Showing posts with label Maimonides. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Maimonides. Show all posts
Monday, 22 April 2013
In 2011 we published an article, "In Search Of The Logic Of Judaism: From Talmudic Chaos To Halakhic Linearity," which you can download and read from the link here. In this paper we examine some common views of scholars concerning the idea of the halakhah in Judaism. We then explain why their methods failed to account for the main philological and historical evidence regarding the term from the Talmudic texts. Then we suggest as a heuristic explanation that the logic of the Talmud defies linearity and can be discussed productively using chaos theory.
The authors in this volume cover varied topics with sophistication and erudition. The publisher's page provides details about the book, as copied below.
Schumann, Andrew, Tzvee Zahavy, Avi Sion, Aviram Ravitsky, Stefan Goltzberg, Judaic Logic
| Title: | Judaic Logic |
| Series: | Judaism in Context 8 |
| Publisher: | Gorgias Press |
| ISBN: | 978-1-61719-194-7 |
| Language: | English |
| Format: | Hardback, Black, 6 x 9 in |
- Introduction, Andrew Schumann
- In Search of The Logic of Judaism: From Talmudic Chaos To Halakhic Linearity, Tzvee Zahavy
- Maimonides’ Use of Logic In The Guide of The Perplexed, Joseph A. Buijs
- Structure And Sources of The Hebrew Commentary on Petrus Hispanus's Summulae Logicales By Hezekiah Bar Halafta, Alias Bonenfant De Millau, Mauro Zonta
- Aristotelian Logic and Talmudic Methodology: The Commentaries on the 13 Hermeneutic Principles and Their Application of Logic, Aviram Ravitsky
- A Fortiori Reasoning In Judaic Logic, Avi Sion
- The A Fortiori Argument In The Talmud, Stefan Goltzberg
- Sense In Making: Hermeneutical Practices of The Babylonian Talmud Against The Background of Medieval And Contemporary Views, Sergey Dolgopolski
- Judaic Syllogistics: The Baba Qama From The Logical Point Of View, Andrew Schumann
- Symbolic Computation And Digital Philosophy In Early Ashkenazic Kabbalah, Yoel Matveyev
The Publisher's Description of the book tells us:
Judaism differs considerably from other theistic religions. One of the main features is that Jewish religious laws are not dogmatic but based on specific legal reasoning. This reasoning was developed by the first Judaic commentators of the Bible for inferring Judaic laws from the Pentateuch. The book is about Judaic reasoning from the standpoint of modern logic. Its first goal is to define Judaic logic. This logic was aimed to be a methodology for deducing religious laws. The idea that this methodology can be viewed as original logic that is not less deductive than Aristotle’s logic did not emerge until the Late Middle Ages. At that time Medieval Hebrew works about Judaic reasoning were influenced by Arabo-Islamic philosophy as well as by Latin Scholastic logic. In this volume we discuss different forms of influence of the Aristotelian logic on developing the Talmudic methodology. Then we aim to sketch semantics for the Judaic reasoning, explicating Talmudic case study and Rabbinic situation analysis to develop general approaches to formalizing Judaic logic. This consideration of Judaic logic has relevance for modern logic and analytic philosophy and may be compared with the contribution made by the formalization of Ancient Greek logical systems to 20th-century logic and language philosophy.
Judaism differs considerably from other theistic religions. One of the main features is that Jewish religious laws are not dogmatic but based on specific legal reasoning. This reasoning was developed by the first Judaic commentators of the Bible for inferring Judaic laws from the Pentateuch. The book is about Judaic reasoning from the standpoint of modern logic. Its first goal is to define Judaic logic. This logic was aimed to be a methodology for deducing religious laws. The idea that this methodology can be viewed as original logic that is not less deductive than Aristotle’s logic did not emerge until the Late Middle Ages. At that time Medieval Hebrew works about Judaic reasoning were influenced by Arabo-Islamic philosophy as well as by Latin Scholastic logic. In this volume we discuss different forms of influence of the Aristotelian logic on developing the Talmudic methodology. Then we aim to sketch semantics for the Judaic reasoning, explicating Talmudic case study and Rabbinic situation analysis to develop general approaches to formalizing Judaic logic. This consideration of Judaic logic has relevance for modern logic and analytic philosophy and may be compared with the contribution made by the formalization of Ancient Greek logical systems to 20th-century logic and language philosophy.
Saturday, 23 March 2013
Rabbi Menahem Genack published, The Seder Night: An Exalted Evening: The Passover Haggadah: With a Commentary Based on the Teachings of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik. A Haggadah in English and Hebrew (2009).We think it's a great book and happily added it both to our collection of Haggadahs and to our library of works about the teachings of my teacher, the Rav, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik. It is a handsome and professional volume, clearly written and packed with content based on the Rav's torah teachings.
Genack was known as one of the best students in the class when I was in the Rav's shiur back in college and in rabbinical school. He's pursued a career of Jewish service and teaching and continues over the decades to shine as an exemplary disciple of the Rav.
Like most books that present the Rav's torah, this one approaches the task with great reverence and nostalgia. Those are great characteristics for me and for the other several thousand students who personally sat at the feet of the Rav and gave themselves over to him as his uncritical disciples. Genack writes his condensed accounts of the Rav's lectures with the clarity that I need to hear again the Rav speaking. He was a charismatic teacher with a wealth of learning that he imparted in many ways.
In his public talks, the Rav emphasized the experiential side of Orthodox Judaism. He often spoke poetically, I think to prove two important points.
First, he wanted to prove a personal point, to show the world that he was not a cold Litvak, not just a product of the Lithuanian Yeshivas who valued only factual erudition and cold logic.
Second, he had a program in his work, to create and express a form of Orthodox Judaism that was on par with the other great religions of the world. For him that meant in his time and place and out of his training in Europe that he had to demonstrate the validity and fecundity of Orthodox Jewish religious experience. He believed that he was the Jewish Rudolph Otto or William James and that from his teachings the world would see that Orthodoxy stands proudly next to any form of the esteemed Protestant religions of the Old or New World.
The Rav had another mission in his teaching and preaching. That was to transmit the Brisker Torah, the innovative conceptual insights of his own and his family's heritage of learning. So the Rav sought to investigate the phenomenology of Orthodox Judaism, to seek out and abstract the core idea from each performance of the numerous commandments and from each recitation of the many prayers.
Rabbi Genack succeeds in presenting all sides of the Rav in his publication, though he does so without the kind of self consciousness that I have just evoked above.
But now for the other question. How does this book play in Peoria? How will people who were not long-time students of the Rav react to this book? This book is not for the ordinary Jew who never studied with the Rav and it's not for the non-Jewish scholar or layperson. A Reform or Conservative or even an Orthodox Jew who never knew the Rav would need much more translated from the insider's notes and nostalgia of this book to the vocabulary and syntax or religious discourse in its more common and less private forms.
All told, this is a very good work in its genre. //repost from 2009//
Sunday, 11 March 2012
We have another new book out.Professor Tzvee Zahavy, "Define Judaism: Ten Seminars" - New from Talmudic Books and Free Kindle Book (the entire book is free) on Monday 3-12. Here is the Product Description:
When I taught “Introduction to Judaism,” a popular Jewish Studies course at the University of Minnesota, as a final essay assignment I gave to the class this task: “Define Judaism.” Even though it was an open-ended question, my students considered this to be a tough assignment requiring analysis, synthesis and much thought. I originally wrote up these “seminars” as part of an independent study guide for one version of “Intro to Judaism”—a distance learning offering in the continuing education division of the university.
I now offer this volume to the general reader to help seekers and students of all ages and all faiths to better understand and define Judaism.
Wednesday, 29 February 2012
New from Talmudic Books, "The Kosher Kabbalah: Non-Esoteric Passages from the Zohar" [Kindle Edition], Maurice Simon, Harry Sperling, Paul Levertoff, with Reuven Brauner (selection, preface and notes). $.99.
This amazing book contains a carefully chosen selection of 837 of the non-esoteric portions of the Zohar, Judaism’s most fundamental and influential work of the Kabbalah, the corpus of Jewish mysticism.
You can read the first 71 selections free on Amazon using "Look Inside".
This amazing book contains a carefully chosen selection of 837 of the non-esoteric portions of the Zohar, Judaism’s most fundamental and influential work of the Kabbalah, the corpus of Jewish mysticism.
You can read the first 71 selections free on Amazon using "Look Inside".
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