Open Canon

Prof. Avi Sagi is a member of Bar-Ilan University's Department of Philosophy and is founder and director of that university's Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Hermeneutics and Cultural Studies. He has written and edited numerous books and articles in Jewish and general philosophy, among them Religion and Morality (with Daniel Statman, New York: 1995) and the recently released Judaism: Between Religion and Morality (Tel Aviv: 1998) and Albert Camus and the Philosophy of the Absurd (New York: 2002).

• Contents; Acknowledgements; Introduction; Part One: The Monistic Outlook; Part Two: The Pluralistic Outlook; Part Three: The Harmonic Outlook; Part Four: These And These Are the Words of the Living God -; Halakhic Values; Part Five: On Dispute And Authority; Index.

"Avi Sagi is one of the most brilliant scholars of our day.  This book demonstrates that he possesses a prodigious command of the vast corpus of rabbinical literature as it has developed over the centuries and his knowledge of secular philosophical literature is equally erudite.  In THE OPEN CANON, Sagi draws upon these two areas of expertise to provide a description and analysis of the nature of halakhic discourse that is at once sophisticated and illuminating.  He allows the sources to speak for themselves, even as he provides philosophical contexts and considerations that shed light on those sources.  This book is an unparalleled feast for knowledgeable laypeople and scholars who are interested in grasping the dynamic and manifold nature of Jewish law and its many approaches to the questions of authority." - David Ellenson, President, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion