Contents Tsippi Kauffman and Itamar Brenner | Narrative and Normative Discourse in the Sugiyot of Procreation Yair Lorberboim | On the Rejection of Reasons in Halakhic Discourse: The Debate on the Reason for the Prohibitions on Marring the Corners of the Head and the Beard Esti Eisenmann | God's Attributes according to Rambi and Crescas Raphael Shuchat | The Place of Manuscripts in Research of the Vilna Gaon’s Writings Ora Wiskind-Elper | Rebbe Yehoshua Heschel Rabinovitz of Monastyrishche: Contemplations of a Hasidic Leader on Judaism in Troubled Times Yaron Naim | Rabbi Kalphon Moshe Hacohen’s Struggle with the Issue of Women’s Status David M. Feuchtwanger | On Theology, Politics and Disobedience in Agnon’s Shlom Olamim Ronit Irshai | The Return of Aqedah Theology: The Relationships between Religion, Gender and Ethics

Ever since its emergence in the thirteenth-century , Jewish Kabbalah, and most prominently – the Book of Zohar, has captured the hearts of Jewish as well as non-Jewish readers. Significant interest in Kabbalah is evident in the Renaissance, when various Christian Scholars accepted the traditional Jewish narrative, according to which the corpus of medieval Jewish Kabbalah is the Oral Law given to Moses on Mount Sinai. The sixteenth century is rightfully considered the golden age of this kind of Christian interest in Jewish Kabbalah. During this period a group of scholars, high-rank priests, and secular rulers were familiar with Kabbalistic notions, some of these Christians read the Kabbalistic treatises, whether in their original versions or in translation, some even composed commentaries or translated them into Latin, and most important - they incorporated Kabbalistic notions into their own theological and messianic conceptions. Among Kabbalistic writings, most of these thinkers' attention was drawn to the Zohar, and some of them attempted to translate parts of it into Latin. The first comprehensive, though not complete Latin translation of the Zohar was composed by the French orientalist and mystic Guillaume Postel in the middle of the 16th century. Postel was a prolific and original thinker, who developed an elaborate messianic theological schema, which he based upon Kabbalistic notions. Convinced, as he was, that the Zohar is the perfect and ultimate expression of his own messianic concepts, he embarked on his life project – producing a Latin translation and commentary on the Zohar. This fascinating commentary on the Zohar never appeared in print nor was it ever translated into any language. In Judith Weiss's On the Conciliation of Nature and Grace substantial parts of Postel's Commentaries on the Zohar are presented in the original Latin vis a vis her Hebrew translation, accompanied by introductions and notes, elucidating Postel's unique perception of the Zohar and the Kabbalah.

'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).

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.

The feminine divine presence, the Shekhinah, has received detailed description in the Kabbalistic literature from the time of its inception at the end of the 12th century. The present book pursues the tracks of the belief in the Shekhinah and demonstrates that the main motive of the Kabbalists was not to disseminate the belief in Her but rather to restrain and to supervise this belief which had evolved outside the Kabbalists’ sphere or in its margins.

The articles in the volume: Yehuda Liebes - Clothed Nudity: The Esoteric Cult of Philo Eran Viezel - Moses’ Role in the Writing of the Torah in Rabbinic Literature and in the Transition to the Middle Ages Dov Schwartz - R. Shem Tov Falaquera’s Method in Abridging R. Solomon Ibn Gabirol’s Fons Vitae Eliezer Haddad - ‘You Shall Not Murder’ in the Writings of Maimonides: Ethics vs. Politics Avishai Bar-Asher - Perush shel Meor haQodesh : The Metamorphoses of Zoharic Homilies in R. Moses de León’s Hitherto Unknown Commentary on the Ten Commandments Iris Felix and Ruth Kara-Ivanov Kaniel - ‘Fire Bearing Fire’: An Unknown Zoharic Text and the Beginning of Zoharic Commentary in the Early Fourteenth Century – the Case of R. Menahem Recanati and R. Joseph Angilet Hagai Pely - Halakhah, Pietism, Kabbalah and Revelation in Sixteenth Century Safed: A Study in R. Yosef Karo’s Works Iris Brown ( Hoizman )- Between ‘Rectification of Evil’ and ‘Plain Nonsense’: The Strict Requirement of ‘A Clean Body’ as a Case Study of the Relationship between Hasidism and Halakhah Emmanuel Bloch - Rabbi Shimshon Raphael Hirsch and the Doctrine of ‘Torah im Derech Erets ’ in the Eyes of the Hareidim Uriel Barak - Anti-Semitism from a Theological Perspective: A Study in the Thought of Rabbi Avraham Itzhak HaCohen Kook and his Followers Eli Schonfeld - Jewish Philosophy as Existential Hermeneutics: A Revisiting of the Relation between Philosophy and Judaism in Emanuel Levinas List of Contributors English Abstracts

This book is dedicated to a comprehensive study of two subjects: crossing the boundaries between earth and heaven, between the visible and invisible realm. The first subject - dreams and their meanings in the literature of the classical world. The second subject - ghosts, daemons and haunting possessions in the culture of the Jewish culture and other religions. In twenty one articles the authors spread for the reader a diverse and Multidisciplinary image which shows how human beings have been attempting to peer behind the curtain and to give a lingual-literal expression to the experience of meeting unreachable worlds.

In Sivan 2013 a distinguished audience gathered at the National Library in Jerusalem to mark the 150th anniversary of the founding of Mekize Nirdamim. The articles published in this fascicle are based on the lectures delivered on that occasion. Some of them are printed as they were delivered that evening, while others have been somewhat expanded by the speakers and provided with bibliographical references and notes. The fascicle concentrates on a general appreciation of the 150 years of the work of the society, sometimes dividing them into various periods and investigating the cultural or scientific phenomena that are reflected in its activities and publications, and sometimes providing a general and all-encompassing overview. The fascicle contains a list of the books printed by Mekize Nirdamim, and the names of the heads of the society over the generations.

The book 'Temple Portals: Studies in Aggadah and Midrash in the Zohar' deals with the Zohar, the most important book of Kabbalah, and discuss it as a latest strata of the Midrashic literature. The book concentrates on the 'expanded' biblical story in the Zohar, and especially on the relationship between it and the ancient Talmudic Aggadah. The book examines the Zohar as a collection of many late and developed versions of the ancient Talmudic stories. Each of its chapters discusses one of the biblical tale traditions in the Zohar. Among other things discussed here issues such as: the sin of Adam, the binding of Isaac, Esau's character, the status of Elijah, and others. By analytical and critical examination of each of these traditions, the composition reveals - the first time systematically - Aspects of continuity and change in the history of the old Aggadic story and its way into the Zoharic corpus. Moreover, the detailed description of this literary process also reveals the world of the authors of the Zohar, their spiritual distresses, mystical orientations , and self-consciousness. Some chapters of this book has been published during the past years, and to these chapters were added several new topics, as well as conceptual and methodological introduction to the Midrash and Aggadah in the Zohar .

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In the book Revelation and Rectification , private aspects of Rabbi Nachman's personal spiritual world, previously unknown and never before discussed, are revealed. The first section of the book explores the spiritual revelations experienced by Rabbi Nachman of Bretslav as well as the spiritual experiments he conducted . Among the topics discussed is the powerful story of spiritual revelation entitled "The Story of the Bread" wherein Rabbi Nachman newly receives the Torah, as did Moses on Mount Sinai. This story was kept secret for two hundred years because of Rabbi Nachman's warning against showing it to any stranger. The second section of the book is dedicated to the rectifications - tikunim - which Rabbi Nachman established. The content and the process of the formulation of the tikun klali (general rectification) are discussed, as are the tikun following nocturnal emission and the tikun to be performed during the pilgrimage to his grave. In this context, the secret story "The Story of the Armor," which deals with the unique quality of the tikun established by Rabbi Nachman is included . In the book, the connection between the personal trials that Rabbi Nachman weathered successfully and the tikunim he established becomes clear. The secret Breslav traditions which tell of the temptations with which Rabbi Nachman struggled while still a young bridegroom comparing him to the Biblical Joseph are discussed.. Also addressed in the book are the motives behind Rabbi Nachman's choice of the city of Uman as his final resting place and the place where the tikun of pilgrimage to his grave was to be performed. The book's final chapter jumps 200 years forward and discusses the developments which took place following the death of Rabbi Nachman, focusing in particular of those developments which have taken place during the past decade (2000-2010 ), among them, new rituals surrounding the pilgrimage to Rabbi Nachman's grave such as the "universal general tikun" and the tossing away of piercing jewelry while reciting the traditional tashlich prayer. The book explores the novel context given by today's Breslav Hasidim to the phenomenon of the pilgrimage to Rabbi Nachman's grave in Uman on the Rosh Hashana holiday, in an era when Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav has become a contemporary Israeli cultural hero who plays an important role in the worlds of varied populations who are not traditionally Breslav Hasidim.

This book is dedicated to a wide range study of the different contexts of paradise in different religious and cultural traditions from antiquity to the present. The biblical story tells of 'Garden of Eden (Genesis H - C, X), is where the human story begins and where its basic concepts are defined. In the story of the Garden of Eden the dialogue between the eternal Creator and an ephemeral created man are mentioned for the first time. Also the archetypal division between man and woman, the distinction between innocence and knowledge, the eye opening as a result of eating from the tree of knowledge, the shameful hiding, guilt and fear are also present; A distinction between crime and punishment, the naked and dressed/covered, between prohibited and permitted, between controlling and controlled, and the eternal and the temporal. These concepts have all become world cultural infrastructure of the monotheistic religions in many contexts, from the beginning of life to its end. Table of Contents Foreword Introduction A. Garden of Eden in Antiquity Yair Zakovitch, "Is The Tree of Knowledge The Tree of Life?" Nathan Wasserman, "'And the Earth Was Revealed in all Its Beauty': Remarks on the Literary Traditions of Paradise and Creation of the World in Ancient Mesopotamia and in the Bible." Leah Mazor, “The Journey of the Magical River from the Temple to the Sea (Ezek 47, 1-12): The Removal of Chaos and a New Creation.” Rachel Elior, "'The ‘Garden of Eden was the Holy of Holies and theDwelling of the Lord'." B. Garden of Eden in Late Antiquity Serge Ruzer, “Earthly Paradise as Homeland, Jerusalem as Remotest Exile: Inverted Sacred Geography and Linguistics in the Syriac 'Cave of Treasures'.” Sergey Minov, "The question of Sexuality in Paradise as reflected in Late Antiquity Biblical Exegesis - Between the Sages and the Fathers of the Church." Hannah Wortzman, "Seduction and Sin in the Greek Life of Adam and Eve." Nurit Hirshfeld, “From Which Tree did Adam and Eve Eat in the Garden of Eden?” C. Garden of Eden in the Liturgy and in the World of the Sages Dalia Marx, "'And Mystery is Paradise': The Garden of Eden in Jewish Liturgy." AvigdorShinan, "'On Those who Entered theGarden of Eden Alive'." D. Paradise in the Medieval Period Amitai Harosh, "'And from thence it was parted, and became into four Heads' (Gen 2:10): Paradise in the Writings of Salomon Ibn Gabirol." Micha Goodman, "The Law of the Torah as a return to Paradise: Maimonides Perception of the Law." Oded Yisraeli, "The Tree of Life and its Roots – A History of a Kabalistic Symbol." Elisheva Revel-Neher, "Between Heaven and Earth: the Heavenly Ladder in Jewish and Christian Medieval Art." Ithamar Theodor, "The Star of the Cows - the Highest Heaven in the Krishnaite Tradition." E. Garden of Eden in the Modern Period David Fishelov, "'But We Must Cultivate Our Garden': Paradise Lost/Found in Robinson Crusoe and Candide." Yahil Zaban: "'A Place for Love': the Literature of the Enlightenment and the 'Pleasant Place.'" Yehuda Moraly, "A Revolution in Paradise: Representations of Paradise on the Twentieth Century Stage and Screen." Uri Hollander, "Miłosz Enterd the Pardes: On Czesław Miłosz ' s Utopic Perception." F. Paradise in Sociology, psychology and Anthropology Yoram Bilu, "'The Gateway to Paradise' in Beit She'an: Between Personal Symbol and Cultural Tradition in a Holy Site." Chaim Noy, "Touristic Paradises: A Critical Rendering of Modern Vacationscapes." Adam Klin-Oron, "End-of-Days Visions in Twentieth-Century Channeling: From the Age of Aquariusto the New Age." Published in Cooperation with Scholion Interdisciplinary Research Center in Jewish Studies