This book presents a series of studies that cover a wide range of issues relating to Maimonides' political thought, including the basis for political and ethical knowledge; the notion of the "good"; imitatio Dei; apparent contradictions in his position on ethics; the conception of God that he attempts to inculcate to Jewish society at large; and his novel approach to the love and fear of God. Taking into account his medieval Aristotelian and Jewish sources, these explorations also deal with some of the opposing considerations that Maimonides had to balance in developing and presenting his positions on such subjects as the nature of divine law, the static vs. dynamic dimensions of Mosaic law, prophetic and rabbinic authority within Judaism, the reasons for the commandments, and martyrdom. A close reading of the manner in which he formulates his views, in light of their literary and intellectual-historical contexts, allows us a better glimpse of how profound and subtle Maimonides is as a thinker and an educator.

This book sets forth a new area in the study of extraordinary individuals in religious traditions. It develops the category of “Religious Genius” as an alternative to existing categories, primarily “saint.” It constructs a model by which to appreciate these individuals, suggesting key characteristics such as love, humility, and self-surrender. Religious geniuses transform their traditions and their legacies endure through these very transformations. They also inspire changes across religious boundaries and traditions. The study of religious geniuses in various faith traditions therefore advances interfaith engagement today. The book complements existing, primarily historical, studies of saints by offering a phenomenological approach that seeks to touch the subjectivity of these individuals, and how they have affected the unfolding of their religious traditions.

"This is a beautiful book, full of ideas that could help restore America’s genius for freedom and promise.” — Thomas Moore, New York Times bestselling author of Care of the Soul A lifelong Emerson lover, teacher, and spiritual seeker reveals how American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson’s twelve essential teachings hold the answer to living an authentic and fulfilling life, one that is in har[Bokinfo]

A master historian offers an eloquent and personal auto-history of his life and his ideas Twenty years ago, John Lukacs paused to set down the history of his own thoughts and beliefs in Confessions of an Original Sinner, an adroit blend of autobiography and personal philosophy. Now, in Last Rites, he continues and expands his reflections, this time integrating his conception of history and human knowledge with private memories of his wives and loves, and enhancing the book with footnotes from his idiosyncratic diaries. The resulting volume is fascinating and delightful--an auto-history by a passionate, authentic, brilliant, and witty man. Lukacs begins with a concise rendering of a historical understanding of our world (essential reading for any historian), then follows with trenchant observations on his life in the United States, commentary on his native Hungary and the new meanings it took for him after 1989, and deeply personal portraits of his three wives, about whom he has not written before. He includes also a chapter on his formative memories of May and June 1940 and of Winston Churchill, a subject in some of Lukacs's later studies. Last Rites is a richly layered summation combined with a set of extraordinary observations--an original book only John Lukacs could have written. Praise for Confessions of an Original Sinner: "[Lukacs] is an often witty and always fascinating--even entertaining--writer."--Washington Post

Every generation of Jews in every denomination of Judaism finds itself facing complex legal questions. The status of same-sex unions and the plight of the agunah (a woman who cannot obtain a divorce) are just two of a myriad of thorny questions Jewish legal experts grapple with today. These are not esoteric problems but issues with a profound impact on the daily happiness of countless people. How do the rabbis who draft responses to these questions reach their conclusions? What informs their decisions and their approach to Jewish law?The acclaimed writer and legal expert Elliot Dorff addresses these and other questions in this guide to the philosophy behind Jewish law. What motivates modern Jews to follow Jewish law? How does Jewish law strike the balance between continuity and change? On what grounds and under what circumstances do human beings have the authority to interpret or even change God's laws?Dorff also offers a systematic comparison of Jewish law and U.S. law, based on his course on this subject at UCLA.Whether you are a lawyer or simply interested in the philosophy behind recent rabbinic decisions, this is a book that will deepen your understanding of the Jewish legal s

Modern Jews tend to relate to the past through “history,” which relies on empirical demonstration and rational thought, rather than through “memory,” which relies on the non-rational architectures of mythology. By now “history” has surpassed “memory” as a means of relating to the past—a development that falls short in building identity and creates disconnection between Jews and their collective history. Kurtzer seeks to mend this breach. Drawing on key classical texts, he shows that “history” and “memory” are not exclusive and that the perceived dissonance between them can be healed by a selective reclamation of the past and a translation of that past into purposefulness.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

We are desperately in need of a new Story-specifically a new Story of Value, an Outrageous Love Story-as a way to meet the outrageous pain of the world. This is the only true response to the current meta-crisis, the amalgamation of interlocking political, educational, spiritual, ecological, and cultural crises that threatens not merely the total disruption of all social systems, but either the death of humanity or the death of our humanity. This series of oral essays outlines the contours of a new Story of Value. Most importantly, they clearly show how we-both individually and collectively-can transform our lives and become an "imaginal cell," an ontological activist, for the sake of the whole. Through profound "writual" practices like writing a Sacred Autobiography and composing Outrageous Love Letters, we start to move from a pathologized life to a mythic life. We begin to play our instruments as part of Unique Self Symphony. We become Homo amor, the New Human and the New Humanity, irreducibly unique incarnations of Eros, of the Intimate Cosmos that lives in, as us, and through us-for the sake of Reality itself. These oral essays are based on talks delivered by Marc at the Eros Mystery School at Kasteel de Berckt in Baarlo, Netherlands, August 2019.

Lisa leads us through the spiritual journey of her life with poignant reflections on family, love, fears, hopes and dreams. Audrey Copeland, Professor UAF Lisa Miller forges a lean and sinewy poetry that is at once reflective and raw, invoking both the head and the heart. Millers free-verse wends its way along peaks and valleys of the human journey, and the author is as steadfast before lifes inevitable pains and she is sanguine amid its myriad delights. This is a collection of sincere and insightful glimpses from a fellow sojourner. Paul Korchin, Ph.D. Professor of Religion, University of Alaska, Fairbanks

Su"ender and catch: give so you can receive, where the giving is your whole self, in a total experience. This is scarcely new on the American scene, and it is ancient knowledge, East and West. The fears of total surrender, the fears of self-revelation and of total abandon, although genuine, are likewise not new. Yet Kurt H. Wolff does attempt something new here, an epistemologi cal essay with the help of this old idea: his subtitle is 'experience and inquiry today'. He tries to formulate an integrated view which incorporates in the theory of total experience not only the accepted component- esthetics, religion, the recent American experience - but also a metaphysics, a phenomenology, a theory of perception, a social philosophy and a methodology of the social sciences, even a philosophy of history and psychopathology. Phenomenology (especially Alfred Schutz), the critical Frankfurt school (especially Adorno and Marcuse), sociology (especially Georg Simmel), and existentialism (especially Camus) are tied in together. It all looks topsy-turvy at first. We have here scraps of a diary, fragments of correspondence, a stray adolescent love letter, notes on notes on field work, and notes and comments on tutorial seminars plus long excerpts from students' essays, a stray paper in a learned journal summarizing the core of the book, comments piled on comments and a web of self-references, literary criticisms, and pieces of poetry, plus a rich scholarly apparatus.

Under the influence of science, modern civilization has adopted the view that only things that can be verified empirically or arrived at rationally are true. Modern people tend to regard themselves as mechanisms, without any subjective aspects to their nature. In this insightful and passionately concerned book, British educationist and man of letters David Holbrook retorts persuasively that this reductive view of human nature is profoundly false. Man's inner, subjective life is essential to his nature, what happens to his consciousness is the most important thing in his life, and his greatest need is to find meaning.Holbrook also warns that reductionism has pernicious, even lethal, cultural, social, and political consequences. The logical result is nihilism: if human beings and existence are but physical mechanisms, it necessarily follows that consciousness does not exist, life is meaningless, our concern with moral values is pointless, and so are our lives and actions. Life itself reduces to nothing but self-indulgence and self-assertion. A culture informed by this perspective is necessarily full of expressions of hate and meaninglessness, which coarsens and demoralizes the majority of the population and worsens the mental pathologies of unstable persons. "Egoistical nihilism" becomes ever more widespread, and a decent society becomes impossible.Holbrook advances a keenly insightful and eloquent critique of the radical individualism of Max Stirner's famous tract The Ego and His Own. Stirner's worldview, he argues, is grounded in psychopathology and takes the nihilist assumptions of modernity to their logical conclusion: "the unique one" totally detached from society and reducing others to mere means to his ends, fair game for exploitation unfettered by ethical considerations. Ominously, he notes, the Stirnerean attitude toward existence is becoming increasingly common. Against the reductive perspective of positivism, Holbrook argues that scientific investigations establish the reality of meaning and of values rooted in love. He calls for a reaffirmation of both.Originally published in 1977, Education, Nihilism, and Survival speaks prophetically and even more urgently to us today. The worsening coarseness, nihilism, and brutality of our culture, the partisan fanaticisms and widespread alienation and apathy of our politics, and horrors such as school shootings reveal the consequences of radical individualism.Education, Nihilism, and Survival will be of interest to well-educated general readers concerned at the state of culture and society; educators alarmed at harmful approaches in education; and psychologists and philosophers concerned about existentialism, Stirner's egoist philosophy, and the need for meaningful, philosophical anthropology.

The Five Scrolls is a comprehensive commentary on five books of the Old Testament, namely Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and Esther. The author, Israel Bettan, provides a detailed analysis of each book, highlighting its historical and cultural context, literary style, and theological significance. The Song of Songs is a collection of love poems that celebrate the beauty of human love and the intimacy between a man and a woman. Bettan explores the metaphorical language used in the book and its significance in Jewish tradition. The book of Ruth tells the story of a Moabite woman who becomes part of the Israelite community and ultimately becomes the great-grandmother of King David. Bettan examines the themes of loyalty, faithfulness, and redemption in the book and their relevance to contemporary readers. Lamentations is a collection of poems that mourn the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile of the Jewish people. Bettan discusses the book's structure, language, and theological message, emphasizing the importance of lament and mourning in Jewish tradition. Ecclesiastes is a philosophical book that explores the meaning of life and the human condition. Bettan analyzes the book's themes of wisdom, pleasure, and the inevitability of death, and their relevance to contemporary readers. Finally, Esther tells the story of a Jewish woman who becomes queen of Persia and saves her people from genocide. Bettan examines the book's historical context, literary style, and theological significance, emphasizing the themes of courage, faith, and divine providence. Overall, The Five Scrolls is a valuable resource for anyone seeking to deepen their understanding of these five books of the Old Testament and their relevance to contemporary life.A Commentary On The Song Of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes And Esther. The Jewish Commentary For Bible Readers.This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.