SHULA JACOBS,
NEW and BRILLIANT Upload!Originally published in New York Board of Rabbis Bulletin 43 (1986). CONTEMPORARY JUDAISM: PATTERNS OF SURVIVAL, Second Edition by Gilbert S. Rosenthal. New York, 1986: Human Sciences Press. 401 pp. $34.95 Hard Cover, $16.95 Paperback. This is ... Continue Reading ➨
Preface to ‘Safed Spirituality: Rules of Mystical Piety, The Beginning of Wisdom’
Preface by Louis Jacobs to Lawrence Fine, Safed Spirituality: Rules of Mystical Piety, The Beginning of Wisdom (Paulist Press, 1984). “Religion is a way of walking, not a way of talking.” This saying, attributed to Dean Inge, a pioneer in the ... Continue Reading ➨
Ronald S. Aigen & Gershon D. Hundert (eds.), ‘Community and the Individual Jew: Essays in Honor of Lavy M. Becker’
Originally published in Journal of Jewish Sociology 29:1 (June 1987). Ronald S. Aigen and Gershon D. Hundert, eds, Community and the Individual Jew: Essays in Honor of Lavy M. Becker, viii+195 pp., Reconstructionist Rabbinical College Press, ... Continue Reading ➨
Solomon Goldman, ‘The Ten Commandments’
The Ten Commandments, by Solomon Goldman, edited by Maurice Samuel, The University of Chicago Press, 1956. $3.75. Most readers of this journal will be familiar with the late Dr. Goldman’s The Book of Books and In the Beginning, the first two ... Continue Reading ➨
Two Hasidic Masters and the Problem of Discipleship
Originally published in The Melton Journal 15 (1983). The relationship between teacher and disciple in Hasidism still awaits full investigation by students of the movement. The results of such an inquiry will no doubt be of interest and, possibly, ... Continue Reading ➨
The Abuse of Halacha
Originally published in Masorti Matters, February 1994. Rabbi Jacobs gave a comprehensive lecture on this subject. Because of the importance of the topic Rabbi Jacobs will be writing a paper which will be published by Masorti. The following is a ... Continue Reading ➨
Jewish Perspectives (Current Theological Literature)
Originally published in Judaism: A Quarterly Journal of Jewish Life and Thought, Winter 1969. It is the unhappy experience of the writer of a column such as this to suffer the embarrassment of a lack of riches, so few are the books devoted to ... Continue Reading ➨
Allan Nadler, ‘The Faith of the Mithnagdim – Rabbinic Responses to Hasidic Rupture’
Originally published in Judaism Today, Autumn 1998. Allan Nadler, The Faith of the Mithnagdim - Rabbinic Responses to Hasidic Rupture. John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and London, 1997. pp. 254, £29.00. Numerous studies have been made ... Continue Reading ➨
Jeffrey S. Gurock & Jacob S. Schachter, ‘A Modern Heretic and a Traditional Community: Modechai Kaplan, Orthodoxy and Modern Judaism’
Originally published in Judaism Today, Spring 1998. Jeffrey S. Gurock & Jacob S. Schachter, A Modern Heretic and a Traditional Community: Modechai Kaplan, Orthodoxy and Modern Judaism. Columbia University Press, 1997. pp. 256, £32.00. This ... Continue Reading ➨
Where actually, is God? – Time and Space beyond Human Conditioning
Originally published in Judaism Today, No 2, Autumn 1995. In mediaeval Jewish philosophy the expressions: le-maalah min ha-zeman ‘above time’ and le-maalah min ha-makom ‘above space’ are used frequently to denote that God is beyond time and space. ... Continue Reading ➨
Symposia (Current Theological Literature)
Originally published in Judaism: A Quarterly Journal of Jewish Life and Thought, Spring 1967. A new guide to London (The New London Spy, Anthony Blond, London 1966) concludes an amusing section on “Jewish London” with these words: “Theology may ... Continue Reading ➨
Prayer (Current Theological Literature)
Originally published in Judaism: A Quarterly Journal of Jewish Life and Thought, Spring 1969. ONE OF THE BEST DISCUSSIONS FROM THE JEWISH point of view of the meaning and significance of prayer took place over fifteen years ago and so would not ... Continue Reading ➨
Isaac Breuer, ‘Concepts of Judaism’
Originally published in Judaism: A Quarterly Journal of Jewish Life and Thought, 25:4 (1976). Concepts of Judaism. By ISAAC BREUER. Selected and edited by Jacob S. Levinger. Jerusalem. Israel Universities Press, 1974. 348 pp. Reviewed by LOUIS ... Continue Reading ➨
David Weiss Halivni, ‘Midrash, Mishnah, and Gemara: The Jewish Predilection for Justified Law’
Originally published in Judaism: A Quarterly Journal of Jewish Life and Thought, 37:2 (1988). In this book the renowned Talmudic scholar, Professor David Weiss Halivni, offers a wide-ranging thesis, buttressed throughout by the meticulous ... Continue Reading ➨
Jacob Haberman, ‘Maimonides and Aquinas: A Contemporary Appraisal’
Originally published in Judaism: A Quarterly Journal of Jewish Life and Thought, 31:2 (1982). A Contemporary View of the Mediaevalists Maimonides and Aquinas: A Contemporary Appraisal. By Jacob Haberman. Foreword by Professor Joseph L. Blau. ... Continue Reading ➨
Social implications of the concept of sheat hadechak
Originally published in Etta Bick (ed.), Judaic Sources of Human Rights, Tel Aviv: Israel-Diaspora Institute, 1987, pp. 35-41. Dr. Ariel Rosen-Zvi: Our next speaker, Rabbi Dr. Louis Jacobs, will present the social implications of the concept ... Continue Reading ➨
The Talmudic Hermeneutical Rule of ‘Binyan ‘Abh’ and J.S. Mill’s ‘Method of Agreement’
Originally published in Journal of Jewish Studies 4:2. The idea of the influence of Aristotelian logic on the talmudic hermeneutic principles (middoth), via Shemaiah and Abtalion, the teachers of Hillel, was first advanced as an hypothesis by Adolf ... Continue Reading ➨
Yaakov Elman, ‘Authority and Tradition: Toseftan Baraitot in Talmudic Babylonia’; Jack N. Lightston, ‘The Rhetoric of the Babylonian Talmud: Its Social Meaning and Context’
Originally published in Journal of Jewish Studies 46. Yaakov Elman, Authority and Tradition: Toseftan Baraitot in Talmudic Babylonia. KTAV, Hoboken NJ, 1994. xiv, 328 pp. $39.50. Jack N. Lightstone, The Rhetoric of the Babylonian Talmud, Its ... Continue Reading ➨
The Aristotelean Syllogism and the Qal Wa-Homer
Originally published in Journal of Jewish Studies 4:4. Adolf Schwarz, in his well-known work, Der Hermeneutische Syllogismus in der Talmudischen Litteratur,[1] suggests in the title and develops in the work itself the idea that the Talmudic ... Continue Reading ➨
Abraham Weiss, ‘Le-heqer ha-Talmud – The Talmud and Its Development’
Originally published in Journal of Jewish Studies 7:1/2. Abraham Weiss, Le-heqer ha-Talmud—The Talmud and its Development, Philip Feldheim, New York, 1954, pp. 446, price $5. The Babylonian Talmud (like the Palestinian) is strangely silent on ... Continue Reading ➨