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Here are first-time English translations of the autobiographical works of two important and influential Jewish mystics. In The Book of Visions Rabbi Hayyim Vital (1542-1620), foremost disciple of R. Isaac Luria, describes his mystical experiences in great detail. In The Book of Secrets, Rabbi Yizhak Isaac Safrin of Komarno (1806-1874) recounts incidents in his life and visionary experiences.
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. He ...
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...
Mordecai Joseph Leiner of Izbica was a unique thinker in the history of Hasidism with a highly personal vision of Judaism. His teachings, partially derived from the Przysucha-Kotsk school, adopted the concept of absolute divine providence as a cornerstone.
Scholars and students of Jewish-Christian relations and early modern Jewish historical and cultural studies will appreciate the availability of this previously inaccessible text.
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.
David Oppenheim (1664-1736), chief rabbi of Prague in the early eighteenth century, built an unparalleled collection of Jewish books and manuscripts, all of which have survived and are housed in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. His remarkable collection testifies to the myriad connections Jews maintained with each other across political borders, and the contacts between Christians and Jews that books facilitated. From contact with the great courts of European nobility to the poor of Jerusalem, his family ties brought him into networks of power, prestige, and opportunity that extended across Europe and the Mediterranean basin. Containing works of law and literature alongside prayer and poetry,...
This book is the first scholarly English translation of the Ze’enah U-Re’enah, a Jewish classic originally published in the beginning of the seventeenth century, and was the first significant anthological commentary on the Torah, Haftorot and five Megillot. The Ze’enah U-Re’enah is a major text that was talked about but has not adequately studied, although it has been published in two hundred and seventy-four editions, including the Yiddish text and partial translation into several languages. Many generations of Jewish men and women have studied the Torah through the Rabbinic and medieval commentaries that the author of the Ze’enah U-Re’enah collected and translated in his work. It shaped their understanding of Jewish traditions and the lives of Biblical heroes and heroines. The Ze’enah U-Re’enah can teach us much about the influence of biblical commentaries, popular Jewish theology, folkways, and religious practices. This translation is based on the earliest editions of the Ze’enah U-Re’enah, and the notes annotate the primary sources utilized by the author.
Mystical Resistance reveals the kabbalistic masterpiece Sefer ha-Zohar, commonly known as the Zohar, as a rich source for understanding Jewish resistance to Christian authority. Composed against a backdrop of rising religious intolerance, the Zohar's subversive mystical narratives critique the changing relationship between Western Europe's Christian majority and its Jewish minority.