The present volume is the first collection of studies by Charles Mopsik to be published in English. It contains the contents of two separate volumes published in French, with an additional study which was published elsewhere. These seven studies focus on the function and character of sex and gender in Jewish Mysticism: (1) The Primeval Couple and the Primordial One in the Religions of the World; (2) The Masculine Woman; (3) Creation and Procreation: Beyond the Bounds of the Body - From the Hebrew Bible to Medieval Jewish Mysticism; (4) Genesis 1: 26-27: The Image of God, Man and Wife, and the Status of Women in the writings of the Early Kabbalists; (5) Genesis 2:24: 'They Become One Flesh': Several Interpretations by Medieval Jewish Mystics; (6) Union and Unity in the Kabbalah: The Proclamation of the Divine Unity and the Male/Female Couple; (7) The Secret of the Marriage of David and Batsheva.

What do Jews think scripture is? How do the People of the Book conceive of the Book of Books? In what ways is it authoritative? Who has the right to interpret it? Is it divinely or humanly written? And have Jews always thought about the Bible in the same way? In seventeen cohesive and rigorously researched essays, this volume traces the way some of the most important Jewish thinkers throughout history have addressed these questions from the rabbinic era through the medieval Islamic world to modern Jewish scholarship. They address why different Jewish thinkers, writers, and communities have turned to the Bible—and what they expect to get from it. Ultimately, argues editor Benjamin D. Sommer, in understanding the ways Jews construct scripture, we begin to understand the ways Jews construct themselves.

A political crisis erupts when the Persian government falls to fanatics, and a Jewish insider goes rogue, determined to save her people at all costs. God and Politics in Esther explores politics and faith. It is about an era in which the prophets have been silenced and miracles have ceased, and Jewish politics has come to depend not on commands from on high, but on the boldness and belief of each woman and man. Esther takes radical action to win friends and allies, reverse terrifying decrees, and bring God's justice into the world with her own hands. Hazony's The Dawn has long been a cult classic, read at Purim each year the world over. Twenty years on, this revised edition brings the book to much wider attention. Three controversial new chapters address the astonishingly radical theology that emerges from amid the political intrigues of the book.

This collection of essays explores the divergent, as well as complementary trends, in reading the Hebrew Bible in the pre-modern world. It does so by focusing on a variety of Jewish and Christian exegetical, literary and visual texts. The first part of this volume focuses on aspects of interpretation, performance and image in Christian readings of the Hebrew Bible, as evident in translations of the Bible, sermons, plays, treatises and paintings. The second part focuses on the Jewish understanding of Scripture in the Middle Ages, as evident in the running commentary on the books of the Pentateuch as well as in illuminated manuscripts and mystical texts. Together, they provide a forum of interdisciplinary scholarship that demonstrates the Bible’s multivalent presence.--

Analyzes the views of Jewish philosophers on the problem of evil and suffering of innocents, stressing their philosophical, not merely religious, responses to the problem. In ch. 10 (pp. 185-219), "The Holocaust", the views of post-Holocaust thinkers Elie Wiesel, Richard Rubenstein, Emil Fackenheim, Arthur Cohen, Eliezer Berkovits, and Ignaz Maybaum are examined, as well as some Christian reactions to the Holocaust. Traditional Jewish thought regards God as very remote from the human world; He gave human beings the Law and freedom of choice, but refrains from intervening in human matters. However, the enormity of the Holocaust in comparison to other Jewish disasters presents a serious problem - why did He not intervene in this special case? The philosophers answer basic questions - such as, does God intervene in history at all; where was He during the Holocaust; does He understand our sufferings; did He partake in the tragedy, and if so, what were His intentions - in different ways. They all insist, however, that we must not abandon Judaism. Criticizes weak aspects of each explanation.

During the formative age of Judaism, the first seven centuries CE, the great rabbis thought deeply about beginnings in light of endings. They imposed upon their sequential reading of each passage the accumulated results of their reflection about all passages. Thus, they encompassed Scripture, so as to describe the world as God had intended it to be.This act of intellect resulted in two distinct, ahistorical media of thought and expression, the Halakhah, law, and Aggadah, lore. The author provides three systematic accounts of the Halakhic reading, and two Aggadic accounts. The Halakhic accounts cover [1] Work and Rest, [2] Ownership and Possession, Eden and the Land, and [3] Ownership and Possession in the Household. The Aggadic accounts pertain to [1] the Six Days of Creation, and [2] Adam and Eve.

These essays represent a multidisciplinary approach to the study of religion and, especially, Judaism. Setting aside common scholarly concerns with source criticism and history of interpretation, Shimon Levy argues that in Numbers 11 the redactor has forged diverse elements into a unity. Observing that much of what is said about Second Commonwealth Judaic culture is speculative, Jack Lightstone calls for radical revision of accepted portrayals of the period. Ira Robinson's study of al-Kirkisani's effort to differentiate magic and miracle while demonstrating the rationality of belief in miracle locates his thoughts in the context of Rabbinic and Muslim treatments of the subject. While historians of modern Judaism have acknowledged in the influence of Kant and Hegel, Rousseau, contends Michel Despland, is often overlooked; he opened the way for changes in social and religious life. In Walter Benjamin's philosophy of history Charles Davis finds a significant combining of elements from Kabbalistic and Marxist thought. Michael Oppenheim finds a common core of concerns addressed by modern Jewish philosophers: a struggle with modernity, identification with Jewish thought and values, and commitment to their Jewish communities. Gershon Hundert's "Reflections on the 'Whig' Interpretation of Jewish History" argues--vis-à-vis the Jerusalem school of Zionist historians--that the responsibility of national historians to their community can be fulfilled only by repudiating ideologies that may stand in the way of the search for truth. Howard Joseph's survey of teh extensive literature on the Holocaust indicates the options the authors find most worthy of continued focus. Jerome Eckstein critically examines one of the few published pieces by Joseph Soloveitchik, who combines the Talmudic genius of the Lithuanian Yeshiva world with mastery of the Western intellectual tradition. B. Barry Levy's study of the Artscroll series of translations of and commentaries on biblical literature examines the assumptions and methodology of the series and the hidden agenda that emerges. Frederick Bird's comparison of charity ethics in Judaism and Christianity draws attention to the imprint on these ethics of the formative period of each religion. The volume will be of interest to student of the Bible, Judaism, and Christianity.