The Halakhah: Within Israel's Social Order (Brill Reference Library of Judaism)
by Jacob Neusner
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The Halakhah embodies the complete Jewish Law, and contains commandments and guidelines for day-to-day living. The original commandments given by God to the Jewish people were enhanced by rabbis to offer a detailed framework to guide the lives of all Jews. In this complete, all-encompassing encyclopaedia of the Halakhah, the various laws are classified in such a way that a systematic and coherent structure is obtained. Each entry of the Halakhah is presented in a logical fashion. Where show more applicable, the original biblical wording is given, extended with literal abstracts from the Torah. Next, problems and questions that may arise from that law are stated and any additional information given. Finally, each entry gives comprehensive explanations and recommendations as to how these laws are to be observed in daily life - where to be and where not to be, what to do and what not to do, what to say and what not to say. The Halakhah, or standard Jewish Law, combines the Mishnah (about 200 CE), the Tosefta (about 300 CE), and the two Talmuds (about 400, 600 CE for the Land of Israel and Babylon, respectively). Volumes I and II contain entries pertaining to the Jewish people in relationship to God. Volume III explains how the Jewish people can restore and maintain their society in accordance with the Torah as it is explained by the rabbis. In Volumes IV and V of this study, we take up the life of the Jewish household in their encounter with God. The Encyclopaedic account therefore moves from regulating relationships between Israel and God to establishing stable and equitable relationships among Israelites and finally to actually living the Halakhah. show lessMembers
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Jacob Neusner was born in Hartford, Connecticut on July 28, 1932. He received a bachelor's degree in history from Harvard University in 1953. He studied at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, where he was ordained a Conservative rabbi and received a master's degree in Hebrew letters in 1960. He also received a doctorate in religion from show more Columbia University. He taught at Dartmouth College, Brown University, and the University of South Florida before joining the religion department at Bard College in 1994. He retired from there in 2014. He was a religious historian and one of the world's foremost scholars of Jewish rabbinical texts. He published more than 900 books during his lifetime including A Life of Yohanan ben Zakkai; The Way of Torah: An Introduction to Judaism; Judaism: The Evidence of the Mishnah; Strangers at Home: The 'Holocaust,' Zionism, and American Judaism; Translating the Classics of Judaism: In Theory and in Practice; Why There Never Was a 'Talmud of Caesarea': Saul Lieberman's Mistakes; and Judaism: An Introduction. He wrote The Bible and Us: A Priest and a Rabbi Read Scripture Together with Andrew M. Greeley and A Rabbi Talks with Jesus with Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI. He also edited and translated, with others, nearly the entirety of the Jewish rabbinical texts. He died on October 8, 2016 at the age of 84. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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