Midrash VaYosha

Midrash VaYosha PDF Author: Rachel S. Mikva
Publisher: Mohr Siebeck
ISBN: 9783161510090
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 382

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Book Description
Rachel S. Mikva undertakes a close examination of Midrash vaYosha, a medieval rabbinic text which explicates the Song at the Sea (Ex 15:1-18) and the events of the exodus from Egypt leading up to that climactic moment. Relatively short midrashim focusing on a brief biblical narrative or theme were composed in large numbers during the medieval period, and their extant manuscripts are sufficient in number to demonstrate the great popularity of the genre. Based on early manuscripts, two different recensions are transcribed and translated with significant annotation exploring variants, parallels, exegetical significance and literary style. A thorough historical analysis suggests that the midrash was performed as explication of the Torah reading at a certain point in its development - part of the gradual attenuation of live Targum. As Midrash vaYosha leaves the synagogue, its narrative dimension grows tremendously, yielding significant insight into the development of medieval Jewish exegesis.

Midrash VaYosha

Midrash VaYosha PDF Author: Rachel S. Mikva
Publisher: Mohr Siebeck
ISBN: 9783161510090
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 382

Get Book Here

Book Description
Rachel S. Mikva undertakes a close examination of Midrash vaYosha, a medieval rabbinic text which explicates the Song at the Sea (Ex 15:1-18) and the events of the exodus from Egypt leading up to that climactic moment. Relatively short midrashim focusing on a brief biblical narrative or theme were composed in large numbers during the medieval period, and their extant manuscripts are sufficient in number to demonstrate the great popularity of the genre. Based on early manuscripts, two different recensions are transcribed and translated with significant annotation exploring variants, parallels, exegetical significance and literary style. A thorough historical analysis suggests that the midrash was performed as explication of the Torah reading at a certain point in its development - part of the gradual attenuation of live Targum. As Midrash vaYosha leaves the synagogue, its narrative dimension grows tremendously, yielding significant insight into the development of medieval Jewish exegesis.

Tree of Souls

Tree of Souls PDF Author: Howard Schwartz
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195327136
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 705

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Book Description
Drawing from the Bible, the Pseudepigrapha, the Talmud and Midrash, the kabbalistic literature, medieval folklore, Hasidic texts, and oral lore collected in the modern era, Schwartz has gathered together nearly 700 of the key Jewish myths. For each myth, he includes extensive commentary, revealing the source of the myth and explaining how it relates to other Jewish myths as well as to world literature --from publisher description

Jewish Polity and American Civil Society

Jewish Polity and American Civil Society PDF Author: Alan Mittleman
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780742521223
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 444

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Book Description
Jewish Polity and American Civil Society is a study of the civic and political engagements of American Jews as mediated by their communal and denominational institutions. The book explores how the various branches of the organized Jewish community seek to influence public affairs. Over the course of the last century, Jewish agencies and religious movements have tried to shape public debate and public policy on such issues as civil rights, church-state relations, and American foreign policy. The book sets the history of Jewish engagement in these areas into historical context; analyzes the motives, strategies, and tactics of various Jewish groups, and evaluates their successes and failures. The book also explores the underlying idea--the public philosophy--that informs American Jews' understanding of civic and political engagement.

Jewish Mystical Autobiographies

Jewish Mystical Autobiographies PDF Author: Morris M. Faierstein
Publisher: Paulist Press
ISBN: 9780809138760
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 388

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Book Description
"Paulist Press deserves credit for adding this new dimension to interfaith dialogue." The Jewish Spectator In this remarkable volume in the Classics of Western Spirituality(TM) are the mystical autobiographies-unusual in themselves for the Jewish tradition-of two influential Jewish thinkers, Rabbi Hayyim Vital and Rabbi Yizhak Isaac Safrin of Komarno. Now translated for the first time in English, these texts will capture the attention of historians, theologians, and anyone studying Judaism. Rabbi Hayyim Vital (1542-1620) was the foremost disciple of R. Isaac Luria, one of the most important mystics in 16th century Judaism and founder of the major school of mysticism known as Lurianic kabbalah. Vital was the most influential transmitter of Luria's teachings, and the author of a full-fledged mystical autobiography called The Book of Visions. Vital saw himself as the reincarnation of many of the important figures in Jewish history associated with messianic hopes and expectations. The second text in this volume, The Book of Secrets, is by Rabbi Yizak Isaac Safrim of Komarno (1806-1874), an important Hasidic master. Like Vital, he saw himself as a potential messianic figure who had direct access to the mysteries of heaven. The Book of Secrets is divided into two parts. The first part, The Book of Visions, modeled on Vital's work, consists of incidents in his life and visionary experiences. The second part, the Deeds of the Lord, contains stories about the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism. +

Tradition and the Formation of the Talmud

Tradition and the Formation of the Talmud PDF Author: Moulie Vidas
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 069117086X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
Tradition and the Formation of the Talmud offers a new perspective on perhaps the most important religious text of the Jewish tradition. It is widely recognized that the creators of the Talmud innovatively interpreted and changed the older traditions on which they drew. Nevertheless, it has been assumed that the ancient rabbis were committed to maintaining continuity with the past. Moulie Vidas argues on the contrary that structural features of the Talmud were designed to produce a discontinuity with tradition, and that this discontinuity was part and parcel of the rabbis' self-conception. Both this self-conception and these structural features were part of a debate within and beyond the Jewish community about the transmission of tradition. Focusing on the Babylonian Talmud, produced in the rabbinic academies of late ancient Mesopotamia, Vidas analyzes key passages to show how the Talmud's creators contrasted their own voice with that of their predecessors. He also examines Zoroastrian, Christian, and mystical Jewish sources to reconstruct the debates and wide-ranging conversations that shaped the Talmud's literary and intellectual character.

Rewriting Ancient Jewish History

Rewriting Ancient Jewish History PDF Author: Amram Tropper
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317247086
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 229

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Book Description
Half a century ago, the primary contours of the history of the Jews in Roman times were not subject to much debate. This standard account collapsed, however, when a handful of insights undermined the traditional historical method, the method long enlisted by historians for eliciting facts from sources. In response to these insights, a new historical method gradually emerged. Rewriting Ancient Jewish History critiques the traditional historical method and makes a case for the new one, illustrating how to write anew ancient Jewish history. At the heart of the traditional historical method lie three fundamental presumptions. The traditional historical method regularly presumes that multiple versions of a text or tradition are equally authentic; it presumes that many ancient Jewish sources are the products of largely immanent forces of cloistered Jewish communities; and, barring any local grounds for suspicion, it presumes that most ancient Jewish texts faithfully reflect their sources and reliably recount events. Rewriting Ancient Jewish History unfurls the failings of this approach; it promotes the new historical method which circumvents the flawed traditional presumptions while plotting anew the limits of rational argumentation in historical inquiry. This crucial reappraisal is a must-read for students of Jewish and Roman history alike, and a fascinating case-study in how historians should approach their ancient sources.

Nationalism, War and Jewish Education

Nationalism, War and Jewish Education PDF Author: David Aberbach
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429779933
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
Nationalism, War and Jewish Education explores historical circumstances leading to the emergence of a Jewish religious school system lasting to modern times and the process by which this system was broken down and adapted in secular form as Jewish nationalism grew in the 19th and early 20th centuries. In the Roman period, education became an essential part of rabbinic pacifist accommodation following Jewish defeats, while in the modern period, secular education was associated with nationalism and increasing militancy of emerging states. In both periods there was a revival of Hebrew and the creation of an educational system based on Hebrew texts. Both revivals were responses to anti-Semitism, which pushed large numbers of Jews away from assimilation into the dominant culture to a renewed Jewish national identity. The book highlights the centrifugal and centripetal shifts in Jewish identity, from messianic militarism to pacifism and back. It shows how changes in Jewish education accompanied these shifts. While drawing on historical scholarship for background, this book is essentially a literary study, showing how literary changes at different times and places reflect historical, socio-psychological, economic and political change. Nationalism, War and Jewish Education is original in showing how ancient Jewish education affected modern Jewish society, therefore it is a valuable resource for students and researchers interested in Jewish history and literature, education, development studies and nationalism.

Credit and Usury in Jewish Society in the Mishnah and Talmud

Credit and Usury in Jewish Society in the Mishnah and Talmud PDF Author: Ben Zion Rosenfeld
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004681965
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
Credit is the oxygen of every society. In many cases we wonder why the rabbis prohibit certain business credit transactions considering them usury. The writer uses literary and epigraphic sources to decipher the rabbinic approach. This book shows how rabbinic legislation innovatively expand the Torah prohibition of usury in loans to all fields of credit. It is a pioneering inquiry regarding rabbinic literature compiled under Roman and Sasanid rule, helping to fill the void in research concerning credit. It also distinguishes various kinds of credit differentiating credit of money for money, or products, exposing the ramifications of the rabbinic legislation.

The Origins of Midrash: From Teaching to Text

The Origins of Midrash: From Teaching to Text PDF Author: Paul D. Mandel
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004336885
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 423

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Book Description
In The Origins of Midrash: From Teaching to Text, Paul Mandel presents a comprehensive study of the words darash and midrash from the Bible until the early rabbinic periods (3rd century CE). In contrast to current understandings in which the words are identified with modes of analysis of the biblical text, Mandel claims that they refer to instruction in law and not to an interpretation of text. Mandel traces the use of these words as they are associated with the scribe (sofer), the doresh ha-torah in the Dead Sea scrolls, the “exegetes of the laws” in the writings of Josephus and the rabbinic “sage” (ḥakham), showing the development of the uses of midrash as a form of instruction throughout these periods.

Jewish Writings of the Second Temple Period

Jewish Writings of the Second Temple Period PDF Author: Michael E. Stone
Publisher: Fortress Press
ISBN: 9781451414653
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 736

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Book Description
This volume describes that part of the rich literary production of ancient Judaism which was not contained in the Hebrew Bible nor in rabbinic literature. These writings originated in the Second Temple period, which proved highly creative in the midst of strong external influences and internal movements.Prime example are the Dead Sea Scrolls, documents of an extremely separatist sect. Their discovery in 1947 revolutionized our understanding of Second Temple Judaism and its literature. The scrolls appear more or less related in spirit to a group of writings trasmitted by Christianity and known as the Pseudepigrapha. Yet another group are the Apocrypha, closely related to later biblical writings and incorporated within the Greek Old Testament. Finally, the encounter with Greek culture is documented by Jewish authors writing in Greek, notably Philo and Josephus.After a historical outline which sets the stage, the chapters of this book describe and analyse these documents. Selective bibliographies for further reading conclude the chapters.