Tags Maimonides

Tag: Maimonides

Character And Covenant

Ben Frogel reviews a new volume that introduces thirty-five different Jewish approaches to virtue ethics and attempts to link them into one continuous tradition.

Endless Exploration: Judaism’s Only “Principle of Faith”

Hasdai Crescas criticized Maimonides for counting belief as a Mitzvah, arguing that we have no control over what we believe. Dovid Campbell explores a surprisingly common defense of Maimonides that places his views closer to those of Crescas than we might have initially imagined.

Reclaiming the Classical Sephardic Tradition: Tracing its Origins and Evolution

Avi Garson traces the rise and fall of the classical Sephardic tradition and calls for a renewed return to its fundamental principles.

A Call for Order: Maimonides and the Mishnah

Yaakov Taubes explores the background to Maimonides’s explanation for how the Mishnah is ordered.

Behind Every Revelation Lurks an Interpretation: Revisiting “The Revelation at Sinai”

With lively and accessible prose, Tamar Ross clarifies her theology of the revelation at Sinai in contrast to more traditional formulations such as Yoram Hazony's.

The Philosopher and the Mystic?

David Fried reviews Diana Lobel's Moses and Abraham Maimonides: Encountering the Divine, which argues that the categorization of Moses Maimonides as an Aristotelian philosopher and his son Abraham as a Sufi mystic is an oversimplification.

Confronting Biblical Criticism: A Review Essay

Marc B. Shapiro reviews a new edited volume by Yoram Hazony, Gil Student, and Alex Sztuden that offers a traditional defense of revelation in light of modern biblical criticism.

Revisiting Maimonides’s Merkavah Chapters

In this timely piece, David Fried analyzes Maimonides' explanation of the ma'aseh merkavah in light of the Talmud's strictures on its teaching outlined in Hagigah. Fried's analysis reveals how Maimonides changed course from the Aristotelianism that he posited at other points in his career.

From Polemic to Pandemic: The Past, Present, and Future of Hazarat...

Post-pandemic proposals to omit hazarat ha-shatz on a permanent basis have been soundly rejected by halakhic authorities. Is this due exclusively to halakhic considerations, or are additional factors at play? Yosie Levine contends that Ashkenazic rabbinic opposition to 19th-century attempts to eliminate hazarat ha-shatz may still be shaping halakhic discourse today.

My Teacher, Professor Yaakov Blidstein ztz”l

After Professor Yaakov Blidstein's passing on Thursday, Marc Herman recalls his teacher's astonishing blend of scholarly creativity and intellectual humility.