According to common opinion, in the research of Jewish law and in the Halakhic literature, transactions in incorporeal estates are non-valid. However, economic life and the business world are based on these transactions. As a result, a gap was created between Halacha and reality. The book " Out of Nothing" proposes resolving this problem through Talmudic research methods, various issues which are discussed in the Talmudic law, including Davar She'lo Ba La'olam , Tovat Hanaha , and bills sale. In the course of the discussion it turns out that the Tannaitic ruling recognized these transactions, but Talmudic Halakha refused to recognize them. However, the Amoraim suggest various ways of mediation in order to enable transferring of future estate, debt bonds and so on. The book proposes to take the bridges that the Amoraim proposed based on the Tannaitic law and to use them as tools for Halakhic validation of current market life.

All cultures, religions, and ethical or legal systems struggle with the role intention plays in evaluating actions. The Talmud compellingly elaborates on the notion of intention through the radical concept that “A sin committed for the sake of God [ averah li-shmah ] is greater than a commandment fulfilled not for the sake of God [ mi-mizvah she-lo li-shmah ].” The Babylonian Talmud attributes this concept, which challenges one of rabbinic Judaism’s most fundamental dogmas, the obligation to fulfill the commandments and avoid sin—to R. Nahman b. Isaac (RNBI), a renowned 4th century Amora. Considering the normative character of the rabbinic culture in which Halakhah (Jewish religious law) plays such a central role, this concept, seems almost like a foreign body in the Talmudic corpus. The book reveals the origins of this radical idea, its accurate meaning and use in the time this concept was formulated and the movement of this radical idea from the margins culture to mainstream - into the Babylonian Talmud, the canonic book of Rabbinic Judaism. The findings of this research provide substantial insight into our understanding of the interpretive process and of conceptual adaptation in rabbinic culture.

One of the most visible aspects of Orthodox Judaism in present-day Israel is the ubiquity of the "Gdoilim" – "the great ones" - the luminary spiritual leaders whose presence dominates orthodox politics, media and the public space. However, these individuals, whose lives are constantly canonized in hagiographies, have largely remained unknown outside the Orthodox Jewish communities, and have generally been overlooked by the academic research. The 'Gdoilim': Individuals who shaped Haredi Judaism in Israel is a pioneering attempt to fill this gap by offering a comprehensive collection of articles by Israeli and American leading scholars of Orthodox Judaism striving to elucidate the lives and theologies of these extraordinary individuals and explain the secret of their lasting power.

A groundbreaking work, this book brings together philosophy of science and language, conceptual dynamics and the Babylonian Talmud. The work asks: what philosophy of natural language lies at the basis of the Halakhic dynamic in the Amoraic discourse of the Talmud? Calling upon two post-Wittgenstein philosophies, the book undertakes a search for a philosophical account of the discursive culture that appears in the Talmud. It unearths the normative infrastructure that lies at its core. Thus, this study articulates what can be termed the Talmudic philosophy of language. On the other hand, it reveals the limits and weaknesses of central philosophical frameworks in coping with a profound traditional discourse like the Talmud, in which the past has a deep and integral role in the present, while at the same time, the present has its own natural and creative dynamic.

Free choice has been one of the main philosophical issues throughout the ages. The Essence of Choice in Medieval Jewish Philosophy offers a comprehensive analysis of the views of medieval Jewish philosophers on this topic. It presents various perspectives on the problem of free choice in philosophy in general and in Jewish philosophy in particular: Does free choice really exist, or is it an illusion? What is the attitude of the medieval philosophers toward what the Bible and the Sages have to say about free choice? Does Judaism have a substantive position on philosophical questions? What power can free a person from causal determinism? The book discusses at length the opinions of twenty-one philosophers, from Al- Muqammis in the ninth century to Rabbi Joseph Albo in the fifteenth. This engagement with many philosophers demonstrates the richness of Jewish philosophy and the multiplicity of opinions in it, as well as how historical changes, such as the transition from Arabic to Hebrew, affect philosophical thought. On the basis of his historical analysis, the author argues that there is no fundamental Jewish position on the question of free choice and that one can find support in the religious texts for every philosophical view.

The relationship between a believer and his or her belief has always been a complicated one, much due to the paradox typical of religious life, where the god is considered a primordial entity upon whom man is completely dependent. However, the religious duty of worship and interpretation of the world are determined solely by the believer. This volume claims that it is precisely this paradox which enables god's sovereign existence by analyzing believers' descriptions of their beliefs and faith itself. It is therefore an attempt to re-read faith, making it relevant again.

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) .

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.

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.

Various aspects of Medieval Jewish Philosophy still await exploration. One of them is late medieval thought in Byzantium. This book analyzes traditional topics like divine attributes, prophecy and psychology as well as unique phenomenon of the Byzantine area like the hesychastic polemics . The book covers also topics like Jewish Byzantine preaching, debates with Karaite theology and the thought of important figures such as Shemaria from Crete and Juda Mosconi.

Jewish thought and rhetoric may have dominated the Jewish people's way of life for years, but what happens when a Jewish state is established, whose laws and authorities are not necessarily based on that same Jewish tradition? Jewish-Israeli Political Thought is a collection of studies exploring the tension between Israeli and Jewish political philosophy, the relationship between the Jewish people's collective and personal past and present, individual identity and its place in the traditional Jewish collectiveness, and the intermediary role of the ancient Hebrew language in the dialogue between the past and the present. The chapters in this book were written by young scholars of different religious, and sometimes cultural and lingual backgrounds; however, they all live in modern-day Israel, and they all question the relation between traditional-Jewish and modern-Israeli political thought. The diversity of the writers enables a broad and unique perspective on the status of Jewish tradition in contemporary political thought in Israel. The book provides a window into various spatial and temporal horizons in the course of a Jewish tradition that is constantly being re-examined and re-discovered.

Analysing the political relations between the Kingdom of Poland and the hasidic movement, this book examines plans formulated by the government and by groups close to government circles regarding hasidim, and describes how a hasidic body politic developed in response. Marcin Wodziński demonstrates that the rise of hasidism was an important factor in shaping the Jewish policy of both central and provincial authorities and shows how the creation of socio-political conditions that were advantageous to the hasidic movement accelerated its growth. While concentrating on the dynamic that developed in the Kingdom of Poland, the discussion is informed by a consideration of the relationship between the state and the hasidic movement from its inception in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The novelty of this study lies in the fact that, whereas most analyses of political culture concentrate on states and societies with well-established electoral systems of representation, Wodziński focuses on the under-researched area of political relations between a non-democratic state and a low-status community lacking authorized representation. Applying concepts more often associated with cultural history, his analysis draws a distinction between the terms of reference of high-level political debate and the actual implementation of policy middle- and low-level officials. Similarly, in analysing hasidic responses he differentiates between high-level hasidic representations in the state and the grassroots politics of the community. This combination enables a broad contextualization of the whole subject, integrating the social and cultural history of Polish Jewry with that of Polish society in general. 43 text figures, 2 maps