Rethinking Jewish Philosophy

Rethinking Jewish Philosophy
Author: Aaron W. Hughes
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 191
Release: 2014-04
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0199356815

Rather than assume that the terms "philosophy" and "Judaism" simply belong together, Aaron W. Hughes explores the juxtaposition and the creative tension that ensues from their cohabitation. He examines the historical, cultural, intellectual, and religious filiations between Judaism and philosophy.

All the World

All the World
Author: Rabbi Lawrence A. Hoffman, PhD
Publisher: Jewish Lights Publishing
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2014-08-22
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1580237835

Why be Jewish? A fascinating dialogue across denominations of the High Holy Days and their message of Jewish purpose beyond mere survival. Almost forty contributors from three continents—men and women, scholars and poets, rabbis and theologians, representing all Jewish denominations and perspectives—examine the tension between Israel as a particular People called by God, and that very calling as intended for a universalist end, furthering God’s vision for all the world, not just for Jews alone. This balance of views arises naturally out of the prayers in the High Holy Day liturgy, coupled with insights from philosophy, literature, theology and ethics. This fifth volume in the Prayers of Awe series provides the relevant traditional prayers in the original Hebrew, alongside a new and annotated translation. It explores the question “Why be Jewish?” in a time when universalist commitment to our planet and its people has only grown in importance, even as particularist questions of Jewish continuity have become ever more urgent.

Rethinking Jewish Philosophy

Rethinking Jewish Philosophy
Author: Aaron W. Hughes
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2014
Genre: Jewish philosophy
ISBN: 9780199358199

Breaking with received opinion, this book seeks to challenge the exclusionary, essentialist, and even totalitarian nature that is inherent to the practice of what is problematically referred to as 'Jewish philosophy'. Hughes begins with the premise that Jewish philosophy, as it is presently conceived, is impossible. He then begins the process of offering a sophisticated and constructive rethinking of the discipline that avoids the traditional extremes of universalism and particularism.

Modern French Jewish Thought

Modern French Jewish Thought
Author: Sarah Hammerschlag
Publisher: Brandeis University Press
Total Pages: 293
Release: 2018-05-01
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 151260187X

"Modern Jewish thought" is often defined as a German affair, with interventions from Eastern European, American, and Israeli philosophers. The story of France's development of its own schools of thought has not been substantially treated outside the French milieu. This anthology of modern French Jewish writing offers the first look at how this significant and diverse body of work developed within the historical and intellectual contexts of France and Europe. Translated into English, these documents speak to two critical axes--the first between Jewish universalism and particularism, and the second between the identification and disidentification of French Jews with France as a nation. Offering key works from Simone Weil, Vladimir JankŽlŽvitch, Emmanuel Levinas, Albert Memmi, HŽlne Cixous, Jacques Derrida, and many others, this volume is organized in roughly chronological order, to highlight the connections linking religion, politics, and history, as they coalesce around a Judaism that is unique to France.

The Making of Jewish Universalism

The Making of Jewish Universalism
Author: Malka Simkovich
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 217
Release: 2016-12-12
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1498542433

This book explores two kinds of universalist thought that circulated among Jews in the Greco-Roman world. The first, which is founded on the idea that all people may worship the One True God in an engaged and sustained manner, originates in biblical prophetic literature. The second, which underscores a common ethic that all people share, arose in the second century bce. This study offers one definition of Jewish universalism that applies to both of these types of universalist thought: universalist literature presumes that all people, regardless of religion and ethnicity, have access to a relationship with the Israelite God and the benefits promised to those loyal to this God, without demanding that they participate in the Israelite community as a Jew. This book opens with an exploration of four types of relationships between Israelites and non-Israelites in biblical prophetic literature: Israel as Subjugators, Israel as Standard-Bearers, Naturalized Nations, and Universalized Worship. In all of these relationships, the foreign nations will acknowledge the One True God, but it is only the Universalized Worship model that offers a truly universalist vision of the end-time. The second section of this book examines how these four relationship models are expressed in Second Temple literature, and the third section studies late Second Temple texts that employ a second kind of universalist thought that emphasizes ethical behavior. This book closes with the suggestion that Ethical Universalist ideas expressed in late Second Temple texts reflect exposure to Stoic thinkers who were developing universalist ideas in the second century BCE.

All the World

All the World
Author: Lawrence A. Hoffman
Publisher:
Total Pages: 476
Release: 2014-09-01
Genre:
ISBN: 9781459684317

This examination of universalism and particularism in Judaism seeks answers to the complex question, "Why be Jewish?" It explores the universalistic definition of the Jews' historic destiny, the role Jews must play simply by virtue of being human, and JudaismÕs part in helping Jews play that human role with uniquely Jewish passion and commitment.

Menachem Kellner: Jewish Universalism

Menachem Kellner: Jewish Universalism
Author: Hava Tirosh-Samuelson
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 212
Release: 2015-07-14
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004298282

Menachem Kellner is an American-born scholar of Jewish philosophy, an educator, and a public intellectual who lives in Israel. For over three decades he taught at the University of Haifa, where he held the Sir Isaac and Lady Edith Wolfson Chair of Jewish Religious Thought as well as several high-level administrative positions. Currently he teaches Jewish philosophy at Shalem College, Israel’s first liberal arts college, which seeks to integrate Western and Jewish texts. Trained in ethics and political philosophy, Kellner specializes in medieval Jewish philosophy, arguing that Maimonides’ rationalist universalism should serve as the ideal for contemporary Jewish life. Creatively fusing Zionism, modern Orthodoxy, and democracy, his vision of Judaism is open to and engaged with the modern world.

Choices in Modern Jewish Thought

Choices in Modern Jewish Thought
Author: Eugene B. Borowitz
Publisher: Behrman House, Inc
Total Pages: 388
Release: 1995
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780874415810

Jewish philosophy responds to the challenges of today's world. By studying the ideas of great contemporary thinkers, readers will achieve a rich understanding of our contemporary spiritual needs.

Judaism and the West

Judaism and the West
Author: Robert Erlewine
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 247
Release: 2016-08-08
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0253022398

Grappling with the place of Jewish philosophy at the margin of religious studies, Robert Erlewine examines the work of five Jewish philosophers—Hermann Cohen, Martin Buber, Franz Rosenzweig, Abraham Joshua Heschel, and Joseph Soloveitchik—to bring them into dialogue within the discipline. Emphasizing the tenuous place of Jews in European, and particularly German, culture, Erlewine unapologetically contextualizes Jewish philosophy as part of the West. He teases out the antagonistic and overlapping attempts of Jewish thinkers to elucidate the philosophical and cultural meaning of Judaism when others sought to deny and even expel Jewish influences. By reading the canon of Jewish philosophy in this new light, Erlewine offers insight into how Jewish thinkers used religion to assert their individuality and modernity.