This work investigates Rabbi David ibn Abi Zimra (Radbaz), a leading 16th century rabbinic authority who assumed the role of rendering 'just' decisions, which were occasionally at the expense of conventional law. The author explores Radbaz's decision-making in terms of his insight into the broader purposes of codified law, sensitivity, and overall rationality.

In this sequel to The Ways of Reason, the Ramchal explains key logical concepts as they are applied to Talmudic analysis. Includes a new workbook supplement by the author. Vowelized Hebrew with facing English and 15 pages of explanatory charts.

This book presents, for the first time, a critical edition and English translation of the natural philosophy section of the first major thirteenth-century Hebrew encyclopedia of science and philosophy and assesses Judah ha-Cohen's place in the history of Jewish philosophy.

The essay "Faith after the Holocaust" (pp. 315-332) is an excerpt from his book "Faith after the Holocaust" (New York: Ktav, 1973).

A diverse collection of scholarly articles on a variety of topics related to Jewish law. Among the ten articles are two different analyses of the married woman's rights with respect to use of marital property; a study of the principles used by Maimonides in enumerating the precepts; two articles on the question of whether halakhic inferences can be drawn from the interchangeable use of synonymous terms in the Talmud; and a bibliography of the writings of the Boaz Cohen. The chronicle section contains a study of developments pertaining to the litigation surrounding the Kiryas Joel school district and the separation of church and state. The last section of the volume surveys recent literature on biblical and Jewish law.

The literary creation of the ancient Jewish teachers or Sages--also called rabbinic literature--consists of the teachings of thousands of Sages, many of them anonymous. For a long period, their teachings existed orally, which implied a great deal of flexibility in arrangement and form. Only gradually, as parts of the amorphous oral tradition became fixed, was the literature written down, a process that began in the third century CE and continued into the Middle Ages. Thus the documents of the rabbinic literature are the result of a remarkably long and complex process of creation and editing. This volume gives a careful and succinct analysis both of the content and specific nature of the various documents, and of their textual and literary forms, paying special attention to the continuing discovery and publication of new textual material. The contributors are all engaged in academic teaching and research in Israel. Incorporating ground-breaking developments in research, their essays give a comprehensive presentation published here for the first time.

The future becomes what we make it, and we make what we envision. In darkness, we can envision light. In hard times, we can use the tools we have today to build an easier tomorrow for ourselves and others. The future is about hope. Join us in this anthology of six stories about the future and about how science and technology can help us create that better tomorrow. All profits from the sale of this anthology will go to Laughing at My Nightmare to purchase assistive devices and technology to help people live better lives. (This is not official Laughing at My Nightmare merchandise, but is a fundraising project under permission from the charity.)

Marc Hirshman traces and outlines the ideals and practices of rabbinic learning as presented in the relatively few late antique sources that discuss the processes and ideals of learning. Though oral learning was common in many ancient cultures, the Jewish approach has a different theoretical basis and different aims. Hirshman explores the evolution and institutionalization of Jewish culture in both Babylonian and Palestinian sources. At its core, he argues, the Jewish cultural thrust in the first centuries of the common era was a sustained effort to preserve the language of its culture in its most pristine form. This was done by the rabbis in a very conscious cultural conflict with their surrounding cultures.

Ten years after Chicago saw its first full-time comedy club open, the landscape was decidedly different. "Stand-up comedy has exploded in the last couple of years," a club owner told the Chicago Tribune in 1985, "that's the only way to describe it: exploded." It was truly a comedy boom, with as many as 16 clubs operating at once, and it lasted nearly a decade before fading, taking with it some of Chicago's oldest comedy stages, including the Comedy Cottage, Comedy Womb, and Who's on First. Still, stalwarts like Barrel of Laughs (south) and Zanies (north) persevered. That part of the story is known; overlooked is the fact there was a comedy boom, period. To hear the story, it is as if stand-up comedy innately morphed from a dated nightclub scene to what one Chicago Sun-Times writer called "Chicago's atomic comedy blast."