Each chapter in Encountering the Medieval in Modern Jewish Thought addresses a different Jewish return to the medieval by using a language of renewal.

: What does one do when the death of a parent demands reentry into an abandoned religious formalism? Raised in an orthodox Jewish home, schooled in the intricate discourse of rabbinic texts and yet long estranged from the ritualism of Jewish law, the prospect is maddening. Filial love compels a yearlong daily synagogue attendance where one recites a mourning prayer laden with myth and superstition. Kaddish is an exquisitely maneuvered headlong plunge into Judaism's expansive intellectual tradition. Thereby the current literary (...) editor of the New Republic fulfils his duty both as a Jew and a son, while never turning his back on another imperative he so cherishes "the moral obligation to be intelligent.". (shrink)

Every work on Jewish thought and law since the twelfth century bears the imprint of Maimonides. A.N. Whitehead's famous dictum that the entire European philosophical tradition 'consists of a series of footnotes to Plato' could equally characterize Maimonides' place in the Jewish tradition. The critical studies in this volume explore how Orthodox rabbis of different orientations--Shlomo Aviner, Naftali Zvi Yehudah Berlin (Netziv), Kalonymus Kalman Shapira, Joseph Kafih, Abraham Isaac Kook, Aaron Kotler, Joseph Soloveitchik, and Elhanan Wasserman--have read and provided footnotes (...) to Maimonides in the long twentieth century. How well did they really understand Maimonides? And where do their arguments fit in the mainstream debates about him and his works? Each of the seven core chapters examines a particular approach. Some rabbis have tried to liberate themselves from the influence of his ideas. Others have sought to build on those ideas or expand them in ways which Maimonides himself did not pursue, and which he may well not have agreed with. Still others advance patently non-Maimonidean positions, while attributing them to none other than Maimonides. Above all, the essays published here demonstrate that his legacy remains vibrantly alive today. (shrink)

This volume is a scholarly tribute to Fackenheim’s memory. It covers a wide spectrum of Fackenheim’s work including biographical, philosophical, and theological aspects of his thought that have not been addressed adequately in the past. Elie Wiesel, a close personal friend to Fackenheim for over 30 years, has provided the Foreword for the volume.

Fackenheim's combination of erudition and generosity served to inspire a lifetime of philosophical inquiry, and a number of his students are represented in this ...