Recipes range from traditional favourites such as blintzes and chicken soup to Szechuan chicken, aduki-squash soup and many other international, gourmet and natural specialties.All in a clear, easy-to-use format with helpful symbols and numerous charts and illustrations.

    The author explains how modesty, often dismissed as irrelevant, can become a powerful tool for forming lasting relationships. This book attempts to redirect our thinking about sexuality and refocus our ideas about intimacy.

    A feminist critique of Judaism as a patriarchal tradition and an exploration of the increasing involvement of women in naming and shaping Jewish tradition.

    These essays are crucial to the interpretation of Levinas's work more generally, [and] Aronowicz's excellent introduction and occasional notes are very helpful in making this work accessible to those unacquainted with either Talmud or Levinas." --Religious Studies ReviewNine rich and masterful readings of the Talmud by the French Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas translate Jewish thought into the language of modern times. Between 1963 and 1975, Levinas delivered these commentaries at the annual Talmudic colloquia of a group of French Jewish intellectuals in Paris. Here Levinas applies a hermeneutic that simultaneously allows the classic Jewish texts to shed light on contemporary problems and lets modern problems illuminate the texts. Besides being quintessential illustrations of the art of reading, the essays express the deeply ethical vision of the human condition that makes Levinas one of the most important thinkers of our time.

    Sacred Fragments is for those who still care enough to continue the struggle. In forthright, nontechnical language the author addresses the most difficult theological questions of our time and shows that there are still viable Jewish answers for even the greatest skeptics.

    She operates from a stark but deep compassion."--American Book Review

    Another wonderful and insightful book by the noted Jewish writer and thinker Aryeh Kaplan.

    Miller In this remarkable, acclaimed history of the development of monotheism, Mark S. Smith explains how Israel's religion evolved from a cult of Yahweh as a primary deity among many to a fully defined monotheistic faith with Yahweh as sole god. Repudiating the traditional view that Israel was fundamentally different in culture and religion from its Canaanite neighbors, this provocative book argues that Israelite religion developed, at least in part, from the religion of Canaan. Drawing on epigraphic and archaeological sources, Smith cogently demonstrates that Israelite religion was not an outright rejection of foreign, pagan gods but, rather, was the result of the progressive establishment of a distinctly separate Israelite identity. This thoroughly revised second edition ofThe Early History of God includes a substantial new preface by the author and a foreword by Patrick D. Miller.

    This book is the first comprehensive treatment of the whole range of material dealing with creation of the golem beginning with late antiquity and ending with the modern time. The author explores the relationship between these discussions and their historical and intellectual frameworks. Since there was in the medieval period a variety of traditions concerning the golem, it is plausible to assume that the techniques for creating this creature developed much earlier. This presentation focuses on the precise techniques for creating an artificial human, an issue previously neglected in the literature. A complete survey of the conceptions of the golem in North European and Spanish literature in medieval time allows not only a better understanding of this phenomenon, but also of the history of Jewish magic and mysticism in the Middle Ages. The Jewish and Christian treatments of the golem in the renaissance are explored as part of the renaissance concern for human nature. Moshe Idel was Centennial Scholar in Residence at the Jewish Theological Seminary. Currently, he is Professor of Kabbalah in the Department of Jewish Thought at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He is the author of The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia; Studies in Ecstatic Kabbalah; and Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abraham Abulafia; all published by SUNY Press.

    

    Hebrew text with facing English translation. Pocket edition.

    She gave up a vast inheritance and a privileged lifestyle to marry the poor Akiva, trading the crown of luxury for the crown of Torah. In these spell-binding pages, the story of Rachel, wife of the renowned Rabbi Akiva, is brought to life, based on the masterwork of Jewish history, Dorot Harishonim. A vibrant, appealing, and glowing novel, the reader is drawn in to an era long gone but whose spectacular holiness still touches us today. Read about the woman about whom Rabbi Akiva unequivocally declared, "Your Torah and my Torah is hers."

    Whether bearing witness to the Holocaust and its aftermath, dealing with conflicts between being gay and traditional Judaism, or confronting anti-Semitism and homophobia, these passionate stories by a prize-winning author break new ground in contemporary fiction.

    

    This revised and expanded edition of the classic home prayerbook Gates of the HOuse includes a wealth of new readings and meditations for provate and family devotions on all occasions.

    Is non-religious learning desirable, essential, optional- or even permitted? Can one's Jewish experience be enriched by exposure to poetry, art, history, and science? And, if the study of Torah is indeed the single most important precept of Judaism, how much room does this leave for the rest of human intellect pursuit? Torah Umadda, a provocative work by the president of Yeshiva University, shows that these concerns are by no means unprecedented. As Dr. Lamm writes, "The intersections of Torah and Wisdom are not always clear; indeed, they are more often than not elusive and indeterminate. But the encounter between them is fruitful, sometimes fateful and always fascinating." Dr. Lamm explores six models of Torah Umadda, providing thorough overviews of such great Jewish thinkers as Moses Maimonides, Samson Raphael Hirsch, and Abraham Isaac Kook. He examines the ideological context of late eighteenth-and early nineteenth-century Jewish religious thought that culminated in the creation of the citadel of Torah Umadda, Yeshiva University. And, borrowing from the work of more contemporary figures, he proposes a number of fresh approaches to the age-old issue. The result is an intriguing, incisive, and remarkably candid vision of a major issue confronting and frequently dividing contemporary Orthodox Jewry. Challenging, illuminating, and, above all, synthesizing, Torah Umadda provides a seminal and widely awaited "mission statement" by a modern renaissance man on the continuing philosophical-theological validity of one of contemporary Judaism's most fertile fields. Simultaneously scholarly and passionate, Torah Umadda itself shines as a brilliant example of that very school of thought it so eloquently puts forth.

    Over fifty selections represent the ethnic, racial, and geographic diversity of working-class experience. This is writing grounded in social history, not in the academy. Traditional boundaries of genre and periodization collapse in this collection, which includes reportage, oral histories, speeches, songs, and letters, as well as poetry, stories, and essays. The divisions in this collection - telling stories, bearing witness, celebrating solidarity - address the distinction of "by" or "about" working-class women, and show the connections between individual identity and collective sensibility in a common history of struggle for economic justice. The geography of home, identity, parents, sex, motherhood, the dominance of the job, the overlapping of private and public worlds, the promise of solidarity and community are a few of the themes of this book. Here is a chorus of working class women's voices: Sandra Cisneros, Barbara Garson, Meridel Le Sueur, Tillie Olsen, Barbara Smith, Endesha I. M. Holland, Mother Jones, Nellie Wong, Agnes Smedley, Bobbie Louise Hawkins, Sharon Doubiago, Carol Tarlen, Hazel Hall, Margaret Randall, Judy Grahn, and many others! The aesthetic impulse is shaped by class, but not limited to one ruling class. What connects these writers is a collective consciousness, a class, which rejects bondage and lays claim to liberation through all  the possibilities of language. Calling Home is illustrated with family photographs as well as images of working women by professional photographers.

    A profound scholar of Buddhism and of Christian theology, his critical and constructive reflections culminate in the seminal essay that is the cornerstone of this volume. Seven eminent scholars respond to the challenge of Abe's construal of Kenotic God and Dynamic Sunyata. Abe demonstrates powerfully the dynamism of the Buddhist appreciation of the divine Emptiness at the heart of Being. His essay suggests how the doctrine of sunyata can provide a needed corrective to the reified understanding of God prominent in Jewish and Christian traditions. Abe opens the way for new and deeper engagement of these traditions with the wisdom of Buddhism. Leading Christian and Jewish theologians--Thomas J. J. Altizer, Eugene Borowitz, John B. Cobb, Jr., Catherine Keller, Schubert M. Ogden, Jurgen Moltmann, and David Tracy--respond to Abe's challenge. From perspectives as diverse as American feminism, post-Holocaust Judaism, process thought, and hermeneutics, they reply to Abe's proposals for considering God to be intrinsically self-emptying. Abe responds to these essays in a conclusion. Provocative and illuminating, The Emptying God shows how interfaith dialogue, at its very best, provides materials for the mutual transformation of all traditions.

    The conceptual framework that underlies Hasidism plays an important role in understanding the life cycle of a hasid and the different stages at which he seeks the rebbe's counsel. Rabbi Schachter-Shalomi illuminates the dimensions of a hasid's life pattern, as well as the social, historical, and ideological aspects of Hasidism that inevitable influence the rebbe's role and his ability to discern the hasid's life tasks.

    It reveals the impact of the immediacy of experience as a formative influence on perception, response, and literary imagination, arguing that literature that is contemporaneous with unfolding events offers perceptions different from those presented after the fact.Documented here is the emergence of poetry as the dominant literary form and quickest reaction to the atrocities. The authors shows that the mission of the poets was to provide testimony to their epoch, to speak for themselves and for those who perished. For the Jews in the condemned world, this poetry was a vehicle of cultural sustenance, a means of affirming traditional values, and an expression of moral defiance that often kept the spirit of the readers from dying.The explication of the poetry (which has been translated by the author) offer challenging implications for the field of critical theory, including shifts in literary practices--prompted by the growing atrocities--that reveal a spectrum of complex experimental techniques..

    In a work of remarkable clarity and wisdom, Rabbi Wolpe confronts a central dilemma of modern Judaism, combining his deep knowledge of ancient tradition with modern sensibilities to show contemporary Jews that God still speaks to them--to their daily struggles, angers, fears, and needs, offering comfort and inspiration.

    Born in Poland and dedicated to Yiddish culture, he recognized that Jews needed to adapt to their times while preserving their cultural heritage, and his captivating and beautiful writings explore the complexities inherent in the struggle between tradition and the desire for progress. This book, which presents a memoir, poem, travelogue, and twenty-six stories by Peretz, also provides a detailed essay about Peretz’s life by Ruth R. Wisse. This edition of the book includes as well Peretz’s great visionary drama A Night in the Old Marketplace, in a rhymed, performable translation by Hillel Halkin. “If you want to discover the beauty, the depth, the unique wonder of Yiddish literature—read this volume by its Master.” —Elie Wiesel “For any American reader, this will be a handy and skillfully edited selection of the most representative writings of one of the masters of world literature. For any Jewish American reader, it will also be a monument in commemoration of . . . a writer who . . . laid the foundations for the modern Yiddish literary tradition.” —Stanislaw Baranczak, The New Republic “The tales, which occupy most of the book, vary widely. Some have the form and tone of simple folk tales. Others suggest a Hasidic-like mysticism, sometimes approaching the surreal. The best, I think combine both a sympathy for the values of the shtetl and a note of irony.” —Richard Eder, Los Angeles Times Book Review “[Peretz’s] works stand in brilliantly evocative tribute to a bygone era.” —Publishers Weekly

    Klepfisz casts out her words with passion and lucidity."--Sojourner¶"A stirring, thought-provoking collection."--Publishers Weekly

    Presenting the captivating world of rabbinic storytelling, it reveals facets of the Jewish experience and tradition that would otherwise have remained unknown and examines the surprisingly deep connection between the values of classical Judaism and the art of imaginative narrative writing. Virtually all the narratives appear here in English for the first time. Sometimes pious, sometimes playful, and sometimes almost scandalous, they are each accompanied by an introduction and notes. The selections are framed by essays by David Stern and Mark Jay Mirsky that examine the various moods and forms in which the rabbinic imagination found expression and explore the impact that this unique form of narrative has had on modern fiction. The translations are by Norman Bronznick, Yaakov Elman, Michal Govrin, Arthur Green, Martha Himmelfarb, Ivan Marcus, Mark Jay Mirsky, Joel Rosenberg, David Ruderman, Raymond Scheindlin, David Stern, and Avi Weinstein.Yale Judaica Series

    

    From Anzia Yezierska and Edna Ferber to Cynthia Ozick, Grace Paley, and Susan Fromberg Schaeffer, these writers reveal a rich, vital, and innovative tradition.

    These stories - which appear in such diverse sources as rabbinic midrash, early Christian writings, liturgical poetry, and the Qur'an - often contain details of whole incidents not found in the Bible itself. In tracing the development and function of these tales, Kugel reveals a dynamic interpretive process: the living, changing significance of texts through generations of discussion, analysis and application.