In the last weeks of 1523, a colorful traveler arrived in Venice from Alexandria: “Dark in aspect, short in stature, gaunt, his language Hagarish [Arabic] and a little Jewish. … He wore striped silk according to the custom of the Ishmaelites, and on his head a white scarf, with which he covered his head and most of himself.” The traveler presented himself to local Jews and community leaders as “David,” the ambassador of an independent Jewish state on the Arabian peninsula, where he claimed that his brother, King Joseph, ruled over the tribes of Reuven, Gad, and half the tribe of Menashe. The “Jewish ambassador” announced that he was on his way to Rome to hold a state meeting with the Pope, as an emissary of the Seventy Elders, the advisers of his brother the king. He added, of course, that he needed money.

Pierre Hadot's formulation of “spiritual exercise” has had a tremendous influence upon the study of philosophy and religion in Late Antiquity and beyond. He argues that the well-known exercises of Ignatius of Loyola are part of an older and broader tradition that has its roots in Greco-Roman and Hellenistic schools of philosophy, and that much of ancient and late ancient philosophical speculation should be analyzed as deeply intertwined with practical goals for self-transformation. His research centers upon the Greek askēsis and meletē, which he translates as “spiritual exercise,” as well as the Latin exercitium spirituale. However, his study goes beyond occurrences of those particular terms, and he aims to develop a category that can be used in comparative and theoretical reflection.Hadot's studies of spiritual exercises run through his works, including Plotinus, or the Simplicity of Vision. Michael Chase, trans. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993); Philosophy as a Way of Life Arnold Davidson, ed., Michael Chase, trans. (Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell, 1995), esp. pp. 81–144; and The Inner Citadel, Michael Chase, trans. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998). An important predecessor is Paul Rabbow, Seelenführung: Methodik der Exerzitien in der Antike (Munich: Kösel-Verlag, 1954).

Food and feasting narratives illuminate the social politics of disaster in the Babylonian Talmud's lengthiest account of the destruction of Jerusalem (Bavli Gittin 55b–58a). Key moments in this sugya center around food: the shame of Bar Kamẓa at a feast sparks his eventual betrayal of the Jews, the tale of Marta bat Boethus recounts the starvation of the wealthiest woman in Jerusalem, and Caesar destroys Tur Malka in retaliation for an opulent banquet. This article contextualizes these rabbinic narratives within the social politics of Roman and Sasanian banquet culture, while also parsing the intersections of gender, class, and social status in these disaster tales. Through its critical representation of high-class oblivion, the sugya calls attention to the ethical cost of elite status by highlighting the physical and moral dangers of social privilege. Its stories of luxurious eating emphasize how corrosive concerns about status and shame often lead elites to protect their private interests by sacrificing the well-being of the broader community. Its feasting narratives assert that wealth, luxury, and social privilege distance elites from the awareness of suffering in their midst.

To gauge the breadth of the topic, it should be said at the outset that music occupied a central place in the thought of Leon Modena and that Modena was not just another rabbi in early seventeenth-century Venice, but, among Italian Jews, perhaps the most remarkable figure of his generation. His authority as a spokesman for his people rests on his vast learning, amassed from a multitude of sources, ancient, modern, Jewish, and Christian. He put his knowledge to use in an impressive series of over forty writings. They comprise often-encyclopedic disquisitions on subjects as diverse as Hebrew language and grammar, lexicography, Jewish rites and customs, Kabbalah, alchemy, and gambling, to which one might add various plays, prefaces, rabbinic authorizations, translations, editions, at least four hundred poems (among them epitaphs), a highly personal autobiography, and numerous rabbinical responsa. Of his responsa, two concern music, the earlier of the two amounting to an extended essay on its kinds and functions.

For several years I have been trying to analyze Muslim historical thinking and the manner in which it affected perceptions of the Jewish past a past which Muslims fully appropriated as part of their own historical experiences and world-view. Put somewhat differently, I have been trying to understand the process by which a heritage common to both monotheistic faiths could and did become a bone of contention as well as a basis of mutual understanding. This linkage between Muslim self-reflection and the creation of a larger monotheist historiography is crucial to the formation of Muslim attitudes toward “the other,” the polemical discourse against Jews and Judaism, and, more generally, Muslim-Jewish relations throughout the Middle Ages. The present study is culled from a project on Muslim uses of the Jewish past.

Both the Bible and the earliest Greek philosophers begin with accounts of the world's genesis. It is thus not surprising that medieval cosmological thought was preoccupied, perhaps obsessed, with the issue of creation. But what about the end of the world? If the universe had a beginning, does it necessarily have an end? Does creation imply destruction? On this topic the Bible is not so explicit and unambiguous. Greek philosophy, however, was virtually unanimous in claiming that whatever has a beginning will have an end, and that whatever will have an end had a beginning. If this cosmological principle is construed strictly, then the world's past and its future are essentially and necessarily linked together, such that the finitude of one entails the finitude of the other. This would mean that if the temporal history of the world is finite a pane ante, then by virtue of this cosmological principle it will have a temporal end a pane post. The most vigorous and detailed defense of the strict interpretation of this general principle was given by Aristotle, who attempted to prove it in his treatise On the Heavens. Henceforth, I shall refer to this principle as “Aristotle's theorem.”

One of the most significant phenomena in the course of modern Jewish history is undoubtedly the astonishing success of the hasidic movement in winning and retaining large numbers of followers. What is even more remarkable is that this process took a relatively short time to come to fruition: It is widely agreed that at the death of the Ba‘al Shem Tov (who is often still regarded as the founder of the movement) in 1760, his circle numbered no more than a few dozen initiates, but by the 1820s, the movement had become dominant in the Jewish society of large swathes of eastern Europe, particularly Ukraine and Galicia.1 Many different explanations for this success have been proposed: Hasidism's attraction has been variously perceived as a result of its being a movement of religious revival and reform, a movement of social protest and class struggle, a movement popularizing elite Jewish mystical thought, and a movement of social reconstruction.2 In terms of social structure, all scholars agree that Hasidism's main innovation—and a major factor in its success—was the creation of the figure of the zaddik: a charismatic spiritual leader who acts as an intermediary between the individual hasid and God and provides answers to all problems, whether they are spiritual or earthly.3 However, relatively little attention has been paid to the social organization of the early hasidic movement as a whole, which allowed Jews from all over eastern Europe to find their place and nurture their new identity as hasidim.4 My goal here is to examine the development of Hasidism as a social movement from the perspective of the structures that it created to solidify the bond between the zaddik and the hasid. In particular, I shall focus on the ways in which the new movement overcame the geographic barriers separating Jews in different parts of eastern Europe.

During the Middle Ages, each Mediterranean land, from one end of the sea to the other, had its Jewish philosophers. There was one region and one Jewish culture, however, that made no contribution at all to the writing of medieval Jewish philosophy. That was Ashkenazic or Northern European Judaism, the culture of the Jews of England, Northern France, Germany, and Eastern Europe north of the Balkans.

This article traces the origins and rapid spread of the Mourner's Kaddish, a liturgical custom first attested in late twelfth- early thirteenth-century Ashkenazic halakhic texts. While scholars have traditionally linked it to the martyrological needs of post-1096 Ashkenazic communities, this article suggests that the rise of the Mourner's Kaddish was one manifestation of a broader shift in medieval Jewish conceptions of the afterlife. An analysis of the exemplum that provided the new custom with a “myth of origins” reveals carefully inserted allusions and symbolism, which together propound a coherent theology of eschatology, divine recompense, and intercessory prayer. This theology closely mirrors doctrinal developments underway in Christian Europe—specifically the “birth of purgatory” and its accompanying commemorative and intercessory practices. The exemplum, moreover, couches its message in subtly polemical terms, criticizing and ridiculing those very elements of Christian belief and practice that were being covertly incorporated into the Jewish liturgical realm.

The targums to the Pentateuch have often been called a kind of translation literature. In part, this is due to the lexicography of the term targum, according to which this literature is known. Although this association between targumic literature and the term translation has been long-standing, “translation,” as it has been used in the field of targum studies, is greatly undertheorized. Within recent years, scholars have used the word translation to describe the interlinguistic rendering of specific Hebrew Bible words and phrases. Some discussion has been given to the complexities of this dynamic in the targums, but the meaning of the term translation has yet to be addressed explicitly. In this article, I propose that to use translation as a meaningful descriptive category for targumic literature, it is necessary to unpack it and examine its ambiguities and problematic status even within the context of discussions about translation studies. By exploring the contours of this term, I hope to indicate how a more nuanced understanding of “translation” can help describe the targumic genre, as well as the targums' underlying hermeneutic orientation toward the Hebrew Bible.

Since Leopold Zunz's comments regarding the highly artistic form of the classic rabbinic homily, those involved in the critical study of midrash have concerned themselves with the structure of the derashah. Some nineteenth and early twentieth century scholars recognized that the individual pisqa'ot and parashiyyot of the homiletic midrashim contain a series of petiḥtot (sermonic proems), followed by interpretative comments upon the first few verses of the pericope texts. In addition, research into homiletic forms such as the peroration led other scholars closer to an understanding of the structural unity of the rabbinic homily.

Canonization of the Bible resulted from a consensus of those to whom it was addressed and a ruling group of religious elites that established its sanctity. They declared that “Torah was given to Moses at Sinai” and valued it above and beyond its literary value. The process of canonization was not a simple one. Several books were included only after struggles among various pressure groups. For example: “At first, Proverbs, Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes were considered non-canonical because they consisted of parables, but later the men of the Great Assembly interpreted them.” (ءAvot dءRabbi Natan, 1). Further: “The sages wished to exclude Ecclesiastes because it contained inconsistencies, but they included it because it begins and ends with teachings of Torah” (Shabbat, 30:b).

In one passage of the Mishneh Torah, Maimonides explicitly forbids Jews from philosophical inquiry or even freethinking. This prohibition apparently includes a ban on reading or thinking about the topics of the Guide of the Perplexed. This paper argues that Maimonides's Mishneh Torah presents a consistent rejection of open philosophical inquiry. However, what is prohibited in the Mishneh Torah is not only permitted in the Guide, but the terms of the prohibition can be used as an outline of the structure of the Guide. That is to say, the Guide in a sense covers precisely the topics whose inquiry is forbidden to Jews in the Mishneh Torah. In the Mishneh Torah Maimonides does not suggest a punishment in this world for freethinkers, but in the Guide he punishes freethinkers with more study, especially metaphysical inquiry. It is possible that the Guide itself is the punishment for freethinking as defined by the Mishneh Torah. This kind of intellectual punishment has a parallel in Plato's Laws, where freethinkers are sentenced to spend five years living in the center of the city, studying physics and metaphysics with city elders.

Saul Lieberman has shown that various aspects of Greco-Roman culture were pervasive not only among more Hellenized Jews of the first centuries CE, but that even “the Rabbis of Palestine were familiar with the fashionable style of the civilized world of that time. Many of them were highly educated in Greek literature. … They spoke to the people in their language and in their style.” An integral part of this culture involved the study of rhetoric, a staple of higher education throughout the Roman Empire.

Converts to the faith have often been perceived as somewhat problematic by Judaism; apostates even more so.1 This was especially true in medieval Christian Europe, where the adversarial relationship between Christianity and Judaism made apostasy, particularly apostasy by choice, more than mere defection; it cast aspersions on the rejected religion.

Dying in the state′s behalf, and at its request, is a matter that one might expect to be of obvious concern to the Jews throughout their history. Twice in bygone eras (roughly, 1000–586 B.C.E. and 140–63 B.C.E.) they have been ensconced in their own sovereign land faced with preserving that sovereignty against hostile neighbors and ambitious empires. Elsewhere, in the diaspora, they have been forced to define their relations and responsibilities to the host powers under whose authority they have variously been classed as aliens, residents, and citizens. And now, again, they are reestablished in their own sovereign state of Israel, in whose short history the call to arms has been unfortunately all too frequent. Yet the obligation to die for the state is not a question which enjoys especial treatment or ready resolution in Jewish sources.In part, this is because the Jewish tradition is not in nature a philosophical tradition, given to abstract systematic treatises in the manner of the ancient Greeks, to whom Western thought has ever since been indebted. It is, rather, a legal tradition, given over to the interpretation and application of legal minutiae in keeping with divine edict. Still, it would be wrong to conclude that Judaism and the Jewish tradition lack a coherent position on there being (or not being) an obligation to die for the state. Such, anyway, is what I wish to argue in this essay.

What is Jewish ethics? Is there a distinct academic discipline under the rubric of “Jewish studies” or “Jewish philosophy” which can properly be called “Jewish ethics”? The answer to these two related questions is more elusive than one might think. Indeed, it has recently been argued that there really is no such thing as Jewish ethics at all. On the one hand, if a principle of action is truly ethical, then it must be universal, and if it is universal, it cannot be distinctively Jewish. On the other hand, if Jewish ethics is really halakhah in disguise, as so many writers in the field of medical ethics, for example, seem to believe, then why bother with the disguise if one can get the real thing?

The study of memory and its collaborators (history, narrative, and trauma) has been at the center of both the German- and English-language academic worlds for at least the last fifteen years. While many of the “canonical” texts overlap, the anxieties and implications of recent scholarship have often been quite distinct, particularly in discussions of the memory and history of the Holocaust, and more generally, anti-Semitism, Jews, and Judaism. This phenomenon is played out in the debates about Jan Assmann's work, particularly since the publication of Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism (1997).

The appearance in recent years of an impressive series of books, articles, and mainly dissertations on various aspects of the Mishnah collectively signifies something greater than the sum of its parts. These works herald the emergence of a new wave of Mishnah research. While differing significantly in their themes and methods, all the works discussed here share some basic methodological assumptions that are not shared by more “traditional” studies. Among these are a holistic attitude to the Mishnah as a composition; interest in questions of variegation of genre and style (narratives, rituals, lists, etc.); sensitivity to literary devices and techniques; and the use of new interpretive paradigms from rhetoric, cultural, and performative studies.