Jewish Virtue Ethics

Geoffrey D. Claussen is Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Lori and Eric Sklut Scholar in Jewish Studies, and Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at Elon University. He is the author of Sharing the Burden: Rabbi Simhah Zissel Ziv and the Path of Musar, also published by SUNY Press. Alexander Green is Visiting Associate Professor in the Department of Jewish Thought at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York. He is the author of Power and Progress: Joseph Ibn Kaspi and the Meaning of History, also published by SUNY Press. Alan L. Mittleman is the Aaron Rabinowitz and Simon H. Rifkind Professor of Jewish Philosophy at the Jewish Theological Seminary. He is the author of Does Judaism Condone Violence? Holiness and Ethics in the Jewish Tradition, winner of the National Jewish Book Award for Modern Jewish Thought and Experience.

• AcknowledgmentsForewordJulia AnnasIntroductionGeoffrey D. Claussen, Alexander Green, and Alan L. Mittleman1. Biblical LiteratureAmanda Beckenstein Mbuvi2. Philo of Alexandria Carlos Lévy3. Titus Flavius Josephus Clifford Orwin4. Rabbinic Literature Deborah Barer5. Baḥya Ibn Paquda Diana Lobel6. Solomon Ibn GabirolSarah Pessin7. Maimonides Kenneth Seeskin8. Elazar of Worms Joseph Isaac Lifshitz9. Naḥmanides Jonathan Jacobs10. The ZoharEitan P. Fishbane11. Gersonides Alexander Green12. Ḥasdai Crescas Roslyn Weiss13. Joseph Albo Shira Weiss14. Isaac Arama Baruch Frydman-Kohl15. Moses Cordovero Eugene D. Matanky16. Baruch Spinoza Heidi M. Ravven17. Moses Ḥayyim Luzzatto Patrick Benjamin Koch18. Moses Mendelssohn Elias Sacks19. Menaḥem Mendel Lefin Harris Bor20. Ḥayyim of Volozhin Esti Eisenmann21. Naḥman of Bratslav Shaul Magid22. Isaac Bekhor Amarachi Katja Šmid23. Israel Salanter Sarah Zager24. Simḥah Zissel Ziv Geoffrey D. Claussen25. Hermann Cohen Shira Billet26. Abraham Isaac Kook Don Seeman27. Martin Buber William Plevan28. Mordecai Kaplan Matthew LaGrone29. Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler Esther Solomon30. Joseph Soloveitchik Yonatan Y. Brafman31. Hannah Arendt Ned Curthoys32. Emmanuel Levinas Richard A. Cohen33. Abraham Joshua Heschel Einat Ramon34. Jewish Feminism Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi35. Jewish EnvironmentalismHava Tirosh-SamuelsonAfterwordAlan L. MittlemanList of ContributorsIndex

"Written by top scholars, these essays are united in answering four questions: In what way are virtues important to the thinker or work? Which virtues are emphasized? How does this thinker or work imagine that virtues are best cultivated? What impact does this conception of virtue have on the thinker's or documents' interpretation of Judaism? This accessible collection has the added value of revealing larger themes and considerations displayed in the long history of Jewish thinking about virtue." — CHOICE"This is a fantastic book. Its contribution to the field of virtue ethics is significant because it provides a sweep of Judaic treatments of the topic, and its contribution to the field of Jewish ethics will be invaluable due to the relative dearth of material on virtue ethics thus far. It will be a cherished and, I hope, widely used resource." — Jonathan K. Crane, coeditor of The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Ethics and Morality