[1] Ḥeleḳ ha-moʻadim -- [2] Ḥeleḳ parashiyot ha-Torah -- ḥeleḳ 3. Be-ʻinyene midot.

ḥeleḳ 1. - Elul, Tishre - Adar -- ḥeleḳ 2. Nisan-Av.

"היום אתם יצאים עוסק בתכנים הבסיסיים של חג היווצרות העם היהודי - חג החירות. הוא מוצא בהם ממדים חדשים של עומק ורלוונטיות וקושר את השאלות שמעלה החג לאלו העומדות במרכז השיח הציבורי בימינו: משמעות הגיור, אנטישמיות, רוחניות וגבולות ההלכה, מקום המסורת וזיכרון העבר ביחס לאתגרי ההווה, חיים בטבע למול חיים אורבניים ועוד.פרקי היום אתם יצאים נוגעים בנושאים גדולים בשפה אישית ומלאת לב והופכים את המפגש עם החג למסע מקורי בשאלות הזהות הקיומיות ביותר שלנו. הספר מתחיל בפסוקי המקרא, בדברי חז"ל ופוסקי (...) ההלכה, מצרף אליהם את תורות המקובלים והחסידים ואת מחשבת הרב קוק והרב שג"ר ומשלב בהם עושר ספרותי, פילוסופי ופסיכולוגי.". (shrink)

Singing and praying in the words of biblical men and women is basic to sacramental mimesis, i.e., Christian imitation of the actions of the saints with the intention of thereby opening themselves to grace. This evidence counters the “voiceless victim” paradigm prevalent in much feminist scholarship. In pre-Christian Jewish liturgy, the song of Miriam after the Crossing of the Red Sea was already important in the annual celebration of the Passover. Jesus emphasized the spiritual equality of the sexes in (...) his teaching and ministry, and this led to increased visibility for women in Christian tradition: Susanna was the first of at least eight women interpreted as types of Christ. She was presented this way even within the synoptic Gospels themselves [see “Aneboesen phone megale: Susanna and the Synoptic Passion Narratives,” forthcoming in Gregorianium]. Moreover, the practice of presenting examples from both sexes in sermons and church decoration was so pervasive as to constitute a pastoral program of the Church. Such balanced representation of the sexes is found in both texts and art. The linguistic range of the evidence for the singing of women’s words includes Greek, Latin, Coptic, Syriac, Slavonic, and German. The artworks depicting women are from throughout the Christian world, including Dura Europos, Jerusalem, Egypt, Ethiopia, Cyprus, Syria, Armenia, Italy, France, Belgium, Germany. More than twenty biblical women are treated in the essay. Women’s words, quoted from the biblical record or imaginatively supplied, became the prayer of the whole congregation. Miriam’s words remain focal universally on Holy Saturday. The acclamations of Elizabeth and of the Virgin Mary became prominent early in both East and West . Both Byzantine and Gregorian chant commemorated them and other women such as Eve, Esther, Judith, Sarah , Susanna, Martha of Bethany, the Samaritan woman, the Canaanite woman, the woman with the ointment, the Samaritan woman, the ten virgins of the parable , and especially the Holy Women at the Tomb . Their proclamation of the Lord’s rising became particularly important in Byzantine resurrection hymns used at Easter and year-round. With four other first-century female saints– Junia, Mariamne, Photina and Thecla– Mary Magdalene was deemed ἰσαπόστολος “equal to the apostles,” because the angel commissioned her to announce the Lord’s Resurrection to the disciples. Martha’s profession of faith is the fullest recorded in the Gospels and became the basis for a Byzantine communion prayer . Repeatedly, one finds that women’s words were sung at important Sunday feasts and during Holy Week. In Gregorian chant their words were sung over the course of several days. Susanna’s words are readily found in fifty Gregorian chant manuscripts from the ninth through fifteenth centuries, used in cathedrals, in monasteries and other religious houses, and in parish churches; an appendix lists these manuscripts. Throughout the continent–in Italy, Austria, Slovenia, Germany, Switzerland, France, The Netherlands, England, Wales–the varied communities of the church sang Susanna’s words. Moreover, her words as mediated through Gregorian chant were quoted by Bernard of Clairvaux in a sermon and by Hermann of Scheda in his account of his conversion from Judaism. These men used Susanna’s words to evoke her as a type of Christ and thereby to seek to be like him themselves. That is, they experienced sacramental mimesis through singing women’s words. (shrink)

The creation of the state of Israel was the outcome of the Zionist movement, which originated in Europe and was itself inspired by fundamental European ideas—Enlightenment, national self-determination, democracy and socialism. From its earliest days Zionism was primarily a secular movement that rejected the religious establishment and religious way of life of the Jews in the Diaspora. In many respects, however, the founders of the state and the principles on which they founded its institutions—the political, judicial, economic, social, and educational—were (...) rooted in the ethical values and cultural practices of the Jewish tradition which they had apparently rejected. To explain this complex process of secularization of a very ancient religious and cultural tradition—which many see as an unresolved or unresolvable conflict between two opposing systems of thought—I draw on the hermeneutic philosophy of Hans-Georg Gadamer and especially on his Truth and Method (1960). Culture, according to Gadamer, is a continuous flow of tradition within what he called “the horizon.” People, he argued, create and live within a given cultural tradition, but they are at the same time its interpreters, enlarging it by adopting elements from various cultures and ideologies, or “horizons.” From this hermeneutic perspective, the founders of modern Israel and their successors were the active interpreters of the Jewish tradition within the larger historical context of the European Enlightenment. I illustrate this process of cultural interpretation by focusing on the secularization of the Jewish holidays, specifically on the way the Kibbutz movement, a leading symbol of the new Israel, re-interpretated Jewish holidays like Passover, Shavuot (Pentecost) and Yom Kippur, and gave these religious festivals a secular-Israeli content. However, this dynamic pioneering stage of secularization may be said to have ended by the 1980s. From then on, the secular identity of Israeli society has been undergoing a variety of radical changes. (shrink)

Gratitude -- Enthusiasm -- Joy -- Strength -- Loving-kindness -- Order -- Equanimity -- Honor -- Humility -- Generosity -- Watchfulness -- Judging others favorably -- Calmness -- Patience -- Love -- Abstinence -- Compassion -- Modesty -- Willingness -- Simplicity -- Courage -- Trust -- Faith -- Truth -- Silence -- Awe.

ABSTRACT‘Not in Heaven’: Coherence and Complexity in Biblical Narrative. Edited by J. P. Rosenblatt and J. C. Sitterson Jr.Towards a Grammar of Biblical Poetics: Tales of the Prophets. By Herbert Chanan Brichto.The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant. By John Dominic Crossan.Jesus and the Oral Gospel Tradition. Edited by Henry Wansbrough.The Rhetoric of Righteousness in Romans 3.21‐26. By Douglas A. Campbell.Paul and the Rhetoric of Reconciliation: An Exegetical Investigation of rhe Language and Composition of I Corinthians. (...) By Margaret M. Mitchell.Divine Disclosure: An Introduction to Jewish Apocalyptic. By D. S. Russell.Judaism. By Hans Küng.Jewish History and Thought: An Introduction. By Menahem Mansoor.Studies in the Jewish Background to Christianity. By Daniel R. Schwartz.Der verborgene und offenbare Gott: Hauptthemen der ffühen jüdischen Mystik. By Peter Schäfer.The Foundations of Mysticism: Origins to the Fifth Century. By Bernard McGinn.The Eucharistic Prayer of Addai and Mari. By A. Gelston.Thomas Becket in the Medieval Latin Preaching Tradition: An Inventory of Sermons about St Thomas Becket c.1170‐c.1400. By Phyllis B. Roberts.Einsiclit und Bekehrung: Ausgangspunkt der Fundamental theologie bei Bernard Lunergan. By Grzegorz Dobroczynski.The Liberation of Consciousness: Bemurd Lonergan's Theological Foundations in Dialogue with the Theological Aesthetics of Hans Urs von Balthasar. By Hilary A. Mooney.Systematic Theology, Volume I. By Wolfhart Pannenberg.Revelation: From Metaphor to Analogy. By Richard Swinburne.Sociology and Liturgy: Re‐presentations of the Holy. By Kieran Flanagan.Communication Theory for Christian Witness. By Charles H. Kraft.Contemporary Literary Theory: A Christian Appraisal. Edited by Clarence Walhout and Leland Ryken.Eucharistic Poetry: The Search for Presence in the Writings of John Donne, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Dylan Thomas and Geoffrey Hill. By Eleanor J. McNees.La Vie religieuse: Un chemin d'humanitk. By Paul Lebeau.Venantius Fortunatus: A Latin Poet in Merovingian Gaul. By Judith George.The Rise of Magic in Early Medieval Europe. By Valerie I. J. Flint.The Later Crusades: From Lyons to Alcazar, 1274‐1580. By Norman Housley.Beneath the Cross: Catholics and Huguenots in Sixteenth‐Century Paris. By Barbara B. Diefendorf.Gentlemen and Jesuits: Quests for Glory and Adventure in the Early Days of New France. By Elizabeth Jones.Education in New France. By Roger Magnuson.Early American Methodism. By Russell E. Richey.Cheap Bibles: Nineteenth‐Century Publishing and the British and Foreign Bible Society. By Leslie Howsam.Hopkins: A Literary Biography. By Norman White.The Old Palace: A History of the Oxford University Catholic Chaplaincy. By Walter Drumm.Peace Movements: International Protest and World Politics since 1945. By April Carter.The Christian Church in the Cold War. By Owen Chadwick.Spirit of Africa: The Healing Ministry of Archbishop Milingo of Zambia. By Gerrie Ter Haar.Aristotle's ‘Physics’: A Collection of Essays. Edited by Lindsay Judson.Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy: Supplementary Volume, 1991. Edited by Henry Blumenthal and Howard Robinson.Substance and Predication in Aristotle. By Frank A. Lewis.The Perfection of the Universe according to Aquinas: A Theological Cosmology. By Oliva Blanchette.The Thought of Thomas Aquinas. By Brian Davies.Kant's Philosophy of Religion Reconsidered. Edited by Philip J. Rossi and Michael Wreen.Marx's Theory of History: The Contemporary Debate. Edited by Paul Wetherly.The Cambridge Companion to Marx. Edited by R. Terrell Carver.Essentialism: A Wittgensteinian Critique. By Garth L. Hallett.The Realistic Spirit: Wittgenstein, Philosophy and the Mind. By Cora Diamond.From Existence to God: A Contemporary Philosophical Argument. By Barry Miller.Will and World: A Study in Metaphysics. By N. M. L. Nathan.Being A Philosopher: The History of a Practice. By David Hamlyn. (shrink)

Orations of the Fatimid Caliphs: Festival Sermons of the Ismaili Imams. Ed. and tr. Paul E. Walker. Ismaili Texts and Translations Series, vol. 10. London: I. B. Tauris, with the Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2009. Pp. xvii + 162 + 58. £29.50, $51.29.

Copernicus Festival, held annually, aims to demonstrate various dimensions of the relationship between science and culture. The third edition of the festival was devoted to the concept of beauty. During the six days of the festival about 7 thousand people took part in lectures, debates, discussions, workshops, concerts and other events.

(1999). The lessons and messages of the holocaust as conveyed through Yom Hashoah (holocaust day) commemorations in selected Australian Jewish communities, 1945–1996. The European Legacy: Vol. 4, Postmodern Fascism, pp. 54-71.

May Day was the most popular holiday of the two major wings of the German labor movement, Social Democratic and Communist, during the Weimar Republic (1918-1933). While the political importance and ideological significance of May Day celebrations for the German labor movement have been extensively researched, its geographicity, the inherently spatialized and spatializing moment of lived experience, as well as the content of that geographicity have been relatively neglected. Examining working-class May Day celebrations in a specific built environment like the (...) Lustgarten permits detailed consideration of the ways that the festive has involved spatializing and spatialized moments of lived experience which were part of the spatial reproduction of class relations and class experiences at the local level in Berlin in the Weimar Republic. (shrink)

The 21st Century has seen a dramatic increase in the number of books published on practical halakha. As a result, Halakhic observance has never been more accessible. But how does increased commitment to halakhic detail accomplish its goal of personal and ethical refinement? Halakhic practices are meant to be spiritual entry points for divine encounters. Commitment to Jewish ritual should mold one's character and help facilitate a life guided by divine ideals. In fact, adherence to Jewish law without (...) a parallel understanding of the meaning behind the law runs the risk of transforming halakha into a formulaic set of rules without any larger spiritual vision. Jewish Law as a Journey is a valuable companion to published works of practical halakha. It explores virtues and ideals foundational to daily halakhic practice. Moreover, it offers a systematic exploration of the mitzvot one encounters in a given day and the transformative religious messages that underlie them"--front flap. (shrink)

Jewish philosophy has seen better days. It has been quite a while since the discipline of Jewish philosophy enjoyed the respect of the wider philosophical community, and an obvious question is what are the reasons for this state of things? Providing a detailed and thorough answer to this question is beyond the scope of the current chapter. Still, I would like to contribute here a few ideas that might shed some light on the current predicament and its causes. (...) Such an attempt is timely because the current moment in the development of Anglo-American philosophy is impregnated with a promise – which I hope is sincere – to turn the study of philosophy and the history of philosophy into an inclusive and genuinely universal field of inquiry, shared equally by all human beings, rather than an imposition of the prevalent beliefs of white Christian European males. A study of philosophy that is genuinely ecumenical could profit enormously from the encounter and dialogue with the philosophical thinking of minority cultures, since it is precisely this encounter with the philosophical thought of minority cultures that could expose the potentially numerous blind spots of the majority. If anything can heal Western philosophy from the prejudice that what one takes to be natural must be equally judged so by all rational human beings, it is only the encounter with non-Christian, or non-Western, philosophical thinking that could refute its illusory pretense of universality. Obviously, the real issue at stake is the sincerity of the attempt to understand foreign cultures and their philosophical thinking in their own terms. An identity politics that is merely interested in extending fig leaves would be far worse than the old, conservative state of things, insofar as the new and “inclusive” appearance would only provide the majority culture with a sense of self-satisfaction that would allow it to stick to its old and obstinate prejudicial practices. My aims in the current chapter are pretty modest and concrete. In the first two parts of the chapter, I will attempt to shed light on two blind spots related to perceptions of Jewish philosophy, from without and from within, respectively. These two parts will thus inquire into the nature of Jewish philosophy as minority philosophy. In the third and final part, I will turn to the rudimentary requirements of Jewish philosophy qua philosophy. In this part, I will suggest some fundamental desiderata which might – I hope – help the field flourish and achieve the recognition it deserves. Here too, my claims would be quite plain, as most of the desired characteristics I would argue for are pretty trivial, yet unfortunately still mostly lacking. (shrink)

In 1939, scholars associated with the pro-Nazi Thüringian German Christian movement founded a research institute dedicated to the task of removing the legacy of Judaism from Christianity. The mission of the Institute for the Study and Elimination of Jewish Influence on German Church Life was to render Christianity acceptable within the antisemitic and militarized climate of National Socialism. This task required purging Christian theology of Jewish influence, a feature evident in the Institute's version of the New Testament titled (...) The Message of God. This publication aimed to transform the religious experience of ordinary German believers and would eventually sell over 200,000 copies. This article examines material in this text as it relates to the Sermon on the Mount and concludes that, despite the apparent incongruity between Nazi ideology and New Testament ethics, the editors of the so-called ‘Nazi Bible’ believed their task to be guided by Christian ethical principles. (shrink)

Twentieth century continental thinkers such as Bergson, Levinas and Jonas have brought fresh and renewed attentions to Jewish ethics, yet it still remains fairly low profile in the Anglophone academic world. This collection of critical essays brings together the work of established and up-and-coming scholars from Israel, the United States, and around the world on the topic of Jewish religious and philosophical ethics. The chapters are broken into three main sections - Rabbinics, Philosophy, and Contemporary Challenges. The authors (...) address, using a variety of research strategies, the work of both major and lesser-known figures in historical Jewish religious and philosophical traditions. The book discusses a wide variety of topics related to Jewish ethics, including "ethics and the Mishnah," "Afro Jewish ethics," "Jewish historiographical ethics," as well as the conceptual/philosophical foundations of the law and virtues in the work of Martin Buber, Hermann Cohen, and Baruch Spinoza.The volume closes with four contributions on present-day frontiers in Jewish ethics. As the first book to focus on the nature, scope and ramifications of the Jewish ethics at work in religious and philosophical contexts, this book will be of great interest to anyone studying Jewish Studies, Philosophy and Religion. (shrink)

To this day Jewish thinkers struggle to articulate the appropriate response to the unprecedented catastrophe of the Holocaust. Here, Morgan offers the first comprehensive overview of Post-Holocaust Jewish theology, quoting extensively from and interpreting all of the significant American writings of the movement. Morgan's lucid analysis clarifies the background of the movement in the postwar period, its origins, its character, and its legacy for subsequent thinking, theological and otherwise. Ultimately, Morgan's primary purpose is to tell the story of (...) the movement, to illuminate its real, deep point, and to demonstrate its continuing relevance today. (shrink)

Autonomy in Jewish Philosophy examines an important theme in Jewish thought from the Book of Genesis to the present day. Although it is customary to view Judaism as a legalistic faith leaving little room for free thought or individual expression, Kenneth Seeskin argues that this view is wrong. Where some see the essence of the religion as strict obedience to divine commands, Seeskin claims that God does not just command but forms a partnership with humans requiring the consent (...) of both parties. Looking at classic texts from Biblical, Rabbinic, and philosophical literature, Seeskin shows that Judaism has always respected freedom of conscience and assigned an important role to the power of human reason. The book considers both existing arguments and presents new ideas about the role of autonomy in Judaism. Clear and concise, it offers a refreshing alternative to the mysticism and dogmatism prevalent in much of the recent literature. (shrink)

"How Jewish is modern Jewish philosophy? The question at first appears nonsensical, until we consider that the chief issues with which Jewish philosophers have engaged, from the Enlightenment through to the late 20th century, are the standard preoccupations of general philosophical inquiry. Questions about God, reality, language, and knowledge have been as much concern to Jewish thinkers as they have been to others. In this textbook, which surveys the most prominent thinkers of the last three centuries, (...) Claire Katz situates modern Jewish philosophy in the wider cultural and intellectual context of its day, indicating how broader currents of British, French and German thought influenced its practitioners. But she also addresses the unique ways in which being Jewish coloured their output, suggesting that a keen sense of particularity enabled the Jewish philosophers to help define the whole modern era."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

End of Days (translated from the recently published Hebrew book, Atchalta) is both a meditation on Jewish morality in the age of Israeli Jewish power, and a cri du coeur by an Orthodox Israeli Jew, a former combat officer in the IDF, for Israelis to look into the Jewish religious ethical tradition for an alternative to the secular and religious Zionism that sanctifies power, statehood, and sovereignty. Appealing to a wealth of Jewish sources from the Bible (...) to the present, including medieval Jewish ethical literature, rabbinic sources, Jewish law, and contemporary Israeli thought, the book presents an argument against the Israeli's occupation of the Palestinian people and the suppression of their rights from the perspective of a modern Israeli religious Jew. (shrink)

Many studies written about the Jewish-Christian relationship are primarily historical overviews that focus on the Jewish background of Christianity, the separation of Christianity from Judiasm, or the medieval disputations between the two faiths. This book is one of the first studies to examine the relationship from a philosophical and theological viewpoint. Carefully drawing on Jewish classical sources, Novak argues that there is actual justification for the new relationship between Judaism and Christianity from within Jewish religious tradition. (...) He demonstrates that this new relationship is possible between religiously committed Jews and Christians without the two major impediments to dialogue: triumphalism and relativism. One of the very few books on this topic written by a Jewish theologian who speaks specifically to modern Christian concerns, it will provide the groundwork for a more serious development of Jewish-Christian dialogue in our day. (shrink)

Twentieth century continental thinkers such as Bergson, Levinas and Jonas have brought fresh and renewed attentions to Jewish ethics, yet it still remains fairly low profile in the Anglophone academic world. This collection of critical essays brings together the work of established and up-and-coming scholars from Israel, the United States, and around the world on the topic of Jewish religious and philosophical ethics. The chapters are broken into three main sections - Rabbinics, Philosophy, and Contemporary Challenges. The authors (...) address, using a variety of research strategies, the work of both major and lesser-known figures in historical Jewish religious and philosophical traditions. The book discusses a wide variety of topics related to Jewish ethics, including "ethics and the Mishnah," "Afro Jewish ethics," "Jewish historiographical ethics," as well as the conceptual/philosophical foundations of the law and virtues in the work of Martin Buber, Hermann Cohen, and Baruch Spinoza.The volume closes with four contributions on present-day frontiers in Jewish ethics. As the first book to focus on the nature, scope and ramifications of the Jewish ethics at work in religious and philosophical contexts, this book will be of great interest to anyone studying Jewish Studies, Philosophy and Religion. (shrink)

In the Antiatticista, as we call the scanty excerpt of a lexicon of the second century A.D., so abbreviated as to be often unintelligible, we find on p. 86. 20 the following article: Γενέσια оσης тε έоρтς &lsqbтς&rsqb δημотελоũς 〈έν &rsquoΑθήνααις, ΒоB7δρоγιѿνоς ΠέμΠтηι, Γενέσια καλоυένμς, καθόтι øησί Φιλόχоρоς καί Σόλων έν тоȊς &rsquoΑξоσι, καί тς тоũ όνόμαтоς χρήσεως оσης &rsquoΕλλ:ηνικς, тί κιλúει μή μόνоν έΠ тς δημотελоũς έоρтς á»á καί έΠί тςίδίας έκáσтоυ тáσσεσθα&iota. What rouses our interest in this note (...) is not the domestic quarrel between the Atticists of a stricter and of a more lenient observance about the meaning and the use of the word, but the facts themselves, which in the present case are fortunately clear enough. The lexicographer knows two entirely different facts: a material fact, the existence of a State festival in Athens called Genesia and celebrated on the 5th of Boedromion; a linguistic fact, the ’Ελλινικǹ χασις which denotes by Γενέσια not this State festival but some private celebration. For the latter, it is important to observe that by &rsquoΕλλνικ χασις the lexicographer does not mean Hellenistic Greek nor the usage of his own day, but the occurrence of the word in those authors whom the strict Atticists do not take as models of style, or who are not held to be Attic writers: it is to such authors, at least, that the lexicographer appeals in the preceding gloss: he there quotes ΕριΠίδης “Іωνι for γενέθλια and Herodotos for γενέσια. The latter passage could be the evidence for his linguistic fact, that ‘Hellenic usage’ applies the word γενέσια to a private celebration. (shrink)

This book situates Levinas in the pantheon of modern Jewish thinkers, discussing a number of themes that frequently occur in Jewish thought. The author presents Levinas's oeuvre, which comprises two parts - his Jewish, "confessional" writings and his philosophical, "professional" writings - as a unity. The question of the exact relationship between these two types of writings is a lively discussion in present day scholarship. How does Levinas perceive the relationship between revelation and philosophy, the biblical address (...) and the logos, the Saying and the said, faith and reason? There is a long oppositional tradition which contrasts Athens with Jerusalem, yet Levinas does not take part in such an antithetical tradition. Without reconciling or harmonizing, he belongs to the philosophical tradition as well as to the Jewish tradition. This double allegiance explains the presence of philosophical terms and themes in his Jewish thought and the presence of Jewish words and ideas in his metaphysics. Levinas is presented by the author as a frequent traveler between Athens and Jerusalem and as a great translator from "Hebrew" to "Greek". However, the relationship between "Hebrew" and "Greek" in Levinas's writings is not one of prototext and phenotext or of subtext and text, but rather one of a primordial inspirational word and the conceptual discourse. In an inclusive reading, Meir shows that the acquaintance with Levinas's Jewish writings is helpful in understanding his subtle philosophical analyses and a necessary condition for the understanding of the whole Levinas.--Cover. (shrink)

Paris. The Place de Grève is teeming with the city's idle seeking relief from their boredom. Street-singers, story-tellers and showmen are encircled by groups of people in varying moods—some sullen, others eager, some distracted, others attentive. Sweets vendors, mercers and lampoonists attract customers by their words and gestures. A little apart from the crowd, men with grave faces seem to be waiting for something: they are the unemployed, keeping an eye out for a possible hirer. On some days a drumroll (...) precedes several men-at-arms escorting a condemned man and his executioner to the place of execution; the festive atmosphere turns suddenly somber, the crowd becomes silent. If scattered jeers and taunts are heard, more often than not it is just to relieve the tension.The Place de Grève gave its name to the French word for strike, greve. And perhaps something still remains of the liveliness of that gathering-place in today's strikes. The Spanish word for strike, huelga, is near to juerga, Spanish for amusement or diversion. The English “strike,” the German streik, the Italian sciopero, all connote fighting, an exchange of blows. The words themselves thus suggest that a strike may be both militant and festive. (shrink)

This third volume completes the text of the cycle of 294 English Wycliffite sermons; the first two volumes appeared in 1983 and 1987 respectively. The 120 sermons here were intended to provide material for all the weekday occasions for which the Sarum rite offers a separate gospel reading; such complete coverage of ferial days is unparalleled in English medieval homiliaries, and seems unknown elsewhere in contemporary European cycles of sermons. The introduction to the present book, which is intended to be (...) used along with the material in the previous volumes, describes the state of the text in these manuscripts and their relation to each other. Two further chapters consider questions relating to the whole cycle: the fidelity of the biblical translation in the sermons to the Vulgate texts; and the complicated issue of the relation between these English sermons and the Latin sermons of John Wyclif himself. A fourth volume will provide a commentary on the individual sermons, consider the recurrent issues discussed within them, and offer suggestions concerning the origins of the collection. (shrink)

Th is microhistorical case-study of the role of the Antifascist Front of Women of Yugoslavia in popularising New Year celebrations in the Serbian municipality of Čačak aims to examine the internalisation of the communist discourse through ritual practices serving to infiltrate the private life of the local community and to expand the Party’s support basis. In the first post-war years, the new authorities not only tolerated, but tacitly approved and aided celebrations of Christian holidays. Yet this policy changed radically in (...) 1948, when local mass organisations were instructed to replace winter holidays with New Year festivities, based on the Soviet model. These events bore an observably ideologised character, since New Year’s Day was not only supposed to mark the calendar year’s end, but also to symbolise the new beginning as a ubiquitous simulacrum for a new socialist society. The primary agents of this novel collective identity practice were women, champions of the socialist emancipation project, whereas the main channel for dissemination were children, which embedded this measure within the farsighted project of tempering a “new man.”. (shrink)

In this essay an attempt will be made to trace the origins and history of the accusation that Jews are cannibals. Its origins go back much further into history than most people know, and for that reason it is this aspect of our topic that will receive the most attention. At the same time, it will be demonstrated that this anti-Jewish myth has an unprecedented tenacity, since it is still readily believed in by millions up until the present day. (...) Part I: Antiquity1Frist Encounters The encounters between Jews, on the one hand, and Greeks and Romans, on the.. (shrink)

The second volume of The Cambridge History of Jewish Philosophy provides a comprehensive overview of Jewish philosophy from the seventeenth century to the present day. Written by a distinguished group of experts in the field, its essays examine how Jewish thinking was modified in its encounter with modern Europe and America and challenge longstanding assumptions about the nature and purpose of modern Jewish philosophy. The volume also treats modern Jewish philosophy's continuities with premodern texts and (...) thinkers, the relationship between philosophy and theology, the ritual and political life of the people of Israel and the ways in which classic modern philosophical categories help or hinder Jewish self-articulation. These essays offer readers a multi-faceted understanding of the Jewish philosophical enterprise in the modern period. (shrink)

How did medieval Jewish scholars, from Saadia Gaon to Yitzhak Abravanel, imagine a world that has experienced salvation? What is the nature of reality in the days of the Messiah? This work explores reactions to the seductive promises of apocalyptic teachings, tracing their fluctuations between intellect and imagination. The volume extensively surveys the tension between naturalistic and apocalyptic approaches to the history of the messianic idea so fundamental to the history of Jewish philosophy in the Middle Ages and (...) reveals the scope and challenges of medieval thought. (shrink)

GROWING EACH DAY provides an inspirational message and an appropriate prayer for every single day of the year, in a convenient daily calendar format updated through 2003 with room for daily notes. They are perfect companions for daily doses of strength and thought.

ABSTRACT Richard Hooker’s sermon A Learned and Comfortable Sermon of the Certaintie and Perpetuitie of Faith in the Elect appears, on the face of it, to be further evidence of his commitment to Reformed theology. History, however, tells a slightly different story as readers have debated just exactly what theological position Hooker was taking. Over the years it has attracted comment from those who have used it both to align Hooker with and to separate Hooker from the Magisterial Reformers. These (...) debates continue. This article, however, does not pursue this particular method of engagement. Instead, through a careful reading of the text, Hooker’s more complex and often startling theology is revealed- as he locates God’s presence in the pivot between doubt and despair, in places where God is thought to be absent. Hooker’s aim seems to be to find God in the darkness and in so doing he transcends the usual questions and debates that surround the doctrine of certainty and offers to present day readers a creative and sensitive approach to the anxiety caused by doubt. (shrink)