Reinventing Maimonides in Contemporary Jewish Thought PDF Download

Author: James A. Diamond
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
ISBN: 1789624983
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 247

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Book Description
The first critical study of how Maimonides has been read by leading Orthodox rabbis in our time shows that some have tried to liberate themselves from his influence, others have built on his ideas generating vibrant controversy, and yet others have sought to recreate Maimonides in their own image.

Author: James Arthur Diamond
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781800343344
Category : Jewish philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
The first critical study of how Maimonides has been read by leading Orthodox rabbis in our time shows that some have tried to liberate themselves from his influence, others have built on his ideas generating vibrant controversy, and yet others have sought to recreate Maimonides in their own image.

Author: Menachem Kellner
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438408668
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 181

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Book Description
Maimonides on Judaism and the Jewish People explores Maimonides' philosophical psychology, his ethics, his views on prophecy, providence, and immortality, his understanding of the place of gentiles in the Messianic area, his attitude toward proselytes, his answer to the question, "Who is a Jew?", his conception of the nature of Torah, and his arguments concerning the nature of the Chosen People. With respect to each of these issues, Kellner shows that Maimonides adopted positions that reflected his emphasis on nurture over nature and his insistence that it is intellectual perfection and not ethnic affiliation which is crucial.

Author: Menachem Kellner
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438408676
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 149

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Book Description
Moses Maimonides, medieval Judaism's leading legist and philosopher, and a figure of central importance for contemporary Jewish self-understanding, held a view of Judaism which maintained the authority of the Talmudic rabbis in matters of Jewish law while allowing for free and open inquiry in matters of science and philosophy. Maimonides affirmed, not the superiority of the "moderns" (the scholars of his and subsequent generations) over the "ancients" (the Tannaim and Amoraim, the Rabbis of the Mishnah and Talmud) but the inherent equality of the two. The equality presented here is not equality of halakhic authority, but equality of ability, of essential human characteristics. In order to substantiate these claims, Kellner explores the related idea that Maimonides does not adopt the notion of "the decline of the generations," according to which each succeeding generation, or each succeeding epoch, is in some significant and religiously relevant sense inferior to preceding generations or epochs.

Author: James Arthur Diamond
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780268025922
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 366

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Book Description
James Diamond's new book consists of a series of studies addressing Moses Maimonides' (1138-1204) appropriation of marginal figures--lepers, converts, heretics, and others--normally considered on the fringes of society and religion. Each chapter focuses on a type or character that, in Maimonides' hands, becomes a metaphor for a larger, more substantive theological and philosophical issue. Diamond offers a close reading of key texts, such as the Guide of the Perplexed and the Mishneh Torah, demonstrating the importance of integrating Maimonides' legal and philosophical writings. Converts, Heretics, and Lepers fills an important void in Jewish studies by focusing on matters of exegesis and hermeneutics as well as philosophical concerns. Diamond's alternative reading of central topics in Maimonides suggests that literary appreciation is a key to deciphering Maimonides' writings in particular and Jewish exegetical texts in general. "Converts, Heretics, and Lepers is a very sophisticated exploration of Maimonidean religious philosophy. Although there have been numerous studies on Maimonides, perhaps more than any other Jewish thinker, James Diamond manages to approach the master from fresh perspectives. The result is a stunningly lucid and deep engagement with Maimonides." --Elliot Wolfson, Abraham Lieberman Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies, New York University "A series of extraordinarily close readings of core texts of Maimonides', readings which illuminate the delicate interplay of philosophical and religious ideas in Maimonides. In his previous work, Diamond convincingly illustrated the way in which Maimonides carefully chooses, subtly interprets, and circumspectly weaves together rabbinic materials to address philosophers and talmudists alike, each in their own idiom. This book is a further expression of Diamond's mastery of this intricate methodology and is a work to be studied and re-studied. All students of Maimonides are in his debt." --Menachem Kellner, University of Haifa "James Diamond's book about Maimonides is a welcome addition to the regular stream of books about the thinker Jews have rightly called 'the great eagle.' His unique contribution to the Maimonidean literature is to show that the true Jewish philosopher like Maimonides is always an outsider in ordinary Jewish thought, and he is thus uniquely able to appreciate and explicate what Jews and other worshipers of the One God have to learn from other outsiders like himself." --David Novak, J. Richard and Dorothy Shiff Professor of Jewish Studies, University of Toronto

Author: Menachem Kellner
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
ISBN: 190982108X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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Book Description
Maimonides’ vision of Judaism was deeply elitist, but at the same time profoundly universalistic. He was highly critical of the regnant Jewish culture of his day, which he perceived as so heavily influenced by ancient Jewish mysticism as to be debased. While focusing on that critique, Menachem Kellner skilfully and accessibly demonstrates how Maimonides used philosophy to purify a corrupted and paganized religion, and to present distinctions fundamental to Judaism as institutional, sociological, and historical, rather than ontological. In Maimonides’ hands, metaphysical distinctions are translated into moral challenges.

Author: Menachem Kellner
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
ISBN: 190982142X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 329

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Book Description
‘An important contribution to the history of dogma in Judaism and to the history of fifteenth-century Jewish thought in particular.’ Chava Tirosh-Rothschild, Critical Review ‘A work of serious scholarship. It will no doubt become the standard work on the subject for many years to come.’ Jewish Book News & Reviews ‘A detailed analysis of Maimonides’s position and its aftermath ... a scholarly analysis ... Kellner steers us deftly through the complex argument. His is the most thorough treatment so far of this still relevant chapter in the history of Jewish thought.’ Jonathan Sacks, L’Eylah

Author: Menachem Marc Kellner
Publisher: Academic Studies PRess
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 404

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Book Description
This book explores the religious thought of Moses Maimonides (1138-1204), the single most influential Jew of the last thousand years. While covering many aspects of his religious philosophy, the central focus of these essays is the way Maimonides elucidated and expressed the universalistic thrust of the Jewish tradition.

Author: Simone Ricca
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0857716271
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
The Jewish quarter of Jerusalem today seems like an organic fusion of a modern Israeli city with an ancient Jewish heritage. However, as Simone Ricca details in this fascinating book, the aesthetics of the Jewish Quarter were deliberately planned and executed by Israel after it was occupied during the 1967 war. Secular-nationalist as well as religious politicians agreed that it should be turned in to the capital of the Jewish nation, and that it should be excavated and developed in such a way as to create a sense of continuity with the Jewish people's historical claims to the land. Zionist ideology was thus translated in to bricks and mortar as modern civic amenities were constructed around historic sites, such as the Wailing Wall and the Hurva Synagogue. Ricca examines the politics of heritage conservation, and shows that the Old City's reconstruction did not so much preserve the past as inscribe an identity on to the future.

Author: Menachem Kellner
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
ISBN: 1800347456
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 413

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Book Description
Maimonides’ Mishneh torah presents not only a system of Jewish law, but also a system of values. This study focuses on the moral and philosophical meditations that close each volume of his code. The authors analyse these concluding passages to uncover the universalist outlook underlying Maimonides’ halakhic thought.