Describes the legal, administrative and religious content and self-image of the Autonomous Jewish... more Describes the legal, administrative and religious content and self-image of the Autonomous Jewish Community in Ashkenaz.
This study attempts to retrieve the experiential quality of medieval Ashkenazic God awareness. Ba... more This study attempts to retrieve the experiential quality of medieval Ashkenazic God awareness. Based upon an examination of the broad gamut of contemporary religious literature (law and liturgy, piyyut and commentary, chronicles and customals) it attempts to demonstrate that this awareness was imminent, intense and palpable. Methodologically, it offers an example of the way in which the tools of the history of representations can be constructively applied to Jewish intellectual history.
Corporeality, Society, and Identity in the Renaissance and Early Modern Period
This chapter focuses upon the Shulḥan Arukh in its primary meaning: the small, apodictic code tha... more This chapter focuses upon the Shulḥan Arukh in its primary meaning: the small, apodictic code that R. Joseph Caro published in 15651566. This deceptively lean book can, in turn, be approached from two different directions, each of which is accompanied by different methodological considerations and questions. Caro declared that he regarded the Shulḥan Arukh as a precis of his larger, more monumental code, Bet Yosef . This approach is the more appropriate one if it seeks to understand the authors direct imprint upon the work, alongside its intellectual and cultural Sitz im Leben . The alternative approach is equally important, and could be viewed as even more consequential. It concentrates upon the literary integrity, character and fate of the Shulḥan Arukh , per se. It examines some salient themes concerning the body and its place in Jewish religious life and practice, as they appear in the Shulḥan Arukh , as a whole. Keywords: apodictic code; Bet Yosef ; body; Jewish religious life; R. Joseph Caro; Shulḥan Arukh ; Sitz im Leben
Essays in Jewish Studies in Honor of Shnayer Z. Leiman, 2020
Describes Shifts in the Medieval Ashkenazic Perception of the Synagogue, based on both textual an... more Describes Shifts in the Medieval Ashkenazic Perception of the Synagogue, based on both textual and pictorial Evidence
Describes the legal, administrative and religious content and self-image of the Autonomous Jewish... more Describes the legal, administrative and religious content and self-image of the Autonomous Jewish Community in Ashkenaz.
A brief article that characterizes Rabbinic modes of argumentation, and echoes thereof in the Syn... more A brief article that characterizes Rabbinic modes of argumentation, and echoes thereof in the Synoptic gospels.
The study of Italian Rabbinic literature holds pride of place in Reuven Bonfil's scholarly oeuvre... more The study of Italian Rabbinic literature holds pride of place in Reuven Bonfil's scholarly oeuvre. 1 His classic study, Ha-rabbanut be-italia bi-tekufat ha-renaissance, 2 stimulated renewed appreciation of, and interest in, the lives and writings of late medieval and early modern halakhists such as R. Joseph Colon, R. Benjamin of Montalcino, R. Azriel Trabotto (both the Elder and the Younger), R. Avraham Ha-Kohen of Bologna and others. His later studies on the cultural terrain of Southern Italy in the early Middle Ages renewed the long-standing debate regarding the origins of Ashkenazic halakhic tradition and the process by which the Babylonian Talmud and the Ge'onim effectively conquered Apennine Jewry, and then the Jews of Franco-Germany. Bonfil is also a pioneer in the application of the tools of cultural anthropology to halakhic and other rabbinic texts, in order to reconstruct thereby the categories of Medieval and Renaissance Jewish Culture. 3 In particular, responsa literature has played an important role in Bonfil's ongoing efforts to deepen our understanding of quattrocento and cinquecento Jewish life in Northern Italy. 4 In tribute to him, this paper will discuss certain salient themes concerning the status of women in Quattrocento Northern Italy,
והנה רבקה יוצאת: עיונים במדעי היהדות לכבוד רבקה דגן, 2017
The emotional and spiritual modality of Torah Study, as well as its content, is a central theme o... more The emotional and spiritual modality of Torah Study, as well as its content, is a central theme of Rabbi Soloveitchik's Thought. This insistence serves as a corrective to the aridity of Talmudic intellectualism and as a way to preserve the autonomy of Jewish Law.
Describes the legal, administrative and religious content and self-image of the Autonomous Jewish... more Describes the legal, administrative and religious content and self-image of the Autonomous Jewish Community in Ashkenaz.
This study attempts to retrieve the experiential quality of medieval Ashkenazic God awareness. Ba... more This study attempts to retrieve the experiential quality of medieval Ashkenazic God awareness. Based upon an examination of the broad gamut of contemporary religious literature (law and liturgy, piyyut and commentary, chronicles and customals) it attempts to demonstrate that this awareness was imminent, intense and palpable. Methodologically, it offers an example of the way in which the tools of the history of representations can be constructively applied to Jewish intellectual history.
Corporeality, Society, and Identity in the Renaissance and Early Modern Period
This chapter focuses upon the Shulḥan Arukh in its primary meaning: the small, apodictic code tha... more This chapter focuses upon the Shulḥan Arukh in its primary meaning: the small, apodictic code that R. Joseph Caro published in 15651566. This deceptively lean book can, in turn, be approached from two different directions, each of which is accompanied by different methodological considerations and questions. Caro declared that he regarded the Shulḥan Arukh as a precis of his larger, more monumental code, Bet Yosef . This approach is the more appropriate one if it seeks to understand the authors direct imprint upon the work, alongside its intellectual and cultural Sitz im Leben . The alternative approach is equally important, and could be viewed as even more consequential. It concentrates upon the literary integrity, character and fate of the Shulḥan Arukh , per se. It examines some salient themes concerning the body and its place in Jewish religious life and practice, as they appear in the Shulḥan Arukh , as a whole. Keywords: apodictic code; Bet Yosef ; body; Jewish religious life; R. Joseph Caro; Shulḥan Arukh ; Sitz im Leben
Essays in Jewish Studies in Honor of Shnayer Z. Leiman, 2020
Describes Shifts in the Medieval Ashkenazic Perception of the Synagogue, based on both textual an... more Describes Shifts in the Medieval Ashkenazic Perception of the Synagogue, based on both textual and pictorial Evidence
Describes the legal, administrative and religious content and self-image of the Autonomous Jewish... more Describes the legal, administrative and religious content and self-image of the Autonomous Jewish Community in Ashkenaz.
A brief article that characterizes Rabbinic modes of argumentation, and echoes thereof in the Syn... more A brief article that characterizes Rabbinic modes of argumentation, and echoes thereof in the Synoptic gospels.
The study of Italian Rabbinic literature holds pride of place in Reuven Bonfil's scholarly oeuvre... more The study of Italian Rabbinic literature holds pride of place in Reuven Bonfil's scholarly oeuvre. 1 His classic study, Ha-rabbanut be-italia bi-tekufat ha-renaissance, 2 stimulated renewed appreciation of, and interest in, the lives and writings of late medieval and early modern halakhists such as R. Joseph Colon, R. Benjamin of Montalcino, R. Azriel Trabotto (both the Elder and the Younger), R. Avraham Ha-Kohen of Bologna and others. His later studies on the cultural terrain of Southern Italy in the early Middle Ages renewed the long-standing debate regarding the origins of Ashkenazic halakhic tradition and the process by which the Babylonian Talmud and the Ge'onim effectively conquered Apennine Jewry, and then the Jews of Franco-Germany. Bonfil is also a pioneer in the application of the tools of cultural anthropology to halakhic and other rabbinic texts, in order to reconstruct thereby the categories of Medieval and Renaissance Jewish Culture. 3 In particular, responsa literature has played an important role in Bonfil's ongoing efforts to deepen our understanding of quattrocento and cinquecento Jewish life in Northern Italy. 4 In tribute to him, this paper will discuss certain salient themes concerning the status of women in Quattrocento Northern Italy,
והנה רבקה יוצאת: עיונים במדעי היהדות לכבוד רבקה דגן, 2017
The emotional and spiritual modality of Torah Study, as well as its content, is a central theme o... more The emotional and spiritual modality of Torah Study, as well as its content, is a central theme of Rabbi Soloveitchik's Thought. This insistence serves as a corrective to the aridity of Talmudic intellectualism and as a way to preserve the autonomy of Jewish Law.
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