Jewish Ethics and Jewish Mysticism in Sefer Ha-yashar

Jewish Ethics and Jewish Mysticism in Sefer Ha-yashar PDF Author: Shimon Shokek
Publisher: Edwin Mellen Press
ISBN:
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
It deThis is a survey of the manuscripts and printed editions of Sefer Ha-Yashar, one of the most complex spiritual and religious phenomena in 13th-century Judaism, in which ethics merges with mysticism. It deals with the concept of God, creation and problems of evil, the illustration of man and his soul, and the theme of love and fear of God and Devekut in Sefer Ha-Yashar."

Jewish Ethics and Jewish Mysticism in Sefer Ha-yashar

Jewish Ethics and Jewish Mysticism in Sefer Ha-yashar PDF Author: Shimon Shokek
Publisher: Edwin Mellen Press
ISBN:
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 308

Get Book Here

Book Description
It deThis is a survey of the manuscripts and printed editions of Sefer Ha-Yashar, one of the most complex spiritual and religious phenomena in 13th-century Judaism, in which ethics merges with mysticism. It deals with the concept of God, creation and problems of evil, the illustration of man and his soul, and the theme of love and fear of God and Devekut in Sefer Ha-Yashar."

Kabbalah and the Art of Being

Kabbalah and the Art of Being PDF Author: Shimon Shokek
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317797388
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
This new approach introduces Kabbalah as a spiritual Jewish way of living, a practical wisdom for living, creativity and well being, and not merely a religious phenomenon or esoteric theology. Professor Shokek suggests that the Kabbalistic theme of Creation is the central ingredient in the spiritual teachings of Jewish mysticism. He skilfully reveals the core questions that emerge from the wisdom of the Jewish sages, opening up a lively avenue of debate in this increasingly popular area of study.

Venturing Beyond - Law and Morality in Kabbalistic Mysticism

Venturing Beyond - Law and Morality in Kabbalistic Mysticism PDF Author: Elliot R. Wolfson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199277796
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
"Venturing Beyond - Law and Morality in Kabbalistic Mysticism is an investigation of the relationship of the mystical and moral viewed through the prism of the kabbalistic tradition. Elliot R. Wolfson's analysis focuses in particular on the multi-layered corpus of Zohar, the major sourcebook of theosophic symbolism that has informed the variegated evolution of kabbalastic thought and practice."--BOOK JACKET.

The Art of Conversion

The Art of Conversion PDF Author: Harvey J. Hames
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9789004117150
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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Book Description
This book discusses Ramon Llull (ca. 1232-1316), the Christian missionary, philosopher and mystic, his relations with Jewish contemporaries, and how he integrated Jewish mystical teachings (Kabbalah) into his thought system so as to persuade the Jews to convert. Issues dealt with include Llull's attitude towards the Jews, his knowledge of Kabbalah, his theories regarding the Trinity and Incarnation (the Art), and the impact of his ideas on the Jewish community. The book challenges conventional scholarly opinion regarding Christian knowledge of contemporary Jewish thought and questions the assumption that Christians did not know or use Kabbalah before the Renaissance. Further, it suggests that Lull was well aware of ongoing intellectual and religious controversies within the Jewish community, as well as being the first Christian to acknowledge and appreciate Kabbalah as a tool for conversion.

The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Ethics and Morality

The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Ethics and Morality PDF Author: Elliot N. Dorff
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190608382
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 539

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Book Description
For thousands of years the Jewish tradition has been a source of moral guidance, for Jews and non-Jews alike. As the essays in this volume show, the theologians and practitioners of Judaism have a long history of wrestling with moral questions, responding to them in an open, argumentative mode that reveals the strengths and weaknesses of all sides of a question. The Jewish tradition also offers guidance for moral conduct by individuals, communities, and countries and shows how to motivate people to do the good and right thing. The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Ethics and Morality is a collection of original essays addressing these topics--historical and contemporary, as well as philosophical and practical--by leading scholars from around the world. The first section of the volume describes the history of the Jewish tradition's moral thought, from the Bible to contemporary Jewish approaches. The second part includes chapters on specific fields in ethics, including the ethics of medicine, business, sex, speech, politics, war, and the environment.

Religion, Text, and Society in Medieval Spain and Northern Europe

Religion, Text, and Society in Medieval Spain and Northern Europe PDF Author: J. N. Hillgarth
Publisher: PIMS
ISBN: 9780888448163
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 398

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Book Description


From Something to Nothing

From Something to Nothing PDF Author: Harry Fox
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1527535037
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 562

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Book Description
Jewish mysticism approaches God as no-thing or nothing, reflecting Judaism’s traditional identification of God as incorporeal. Whereas technical philosophical language often employed to discuss Jewish mysticism has a tendency to ward off otherwise interested readers, this study sufficiently breaks down the technical language of Jewish mysticism in its various expressions to allow a beginner to benefit from what may otherwise be indescribable and only approached by consideration of what is not rather than what is. Integral to the title, From Something to Nothing, is the concept that God cannot be something, because that would be restricting, so God is simply no-thing. Ironically, the conventional religious expression for the biblical notion of creation is “something from nothing”, whereas the title of this volume is its precise opposite, which may at first seem to be illogical – creation in reverse. However, in a volume dedicated to various deliberations on magic and mysticism, the ultimate reality may receive expression as nothingness, that is, no-thingness, no quality associated with things. What adds to our difficulty today is that nothingness is inextricably linked with silence. Is silence also an element or indication of an ultimate reality or its absence? Or is it merely the reflection of nothing whatsoever? This is at the heart of modern debates between atheists and believers. Believers feel that even this silence speaks to this ultimate reality, whereas atheists claim that if you cannot show it, then you do not know it. In other words, believers are victims of their own wishful thinking. From Something to Nothing memorializes Canadian mystic and scholar Zalman Schachter Shalomi, z”l, engaging in particular aspects that he addressed at some phase of his colourful and erudite life, providing the reader with a broad spectrum of both phenomenological and intellectual topics.

A Remembrance of His Wonders

A Remembrance of His Wonders PDF Author: David I. Shyovitz
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812293975
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 349

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Book Description
The twelfth and thirteenth centuries witnessed an explosion of Christian interest in the meaning and workings of the natural world—a "discovery of nature" that profoundly reshaped the intellectual currents and spiritual contours of European society—yet to all appearances, the Jews of medieval northern Europe (Ashkenaz) were oblivious to the shifts reshaping their surrounding culture. Scholars have long assumed that rather than exploring or contemplating the natural world, the Jews of medieval Ashkenaz were preoccupied solely with the supernatural and otherworldly: magic and mysticism, demonology and divination, as well as the zombies, werewolves, dragons, flying camels, and other monstrous and wondrous creatures that destabilized any pretense of a consistent and encompassing natural order. In A Remembrance of His Wonders, David I. Shyovitz disputes this long-standing and far-reaching consensus. Analyzing a wide array of neglected Ashkenazic writings on the natural world in general, and the human body in particular, Shyovitz shows how Jews in Ashkenaz integrated regnant scientific, magical, and mystical currents into a sophisticated exploration of the boundaries between nature and the supernatural. Ashkenazic beliefs and practices that have often been seen as signs of credulity and superstition in fact mirrored—and drew upon—contemporaneous Christian debates over the relationship between God and the natural world. In charting these parallels between Jewish and Christian thought, Shyovitz focuses especially upon the mediating role of polemical texts and encounters that served as mechanisms for the transmission of religious doctrines, scientific facts, and cultural mores. Medieval Jews' preoccupation with the apparently "supernatural" reflected neither ignorance nor intellectual isolation but rather a determined effort to understand nature's inner workings and outer limits and to integrate and interrogate the theologies and ideologies of the broader European Christian society.

Jewish Ethical Values

Jewish Ethical Values PDF Author: Dr. Seymour J. Cohen
Publisher: Turner Publishing Company
ISBN: 1580238459
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 357

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Book Description
With insightful commentary, passion and expertise, Rabbis Sherwin and Cohen guide us through selections from classic Jewish ethical literature, offering clear explanations of the historic context of each writing and thoughtful applications of their wisdom on the problems we grapple with today.

Language, Eros, Being

Language, Eros, Being PDF Author: Elliot R. Wolfson
Publisher: Fordham Univ Press
ISBN: 0823224201
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 1256

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Book Description
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."-Speculum