Jewish book reviews

Moshe Halbertal is one of those rare scholars, and this book reflects his uniqueness as a scholar and most of all as a writer.  'Maimonides Life and Thought'  contains both biographical and academic information of one of the most influential medieval philosophers and thus offers a refreshing perspective on the magnitude of Maimonides' academic achievements given his tumultuous upbringing. Firstly, it may be said that the title is a little misleading: the book is much more about Maimonides' thought than his life. Whilst it is probably Maimonides' fascinating and broad thought that motivates the reader rather than biographical details, the title would seem to imply that Halbertal gives equal weight to his life and thought. In fact, out of eight chapters, only one is dedicated entirely to Maimonides' life, but this chapter is surprisingly comprehensive: 68 pages long and covers his entire life, including his time in Spain, North Africa and Egypt. I feel as if Hal...

Maimonides, unquestionably one of the greatest medieval philosophers of his time, is also one of the most difficult to write about. For instance, The Guide for the Perplexed requires a background in Aristotelian philosophy to be fully grasped, and the 'Mishneh Torah' a familiarity with Jewish law! Such broad skills make a true Maimonidean out of reach for all but the very few. Menachem Kellner has dedicated his life and career to understanding this enigmatic Jewish scholar and philosopher, and the 'confrontation with mystircism' no doubt adds to his impressive portfolio of commentary and analysis. Well done to 'The Littman Library of Jewish Civilisation' as well for bringing out so many classic and contemporary titles in the nuanced field of Jewish Studies. You get the feeling that Kellner aims to provide an all-round education to the reader in addition to specifically dealing with the Maimonides/mystercism problem. The text covers so many areas in order to ...

A small, surprising book, Shapiro benefits greatly from the fantastic forward by Rabbi Shachter-Shalomi, a Hasidic scholar  par excellence  who draws on his own personal religious experience to discuss some of the aspects of the Tanya that stand out to him. Shapiro begins by introducing the key philosophical ideas in the Tanya - the mystical, the metaphysical, the technical and the spiritual. As you would expect, the mystical concept of 'the five worlds' is looked at closely as well as the more traditional theological positions such as divine non-duality ('simplicity'). This is a much needed 'toolkit' in order to understand the chapters that come afterwards. The way the chapters are written themselves are a little bizarre, and requires some getting used to! Basically, each chapter is titled with the 'headline' of the corresponding chapter in the Tanya itself. For example,  chapter 32 is 'love your neighbour', since love between man and his fell...

A fabulous 300-odd page work,  The Genius  is an outstanding piece of contemporary scholarship on 'the Vilna Gaon' (Rabbi Eliyahu of Vilna). The Gaon was well known for his incredible Torah knowledge, wisdom and scope, so Stern has done the near-impossible task of bringing some of his main thoughts to bear. Not surprisingly, there is a whole chapter dedicated to the attitude on Hasidism and other elements of his 'welanshaung' (worldview). Perhaps equally impressive is how the author manages to intertwine the 'thinking' of the Gaon with the biographical and historical context surrounding his life. A nicely sized chapter is dedicated to his life growing up in Vilna and the so-called 'enlightenment' period that took place during his lifetime. Packed withe footnotes, this work will also serve as a strong foundation for further study in this subject. In many ways in fact, this is a one-of-kind book - such strong technical analysis of his most well known p...