{"title":"Multiple Contrast Connectives and Their Contribution to the Cohesion and Poetics of Yehuda Amichai’s Poetry","authors":"Bat-Zion Yemeni","doi":"10.1163/15700704-12341412","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700704-12341412","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The article presents an interdisciplinary stylistic study of the language of Yehuda Amichai’s poetry in his last and enigmatic book, “Open Closed Open” (1998). The study examines his extensive use of contrast words and their contribution to the cohesion and poetics of the book’s poems. All 296 poems in the book were examined, and the contrast words were documented alongside the content of each poem. Stylistic examination reveals an exceptionally extensive 138 appearances of contrast words, among them 107 occurrences of aval . Analysis of the discourse in this research focuses on the function of the contrast words, and their meaning is determined according to semantic distinctions, which are based on the text’s interpretation. It was found that the cohesion in the book is reflected in structure and content, which explains the enigmatic meaning of the book’s title.","PeriodicalId":40689,"journal":{"name":"Review of Rabbinic Judaism","volume":"50 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136358989","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Where Have All the Flowers Gone? The Fate of a Jewish “Culture of Flowers” in Two Early Medieval Diasporas","authors":"Aton M. Holzer","doi":"10.1163/15700704-12341410","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700704-12341410","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Flowers and traditions involving flowers tend to be conspicuously absent from early and late medieval Rabbinic literature, with one well-known but controversial exception. In contrast, literature and archaeological motifs beginning from the biblical period and reaching a climax in the late Second Temple period are replete with floral themes. The Madonna lily – lilium candidum – is especially celebrated as a symbol of ancient Israel, and particularly the Temple in Jerusalem, which may have been adorned with them in the late spring. In this essay, we analyze the Jewish culture of flowers in its Greco-Roman context and suggest possibilities to account for its ulti- mate disappearance – in particular, the translocation of Rabbinic scholarship to a Zoroastrian milieu, in which flowers played a central role in worship.","PeriodicalId":40689,"journal":{"name":"Review of Rabbinic Judaism","volume":"255 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136359810","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“It Is Certainly Forbidden to Force Her”:","authors":"Evyatar Marienberg","doi":"10.1163/15700704-12341414","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700704-12341414","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article examines a chapter on marital sexuality that appears in a work that, for many decades, has been an extremely popular Ashkenazi manual of Jewish law and practices, the Kitzur Shulhan Arukh of the Hungarian rabbi Salomon (Shlomo) Ganzfried (1804–1886). It shows the way the author used previous sources to create his own work, shedding light on his method as well as on an important example of the type of written rabbinic sex guidance that was available for countless traditional Jewish readers for centuries.","PeriodicalId":40689,"journal":{"name":"Review of Rabbinic Judaism","volume":"149 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136359964","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Holiness of Riẓba: A Study of a Rabbinic Historiography","authors":"Shalem Yahalom","doi":"10.1163/15700704-12341409","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700704-12341409","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This study deals with the public declaration by the Tosaphist R. Yitzhak ben Abraham (Riẓba) about his inability to consummate his marriage during its first few years. Ephraim Urbach, the great mid-twentieth century Jewish historian, considered this confession to be an expression of holiness and purity and to the ability to dissociate sexuality from feelings of guilt and shame. This assessment reflects the pretensions of Judaic studies of the era to understand the characters and predilections of rabbinic figures at a remove of hundreds of years. This paper rejects Urbach’s conclusions, maintaining that the compunctions associated with nudity and sexuality are modern phenomena. In medieval Europe, men and women bathed together, and this practice was considered perfectly acceptable in both Jewish and non-Jewish circles. Likewise, the intimate lives of married couples were not private. Consequently, Riẓba’s disclosure does not attest to his being holy or pure to an unusual degree.","PeriodicalId":40689,"journal":{"name":"Review of Rabbinic Judaism","volume":"28 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136359960","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Two Approaches toward Convening the Sanhedrin and Resuming Semikha in the Modern Era","authors":"Ronel Atia","doi":"10.1163/15700704-12341411","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700704-12341411","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Before the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, Rabbi Aharon Mendel HaKohen indefatigably promoted a program of reconvening the Sanhedrin and resuming semikha – the historical form of rabbinical ordination that entailed “laying of hands.” Holding a rabbinical post in Cairo, he observed a diminishing status of the community rabbi, caused, he thought, by the growing Zionist idea. To restore rabbinic power, he wished to establish an association of rabbis that would serve as a Jewish authority for the election of the Sanhedrin and the resumption of semikha . By examining Rabbi Mendel’s view, along with those of other rabbis of his age, including Rabbi Mordechai HaKohen and Rabbi Eliyahu Bechor Chazan, this article provides an important perspective on a central issue of the period of the emergence and growth of Zionist ideology.","PeriodicalId":40689,"journal":{"name":"Review of Rabbinic Judaism","volume":"52 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136359244","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“How Would He Not Protest God’s Putting to Death the Righteous Child?”","authors":"Eric Lawee","doi":"10.1163/15700704-12341413","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700704-12341413","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Medieval Jewish readings of the Akedah, the Binding of Isaac, remain almost entirely oblivious to the antinomy between ethics and the revealed divine command that many modern interpretations find at the heart of the story. This study explores an exception, the teaching of the fourteenth-century rationalist, Eleazar Ashkenazi ben Nathan Ha-Bavli. In his Revealer of Secrets , Eleazar seeks a remedy for what he takes to be the theological and moral scandals that arise when the Akedah is read according to its plain sense. While Eleazar’s treatment of the Akedah builds in many ways on that of Maimonides, it also adds novel layers regarding this most difficult of biblical accounts. For this reason, the study begins with a substantial review of Maimonides’ intentionally elusive treatment of the Akedah and its reception among some representative later medieval interlocutors. Turning to its main focus, the article supplies a case study in medieval Jewish rationalism at its limits, in both matter and manner.","PeriodicalId":40689,"journal":{"name":"Review of Rabbinic Judaism","volume":"58 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136359969","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Consequences of the Faulty Transmission of Sefer Tagin","authors":"Marc Michaels","doi":"10.1163/15700704-12341408","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700704-12341408","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Scribes are encouraged to maintain the tradition concerning the decorative tagin (tittles) and “strange” letter forms that adorn nearly two thousand letters in the Torah. Yet this tradition, detailed in Sefer Tagin , was relatively rarely followed and has all but died out in modern times. This article examines the faulty transmission of this Masoretic manual for sofrim (scribes) through core, compiled, and partial sources. It assesses the likely negative impact of its deployment through diversity caused by the transition to paraša format, error and innovation, and combination with other scribal rules.","PeriodicalId":40689,"journal":{"name":"Review of Rabbinic Judaism","volume":"2008 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136359818","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Conception of Woman in the Thought of Maharal of Prague","authors":"Thierry J. Alcoloumbre","doi":"10.1163/15700704-12341402","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700704-12341402","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Recent research has criticized medieval Jewish thought for perpetuating misogynist models inherited from Aristotle, which legitimate men’s domination of women. Critics have focused on hylomorphism. By identifying man with “form” and women with “matter,” Aristotle and his disciples placed the former beside being, intellect, and activity, and the latter beside privation, irrationality, and passivity. This article shows how, during the Renaissance, hylomorphism was transformed by Judah Loew ben Betzalel (Maharal of Prague; 1512?–1609) in a manner more favorable to women. Maharal’s thought still has a patriarchal worldview; nevertheless, he recognizes a positive value to matter, the body, and sexuality, assigning woman an active role within the marital couple as well as in the historical process that leads to redemption.","PeriodicalId":40689,"journal":{"name":"Review of Rabbinic Judaism","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-04-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44616559","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Who Wears the Chain?","authors":"Yonah Lavery-Yisraeli","doi":"10.1163/15700704-12341405","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700704-12341405","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The recent debate regarding the eligibility of converts to Judaism (gerim) to sit on a beṯ din – a judicial panel – is unexpected. In the 19th century, when rabbis first begin to answer questions about whether or not gerim may serve on panels for the conversion of other potential gerim, the tone is consistently one of surprise: the answer was an obvious yes. In later reflections, however, the tone shifts, with increasing demands for definitive proof that no prohibition exists. But such a proof has been hard to articulate based on the classical sources. This article contends that the eligibility of a ger to sit a beṯ din was at one point obvious because such acceptance mirrors a central characteristic of classical Jewish judicial culture, which rests on welcoming strangeness and, hence, human strangers. Truth, this is, was understood to arrive through a gap rent in the familiarity that ordinarily rests between members of a community.","PeriodicalId":40689,"journal":{"name":"Review of Rabbinic Judaism","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-04-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43694988","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}