewish esoteric and medical sources from the fifth to the twelfth century from Byzantium, Persia, Iberia, and southern France, Segol argues that in its fully developed medieval form, kabbalah operated by ritualizing a mythos of divine creation by means of sexual reproduction. She situates in cultural and historical context the emergence of Jewish cosmological models for conceptualizing both human and divine bodies and the interactions between them, arguing that all these sources position the body and its senses as the locus of culture and the means of reproducing it. Segol explores the rituals acting on these models, attending especially to their inherent erotic power, and ties these to contemporary Western sex magic, showing that such rituals have a continuing life. Asking questions about its cosmology, myths, and rituals, Segol poses even larger questions about the history of kabbalah, the changing conceptions of the human relation to the divine, and even the nature of religious innovation itself. This groundbreaking book will appeal to students and scholars of Jewish studies, religion, sexuality, and magic.

Fragile Finitude

Fragile Finitude PDF Author: Michael Fishbane
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022676429X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 199

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Book Description
The world we engage with is a vibrant collage brought to consciousness by language and our creative imagination. It is through the symbolic forms of language that the human world of value is revealed—this is where religious scholar Michael Fishbane dwells in his latest contribution to Jewish thought. In Fragile Finitude, Fishbane clears new ground for a theological life through a novel reinterpretation of the Book of Job. On this basis, he offers a contemporary engagement with the four classical types of Jewish Scriptural exegesis. The first focuses on worldly experience, the second on communal forms of practice and thought in the rabbinical tradition, the third on personal development, and the fourth on transcendent, cosmic orientations. Through these four modes, Fishbane manages to transform Jewish theology from within, at once reinvigorating a long tradition and moving beyond it. What he offers is nothing short of a way to reorient our lives in relation to the divine and our fellow humans. Written from within the Jewish tradition, Fragile Finitude is intended for readers across the religious spectrum.

Theatre and Judaism

Theatre and Judaism PDF Author: Yair Lipshitz
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350316261
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 82

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Book Description
This new title in the Theatre & series explores the intersections between theatre and Judaism, offering a uniquely nuanced approach as a counterpart to the more common discourse surrounding Jewish theatre. Arguing that theatre allows for a subtle engagement with religious heritage that does not easily fall into a religious/secular dichotomy, it examines the ways in which Jewish tradition lends itself to theatrical performance. With rigorous scholarship and a fresh perspective, Theatre and Judaism promotes a transnational and comparative approach, considering Judaism as a religious-cultural tradition rather than focusing on a particular national context. Exciting and thought-provoking, this is the perfect companion for undergraduate and postgraduate students of theatre or religious studies.

Neuromorphic Engineering

Neuromorphic Engineering PDF Author: Elishai Ezra Tsur
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1000421325
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
The brain is not a glorified digital computer. It does not store information in registers, and it does not mathematically transform mental representations to establish perception or behavior. The brain cannot be downloaded to a computer to provide immortality, nor can it destroy the world by having its emerged consciousness traveling in cyberspace. However, studying the brain's core computation architecture can inspire scientists, computer architects, and algorithm designers to think fundamentally differently about their craft. Neuromorphic engineers have the ultimate goal of realizing machines with some aspects of cognitive intelligence. They aspire to design computing architectures that could surpass existing digital von Neumann-based computing architectures' performance. In that sense, brain research bears the promise of a new computing paradigm. As part of a complete cognitive hardware and software ecosystem, neuromorphic engineering opens new frontiers for neuro-robotics, artificial intelligence, and supercomputing applications. This book will present neuromorphic engineering from three perspectives: the scientist, the computer architect, and the algorithm designer. We will zoom in and out of the different disciplines, allowing readers with diverse backgrounds to understand and appreciate the field. Overall, the book will cover the basics of neuronal modeling, neuromorphic circuits, neural architectures, event-based communication, and the neural engineering framework. Readers will have the opportunity to understand the different views over the inherently multidisciplinary field of neuromorphic engineering.