Researchers and clinicians describe how the vocabulary, theoretical framework, and information processing models of cognitive psychology are applied to various disorders of attention, memory, language, vision, calculation, and motor control.

In August 2001, the Israeli Ministry of Health issued its Limitation of Smoking in Public Places Order, categorically forbidding smoking in hospitals. This forced the mental health system to cope with the issue of smoking inside psychiatric hospitals. The main problem was smoking by compulsorily hospitalized psychiatric patients in closed wards. An attempt by a psychiatric hospital to implement the tobacco smoking restraint instruction by banning the sale of cigarettes inside the hospital led to the development of a black market (...) and cases of patient exploitation in return for cigarettes. This article surveys the literature dealing with smoking among psychiatric patients, the role of smoking in patients and the moral dilemmas of taking steps to prevent smoking in psychiatric hospitals. It addresses the need for public discussion on professional caregivers’ dilemmas between their commitment to uphold the law and their duty to act as advocates for their patients’ rights and welfare. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the Hasidic view, namely, that human flaws do not function as a barrier between a fallen humanity and a perfect deity, since the whole of creation stems from a divine act of self-contraction. Thus, we need not be discouraged by our own shortcomings, nor by those of our loved ones. Rather, seeing our flaws in the face of another should remind us that imperfection is an aspect of the God who created us. Such a positive approach (...) to human fallibility arouses forgiveness, mutual acceptance, and a hope for repair, and, therefore, has much to recommend itself. In the first part of the paper, I argue that the notion of a perfect God derives from the Greeks rather than the Hebrew Bible. A review of classical philosophies and the idea of God’s imperfection is followed by a consideration of several Jewish attempts to resolve the dichotomy between Divine perfection and an imperfect creation. I focus on Lurianic Kabbalah, Hans Jonas, and on the Hasidic concept of "Ayin " or “nothingness” as the very source of redemption. This Hasidic idea, which was further expanded upon by the Baal Shem Tov’s students, appears in a tale recounted by his great-grandson R. Nachman of Bratslav called “The Hanging Lamp.” I focus on the tale, which illustrates the idea that knowledge of human imperfection is itself a means of perfection and redemption. (shrink)

Stage organise par le Centre d'etudes superieures de la Renaissance de Tours, sous la direction de Jean-Claude Margolin et tenu du 3 au 25 juillet.

When examining the great number of documents connected with the political constellation of the years 1510-1513, we discover in France two strongly opposite views regarding the personality and policy of Pope Julius II: “conciliarist” and “papalist” theories. These foster a climate of latent war, especially as Louis XII’s policies – both at home and abroad – were unanimously condemned, even by the loyal Bude. Among the pamphlets of that time echoing this double crisis, this article presents French and Gallican poet (...) Pierre Gringore’s satirical work: the Chasse du Cerf des serfs – a play upon the Latin words, servus servorum Dei, as popes called themselves for humility –. This essay also refers to Erasmus’s Latin dialogue, Julius exclusus a coelis, a dramatic work proving skillfully rhetorical and vengefully ironical against this “warlike pope.”. (shrink)