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.

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.

In his two masterworks, Mishneh Torah and The Guide for the Perplexed , Maimonides explicitly articulates a dual crisis: the disintegration of the Halakhic tradition and the erosion of the esoteric knowledge of the Torah. This study presents a novel interpretation of Maimonides’ crisis proclamations and the narratives linked to them. It primarily analyzes how Maimonides crafted a discourse of crisis, illuminating this through a comparison with earlier discourses in the Jewish canon and parallel crisis narratives in Islamic sources. The key question it seeks to answer is: why did Maimonides prominently employ this discourse in his works? The exploration of crisis discourse in Maimonides’ work reveals how he introduces a marked internal tension in each of his two major works. On the one hand, he declares his commitment to both the halakhic tradition and the esoteric knowledge tradition, even as he retrospectively reshapes them. On the other hand, he emphasizes the urgent need for reforming these traditions to confront the rupture they have undergone. This study demonstrates that in both Mishneh Torah and The Guide for the Perplexed , Maimonides portrays the process of breaking and refashioning tradition as an act of loyalty to these traditions during a time of crisis.

The "Possibility of Dialogue" issue was originally designed as a tribute to the dialogic philosophy of Martin Buber on the centenary of his groundbreaking book I and Thou ( Ich und Du 1923). Since the planning of the issue, Israeli society has gone through dramatic upheavals, and most recently, on October 7th, a brutal massacre of many Israeli citizens by Hamas, followed by a bitter war whose end is still not in sight. The 72 issue (Fall 2023) of Iyyun is now published in a painful, violent and bloody country. At a time when the possibilities of dialogue have collapsed and disappeared almost entirely from the public sphere, the necessity of philosophical discussion is essential and urgent. The title "Possibility of Dialogue" reminds us that the existence of dialogue is not a matter of course. Dialogue is a type of human possibility, a certain form of conduct - of speaking and listening, of living together - in the linguistic space, which can be realized in different contexts and in different ways; However, there is no necessity for its realization. The fact that through the common language we communicate with others, say things, convey messages, achieve achievements, is not a sufficient condition for the realization of the dialogical possibility. But, if communicative success is not the criterion for dialogue, what is its meaning? How do we approach this inquiry? A subscription can be purchesed through this link or use the online form .

This book presents a comprehensive selection, translated for the first time into Hebrew, of the Latin works of Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374), the "father of humanism" and a pivotal precursor to the Italian Renaissance. The compilation includes some of Petrarch's renowned personal letters, such as the pair he addressed to the Roman orator and philosopher Cicero. It features a therapeutic-autobiographical dialogue in which he engages with his spiritual father, Saint Augustine, challenging the latter's strict worldviews. The selection also encompasses an Invective against the dominant Aristotelian philosophy of his era, asserting the preeminence of classical rhetoric over philosophy; a novella presenting his interpretation of the closing story of the Decameron ; and a portion of his Latin poetry, through which he sought to revive the works of the great Roman poet Virgil. Through these writings, Petrarch fostered the emergence of a new secular culture on the cusp of the modern era—one that emphasizes humanity and life in this world—and set the stage for the remarkable creative surge of the Italian Renaissance.

Letters can often be spontaneous expressions of their writer's search for meaning, redemption and identity. Such are the letters of Bruno Schulz, one of the most sensitive, and most tormented European-Jewish writers. In this collection of letters - published here for the first time in Hebrew, translated by Miriam Bornstein and edited by Jacob Golomb - Schulz expresses his most hidden thoughts in the most poignant way. These letters were a vital lifeline for him that connected his remote city of Drohowicz to the turbulent cultural and literary centers of Poland in the interwar period. Schulz's desperate need to gain public recognition resonates with them, along with a strong sense of loneliness and existential isolation. These letters can be read as works of art in their own right, and they have the potential to shed new light on Schulz's work, its mysteries and embarrassments. The book includes some of his spectacular paintings and a selection of the review notes he wrote and published. Schultz reveals himself as a sharp, attentive and sensitive critic. Oftentimes, his critical lists not only talk about the works, but reflect his own personality.

Written in Arabic in the first half of the ninth century, Twenty Chapters is the first medieval Jewish philosophical work, and had a major influence on the development of Jewish theological and philosophical thought. Dawūd al-Muqammaṣ, a Jewish convert to Christianity, who wrote this theological Summa after his return to Judaism, also authored the first Judeo-Arabic Bible commentaries, and some of the earliest Judeo-Arabic polemical works. The annotated Hebrew translation of this pioneering work, published here for the first time, presents al-Muqammaṣ in his intellectual and historical context and throws light on his Jewish, Muslim and Christian background.

Marx’s 1857 introduction to his Critique of Political Economy , which was not published in his lifetime, remains his only mature attempt to formulate the philosophical presuppositions of his economic research. Marx’s preface to the same work, published in 1859, contains a complementary philosophical discussion on the relations between economy and society. Their joint translation presents Hebrew readers with an accessible overview of the philosophical principles at the basis of Marx’s research.

Identity and Its Discontents is an intellectual, gothic journey, which explores and interprets for the readers the personal story and thought of fourteen "marginal Jews", Jewish intellectuals from a variety of disciplines who lived in Europe from the end of the nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth century. Jacob Golomb does a good job of describing the twisted Jewish-European identity of these spiritual giants in the face of the fractured European humanist ideal. The book is structured as a fabric created from the intersecting stories of key thinkers who left a singular intellectual mark on the twentieth century and the shaping of Jewish consciousness in it - from Kafka to Freud, from Bruno Schulz to Gensin, from Ahad Ha'am to Berdichevsky, from Herzl and Nordau to Martin Buber and Zeev Jabotinsky, and from Stefan Zweig to Primo Levi. The original key that Golomb offers to understanding the mechanisms of the identity construction of the "fringe Jews" is the attitude of these thinkers to the thought of Friedrich Nietzsche, and the ways in which this illuminates the question of identity politics and the internal struggle in modern Judaism between nationalism and universal humanism. Identity in Discomfort is the fruit of the author's many years of important research work on Kierkegaard and Nietzsche and their acception in Hebrew literature and thought. Prof. Hagi Kenaan

The 70th issue of the journal marks the renewal of Iyyun , which was founded by Martin Buber, Shmuel Hugo Bergman, Julius Gutman and Sinai Ucko about seventy-seven years ago. In the current issue, the question of the relationship between the future and the present is central, and is discussed from different angles. At the methodological level, the purpose of the discussion is to bring the future together with possibilities of speech and thought that will connect it to the present and rescue it from the base of indifference and the obvious. In particular, the question will arise here, in different forms: how is it correct to conceptualize a distant future that is beyond our influence, without turning it into a doomsday scenario disconnected from the present? In this context, the question also arises about the place of hope, and how to understand its meaning and value. A subscription for 2024 can be purchesed through this link or use the online form .

A selection of annotated Hebrew translations of Dogen Zenji's essays, mostly from the Shobogenzo, followed by a thorough analysis of his life and thought.