In the 1940s, Erwin Schrödinger attempted to tackle the eternal question "What is Life?" from the perspective of the "naïve physician." The result is this short book, which has influenced generations of scientists, sparked much controversy and become a classic. What Is Life? appears in Hebrew for the first time, accompanied by an epilogue by Prof. Avshalom Elitzur, who demonstrates to what extent Schrödinger's insights are relevant eighty years after the first publication of the essay.

Against the backdrop of war and the political crisis in Israel, volume 73 of Iyyun turns a philosophical spotlight on the concept of law, which has become acute in contemporary Israeli discourse. The articles in this volume deal with a variety of systems of laws, which stress the fundamental difference between theoretical and normative laws, and the understanding that the validity of the law and its compulsory nature are heterogenic by nature.

In this issue: Ronit Nikolsky and Reuven Kiperwasser | Three Tales of Kings: Independent Traditions in Exempla of the Rabbis (Sefer Maasiot) Yair Lorberbaum | Rabbi Yom-Tov Asevilli’s Book of Rememberance : Philosophy, Kabbalah, Halakhah Eugene D. Matanky | Studying Kabbalah in Solomon Alqabeṣ’s and Moses Cordovero’s Circle: Sephardic Pilpul, Propositions, and Yeshivah Study

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) was a polymath of Renaissance culture. His 1710 Essais de Théodicée , the longest work published in his lifetime, was a final and concluding phase in his life-long theological-philosophical journey. It constituted a milestone in the diplomatic and intellectual effort to restore the religious and political peace in Europe, and is, above all, a key philosophical work.

Preludes is the story of the composer and conductor Noam Sheriff (1935-2018), whose life was dedicated to art and music almost from the moment he could think of it. In the first person Sheriff recounts a personal initiation story, which begins in the small Tel Aviv of the days of the British Mandate and the divided Jerusalem of the first years of the State of Israel, followed by the most renown and magnificent concert halls in Israel and around the world. In doing so, he describes some of the personalities who stood at the heart of world of music: Leonard Bernstein, Gary Bartini, Paul Ben-Haim, Arik Einstein and others. This is a story of pioneering musical activity, part of an enterprise of building Israeli culture. This is also the story of an artist who, looking back from a sober, unapologetic and unselfish perspective - recounts his achievements, doubts and personal and artistic choices.

Selected articles from current issue: Arnon Atzmon | ‘He Who Seeks Out Good: This is David’: The Opening Unit of Midrash Psalms as an Introduction to the Book of Psalms David Sabatto | ‘Thus, I Received it From the House of My Father’s Father’. The Sources and Structuring of the Legend of Yehonatan, Moses’ Grandson Ido Hevroni | Turning the Hearts of the Children to Their Parents: The Education of R. Elazar Son of R. Shimon (Pesiqta de Rab Kahana 11) Omri livnat | ‘Samuel, The Son of Labrat Has Died’: Between Manuscript and Edition, Between Panegyric and Lampoon

The collection was compiled on the author's eightieth birthday, and includes all the articles he has written on the study of Talmudic literature throughout fifty years of research. The articles have not been revised other than corrected citations. The two volumes are divided into seven subjects. The first volume includes articles dealing with (1) Mishnah; (2) Jerusalem Talmud; (3) Babylonian Talmud. The second volume includes articles dealing with (4) Eretz Israel and Babylon; (5) Mishnaic Hebrew; (6) Geonim and Rishonim; (7) various topics.

In 1980, the Italian publisher Einaudi wanted to publish a series of personal anthologies of its authors. Primo Levi quickly arose to the challenge and submitted La ricerca delle radici ( The Search for Roots ): thirty excerpts from thirty masterpieces of world literature, accompanied by thirty short introductions he wrote. Every such introduction is a brilliant commentary on the work, and a reflection of Primo Levi himself - as a kind of self-portrait, in which the painter produces his collage from materials created by others. These excepts - published for the first time in Hebrew - reveal some of the important ethical and aesthetic influences on Primo Levi and his work. Levi quotes from Job, Lucretius, Rabelais‏, Babel, Shalom Aleichem, de Saint-Exupéry and more, but also from Darwin's On Origin of Species and even from Practical Organic Chemistry. Thus, it is possible to trace his extensive and diverse, humanistic and scientific education, the roots from which his unique literary work grew.

How might a poem acquire divine forgiveness? Ariel Zinder’s book Arise and Sing follows medieval Jewish poets from Iraq and al-Andalus as they seek answers to this pressing question. The book presents close readings of liturgical poems (piyyutim) written in the 10th and 11th centuries, and brings them into contact with contemporary literary theory as well as modern philosophical discussions of the possibility of forgiveness.

MA‘ARAG: The Israel Annual of Psychoanalysis is a democratic, refereed annual publication, evaluated and edited by academicians, intellectuals in related fields, and clinicians. The journal, dedicated to research in psychoanalytic theory, practice and criticism, is the fruit of the initiative and cooperation of the Sigmund Freud Center for the Study and Research in Psychoanalysis of the Hebrew University, the Israeli Association for Self Psychology and the Study of Subjectivity, Israel Society for Analytical Psychology, Israel Psychoanalytic Society, Clinical Division of the Israel Psychological Association, Israel Institute for Group Analysis, Israel Institute of Jungian Psychology, The Sigmund Freud Chair of Psychoanalysis of the Department of Psychology, The Hebrew University, Tel-Aviv Institute for Contemporary Psychoanalysis, The Winnicott Center in Israel and the New Israeli Jungian Association. From this issue: Itamar Levi | REFLECTIONS ON THE DREAM DISCOURSE Yael Pilowsky Bankirer | THE MOTHER'S NAME OF THE FATHER: ON NAMES AND SUBJECTIVITY Ravit Raufman | SIDE BY SIDE: RELATIONAL PERSPECTIVE ON WORKING WITH DREAMS USING EARLY PSYCHOLINGUISTIC FREUDIAN IDEAS Lital Pelleg | THE RAVAGE WREAKED BY LOVE: SEXUAL TRAUMA FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF LACANIAN JOUISSANCE Michael Sidi-Levi | FROM EARLY META-PSYCHOLOGY TO THE WIDENING OF THE LIBIDO CONCEPT: THOUGHTS ABOUT “ROBBING” AND BINDING Shani Samai-Moskovich | CROSSING THRESHOLDS OF INTENSITY IN THE AREA OF CREATION Shlomit Cohen | INTERIORITY AND INTERNALIZATION: A SKETCH OF A BASIC PROCESS

Kobez Al Yad , an annual of the Mekize Nirdamim Society, is a forum for the publication from manuscript sources of ancient texts in Jewish studies that are shorter than book-length. The articles in this issue: Omri Livnat | From Masorah to Poetry, from Poetry to Masorah: on Saadia Gaon’s ‘Ohel Mekhon Binyanay’ Simcha Emanuel | A Collection of Laws from the German ' Genizah' Amir Boas | Kodesh Kodashim – An Annotated Critical Edition with an Introduction Noam Lev-El | ’Questions to the Sages of the Land of Israel’: Kabbalistic Responsa from the Mid-Sixteenth Century—Introduction and Edition

Although rabbinic compilations were composed hundreds of years after the destruction of the Second Temple, and despite differences in language, genre, and cultural setting, Dynamics of Midrashic Traditions seeks to demonstrate that both corpora preserve a common heritage, albeit replete with conflicting traditions and polemics. The integrative study carried out in this book sheds light on both corpora, paying special attention to the dynamics that shape and reshape the midrashic traditions throughout their transmission. The book deals with exegetical aspects incorporated in textual variants of the Bible, in Second Temple Literature (especially the "rewritten Bible", Sirach, Book of Jubilees, the Dead Sea scrolls, Hellenistic Jewish works, Philo of Alexandria), as well as passages of Paul and early Christian writers, scrutinizing them in tandem with parallels from rabbinic literature, Targum and ancient piyyutim . Among the themes discussed are the following: the knowledge of good and evil given to Adam; Abraham the monotheist; Moses’s death; Pesher and allegoristic interpretation; and halakhic issues in rabbinic literature and the Dead Sea scrolls. Table of Contents in English