The Pensées is simply the compelling "Thoughts" of mathematician, physicist, and religious thinker Blaise Pascal. Originally intending to publish a book defending Christianity, Pascal died before he could complete it. The thoughts and ideas for his book were collected and compiled, posthumously, and then published as the Pensées. Pascal's thoughts are as powerful as they are comprehensive. He discusses with great wonder and beauty the human condition, the incarnation, God, the meaning of life, revelation, and the paradoxes of Christianity. He passionately argues for the Christian faith, using both argumentation and his famous "Wager." His ideas and arguments are sometimes developed and intricate, at other times, abrupt and mysterious.

Sefer B'rit ha-Menuḥa is an anonymous Kabbalistic book from the late 13th century or the beginning of the 14th century. The content of the book is best described by the alternative name - "The Book of Lights," given to it due to its central descriptions of the journeys of Israel in the desert, and the images of the vowels of the Name of God, that are portrayed as journeys of divine lights. The treatise describes the complete set of divine theosophical and angelologic powers in a coherent system, in order to relate and unite each name of an angel with its source, and to allow magic acts by the application of the full cosmological and divine unity. This eclectic critical annotated edition provides, for the first time, a clear and coherent text from the book's forty four manuscripts and eight previous prints (from 1648 till recent), presents supplements and relics of the book from additional manuscripts, along with an early treatise by the same unknown author - Sefer ha-Gevura (Book of Enhancement) .

Pygmalion was claimed by Shaw to be a didactic drama about phonetics, and its antiheroic hero, Henry Higgins, is a phonetician, but the play is a humane comedy about love and the English class system. The play is about the training Higgins gives to a Cockney flower girl to enable her to pass as a lady and is also about the repercussions of the experiment’s success.

Restorative justice is a social Mechanism used to replace or complement the criminal, legal process. It is designed to bring together offenders and victims, to meet in a safe and respectful environment in order to discuss the crime, the pain and suffering that it entailed - and look together for ways to repair these harms. Restorative Justice Conferences operate under state supervision and control. For over twenty years, restorative justice conferences have been practiced in Israel. Changes in the Israeli Youth Criminal Law have increased the number of such offender-victim conferences in recent years . Recent reforms in adult criminal justice law are also likely to encourage greater use of restorative justice conferences in cases of crimes conducted by adult, confessing offenders. Restorative justice theory and practices have facilitated and encouraged the emergence of Restorative Discourse programs. Such developments are important as they facilitate effective discussions and decision making among the different, sometime conflicting groups in Israel. Furthermore, restorative discourse promotes understanding between these groups and local and national authorities. Restorative Discourse enables people to discuss their exigencies, their wishes and preferences not only among themselves but with government agencies and officials as well. Such discourse is helpful and effective in improving the quality of life of individuals and communities in Israel. From Wrongdoing to Righting the Wrong is the first book addressing theoretical and practical aspects of Restorative Justice and Restorative Discourse in a unique Middle East context. The different chapters in this book were written by prominent scholars, practitioners and professionals who lead restorative justice and discourse programs in Israel.

The Martin Buber Society of Fellows explores how individuals, groups, and societies in a variety of cultural contexts, political settings, and time periods respond to the perpetration of injustices. Approaching the concepts of revenge, retribution, and reconciliation from interdisciplinary and cross-cultural perspectives, it opens a fruitful discussion among scholars of history, literature, psychology, biology, political science, communications, sociology, religious studies, law, and philosophy. The book investigates how social groups reach and maintain an equilibrium between an emotional thirst for an immediate and unmediated response to injustices and societies’ need to adjudicate measures and sanctions that seem proportional to the breech of justice. This volume is the third in the Martin Buber Society of Fellows Notebook Series.

The character of the Epistle to the Hebrews differs greatly from all other letters included in the New Testament. It is actually a sermon interpreting numerous biblical verses with the aim to substantiate its unique claim for Jesus' heavenly priesthood. The reliance on biblical proof-texts enables the writer to establish his innovative claims vis-a-vis both the broader Jewish tradition and the competing outlooks existing within the Jesus movement itself. The eight conversations in the book discuss the Epistle's interpretative strategies in order to unearth the worldview of its author and the nature of its target audience.

Samuel b. Judah ibn Tibbon (c. 1165-1232) is most famous for his translation of Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed into Hebrew. He translated other writings as well and produced original works of philosophy and biblical exegesis. This book makes available for the first time ever Ibn Tibbon’s Perush Qohelet, a sprawling adaptation of Maimonides’ method of exegesis to the complete verse-by-verse explication of a biblical book. The edition is presented with full annotation -- identifying Ibn Tibbon’s sources and explaining his ideas and terminology -- and analytical introduction, which presents the life and writings of the author, describes the commentary itself in detail, explains the method and philosophy of the commentary, and charts its historical influence. In later medieval Jewish thought, few figures were unaffected by this foundational work of Maimonideanism.

This edition of the book is designed for students studying intermediate Hebrew. The book provides texts from different fields and different genres: informative texts, texts of criticism, dialogues, stories, songs and more. In addition, there are explanations of grammatical rules and various types of exercises and writing assignments. At the end of the book there is a dictionary in five languages for words from the various texts appearing in the textbook. All the passages in the book were collected on audio files that can be purchased seperately.

Dr. Yosef Govrin joined Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1953 and during his 42 years of diplomatic service he served in many functions in Israel and abroad, inter alia: Ambassador to Romania, Deputy Director General of the Foreign Ministry, and Ambassador to Austria, Slovenia, Slovakia and to the UNO in Vienna. These Reflections are based on the author's activities in developing relations with these three states in substance and in quantity, his discussions with the heads of these states and their discussions with their Israeli counterparts, surveying their internal and external policies, describing the local Jewish communities and the activities to foster relations with them and to strengthen their national s tatus. These reflections have a documentary nature and constitute a unique and important source for research regarding the history of Israel's relations with Austria, Slovenia and Slovakia from the beginning of the 1990s, characterized by the end of the Cold War, following such historic events as the dismemberment of the Soviet Union, the collapse of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe, the end of the presidency of Austria's Kurt Waldheim, when he was "persona non grata" in many parts of the world, including Israel, as well as the signing of the Oslo Agreements, known as the Declaration of Principles between Israel and the PLO.

The content of the articles in this book reflect the diversity of the areas researched by Professor Zev Harvey. The three key subjects covered in this collection are: the first focuses on the teachings of Maimonides, the second- the philosophy of Rabbi Hasdai Crescas and other philosophers in the Middle Ages, while the third includes essays on Jewish philosophers since the beginning of the modern era to the present.