The Ḥayei Adam, an abridged code of Jewish law, was written by Rabbi Avraham Danzig (1748-1820) and was first published in 1810. This code spread quickly throughout Europe, and the demand for it required a second publishing which the author printed in 1818. Beyond a Code of Jewish Law attempts to understand the implicit message of its author and discuss various approaches of its writer to both Judaism and Jewish law. While the Ḥayei Adam without any doubt unveils...

The Boldness of a Halakhist analyzes the writings of Rabbi Yechiel Mechel Halevi Epstein (18291908), author of the Arukh Hashulkhan, a bold and unusual approach to Jewish law. Based primarily on the original text of Rabbi Epstein's legal codes and homilies, this work covers topics such as women, modernity, customs, and secular studies. It analyzes the rabbi's approach to Jewish law and Jewish life, designed to promote the spiritual welfare of Jews under the pressures of growing secularization...

The Jewish intellectual tradition has a long and complex history that has resulted in significant and influential works of scholarship. In this book, the authors suggest that there is a series of common principles that can be extracted from the Jewish intellectual tradition that have broad, even life-changing, implications for individual and societal achievement. These principles include respect for tradition while encouraging independent, often disruptive thinking; a precise system of log...

This book provides a new conceptual and methodological framework the social scientific study of Mishnah, as well as a series of case studies that apply social science perspectives to the analysis of Mishnah's evidence. The framework is one that takes full account of the historical and literary-historical issues that impinge upon the use of Mishnah for any scholarly purposes beyond philological study, including social scientific approaches to the materials. Based on the framework, each chap...

This book presents a group of distinguished scholars who examine key themes in Jewish religious life. Their essays revolve around the dimensions of rabbinic, intellectual, cultural, communal, educational, political, and social leadership, as well as a reflective look at one of the most tragic events in Jewish experience, towards the hope of repairing the world and not repeating such evil. The scholarship reproduced in this volume captures the essence of Touro University: remembering the pa...

The collection of essays in this first volume of a two-volume set devoted to the examination of sacred time and space in Judaism represents the exquisite work of renowned Judaic scholars. The excellent scholarship represented in this and the volume to follow are expressive of the commitment to intellectual inquiry and the transmission of knowledge. These essays ask and examine such essential questions as: What constitutes holiness, sacredness, sanctity? What do our foundational texts say a...