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6 results

  • 5 - The Theology of the Daily Liturgy

  • from Part I - Biblical-Rabbinic
  • Edited by Steven Kepnes, Colgate University, New York
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Companion to Jewish Theology
    Published online:
    03 December 2020
    Print publication:
    17 December 2020, pp 77-102

  • Summary

    This essay deals first with individual prayers of the daily liturgy that excel in distinctive theological affirmations followed by that of the Shema Liturgy as a whole. In discerning the theological patterns of the liturgy and the relationship between the whole and the parts, it focuses on the centrality of Divine kingship and the move from individual to community to humanity especially as expressed in hopes for redemption. It concludes with the peculiarities of a post-temple liturgy.

  • 22 - Rabbinic prayer in late antiquity

    • By Reuven Kimelman, Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies, Brandeis University, Boston
  • Edited by Steven T. Katz, Boston University
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Judaism
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    22 June 2006, pp 573-611

  • Summary

    Worship of God in the rabbinic period differs from that of the biblical period in its conceptualization of the synagogue and prayer. Practically, this shift is most noticeable in the role of the synagogue, the content and the modalities of the rabbinic liturgy, the role of the precentor, and that of the priests. Priests got priority in the public reading of the Torah as well as in leading congregational prayer. The single most important innovation of rabbinic liturgy is the focus on divine sovereignty. This is based on conceiving of the relationship to God primarily through the acceptance of divine sovereignty. Rabbinic prayer promoted the idea that the primary way of relating to God was through the acceptance of divine sovereignty, and thus the primary metaphor for the God of Israel is King of the world. This sovereignization of the liturgy was consonant with the emerging theological thinking of the late Roman Empire.

  • 37 - The rabbinic theology of the physical: blessings, body and soul, resurrection, and covenant and election

    • By Reuven Kimelman, Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies, Brandeis University
  • Edited by Steven T. Katz, Boston University
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Judaism
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    22 June 2006, pp 946-976

  • Summary

    The rabbinic worldview focuses on the significance of the physical, whether it be the created world, the body, or the People of Israel. It affirms the physical as a medium of the spiritual. The rabbinic appreciation of the religious significance of the physical world comes through in their theology of blessings. In concretizing the biblical affirmation of the world, the Rabbis mandated blessings for just about everything in the sensual, aesthetic, and religious realms of life. Rabbinic Judaism's position on the body-soul relationship stands in contrast to that of Hellenistic Judaism. The tighter the link between body and soul, the greater the possibility of refining the body into a medium of the spiritual life. Moves toward death anticipate death as moves toward life anticipate resurrection. Clustering together the affirmations of the physical world, the physical body, the physical resurrection, and the election of physical Israel makes clear their interrelationship.

  • 19 - Judaism, War, and Weapons of Mass Destruction

  • Edited by Sohail H. Hashmi, Mount Holyoke College, Massachusetts, Steven P. Lee, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, New York
  • Book:
    Ethics and Weapons of Mass Destruction
    Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    19 July 2004, pp 363-384

  • Summary

    This study of the Jewish attitude toward weapons of mass destruction presents the classical sources and principles on war and its conduct, followed by contemporary applications on the subject of WMD in America and Israel.

    SOURCES AND PRINCIPLES

    Types of wars

    The Jewish ethics of war focuses on two issues: its legitimation and its conduct. The Talmud classifies wars according to their source of legitimation. Biblically commanded wars are termed mandatory (mitzvah). Wars undertaken with the approval of the Sanhedrin are termed discretionary (reshut). There are three types of mandatory wars: Joshua's war of conquest against the seven biblical Canaanite nations, the war against the biblical Amalek, and defensive wars against an attack in progress. Discretionary wars are usually expansionary efforts undertaken to enhance the political prestige of the government or to secure economic gain.

    The first type of mandatory war is only of historical interest, as the Canaanite nations lost their national identity already in ancient times. This conclusion, which appears repeatedly in rabbinic literature, is part of a tendency to blunt the impact of the seven-nations policy. The Bible points out that these policies were not implemented even during the zenith of ancient Israel's power. Indeed, a pronouncement in the biblical exegetical literature of late antiquity known as Midrash explicitly excludes the possibility of transferring the seven-nations ruling to other non-Jewish residents of the land of Israel.