Continuing his contribution to medieval Jewish intellectual history, Haym Soloveitchik focuses here on the radical pietist movement of Ḥasidei Ashkenaz and its main literary work, Sefer {::}Ḥ{::}{::}asidim, and on the writings and personality of the Provençal commentator Ravad of Posquières. In both areas Soloveitchik challenges mainstream views to provide a new understanding of medieval Jewish thought. Some of the essays are revised and updated versions of work previously published and some are entirely new, but in all of them Soloveitchik challenges reigning views to provide a new understanding of medieval Jewish thought.The section on Sefer Ḥasidim brings together over half a century of Soloveitchik’s writings on German Pietism, many of which originally appeared in obscure publications, and adds two new essays. The first of these is a methodological study of how to read this challenging work and an exposition of what constitutes a valid historical inference, while the second reviews the validity of the sociological and anthropological inferences presented in contemporary historiography. In discussing Ravad’s oeuvre, Soloveitchik questions the widespread notion that Ravad’s chief accomplishment was his commentary on Maimonides’ Mishneh torah; his Talmud commentary, he claims, was of far greater importance and was his true masterpiece. He also adds a new study that focuses on the acrimony between Ravad, as the low-born genius of Posquières, and R. Zerahyah ha-Levi of Lunel, who belonged to the Jewish aristocracy of Languedoc, and considers the implications of that relationship.Volume I available: https://liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/book/10.3828/9781904113973Volume II available: https://liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/book/10.3828/9781904113980

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2020-11-04
Mått163 x 239 x undefined mm
Vikt368 g
FormatInbunden
SpråkEngelska
SerieLittman Library of Jewish Civilization
Antal sidor472
FörlagLiverpool University Press
ISBN9781904113997

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Haym Soloveitchik is the Merkin Family Research Professor at Yeshiva University, New York, and the former director of the School of Jewish Studies at the Institute of Advanced Studies, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He has also taught at the Sorbonne and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris. He has published books in Hebrew on pawnbroking and usury, Jewish involvement in the medieval wine trade, and the use of responsa as a historical source. Three volumes of his Collected Essays have been published by the Littman Library, as well as a new edition of his landmark essay, Rupture and Reconstruction: The Transformation of Modern Orthodoxy.

PART I. SEFER ḤASIDIMSpecific Studies(1) Three Themes in Sefer Ḥasidim(2) On Dating Sefer Ḥasidim(3) Piety, Pietism, and German Pietism: Sefer Ḥasidim and the Influence of Ḥasidei Ashkenaz(4) Pietists and Kibbitzers(5) The Midrash, Sefer Ḥasidim, and the Changing Face of God(6) Two Notes on the Commentary on the Torah of R. Yehudah he-Ḥasid(7) Topics in the Ḥokhmat ha-NefeshMethodological Issues(8) On Reading Sefer Ḥasidim(9) Sefer Ḥasidim and the Social SciencesPART II. RAVAD AND PROVENÇAL STUDIES(10) Rabad of Posquières: A Programmatic Essay(11) The Literary Remains of the Gedol ha-Mefarshim: A Study in Personal Rivalry and the Repulsion of Opposites(12) A Response to R. Buckwold's Critique of 'Rabad of Posquières', Part I(13) A Response to R. Buckwold's Critique of 'Rabad of Posquières', Part II(14) Jewish and Roman Law: A Study in Interaction(15) The Riddle of Me'iri's Recent Popularity(16) Printing and the History of Halakhah(17) Angle of DeflectionBibliography of ManuscriptsSource AcknowledgementsIndex of NamesIndex of PlacesIndex of Subjects