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Legends of Rabbah bar Bar Hannah with Commentary of Rav Kook
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$39.95
Legends of Rabbah bar Bar Hannah with Commentary of Rav Kook
Order directly from KodeshPress.com
Mahol la-Tsaddikim/Dance Circle for the Righteous explores the divine design in the creation of the universe. Although Maimonides (Guide of the Perplexed) shied away from this conversation, deeming the question illegitimate, the Kabbalists produced not one, but two responses to the question: a philosophic approach which centers on God’s ultimate goodness (Luzzatto), and a mythic approach which pivots on God’s “self-actualization,” as it were (Zohar, Luria). The departure point of our book is a fundamental mahloket or controversy between Rabbi Moshe Hayyim Luzzatto (Ramhal), on the one hand, and Rabbi Pinhas Elijah Hurwitz (Sefer ha-Berit) and the great Habad thinker Rabbi Eizik of Homel, on the other.
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Rabbi Solomon ben Abraham ibn Adret (1235-1310) was the Rabbi of Barcelona and the acknowledged spiritual leader of his generation. In this virtually unknown polemic work, he defends Judaism against the onslaught of Muslim theologian and critic Muhammad ibn Hazm (994-1064).
The text is based on a unique manuscript once housed in the Breslau Rabbinical Seminary. Researcher Bezalel Naor has relied on the transcription of one of the first graduates of the seminary, Joseph Perles, appended to Perles’ German monograph R. Salomo b. Abraham b. Adereth: Seine Leben und seine Schriften (Breslau, 1863). Naor’s lengthy introduction proves beyond a shadow of a doubt the attribution of the work to Rashba. In addition, the editor has included substantial footnotes and excursuses. The topic could not be more timely, as Judaism once again finds itself called upon to rise to the defense against the charges of Islamic triumphalists.
The volume includes a second original work by Bezalel Naor, Mitsvat Hashem Barah: An Elucidation of the Seven Noahide Commandments. The fascinating material is formatted both according to the order of Maimonides’ Hilkhot Melakhim and the order of the weekly Torah portion. (220 pp.)
Contained in the volume is a facsimile of a formal Haskamah (Approbation) from the late Talner Rebbe of Boston, Professor Isadore Twersy zt”l to Naor’s critical edition of Hassagot ha-Rabad le-Mishneh Torah (Jerusalem, 1984).
In this groundbreaking essay, the author presents Beshtian or East European Hasidism as an attempt to reintroduce the charismatic or prophetic dimension to Jewish life. The optic is very much that of Rav Kook, although the author’s perspective is also influenced by the historiography of Rav Kook’s fellow kabbalist, Rabbi Pinhas Hakohen Lintop of Birzh, Lithuania. The reader will also note some common ground shared with Rabbi Kalonymos Kalmish Shapira of Piaseczna (known as the Rebbe of the Warsaw Ghetto). The departure point for the entire discussion is a pithy remark by Rabbi Shelomo Zalman Schneerson, Rebbe of Kopyst, at the Simhat Beit ha-Sho’evah, Sukkot of 1890. (Rav Kook’s maternal grandfather was a Kopyster Hasid.)
The endnotes contain fascinating discussions:
Downloadable PDF link available upon purchase.