The Enlightenment period and the subsequent emancipation process marked the beginning of a new phase of change and transformation for European Jews. The idea of change that is intended to be integrated with the modern world has also manifested itself in the religious field. In the 19th century, some approaches that sought harmony with modernity also emerged between Reform Judaism and the traditional religious understanding, which represented two opposite poles while adhering to the basic teachings of the rabbinic tradition. German rabbi Azriel Hildesheimer (1820-1899) is among those who put forward a new vision in this direction. Rabbiner-Seminar Fuer Das Orthodoxe Judentum, founded under his leadership in Berlin, is the first Orthodox educational institution based on Wissenschaft des Judentums. Although he was subjected to intense criticism from the traditional wing during his time, Hildesheimer’s influence can be felt considerably in the context of the Orthodox tradition centred on Yeshiva University in the United States. With his attempt to provide open-mindedness to traditional religious thought, Hildesheimer was one of the few key f igures who shaped Modern Orthodox (Neo-Orthodox) Judaism. This article examines the nature, dimensions, and effects of Hildesheimer’s idea of modernising Orthodoxy.
In the original English version of I and Thou (1937) and in a postscript to the second English edition (1958), Martin Buber assured his readers that an I–Thou relationship is possible between a person and a tree. Considering the importance of dialogue in that form of relationship, commentators have often looked for ways to bypass the tree’s inability to speak in reconceptualising the I–Thou relationship. This article looks instead at the importance of the person’s ability to hear what trees may be telling us as a way of understanding Buber’s point. A story found in Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning (1946) is used as an illustration.
The reviewed Jewish Philosophy in an Analytic Age is a unique collection of essays that combine analytical philosophy to the Jewish religion. Analytical approach has been widely applied to Christianity since the 1980s and marked the legitimization of analytical philosophy of religion. This turn is primarily associated with the names of Alvin Plantinga, Richard Swinburne and others. At the same time the texts by Jewish religious philosophers are rarely, if ever, considered through the prism of analytical philosophy of religion and analytical theology. This collection of essays is not only valuable because of its exceptional nature: the authors of the essays touch upon important topics of religious philosophy, such as the correlation of the freedom of choice and a divine knowledge of the future, the epistemological distinction of faith and belief, moral justification for lying, the problem of evil, etc. The extensive Discussion part, written by Tzvi Novick from the Theology Department of the University of Notre Dame, presents the author’s attitude towards the approach taken in the book. Readers are encouraged to think of the very essence of Jewish philosophy and possibly review its understanding. The analytical approach found in the essays sometimes transcends the boundaries of the analytical philosophy of religion, contributes to the modernization of Jewish religious and philosophical works, and introduces these texts to the domain of modern analytical philosophy. The latter is achieved through analytical generalization of Jewish texts, making them universal. The abovementioned features make the book worth reading by scholars, researches, and all those interested in the modern philosophy and the study of Jewish religion.
Nel 1431 Mošeh de Bonavoglia, giudice generale delle comunità ebraiche siciliane, inoltrava una supplica ad Alfonso il Magnanimo affinché mettesse fine a quello che per gli ufficiali del re era ormai diventato un costume: costringere gli ebrei a eseguire le pene capitali e corporali comminate dai tribunali ai danni di cristiani. Qual era stata l’origine di tale costume – il quale, non precedentemente attestato, rimase in voga fino all’espulsione? L’articolo parte da una rassegna critica dei documenti che attestano l’impiego di ebrei come manigoldi – prima nell’impero bizantino e nell’impero bulgaro e, più tardi, nella Corfù angioina, nella Creta veneziana, in Sicilia, a Modone, a Corone e a Napoli – e della letteratura secondaria sul tema. L’attenzione si sposta quindi su Candia, dove tra il 1389 e il 1527 è documentato un impiego pressoché sistematico di manigoldi ebrei (la maggioranza dei quali siciliani). È convinzione invalsa che la costrizione imposta agli ebrei di ricoprire l’incarico di manigoldi fosse un retaggio dell’impero bizantino. Nell’impero bizantino, però, tale costrizione è attestata con estrema sporadicità. Qualunque sia stata l’origine dell’impiego di ebrei come manigoldi, le attestazioni più antiche del loro impiego sistematico in questo ruolo provengono tutte da colonie latine nate su territori precedentemente bizantini. Tale impiego sistematico possa essere interpretato come indizio della resistenza opposta dalla popolazione autoctona greca al potere veneziano e angioino e potrebbe essere stato introdotto in Sicilia soltanto in un secondo momento.
Arthur de Barros Basto (Amarante, 1887–1961), known as the “Apostle of the Marranos” and the “Portuguese Dreyfus”, returned to Judaism in 1920. After centuries of repression, it could flourish in the young Republic identically to every religion. But flourishing meant resuscitating. Whereas in the 1930’s Sionism was spreading in the European political and intellectual circles, Barros Basto committed into resuscitating Israel in his own country. He became internationally famous, gaining means and strength to achieve his mission, turning a public figure that this paper aims at shaping through contemporary testimonies and travel narratives.
The concept of virtue was of great interest and importance for H. Cohen. In the interpretation of this concept in his latest work “Religion of reason from the sources of Judaism” the most important concepts of this work were brought in the focus: the specificity of definition of what is the religion of reason; understanding of the uniqueness of God; correlation; messianism. For Cohen, a single system of virtues presupposes a single and unique ethics and correlates with the idea of the unity of humanity. The last concept, in his opinion, maturated in the fold of monotheism. Humanity is one, because all people are creations of the unique God. “Religion of reason” treats of the common universal virtues. In the religion of reason, the idea of God and morality are inextricably linked. Cohen rejects metaphysical speculation about the nature of God, about the attributes of God inherent in himself. The religion of the mind speaks of God only in correlation with man. God is a moral ideal and reveals himself to man by giving him moral commandments. Morality connects man and God, and this connection is revealed in detail by Cohen in the theme of virtues. Understanding God as Truth is important for the disclosure of this topic. The corresponding virtue for a person is faithfulness to truth, or truthfulness. In addition to truthfulness in the usual sense, for Cohen, faithfulness to truth requires correct worship of God. The correlation culminates in the idea of messianism, which is interpreted by Cohen as an endless movement of a whole humanity to the social justice.
This book reveals the landscape of scripture in an era prior to the crystallization of the Tanakh, the Jewish Bible, and before the canonization of the Christian Bible. Most accounts of the formation of the Hebrew Bible trace the origins of scripture through source-critical excavation of the archaeological “tell” of the Bible or the text-critical analysis of the scribal hand on manuscripts, but the discoveries in the Dead Sea Scrolls have transformed our understanding of scripture formation. The book focuses not on the putative origins and closure of the Bible but on the reasons scriptures remained open, with pluriform growth in the Hellenistic-Roman period. Drawing on new methods from cognitive neuroscience and the social sciences as well as traditional philological and literary analysis, the book argues that the key to understanding the formation of scripture is the widespread practice of individual and communal prayer in early Judaism. The figure of the teacher as a learned and pious sage capable of interpreting and embodying the tradition is central to understanding this revelatory phenomenon. The volume considers the entwinement of prayer and scriptural formation in five books reflecting the diversity of early Judaism: Ben Sira, Daniel, Jeremiah/Baruch, 2 Corinthians, and the Qumran Hodayot (Thanksgiving Hymns). While not a complete taxonomy of scripture formation, the book illuminates performative dynamics that have been largely ignored as well as the generative role of interpretive tradition in understanding how the Bible came to be.
This book comes at a very advantageous time, for interfaith encounters have
become part of a larger conversation in academic and non-academic circles.
Journals and conferences have added the dimension of how to understand the
“other” and create dialogue in many innovative ways. Islamic and Jewish
Legal Reasoning: Encountering Our Legal Other is precisely the type of text
and rigorous academic guide to lead us at a time when so many religious laws
are misunderstood – especially between Jews and Muslims.
The authors ask some questions: “Can the traditions of Judaism and Islam
be read together through a legal religious lens without always having a common
ground?” and “Can dialogue precipitate a philosophical framework that
can demonstrate self-critical thought and still be engaged with the ‘Other’?”
More importantly, in each section ask the authors some core questions about
religion and law in order to show why the modern preoccupation with religious
law is so relevant. In addition, through their methodological legal analysis,
they at times demonstrate why religious law is irrelevant. The scholars
featured this book are meticulous, thought-provoking, and timely in terms of
their significant lines of questioning.
The book is unique in its conception, for Anver M. Emon and the contributors’
organic approach makes it more accessible and, at the same time, academically
rigorous. The book emerged from workshops and was “developed
further when Emon went to Cambridge University to join Gibbs and others in
the Scriptural Reasoning project, where scholars read the scriptural texts of
multiple traditions with scholars from those different traditions” (p. xi). Scriptural
reasoning allows one to read another’s scriptures in a way that allows for
personal readings and reactions to one another’s sacred text, an approach that
allows for “recognizing their own otherness to their own respective traditions”
(p. xxiii).
Islamic and Jewish Legal Reasoning opens up deeply complex and glaring
issues of interpretation, authority of interpretation, and the historical conditions
of reading sacred text, especially for religious law. In the first chapter,
“Assuming Power: Judges, Imagined Authorities, and the Quotidian,” Rumee
Ahmed and Aryeh Cohen introduce us to this complex problem of authority
and complex phenomenon through legal schools of thought in both traditions.
The question of God as authority is crucial, as the authors ask, almost in a ...
BRILL Phone (NL) +31 (0)71-53 53 500 Phone (US) +1-617-263-2323 Email: marketing@brill.com It is remarkable that Judaism could develop given the domination by Rome in Palestine over the centuries. Smallwood traces Judaism's constantly shifting political, religious, and geographical boundaries under Roman rule from Pompey to Diocletian, that is, from the first century BCE through the third century CE. From a long-standing nationalistic tradition that was a tolerated sect under a pagan ruler, Judaism becomes, over time, a threat that needs to be repressed and confined against a now-Christian empire. This work examines the galvanizing forces that shaped and defined Judaism as we have come to know it.