Studies in Judaism

There are several sections of this book dealing with Zionism and Judaism in general, and Zionism and American Jews in particular. such concepts as aliya, assimilation, and choosing to live in the diaspora are discussed. the concluding pages deal with the relationship between israel and american jews.

"The Rabbis of classical Judaism, in the first six centuries of the Common Era, commented on the teachings of ancient Israel's prophets and shaped, as much as they were shaped by, prophecy. They commented on much of the Scriptural heritage and they made it their own. This collection of the Rabbinic comments on biblical books makes easily accessible the Rabbinic reading of the prophetic heritage and opens the way to the study of how normative Judaism responded to the challenge of the prophetic writings"--back cover.

"This anthology illustrates how Judaism's classical rabbis of the first seven centuries of the Common Era read the ancient Israelite scriptures. It presents, in particular, a selection of writings that show what happens to the five books of Moses at the hands of the Rabbinical sages of the formative age of Judaism. Each Midrash-compilation takes up a book of Scripture and systematically expounds the message that the rabbis derive from that particular book. No statement by the rabbis of the meaning of a biblical book emerges as a mere paraphrase of the plain sense of Scripture itself. The compiler introduces the Rabbinic reading of the Five books of Moses, Genesis through Genesis Rabbah, Exodus through Mekhilta attributed to R. Ishmael, Leviticus through Leviticus Rabbah, Numbers through Sifre to Numbers, and Deuteronomy through Sifre to Deuteronomy."--BOOK JACKET.

"This collection of seven essays draws on work done in 2010. The author takes up several topics in the systemic analysis of Judaisms and deals with comparisons of Judaisms. The papers include two commentaries on the current state of the academic study of Judaism. The reason for periodically collecting and publishing essays and reviews is to give them a second life, after they have served as lectures or as summaries of monographs or as free-standing articles or as expositions of Judaism in collections of comparative religions. This re-presentation serves a readership to whom the initial presentation in lectures or specialized journals or short-run monographs is inaccessible. Some of the essays furthermore provide a précis, for colleagues in kindred fields, of fully worked out monographs"--Publisher's description, back cover.

"Sifre Zutta to Numbers is the first translation into English of H.S. Horovitz's Siphre d'be Rab: Siphre ad Numeros adjecto Siphre zutta. It aims at contributing to the characterization of Sifre Zutta to Numbers, its recurrent formal traits, its paramount qualities of rhetorical and topical exposition, and its dominant logic of coherent discourse. The author plans a systematic comparison of Sifre to Numbers and Sifre Zutta to Numbers, which will highlight the definitive characteristics and program of Sifre Zutta to Numbers. He is looking for the gross indicative qualities, such as repetition of types of inquiry and programs of analysis. These gross traits of inquiry dominate throughout and await recognition. For that purpose, securing a definitive reading among the available variations is not essential, for the range of variation is vastly outweighed by the uniformities of all extant versions of the document. They are what define the document, beginning to end, start to finish." --Book Jacket.

In How Not to Study Judaism : Examples and Counter-Examples, Jacob Neusner presents a collection of essays and book reviews that identify the wrong way of conducting the academic study of Judaism. Pointing readers toward the right way to pursue the academic study of Judaism, Nuesner's focus is on the study of the literature of Judaism and the culture of the Jewish community.

"This analysis of how the Rabbis of the Talmud and Midrash made Jeremiah one of their own shows how Rabbinic Judaism rehearses the Prophetic message. Jeremiah offered hope to renew the relation that was broken, and Yohanan ben Zakkai promised another mode of atonement, involving individual conviction and conduct. Joining the two yields, the thesis of this book is: in the case of Jeremiah, Rabbinic Judaism continues and recapitulates Prophetic Judaism. Prophet and Rabbi confront the same kind of crisis with the same theological outcome. The Prophetic response to and the Rabbinic reading of the event of the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem - the certainty of God's pardon and love - intersect." "The problem of this study of Rabbi Jeremiah is to describe precisely how the Rabbis of the formative canon in the case of Jeremiah naturalized to their system - thus Rabbinized - Prophecy. In taking over the heritage of ancient Israelite Prophecy and law, have the Rabbis subverted Prophecy's religious vision or adapted and adopted it, making that vision their own? By identifying the principal propositions of the Prophet and by examining both the Rabbinic reading of the Prophet and the Rabbinic theology of those same propositions, Jacob Neusner answers that question."--BOOK JACKET.

"In the first six centuries of the Common Era, the Rabbis of formative Judaism, from the Mishnah through the Bavli, consulted the ancient Israelite prophets for guidance on issues of theology, law, history, and literature. In this anthology, Jacob Neusner collects and arranges in documentary sequence the Rabbinic comments on verses in the biblical prophets of Micah and Joel."--Jacket.