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.

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.

Articles Dina Stein - Rabbinic Tales in the Israel Folktale Archives: Holy Men and Tricksters Osnat Sharon - Elephant, Leviathan and Nineveh the Great City: Sibbuv Rabbi Petachia and Midrash Yonah, Printed Side by Side Nina Pinto-Abecasis - The Piropo as a Bridge between Cultures in Tetuan (Northern Morocco) Adam Ratzon - Al ma yismash kbiru , ya alt tadbiru [Whoever would not listen to elders will not manage in life]: A Literary-Cultural Reading of the Proverbs and Personal Narratives of an Egyptian-Israeli Woman Jacqueline Laznow - ‘I didn’t know I wanted to be a rabbi, there was no name for what I wanted to be’: Life Stories of Women Rabbis Living in Israel Towards a History of Folklore Meir Nizri - Israel and the Sabbath as Bride and Groom in Various Sabbath Hymns

Something crucial and quite unprecedented happened to kabbalah in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Though it had previously been considered a highly secretive and esoteric tradition, its practitioners began to spread its doctrines throughout the Jewish world with missionary zeal. Their goal was ambitious: no less than the remodelling of the religious and ethical attitudes of the entire Jewish population, a reformation of Judaism. Few aspects of Jewish life and religious practice were not changed as a result of the spread of kabbalah. These innovations originated mainly in the city of Safed in Galilee. They were introduced by kabbalistic adepts, but would not have gained broad acceptance if they had not made sense to people in terms of their everyday lives. The kabbalistic corpus that emerged should thus be interpreted not just as the elaboration of a secretive literary tradition, but as a response to the needs of Jewish society in its manifest historical context. In addition, Roni Weinstein argues, these kabbalistic innovations were partly a response to changes in the Catholic world-view, revealing an intimate link with Counter-Reformation Catholicism that is explored here for the first time. The religious and political changes taking place in contemporary Ottoman settings also contributed to these changes. The effect of these developments on Jewish culture was nothing short of revolutionary, deeply affecting people’s lives at the time and also laying the foundations for change in future generations. Yet they were not presented as revolutionary: the early modern kabbalists understood that they would only succeed in spreading their message if they presented their doctrines as the natural continuation of what went before. Weinstein’s sociological reading of mystical texts encompasses a number of methodological innovations, including the need to consider the impact of the non-Jewish environment in the fashioning of Jewish texts. He sees the emergence of ‘Jewish modernity’ as the result of developments that were intrinsically Jewish rather than as a response to outside influences during the Enlightenment; controversially, he therefore places its origins in the Mediterranean world of the late sixteenth century rather than in eighteenth-century Berlin. His argument is based on a wide range of Jewish sources—including theological tracts, kabbalistic and ethical literature, hagiographies, mystical diaries, halakhic rulings and responsa, and community and confraternal regulations—as well as the testimonies of non-Jewish travellers, and Catholic religious literature. This stimulating new reading of the development of kabbalistic texts and practices opens a new chapter in the understanding of Jewish modernity. The Hebrew edition of this book was awarded the Goren-Gottstein Prize for the Best Book in Jewish Thought 2010–2012 and this is an abridged version of that book.

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 volume: Vered Raziel-Kretzmer, The Palestinian Morning Service in Fragments of an Early Liturgical Rotulus Amitai Harroch, The Liturgical Poems of Khalaf Bar Sa ʿ īd Ella Tovia, An Anonymous Exegesis of the Sifrei from the Europian Geniza Yacov Fuchs, Completing Leqaḥ Ṭov on the Qillirian Qerova ‘Zekhor Eikha Anu’ Y. Tzvi Langermann, ‘The Topic of Rosh Ḥodesh’— Chapter 18 of ‘Īssūr we-Hetēr’, an unpublished pre-Maimonidean Judeo-Arabic Halakhic Compendium Aviram Ravitsky, ‘The Principles of Qal va-Ḥomer’—New Material from the School of Rabbi Isaac Canpanton Dov Schwartz, A Philosophic and Kabbalistic Commentary on Psalm 29 by Rabbi Michael b. Shabtai Balbo Eli Gurfinkel, Rabbi David Ibn- Yaḥya’s Commentary to Maimonides’s Introduction of The Guide for the Perplexed