Contemporary Jewish historiography has tended to ignore the private side of the struggle for Jewish integration into European society in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Instead, most work has concentrated on public efforts to achieve acceptance and respectability—programs to modernize Jewish education, reform Jewish worship, normalize Jewish occupations, and apply critical standards and methods to Jewish scholarship. In particular, historians have focused their attention on that small group of notables who managed the affairs of the organized Jewish community, that is, those wealthy Jews who everywhere directed the campaign for emancipation and the modernization of Jewish life and later the defense of Judaism in the face of a renewed antisemitism.Needless to say, this group hardly constituted a majority of the community in any locality and in many places probably not even a majority of the Jewish haute bourgeoisie. Yet many of these well-to-do Jews who took no active part in communal affairs were as eager as the communal notables to gain acceptance for themselves outside the Jewish community. Indeed, in most cases their ties to Judaism and the Jewish community were weaker; conversely, their desire for integration into non-Jewish spheres usually stronger.

Following the lead of Spinoza, most of us have come to regard the sequence of Hebrew narrative from Genesis through Kings as a unified literary composition. It tells the story of Israel and its God from the creation of sky and land through the exile of Israel from its particular land. Although the anonymous narrator focuses on the fate of his people, he virtually always tries to identify with YHWH's point of view. For this reason, and possibly others, the narrator submerges his own identify and background. Unlike his near-contemporary Herodotus, who begins his Histories by introducing himself and his explicit agenda, the Hebrew author speaks from a perspective as wide as the cosmos. He would seem to assume the authority of God and give voice to a divinely certified account of his people's historical experience to (one assumes) his own community.

The omission of Moses' name from the entire Haggadah is both well known and puzzling. Why has the main character of the Exodus drama vanished without a trace? Moreover, the mere omission of Israel's supreme prophet does not suffice for the redactor of the Haggadah. At the end of the “fugitive Aramean” exegesis, which is central to the Haggadah as a whole, Moses' involvement in the Exodus is expressly denied. The Haggadah comments on Deuteronomy 26:8: “The Lord brought us forth from Egypt”—not by an angel, not by a seraph, nor by an agent, but the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself. Not only did no heavenly angel or seraph take part in the Exodus; not even a flesh-and-blood agent was involved. And “agent” in this context can mean only Moses.

R. Moses the Preacher in eleventh-century Narbonne was the compiler of an early example of the genre of biblical commentary to which the later Yalqut Shim'oni belongs, the anthology drawn from a wide range of rabbinic sources. Bereshit Rabbati (henceforth, BR), Midrash Aggadah, and Bemidbar Rabbah to Bemidbar and Naso are the surviving remnants of this work.

In Genesis 26, one of the so-called wife–sister stories, Abimelech King of Gerar catches Isaac “playing” with the woman he had introduced as his sister, namely, Rebekah his wife. He immediately confronts the trickster, rebuking him for presenting his wife as a single and therefore sexually available woman: “What is this you have done to us? One of the people could easily have lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us” (Genesis 26:10). Abimelech's remarks ought to give one pause. He apparently suggests that sexual contact with this Hebrew woman is as easy as brushing elbows with a stranger in a crowded street, which is to say, he fails to consider or even acknowledge the possibility that Rebekah might have just said “No!” Furthermore, the narrowly avoided “guilt” he refers to consists not of this woman's rape by some local sexual predator—in which case her secret identity as Isaac's wife would be irrelevant—but of an otherwise innocent man's unwitting violation, consensual or nonconsensual, it matters not, of her treacherously concealed marital obligations. In other words, the underlying legal reasoning here conceives of Rebekah not as an autonomous subject whose rights (i.e., the right to refuse a sexual advance) must be protected, but as an object within the domain of her husband, whose prior claims—namely, to sexual exclusivity—must be respected. Abimelech's at-first puzzling remarks, then, provide us with a glimpse into a wholly foreign legal episteme or discursive formation.

The paper reviews briefly the relevant views on the age of forty as found in the Talmud and in the Arab tradition, views which are the background of the later development in the Middle Ages. Afterwards the philosophical discussions on the age of forty found in the writings of Moses ibn Ezra, Jehuda ibn Abbas, Shem Tov Falaquera, Levi ben Abraham, Nissim of Marseilles, Prat Maimon and Isaac Aboab are analyzed. The views of authors like Falaquera and ibn Abbas might have influenced the first kabbalistic restrictions against divulging secrets to students who had not yet reached the age of forty. Such restrictions occur in a work of R. Moses ben Simeon of Burgos and in the school of Abraham Abulafia. Special emphasis on the interdiction against revealing certain kabbalistic secrets can be found in the works of R. Shem Tov ibn Gaon who related it to his teacher R. Solomon ibn Adret. A number of kabbalists of the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries knew about this interdiction and it was influential also among pupils of R. Isaac Luria. Two last important occurrences of the subject discussed above appear in a document dictated by a court of the rabbis of Frankfurt to R. Moses Hayyim Luzzatto and signed by him, during the polemics against the Frankists.

The appendix deals with some kabbalistic commentaries on the talmudic dictum “Restrain your children from higgayon” (Berakhot 28b).

“Who ever heard of the Coen brothers anyway?” asked a Minneapolis woman with whom I was seated at a small party shortly after the opening of A Serious Man, in 2009. An accomplished and striking woman in her early seventies, Ms. S had lived in St. Louis Park, a first-ring suburb of Minneapolis, and the hometown of Joel and Ethan Coen. In fact, all of the women at the table where I was seated were likewise: affluent, politically and culturally active, philanthropic, and residents of St. Louis Park in the 1960s. On that December night, what they also shared was contempt for the film, and the filmmakers, whom they resented as inaccurate narrators of their shared place and time. Nothing could dissuade them from their conviction that the film was awful, not even the arguments of the Minneapolis Star Tribune film critic, Colin Colvert, who was also seated at our table.

Saadiah Gaon (882–942) was a prolific and pioneering teacher, sage, and communal leader who pursued his wide-ranging studies with a singleminded commitment. His was the first Rabbanite translation of the Hebrew Bible into Arabic; his was one of the first Hebrew dictionaries; his Siddur marked one of the first attempts to regularize the liturgy. His Kitāb al-Amānāt wa l-I'tiqādā (Book of Beliefs and Opinions) was the first major work of medieval Jewish philosophy. Written during his renowned forced retirement in the year 932 C.E., the Kitāb al-Amānāt represents the beginning of a long and noble tradition of Judeo-Arabic philosophy.

In consultation with Sigmund Freud, the Viennese psychoanalyst Wilhelm Stekel (1868–1940) treated the first Jewish cleric known to undergo analysis, in 1903. According to the case history, published in 1908, a forty-two-year-old rabbi suffered from a Berufsneurose, an occupational neurosis associated with the pressures of his career. Stekel's case history forms an indelible portrait of a religious patient who submitted himself to the highly experimental treatment of psychoanalysis in the early years of the discipline. However, scholars never integrated the rabbi's case into the social history of psychoanalysis, more as a consequence of Freud's professional disparagement of Stekel than of the case history's original reception. Psychoanalytic historiography has largely dismissed Stekel's legacy, resulting in a lack of serious scholarly consideration of his prodigious publications compared to the attention paid to the work of some of Freud's other disciples. Stekel's most recent biographers, however, credit him as the “unsung populariser of psychoanalysis,” and claim that he is due for reconsideration. But in his published case history of the rabbi, Stekel also warrants introduction to the field of Jewish studies, not only because of the literary treatment of the rabbinical profession by a secular Jewish psychoanalyst, but also because the rabbi incorporated aspects of that experience into his own intellectual framework after treatment.

Students of religion are aware that the same ritual act can have many meanings depending on the cultural context. As Walter Kaelber observes, “Viewed cross-culturally, a given ascetic form may have different, even opposite objectives.” Accordingly, the same detail may have entirely opposite meanings in different ascetic regimens. Thus for the biblical Daniel and his ascetic heirs, beans were an ideal food, probably because they are dry and not susceptible to impurity; but for Pythagoreans and others, they were to be avoided perhaps because in certain Mediterranean populations, they presented an actual medical danger. These factors alert us to the principle that understanding a ritual system in its cultural context is vital. They also encourage us to read rituals and actions as we read texts–coding their creators' statements about what they value in a religious system and what they aspire to be.

Unlike other symbol systems, whose precise influence on cultural mores is hard to pinpoint, Kabbalah's impact on mainstream Jewish culture can be traced, at least in the realm of practice, for this mystical theology and symbol system is rooted in law and expressed through ritual behavior.

Josephus has transformed what Bickerman has called a morality play, which, in the Bible, focuses upon the sinful people of Nineveh, their genuine repentance, and their forgiveness by God, into a historical episode centering upon the historical figure of Jonah, who, as a prophet, is closely akin to the historian, and upon his political mission. All the reasons why the book was chosen for the haftarah of the afternoon service of the most sacred day of the Jewish calendar, the Day of Atonement, namely, to emphasize that God is the God of all mankind, that it is impossible to flee from His presence, and that He pities His creatures and forgives those who turn to Him in truth—all these are conspicuously absent from Josephus' account. The biblical version is more an unfulfilled prophecy than a book about a prophet, whereas Josephus' is about a prophet and, via Nahum, of a fulfilled prophecy. In an effort to appeal to his non-Jewish audience, he has emphasized the qualities of character of Jonah and muted the role of God. He has avoided taking responsibility for the central miracle of the book, the episode of Jonah in the big fish. Above all, in order not to offend his Roman hosts, who were very sensitive about proselytizing by Jews, he avoids subscribing to the biblical indications that the inhabitants of Nineveh had repented and had turned to Judaism, in whole or, at any rate, in part.

In recent years, we have witnessed a significant increase in writing by scholars and literary and cultural critics on the genre of the comic book, corresponding to an increased legitimacy given to the comic book industry and its writers and artists more generally. Part of this phenomenon no doubt stems from the attention lavished on the field by mainstream fiction and nonfiction writers who consider comic books a central part of their own and America’s cultural heritage, such as Michael Chabon and Jonathan Lethem. It may also stem from the changing nature of the industry’s finances, which now employ a “star system” revolving around writers and artists, not merely the major companies’ storied characters; though the days of the big houses that control the major characters are by no means gone, in the last two decades, numerous specialty imprints have been developed to publish characters that are owned outright by writers and artists, to say nothing of profit-sharing deals with major stars, even at some of the major companies.

Jewish political traditions, it has been argued, constitute an integral facet of Jewish civilization in its entirety. They reflect a constant — albeit often implicit — understanding that the validity of Jewish teaching can best find expression in a political setting. They also embody Judaism's commitment to the establishment of the perfect polity. As implemented through the process of covenant (brit), and as buttressed by the attribute of loving-kindness (ḥesed), political traditions in effect comprise the vehicles whereby the Congregation of Israel attempts to transpose the kingdom of heaven (malkhut shamayim —“the good commonwealth”) to earth.

Much has been said and written about the unique position regarding toleration that was adopted by Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook. Its uniqueness within Jewish tradition is not open to doubt. The question I would like to explore here is the extent to which his version of toleration is compatible with the toleration that has become part of the modern secular outlook. In order to accomplish this task, I begin by setting up a typology of two basic varieties of toleration, relating one to the skepticism of the relativist who espouses liberal pluralism, and the other to religious systems with absolutist claims for truth. In the second part of the article, a sketch of the history of toleration in Judaism, this typology is confirmed. The third part of the article is a review of R. Kook′s notion of toleration, which seems at first to conform to the type of toleration generally associated with liberalism, but, when translated into practical policy, displays some significant aberrations. The fourth part suggests that these aberrations are not evidence of inconsistencies or anomalies, but rather an indication of the fact that no attitude of toleration, even that of the most liberal pluralist, can completely evade the necessity for intolerance at some point; and that different views regarding the point where toleration should be limited reflect different epistemological positions, each of which is associated with a different societal ideal which serves as the criterion for limiting toleration.

In recent years Jewish philosophers and theologians from across the religious spectrum have claimed that the philosophy of the Austrian-born British philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein is a crucial resource for understanding Jewish belief and practice. The majority of these thinkers are drawn to Wittgenstein's work on account of the diminished role that he ascribes to religious belief—a position that affirms the widespread view that theology has played a minimal role in Judaism. Another line of thought sees in Wittgenstein's philosophy resources that can illuminate the forms and functions of Jewish theological language and bolster the place of theological reflection within Jewish religious life. This article undertakes a critical analysis of the reception of Wittgenstein's philosophy among contemporary Jewish thinkers with the goal of delineating these alternative responses to his work. The paper concludes by arguing that the way in which Jewish thinkers appropriate Wittgenstein's philosophy will have profound consequences for the future of Jewish theology.

The emergence of modern Hebrew literature has too often been represented as a straight line from Enlightenment authors' meliẓa to “Mendele's nusaḥ” in S. Y. Abramovitsh's fiction. If we are to move beyond this one-dimensional geometry, we must add additional lines of development: from traditional rabbinic writing in postmishnaic Hebrew, branching out to hasidic narratives and parodies of hasidic Hebrew, and gradually leading toward a more vernacular Hebrew style. Once we have recognized the inadequacy of the older model, which culminates in hyperbolic claims for Abramovitsh's short stories (1886–96), we can better appreciate the contributions of diverse authors such as R. Nathan (Nosn) Sternharz (1780–1845), Mendel Lefin (1749–1826), and their successors.

Science and faith were inextricably intertwined in the Latin Middle Ages. Clerics would attend to both spiritual and physical needs because the need to care for the body coincided with the need to care for the soul. Until the rise of universities in the twelfth century, monasteries were the centers of scientific knowledge. And, even after the professionalization of medicine in the thirteenth century, Christian physicians continued to look to the Bible, in addition to their license, as the source of their authority. Indeed, many Christian physicians who received medical degrees went on to pursue higher degrees in theology. It is therefore not surprising that several Christian theologians used medical theories in the service of theology.