Commandment and Community
Description
This book is divided into two parts, "Judaism and Political Praxis" and "Halakha and the Political Order." The first part is concerned with issues at the interface of Jewish political theory and practice: a Jewish philosophy of justice, the formulation of a practical philosophy based on traditional Jewish sources, and the need for greater political activism among Jews. The second part presents both systematic and historical studies. It includes the strategies used to determine the meaning and intelligibility of texts and norms in the rabbinic tradition, trends in the history of Jewish political thought, and the connectedness of law and morality in traditional Judaism.
Daniel H. Frank is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Kentucky. He is the editor of Autonomy and Judaism: The Individual and the Community in Jewish Philosophical Thought and A People Apart: Chosenness and Ritual in Jewish Philosophical Thought, both published by SUNY Press.
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Daniel H. Frank is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Kentucky. He is the editor of Autonomy and Judaism: The Individual and the Community in Jewish Philosophical Thought and A People Apart: Chosenness and Ritual in Jewish Philosophical Thought, both published by SUNY Press.
Content
Introduction
PART 1. JUDAISM AND POLITICAL PRAXIS
Toward a Jewish Philosophy of Justice
Lenn E. Goodman
Is a Jewish Practical Philosophy Possible?
Oliver Leaman
Reason in Action: The "Practicality" of Maimonides's Guide
Daniel H. Frank
Jewish Tradition and National Policy
Elliot N. Dorff
PART 2. HALAKHA AND THE POLITICAL ORDER
Underdetermination of Meaning by the Talmudic Text
Aryeh Botwinick
Nachmanides's Conception of Ta'amei Mitzvot
and Its Maimonidean Background
Josef Stern
The Attitude Toward Democracy in Medieval
Jewish Philosophy
Abraham Melamed
Abravanel and the Jewish Republican Ethos
Reuven Kimelman
Spinoza's Challenge to the Doctrine of Election
David Novak
Morality and War: A Critique of Bleich's Oracular Halakha
Noam J. Zohar
Response to Noam Zohar
J. David Bleich
Reply to David Bleich
Noam J. Zohar
Contributors
Index
