
Collected Essays
Volume I
Haym Soloveitchik(Author)
Liverpool University Press
Published on 12. June 2019
Book
Paperback/Softback
352 pages
978-1-78694-165-7 (ISBN)
Description
The essays in this volume reflect the author's lifelong interest in the history of halakhah. What stimulated change, and why? What happened when strong forces impinged on halakhic observance and communities had to adapt to new circumstances? The volume opens with a brief description of the dramatis personae who figure throughout the essays: Rashi and the Tosafists. Further essays discuss halakhic commentaries and their authors; usury, moneylending, and pawnbroking; Gentile wine; and the self-image of the Ashkenazic community. Throughout, Haym Soloveitchik shows that the line between adaptation and deviance is a fine one, and that where a society draws that line is revelatory of its values and its self-perception. Many of the essays presented here are already well known in the field; two are completely new. Most of those previously published have been updated, and the major essay on pawnbroking has been significantly expanded.
Volume II available: https://liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/book/10.3828/9781904113980
Volume III available: https://liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/book/10.3828/9781904113997
Volume II available: https://liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/book/10.3828/9781904113980
Volume III available: https://liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/book/10.3828/9781904113997
Reviews / Votes
'In our generation the premier practitioner of history of, and through, halacha is Haym Soloveitchik . . . in addition to his many other merits, [he] is an elegant stylist . . . Part of the pleasure of reading him is that there is more learning and illumination to be found in his remarks dropped along the way than in the pages of a lesser scholar . . . profound, poignant essays.'David Wolpe, Tablet Magazine
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Liverpool
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Illustrations
Illustrations, map; 5 Illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 41 mm
Weight
703 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-78694-165-7 (9781786941657)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Haym Soloveitchik is the Merkin Family Research Professor at Yeshiva University, New York, and the former director of the School of Jewish Studies at the Institute of Advanced Studies, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He has also taught at the Sorbonne and the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris. He has published books in Hebrew on pawnbroking and usury, Jewish involvement in the medieval wine trade, and the use of responsa as a historical source. Three volumes of his Collected Essays have been published by the Littman Library, as well as a new edition of his landmark essay, Rupture and Reconstruction: The Transformation of Modern Orthodoxy.
Content
Part I. Overview of the Tosafist Movement
(1) The Printed Page of the Talmud: The Commentaries and their Authors
(2) Catastrophe and Creativity: Ashkenaz-1096, 1242, 1306, and 1298
(3) The Halakhic Isolation of the Ashkenazic Community
Part II. Usury and Moneylending
(4) Usury, Jewish Law
(5) The Jewish Attitude to Usury in the High and Late Middle Ages (1000-1500)
(6) Pawnbroking: A Study in Ribbit and of the Halakhah in Exile
Part III. The Ban on Gentile Wine and its Link to Moneylending
(7) Can Halakhic Texts Talk History?
(8) Halakhah, Taboo, and the Origin of Jewish Moneylending in Germany
Part IV. Some General Conclusions
(9) Religious Law and Change: The Medieval Ashkenazic Example
(10) 'Religious Law and Change' Revisited
(11) A Note on Deviance in Eleventh-Century Ashkenaz
(12) On Deviance: A Reply to David Malkiel
Review Essay Yishaq (Eric) Zimmer, 'Olam ke-Minhago Noheg
Bibliography of Manuscripts
Indexes
(1) The Printed Page of the Talmud: The Commentaries and their Authors
(2) Catastrophe and Creativity: Ashkenaz-1096, 1242, 1306, and 1298
(3) The Halakhic Isolation of the Ashkenazic Community
Part II. Usury and Moneylending
(4) Usury, Jewish Law
(5) The Jewish Attitude to Usury in the High and Late Middle Ages (1000-1500)
(6) Pawnbroking: A Study in Ribbit and of the Halakhah in Exile
Part III. The Ban on Gentile Wine and its Link to Moneylending
(7) Can Halakhic Texts Talk History?
(8) Halakhah, Taboo, and the Origin of Jewish Moneylending in Germany
Part IV. Some General Conclusions
(9) Religious Law and Change: The Medieval Ashkenazic Example
(10) 'Religious Law and Change' Revisited
(11) A Note on Deviance in Eleventh-Century Ashkenaz
(12) On Deviance: A Reply to David Malkiel
Review Essay Yishaq (Eric) Zimmer, 'Olam ke-Minhago Noheg
Bibliography of Manuscripts
Indexes