SRS Iggeres Haramban/ the Rambant's ethical letter with an anthology of contemporary Rabbinic expositions.

Shaʻar ha-gamul--Liḳuṭe Hadrashah le-Rosh ha-Shanah--Igeret ha-musar.

This paper examines the astrological and religious thinking of Moshe ben Nahman (also known as Ramban or Nahmanides) and the intellectual connections in this field with two of the most outstanding Christian thinkers of his time, Ramon Llull and Arnau de Vilanova. Nahmanides, like many medieval scholars, admitted an astral influence, but he did not accept astrology as a divinatory science. He incorporated astrological doctrines in his exegetical works, assuming that Israel is not determined by any star because (...) it only responds to God. Yet the study of medieval medicine and its application cannot be separated from astrology practice because it was considered that the stars had a direct influence not only on the development of the human body, from birth to death, but also in the disease processes which affect it. Ramban and his disciple Solomon ben Adret accepted and practiced astrological medicine. Llull and de Vilanova also devoted themselves to this discipline. All of them agree on the influence of the stars on humankind but condemned astral magic. Like Ramban, Llull rejects other astrological methods considered non-scientific in his time, such as prediction through horoscope. Thus, these thinkers tried to develop an astrology that was not in contradiction with divine omnipotence or free will. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 24, Issue 1, pp 1 - 30 Naḥmanides’ commentary on the Torah, in which he combined literal, midrashic, and kabbalistic comments side by side, is one of the best known and most influential exegetical works of the Middle Ages. This article concentrates on the esoteric exegesis in this commentary and argues that Naḥmanides’ kabbalistic interpretation employs two types of exegesis—_perush_ and _remez_—each of which represents a separate hermeneutic approach and thus a different reading of the biblical text. (...) Focusing on the innovative and less familiar _remez_ approach, the article describes its essence, characteristics, and the historical context of its emergence. (shrink)

A rigorous analysis of Maimonides' and Nahmanides' explanations of the Mosaic commandments that challenges received notions of the relation between these two seminal thinkers.

This article explores the ascetic tendencies of Naḥmanides as reflected in his oeuvre as a whole, including his halakhic, kabbalistic, exegetical, and philosophical output. A close examination of Naḥmanides’s kabbalistic commentary to a talmudic sugiya concerning the differences between oaths and vows uncovers the austere and ascetic ethos in his teaching and its central place in his religious world. This perspective is linked to the nature of human beings and the human soul, the relationship between body and psyche, the meaning (...) of life and the overcoming of death, and the status of the Torah and the connection between observance of the commandments and the voluntary hasidic ethos. (shrink)

Musk, which is produced from the glands of several species of deer, was a well-known perfume throughout the Mediterranean Basin in the Middle Ages. The current article examines the meaning of the gathering operation of myrrh mentioned in Song of Songs 5:1, according to R. Joseph Ibn Aknin and Naḥmanides. The two commentators argue that the phrase ariiti mori can be interpreted as the unique manner of gathering the perfume of the musk deer in its lands of origin in the (...) Far East. They contend that harvesting the perfume refers to gathering the perfume that the deer spreads on the rocks naturally, which is a higher quality product. The two medieval rabbis were exposed to contemporary scholars or oral traditions on the way of gathering the musk. Ibn Aknin took the information from Arabic writings, such as of al-Sirāfī and al-Masʿūdī and Ibn JulJuly With regard to Naḥmanides, his source of information on gathering musk is not clear. Contribution: This article contributes to the understanding of the issue of the sources of knowledge of scholars in medieval times and how the achieved information influenced their commentaries on the Biblical Text. The current study expounds the commentators’ interpretations from a multidisplinary perspective, such as the medieval zoology and perfume industry. (shrink)

This book explores the emergence of the fundamental political concepts of medieval Jewish thought, arguing that alongside the well known theocratic elements of the Bible there exists a vital tradition that conceives of politics as a necessary and legitimate domain of worldly activity that preceded religious law in the ordering of society. Since the Enlightenment, the separation of religion and state has been a central theme in Western political history and thought, a separation that upholds the freedom of conscience of (...) the individual. In medieval political thought, however, the doctrine of the separation of religion and state played a much different role. On the one hand, it served to maintain the integrity of religious law versus the monarch, whether canon law, Islamic law, or Jewish law. On the other hand, it upheld the autonomy of the monarch and the autonomy of human political agency against theocratic claims of divine sovereignty and clerical authority. Postulating the realm of secular politics leads the author to construct a theory of the precedence of politics over religious law in the organization of social life. He argues that the attempts of medieval philosophers to understand religion and the polity provide new perspectives on the viability of an accommodation between revelation and legislation, the holy and the profane, the divine and the temporal. The book shows that in spite of the long exile of the Jewish people, there is, unquestionably, a tradition of Jewish political discourse based on the canonical sources of Jewish law. In addition to providing a fresh analysis of Maimonides, it analyzes works of Nahmanides, Solomon ibn Adret, and Nissim Gerondi that are largely unknown to the English-speaking reader. Finally, it suggests that the historical corpus of Jewish political writing remains vital today, with much to contribute to the ongoing debates over church-state relations and theocratic societies. (shrink)

The paper deals with Pico’s conception of man, especially with regard to his use of Jewish sources. This is mostly apparent in Pico’s works Oratio (1486), Conclusiones (1486) and Heptaplus (1488/89). Firstly, we point out his collaboration with Flavius Mithridates, who was Pico’s Hebrew teacher and an intepreter of some Jewish mystical texts (Gersonides, Nahmanides, Recanati). Secondly, we emphasize that at the same time Pico was in contact with another Jewish scholar Yohanan Alemanno as well. For this reason, modern (...) interpreters (Idel, Lelli) believe that one of the main sources not only for Pico’s Oratio but also for his late work Heptaplus were some of Alemanno’s writings (particularly his Heshek Shlomo and Hay ha-‘Olamin). Therefore, I examine Pico’s syncretic model of dignitas hominis, which was inspired on one hand by Neoplatonic philosophy and Aristotelianism, and on the other hand by Jewish and Christian mystical tradition. (shrink)

Chap. 1. Creativity in the first kabbalistic writings -- Chap. 2. The philosophic ethos -- Chap. 3. Investigating God in rabbinic and later Jewish literature -- Chap. 4. The philosophic ethos in the writings of the first kabbalists -- Chap. 5. Investigating God in Sefer ha-Bahir -- Chap. 6. The philosophic ethos in the writings of Nahmanides.

Rabbis of thirteenth-century Spain were often exposed to two traditions, that of Northern France-Germany and that of Moslem Spain. Until now, the dominant discussion of how they balanced the contrast has been Bernard Septimus' analysis of Nahmanides (Ramban), who managed to draw fruitfully on both. Rabbenu Yonah b. Abraham of Gerona, Ramban's only slightly less famous relative, presents a useful counterexample.Rabbenu Yonah's early works reflect an almost-total immersion in Northern French ways of thinking and writing. Only gradually does he (...) engage ideas from Moslem Spain, suggesting that the mixing of the two traditions in his later writings resulted from years of slow growth and exposure to such Moslem Spanish authors as Rif, R. Bahye ibn Paquda, and Maimonides.His example suggests that how to react to these differing influences was a continuing issue for these rabbis, and that tracking it offers an important key to understanding the intellectual history of the rabbis of that era. (shrink)

Scholars of Jewish history have paid consistent and devoted attention to the Barcelona Disputation of 1263. Records of this event preserve contemporary Jewish and Christian responses to the proceedings, which pitted Nahmanides, the most important exegete and teacher of the region, against a convert from Judaism to Christianity, took place in the royal court before an illustrious audience. This essay traces trends in scholarly treatments of the Barcelona Disputation from the early days of the Wissenschaft des Judentums to the (...) present. By examining challenges of veracity posed by the documentary sources as well as foundational assumptions about what the medieval authors intended to achieve with their accounts, this article provides broad overview of the historiography that has developed around the Barcelona Disputation. (shrink)

The religious legitimacy of medical practice was an issue of serious contention amongst medieval Jewish scholars. For Nahmanides, altering the patient's fate through manipulation of natural causality amounts to circumventing divine judgment. For Maimonides, however, human accomplishment is part of God's providential design; this view generally prevails in contemporary Jewish bioethics. But the doctrine of deligitimizing human intervention continues, even while unacknowledged, to underlie certain contemporary positions. These include arguments within Jewish bioethics about end-of-life decisions, which are therefore imbued (...) with inconsistencies. It is suggested that, given the overall endorsement of modern medicine, the Nahmanidean approach must be explicitly confronted. Keywords: euthanasia, Jewish bioethics, Nahmanides, naturalism, nature, Maimonides, providence CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Volume two in the Beacon Texts in the Judaic Tradition, this book deals with the Jewish Tradition as it survived and was enriched during the Middle Ages and the later Renaissance by such figures as Gabirol, Nahmanides and Maimonides. Each chapter presents a theme according to which selections from various thinkers are reproduced as commentaries or exemplifications. The editor has provided a sensitive general introduction as well as chapter and individual selection introductions. An index and bibliographies of primary and (...) secondary materials help to make this book an excellent introduction to Medieval and early Modern Jewish thought.—E. A. R. (shrink)