“Maimonides ”

Moses Maimonides (Rambam)

Biography of Jewish philosopher and physician Moses Maimonides... read article

Moses Maimonides (Rambam)

List of articles related to the Jewish scholar, physician and philosopher Moses Maimonides also known as the Rambam... read article

Moses Maimonides

Encyclopaedia Judaica biography of Moses Maimonides also known as the Rambam... read article

Maimonidean Controversy

MAIMONIDEAN CONTROVERSY, a vast complex of disputed cultural, religious, and social problems, focusing around several central themes. Some of the elements of this controversy considerably antedate *Maimonides (1135–1204); and of the questions brought into sharp relief by his ideas and writings, some have remained topical in many Jewish circles... read article

Military Law

Article discussing various aspects of morality and the application of Jewish law to war and the military... read article

Throne of God

The vision of God sitting on a throne (kisse) is described by several prophets, among them Micaiah (I Kings 22:19), Isaiah (Isa. 6), Ezekiel (Ezek. 1), and Daniel (Dan. 7:9). Talmudic and midrashic sources developed this theme further, and it entered into religious poetry, liturgy, and mystical heikhalot tracts of the early centuries C.E., which speak of the throne as the merkavah, or "chariot" (see *Merkabah Mysticism)... read article

Articles of Faith

ARTICLES OF FAITH. The term "dogma" which is well defined in Christianity has as such no place in Judaism. In Judaism the need for a profession of belief did not arise and rabbinic synods saw no necessity for drawing up concise formulas expressing Jewish beliefs. Theologically speaking, every Jew is born into God's covenant with the people of Israel, and membership in the community does not depend on credal affirmations of a formal character... read article

Judeo-Arabic Literature

JUDEO-ARABIC LITERATURE, written in Arabic by Jews for Jews. It is written in an idiom which is linguistically closer to the spoken form of Arabic than is the idiom used in Muslim literature. It may plausibly be assumed that, prior to the rise of Islam in the early seventh century, the Jews who lived in the Arabian peninsula spoke Arabic and belonged to the more or less cultivated class, which may have included some writers. If this is so, almost nothing of their works has survived... read article

History of the Bible

A history of the Bible... read article

Cause and Effect

Divergent conceptions of the relation between cause and effect (or agent and act) can be found throughout Jewish religious and non-religious literature from ancient times to the present. Indeed, this relation clearly underlies many of the most characteristic affirmations of the Jewish faith, e.g... read article

Rabbi Pinchas HaKohen Lintup

Rabbi Pinchas HaKohen Lintup was a Biblical scholar, Kabbalist, and teacher who served as the Rabbi of the Chasidic community of Birzai, Lithuania... read article

Judaism: The Written Law - Torah

The Torah or Old Testament is the written law of the Jewish people consisting of the five books of Moses... read article

Jewish Concepts: Angels & Angelology

In the Bible Many biblical writers assume the existence of beings superior to man in knowledge and power, but subordinate to (and apparently creatures of) the one God. These beings serve as His attendants, like courtiers of an earthly king, and also as His agents to convey His messages to men and to carry out His will. Terminology These beings are clearly designated by the English word "angel." The terminology of biblical Hebrew is not so exact... read article

Imitation of God

Article discussing the doctrine of the imitation of God as related to the biblical account of creating man in the image of GOd... read article

Samuel David Luzzatto

Biography of Italian scholar, philosopher, Bible commentator, and translator Samuel David Luzzatto... read article

Heresy

HERESY, belief in ideas contrary to those advocated by religious authorities. Because Judaism has no one official formulation of dogma against which heresy can be defined, it has no clear-cut definition of heresy. A heretic may be distinguished from an apostate in that, although he holds beliefs which are contrary to currently accepted doctrines, he does not renounce his religion and often believes that he represents the true tradition. Since the heretic is still a Jew, various halakhic questions concerning his relationship to the Jewish community arise, such as whether he may offer a sacrifice, be counted in a minyan, or have his testimony admitted as evidence in a Jewish court (Ḥul... read article

Beatitude

BEATITUDE (Heb. הַצְלָחָה, haẓlaḥah; osher), the blissful state of the soul in the World-to-Come (*Olam ha-Ba) that constitutes the ultimate end of human life. Medieval Jewish philosophy fused rabbinic religious ethics and eschatology with the teleological and rationalist conception of happiness (eudaimonia) as analyzed by Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics, thus investing them with new shades of meaning that were conceptual rather than pictorial... read article

Hasdai Ben Judah Crescas

CRESCAS (or Cresques), ḤASDAI BEN JUDAH (c. 1340–winter 1410–11), Catalonian rabbi, philosopher, and statesman. Crescas was born into an old Barcelonan family of rabbis and merchants. He studied Talmud and philosophy there under Rabbi *Nissim b. Reuben Gerondi (c... read article

Asceticism

ASCETICISM. Rigorous abstention from any form of self-indulgence which is based on the belief that renunciation of the desires of the flesh and self-mortification can bring man to a high spiritual state. Asceticism never occupied an important place in the Jewish religion. Judaism did not believe that the freedom of man's soul could be won only by the subjugation of the flesh, a belief which was central in religions based upon anthropological dualism... read article

Capital Punishment

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT, the standard penalty for crime in all ancient civilizations. In the Bible Many of the crimes for which any biblical punishment is prescribed carry the death penalty. The three methods of executing criminals found in the Bible are stoning, burning, and hanging. STONING Stoning was the instinctive, violent expression of popular wrath (Ex. 17:4, 8:22; Num. 14:10; I Sam... read article