{"title":"Professional Ethics of Community Rabbis and Religious Scholars in Judaism","authors":"Tsuriel Rashi","doi":"10.1163/15700704-12341391","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700704-12341391","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This article represents a first attempt to collect and analyze texts written by halakhic authorities throughout the generations that deal with the professional ethics of rabbis and religious scholars. From these texts, we understand that the ideal rabbi embodies a combination of professionalism, humility, and a shouldering of his responsibilities as a religious leader. Respectful and dignified conduct when he engages with his community is the mark of his professional vocation. I also look at the appropriate relationship between a community and its rabbi, from his appointment through the way he fulfills his obligations and the circumstances around his parting from his congregation.","PeriodicalId":40689,"journal":{"name":"Review of Rabbinic Judaism","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-03-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45652365","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":"Empowering Women in the Lessons of Rabbanit Yemima Mizrahi","authors":"Bat-Zion Yemini","doi":"10.1163/15700704-12341390","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700704-12341390","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This paper examines the rhetoric used by Rabbanit Yemima Mizrahi in her weekly Torah portion lectures to women, in which she applies a feminine point of view. For eighteen years, Rabbanit Mizrahi has used her unique rhetorical style to attract a faithful, diverse audience of Jewish women in Israel and abroad. This study investigates her rhetoric in fifty videotaped lectures and presents five of her rhetorical tools: metaphor and simile, puns, syntactical-rhetorical repetition, humor, and slang. The study also examines how her rhetoric attracts women from all walks of life, irrespective of their level of religious observance, age, and socio-cultural background, and without proselytizing. Moreover, she uses her rhetoric in a direct way, avoiding any type of authoritative distance, to transmit a message of sisterhood through empowerment of women as she interprets the Torah portion.","PeriodicalId":40689,"journal":{"name":"Review of Rabbinic Judaism","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-03-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43008693","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":"Reading Talmudic Sources as Arguments: A New Interpretive Approach, written by Yuval Blankovsky","authors":"Rachel Slutsky","doi":"10.1163/15700704-12341394","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700704-12341394","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":40689,"journal":{"name":"Review of Rabbinic Judaism","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-03-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49478848","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":"Rashi’s Commentary on the Torah: Canonization and Resistance in the Reception of a Jewish Classic, written by Eric Lawee","authors":"M. Gruber","doi":"10.1163/15700704-12341393","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700704-12341393","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":40689,"journal":{"name":"Review of Rabbinic Judaism","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-03-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48041002","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":"Yanukah","authors":"Tzachi Cohen","doi":"10.1163/15700704-12341388","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700704-12341388","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000In many talmudic and mishnaic stories, the child is described as the possessor of unique and even contradictory traits. While he is invalid as a witness, exempt from observing the commandments, and not permitted to take part in the realm of commerce and acquisition, he is occasionally portrayed as the bearer of God’s word, and his ordinary sayings are understood as prophecy. In this paper, through an analysis of numerous sources—including tannaitic and talmudic material and various midrashim—which deal with children, we will attempt to identify the characteristic traits to which the sages refer in their descriptions of childhood. We will attempt to articulate the sages’ understanding of childhood, and specifically the traits which provide a basis for the portrayal of children as bearers of God’s word and sustainers of the world.","PeriodicalId":40689,"journal":{"name":"Review of Rabbinic Judaism","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-03-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45863621","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":"R. Aqiba and the Relatives Disqualified from Giving Testimony","authors":"M. Sabato","doi":"10.1163/15700704-12341387","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700704-12341387","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000M. San. 3:4 records two lists of relatives who are disqualified from giving testimony: a list attributed to “the first Mishnah” and one assigned to R. Aqiba. The first Mishnah disqualifies relatives who are eligible to be the person’s heir, to the maximum degree of a cousin. R. Aqiba abolished the inheritance criterion and drew up a list that includes even relatives who are ineligible to be heirs. Based on an analysis of expositions from which the sages derived the disqualification of relatives from giving testimony, this article examines the reason for the change introduced by R. Aqiba. It concludes that, in R. Aqiba’s view, the relevant criterion is not the possibility of inheritance but only the degree of kinship.","PeriodicalId":40689,"journal":{"name":"Review of Rabbinic Judaism","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-03-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44249788","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":"Group Dynamics in Beit Midrash Organizations: Revisiting the Legend of the Conflict between Rabbi Yohanan and Resh Laqish (Babylonian Talmud Bava Metzi’a 84a)","authors":"Sagit Mor","doi":"10.1163/15700704-12341389","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700704-12341389","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Stories in the Babylonian Talmud reveal the complex experience of studying in the rabbinic study house. One such story is the legend of R. Yohanan and Resh Lakish (B. B.M. 84a). Researchers have focused almost exclusively on the personae of the legend’s protagonists, while the manner in which the disciples of the sages pursued their calling has received little consideration. This article reflects on Group Dynamics in the Beit Midrash. It invokes theories from the field of organizational discourse, with special consideration of the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan and his followers. It also makes use of concepts relating to group-dynamic processes of the psychoanalyst Wilfred R. Bion. Read through this lens, the legend reveals new understandings regarding the conditions and responsibilities required from all partners for the vitality and productivity of the organization.","PeriodicalId":40689,"journal":{"name":"Review of Rabbinic Judaism","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-03-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43633844","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":"Rhetorical Conclusions in Nahmanides’ Torah Commentary","authors":"Miriam Sklarz","doi":"10.1163/15700704-12341381","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700704-12341381","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This paper examine Nahmanides’ rhetorical style in his Torah commentary, addressing his convention of concluding his biblical commentaries with a flourish, both in form and content. The origins of this rhetorical device in the literature preceding Nahmanides is presented, followed by a demonstration of its embodiment and development in Nahmanides own Torah commentary.","PeriodicalId":40689,"journal":{"name":"Review of Rabbinic Judaism","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-10-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46773208","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":"Sivan Baskin: Multilingual Israeli Poet in the Age of Globalization","authors":"Bat-Zion Yemini","doi":"10.1163/15700704-12341385","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700704-12341385","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Sivan Baskin, a poet and literary translator, started writing on the Internet in the early years of the millennium on the “New Stage” site and has published three books of poetry. Baskin’s writing is characterized by multilingualism, inserting words from various languages, written in their own alphabet, within a poem in Hebrew. Although these words or phrases are few and far between, they are conspicuous by their presence and foreignness, representing multiculturalism. Baskin is the first Hebrew poet in multicultural Israel to do this. This article cites four poems that reflect Baskin’s unique writing, which is derived from the combination of her two mother-countries in her life: Lithuania as a Jewish exile, her first homeland, and Israel as the Jewish State into which Jews from around the world were gathered. As an introduction to Baskin’s poetry, this article presents Israel as a multicultural and multilingual country.","PeriodicalId":40689,"journal":{"name":"Review of Rabbinic Judaism","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-10-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45871290","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}