New Talmudic Readings

This volume contains three of Emmanuel Levinas's last major lectures on the Talmud. Originally compiled and published in French in 1996, it includes the lectures, The Will of Heaven and the Power of Humanity, Beyond the State in the Self, and Who is One-self?. Levinas's Talmudic commentaries have generated interest in both theological and philosophical circles. These exegetical writings bear on his ever-present concern with ethics, the central focus of his philosophy. One of the most remarkable consequences of this focus, furthermore, is a renewal of philosophy's capacity to both respect and uncover the deepest meanings central to sacred as well as secular texts.

These nine masterful readings of the Talmud by the renowned French Jewish philosopher translate Jewish thought into the language of modern times. One of the major continental philosophers of the twentieth century, Emmanuel Levinas was also an important Talmudic commentator. Between 1963 and 1975, he delivered an enlightening and influential series of commentaries at the annual Talmudic colloquia of a group of French Jewish intellectuals in Paris. In this collection, Levinas applies a hermeneutic that simultaneously allows the classic Jewish texts to shed light on contemporary problems and lets modern problems illuminate the texts. Besides being quintessential illustrations of the art of reading, the essays express the deeply ethical vision of the human condition that makes Levinas one of the most important thinkers of our time.

Available in paperback for the first time, this is an important collection of essays dealing with problems in Jewish thought.

Reading Talmudic Sources as Arguments: A New Interpretive Approach elucidates the unique characteristics of Talmudic discourse culture. Applying a linguistic approach combined with Quentin Skinner’s philosophy of meaning, the book reveals the function of tradition in Talmudic deliberation.

Complete, authoritative, and indispensable, The New Jewish Wedding provides the couple with options--some new, some old--to create a wedding combining spiritual meaning and joyous celebration. Step-by-step, Diamant guides readers through planning the cermony and the party that follows--from finding a rabbi and wording the invitations to hiring a caterer.

This volume sheds light on the early rabbis as the shapers of religion and uncovers for the modern reader the early Sages' fundamental beliefs concerning God, the world and the human condition.

The French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas (1906–95) was one of the most original Jewish thinkers of the twentieth century. This book interprets the Hebrew Bible through the lens of Levinas's religious philosophy. Richard I. Sugarman examines the Pentateuch using a phenomenological approach, drawing on both Levinas's philosophical and Jewish writings. Sugarman puts Levinas in conversation with biblical commentators both classical and modern, including Rashi, Maimonides, Sforno, Hirsch, and Soloveitchik. He particularly highlights Levinas's work on the Talmud and the Holocaust. Levinas's reading is situated against the background of a renewed understanding of such phenomena as covenant, promise, different modalities of time, and justice. The volume is organized to reflect the fifty-four portions of the Torah read during the Jewish liturgical year. A preface provides an overview of Levinas's life, approach, and place in contemporary Jewish thought. The reader emerges with a deeper understanding of both the Torah and the philosophy of a key Jewish thinker.

"Originally published in Hebrew, this book examines Levinas's contributions to Jewish thought, concentrating specifically on his talmudic readings in the context of contemporary midrash"--