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4 - The God of the Rabbis

from Part I - Biblical-Rabbinic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 December 2020

By
Moshe Halbertal
Edited by
Steven Kepnes
Steven Kepnes
Affiliation:
Colgate University, New York
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Summary

Rabbinic theology, in the various Midrashim, reveals an intense attentiveness to God as a divine relational subject in the figures of king, a father, a husband, sometime a mother, and a judge. If God is, indeed, a relational subject capable of intentionality and responsiveness seeking a partner, the perfections attributed to him by the philosophers are actually flaws and imperfections from the perspective of Rabbinic theology.

Keywords

Rabbinic TheologyMidrashGod as SubjectPerfection
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Companion to Jewish Theology , pp. 60 - 76
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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References

Selected Further Reading

Halbertal, M. Interpretative Revolutions in the Making. Jerusalem: The Hebrew University Magnes Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Lorberbaum, Y. God’s Image: Halakhah and Aggadah. New York: Schocken Publishing House, 2004.Google Scholar
Rawidowicz, S. “On Jewish Learning.” In Israel the Ever Dying People and Other Essays, 134–37. Edited by Ravid, B.. Rutherford, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1984/1986.Google Scholar
Stern, D. Parables in Midrash: Narrative and Exegesis in Rabbinic Literature. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994.Google Scholar
Urbach, E. E. The Sages: Their Concepts and Beliefs. Translated by I. Abraham. Jerusalem: The Hebrew University Magnes Press, 1979.Google Scholar
Weiss, D. Pious Irreverence: Confronting God in Rabbinic Judaism. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016.Google Scholar
Wolfson, H. Philo: Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism 1–2. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1948.Google Scholar

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