Gender and Timebound Commandments in Judaism

Gender and Timebound Commandments in Judaism
Author: Elizabeth Shanks Alexander
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 301
Release: 2013-04-22
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1107067898

The rule that exempts women from rituals that need to be performed at specific times (so-called timebound, positive commandments) has served for centuries to stabilize Jewish gender. It has provided a rationale for women's centrality at home and their absence from the synagogue. Departing from dominant popular and scholarly views, Elizabeth Shanks Alexander argues that the rule was not conceived to structure women's religious lives, but rather became a tool for social engineering only after it underwent shifts in meaning during its transmission. Alexander narrates the rule's complicated history, establishing the purposes for which it was initially formulated and the shifts in interpretation that led to its being perceived as a key marker of Jewish gender. At the end of her study, Alexander points to women's exemption from particular rituals (Shema, tefillin and Torah study), which, she argues, are better places to look for insight into rabbinic gender.

The Timebound Traveler

The Timebound Traveler
Author: David Newman
Publisher: New Harbinger Publications
Total Pages: 97
Release: 2014-04-17
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 1626257868

Direct realization versus love and devotion for God with form—are these two paths mutually exclusive? David Newman (Durga Das) tells of an unexpected inner journey that led him to ask himself: Was I leaving my devotional path behind, or was the pursuit of a conclusive spiritual awakening the very revelation that the path itself had indicated? David's journey started with what he calls a “lightning bolt”, which led him to question his own identity. With heart-warming honesty, he relates how the integration of the two paths came about through unwavering grace. “What I was initially most afraid of ultimately brought the greatest gift”.

Timebound (Blade of Shadows Book 3)

Timebound (Blade of Shadows Book 3)
Author: Sara Samuels
Publisher: Storytelling Press
Total Pages: 500
Release: 2024-03-12
Genre: Fiction
ISBN:

The highly anticipated third book in the Blade of Shadows Series... They can’t escape the relentless, ruthless darkness. Olivia and her sister are running for their lives, hunted by the evil man who murdered their mother. With her dearest love, Roman, lost somewhere in time, only one man can help Olivia. Eyan Malik. Darkness, power, and dominance swirl around the mysterious man, igniting a sizzling, dangerous awareness in Olivia. Why is she so drawn to him? Will her irresistible attraction to Malik lead her to betray Roman? Malik is a man of many secrets. When Olivia discovers a journal that belonged to her dead mother, it may hold the key she needs to find a weapon to defeat the darkness, the powerful Blade of Shadows. To find the blades, they travel through time to 16th century Italy. But as Olivia learns more secrets from the past, the pursuing darkness isn’t the only danger she faces. She’s become a target for the Timehunters, a secret society that hunts and kills time travelers. As shocking, horrifying truths are revealed, everything Olivia thought she knew will be upended. Will Olivia find Roman before she succumbs to the strange pull Malik has on her heart? As the darkness closes in on them, and with her life and love teetering on the brink, everything hangs in the balance and Olivia’s life will be forever changed. Continue your adventure with Timebound, the third book in the Blade of Shadows series! The Blade of Shadows series is an intricate and interconnected time travel saga that must be read in order to unravel the mysteries within. It's intricate plot twists and turns are mesmerizing and unpredictable, with every book bringing readers closer to a shocking conclusion.

Time and Difference in Rabbinic Judaism

Time and Difference in Rabbinic Judaism
Author: Sarit Kattan Gribetz
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 408
Release: 2022-08-09
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0691242097

How the rabbis of late antiquity used time to define the boundaries of Jewish identity The rabbinic corpus begins with a question–“when?”—and is brimming with discussions about time and the relationship between people, God, and the hour. Time and Difference in Rabbinic Judaism explores the rhythms of time that animated the rabbinic world of late antiquity, revealing how rabbis conceptualized time as a way of constructing difference between themselves and imperial Rome, Jews and Christians, men and women, and human and divine. In each chapter, Sarit Kattan Gribetz explores a unique aspect of rabbinic discourse on time. She shows how the ancient rabbinic texts artfully subvert Roman imperialism by offering "rabbinic time" as an alternative to "Roman time." She examines rabbinic discourse about the Sabbath, demonstrating how the weekly day of rest marked "Jewish time" from "Christian time." Gribetz looks at gendered daily rituals, showing how rabbis created "men's time" and "women's time" by mandating certain rituals for men and others for women. She delves into rabbinic writings that reflect on how God spends time and how God's use of time relates to human beings, merging "divine time" with "human time." Finally, she traces the legacies of rabbinic constructions of time in the medieval and modern periods. Time and Difference in Rabbinic Judaism sheds new light on the central role that time played in the construction of Jewish identity, subjectivity, and theology during this transformative period in the history of Judaism.

Trans Talmud

Trans Talmud
Author: Max K. Strassfeld
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 261
Release: 2023-10-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 0520397398

Trans Talmud places eunuchs and androgynes at the center of rabbinic literature and asks what we can learn from them about Judaism and the project of transgender history. Rather than treating these figures as anomalies to be justified or explained away, Max K. Strassfeld argues that they profoundly shaped ideas about law, as the rabbis constructed intricate taxonomies of gender across dozens of texts to understand an array of cultural tensions. Showing how rabbis employed eunuchs and androgynes to define proper forms of masculinity, Strassfeld emphasizes the unique potential of these figures to not only establish the boundary of law but exceed and transform it. Trans Talmud challenges how we understand gender in Judaism and demonstrates that acknowledging nonbinary gender prompts a reassessment of Jewish literature and law.

Gothic writing 1750–1820

Gothic writing 1750–1820
Author: Robert Miles
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2017-06-01
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1526125714

Now available again in paperback, this provocative study by Robert Miles uses the tools of modern literary theory and criticism to analyse this very distinctive body of texts. Miles introduces the reader to contexts of Gothic in the eigteenth century including its historical development and its placement within the period's concerns with discourse and gender. By using texts ranging from sensational novels such as The Monk and The Mysteries of Udolpho, poetic variations on Gothic by Coleridge, Shelley and Keats, to satirical works on the theme by Jane Austen, Miles presents an intriguing overview of Gothic literature. By drawing extensively on the ideas of Michel Foucault to establish a genealogy he brings Gothic writing in from the margins of 'popular fiction', resituating it at the centre of debate about Romanticism.