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Sefer Brantshpigl is an important Yiddish religious/ethical work first published in Cracow, 1596. It was reprinted six more times into the beginning of the eighteenth century and is an important source for the social and religious life of Central/East European Jewry in the Early Modern period. This volume is the first complete translation of this text into English with annotations and scholarly introduction. The author, Moshe Henochs Altschul-Yerushalmi was a member of what has become to be known as the "secondary intelligentsia." Little is known about his life, other than that he lived in Prague. His son, Henoch Altschul, was the Shamash of the Jewish community of Prague from 1603–1633. H...
The Nuremberg Miscellany [Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nürnberg, Bibliothek, 8° Hs. 7058 (Rl. 203)] is a unique work of scribal art and illumination. Its costly parchment leaves are richly adorned and illustrated with multicolour paint and powdered gold. It was penned and illustrated in southern Germany – probably Swabia – in 1589 and is signed by a certain Eliezer b. Mordechai the Martyr. The Miscellany is a relatively thin manuscript. In its present state, it holds a total of 46 folios, 44 of which are part of the original codex and an additional bifolio that was attached to it immediately or soon after its production. The book is a compilation of various Hebrew texts, most of which p...
Jewish mysticism approaches God as no-thing or nothing, reflecting Judaism’s traditional identification of God as incorporeal. Whereas technical philosophical language often employed to discuss Jewish mysticism has a tendency to ward off otherwise interested readers, this study sufficiently breaks down the technical language of Jewish mysticism in its various expressions to allow a beginner to benefit from what may otherwise be indescribable and only approached by consideration of what is not rather than what is. Integral to the title, From Something to Nothing, is the concept that God cannot be something, because that would be restricting, so God is simply no-thing. Ironically, the conven...
While children figure prominently in religious traditions, few books have directly explored the complex relationships between children and religion. This is the first book to examine the theme of children in major religions of the world. Each of six chapters, edited by world-class scholars, focuses on one religious tradition and includes an introduction and a selection of primary texts ranging from legal to liturgical and from the ancient to the contemporary. Through both the scholarly introductions and the primary sources, this comprehensive volume addresses a range of topics, from the sanctity of birth to a child's relationship to evil, showing that issues regarding children are central to understanding world religions and raising significant questions about our own conceptions of children today.
The heroes of Beyond the Glory are not the famous rabbis, the heads of the yeshivas, or Hasidic righteous, but rather the "second circle" rabbis - the community rabbis in 19th century Eastern Europe, the backbone of the rabbinical world of the time,those who knew the world of their community members closely and were required to answer a wide range of questions, both daily and existential. Who were these rabbis? What were their training processes? How did they win their positions? Did they win "tenure," or was the threat of dismissal constantly hovering above their heads? How were their working conditions and their financial situation? Were they considered as spiritual shepherds and social leaders of the community? What was their relationship with the local rabbinic scholars and the economic elite? How did they navigate between their duties as halachic rulers and their desire to engage in studying and teaching? This book attempts to answer these questions, and many others, based on examining the world of over a thousand community rabbis.
A book of ethics by one of the first female Jewish writers
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The medieval Ashkenazi manuscripts of the Small Book of Commandments (Sefer Mitzvot Katan, or ‘SeMaK’ for short), which was written by Isaac of Corbeil, attest a scribal culture in which rabbinical knowledge and piety were combined with creative freedom in manuscript design. This study is concerned with the creation, composition and circulation of manuscripts of the SeMaK and concentrates on the book as an artefact. The focus of the author’s attention is the manuscripts’ material nature, their artistic embellishment and the personal touches that scribes added to them. With the act of writing a text and decorating a SeMaK manuscript, they ‘appropriated’ the text, so to speak, givi...
In his academic career, that by now spans six decades, Daniel J. Lasker distinguished himself by the wide range of his scholarly interests. In the field of Jewish theology and philosophy he contributed significantly to the study of Rabbinic as well as Karaite authors. In the field of Jewish polemics his studies explore Judeo-Arabic and Hebrew texts, analyzing them in the context of their Christian and Muslim backgrounds. His contributions refer to a wide variety of authors who lived from the 9th century to the 18th century and beyond, in the Muslim East, in Muslin and Christian parts of the Mediterranean Sea, and in west and east Europe. This Festschrift for Daniel J. Lasker consists of four...