Sicker argues that it is the achievement of orthocracy as the motivating concept of the state rather than democracy as its optimum form that is crucial for mankind in the 21st century, notwithstanding that the widespread adoption of substantive democracy may be the best currently conceivable means for reaching the goal of universal responsible statehood. In a critique of much modern political theory, Sicker reexamines the essential idea of the state as well as its purpose as understood from a variety of perspectives, a subject that has largely been neglected over the past several decades...
Sicker argues that it is the achievement of orthocracy as the motivating concept of the state rather than democracy as its optimum form that is cru...
By subjecting biblical writings to a political analysis, Sicker constructs a plausible political history of the ancient Israelite states that dealt with virtually every issue faced by governments throughout subsequent history. As he makes clear, the way they dealt with those issues, successfully or otherwise, is highly instructive and relevant to today's analysis of geopolitical issues.
Our knowledge of the political history of ancient Israel is almost exclusively dependent on the information that may be gleaned from biblical writings, which reflect a historiosophical...
By subjecting biblical writings to a political analysis, Sicker constructs a plausible political history of the ancient Israelite states that dealt...
The Passover Seder, the most popular and widely celebrated occasion on the annual Jewish calendar, and its "Haggadah," which is a unique combination of liturgy, biblical exegesis, and rabbinic lore, have both delighted and confounded celebrants for nearly two thousand years. Over time, the traditional "Haggadah" has become increasingly obscure as the distance between the authors and readers, in both chronological and cultural terms, widens over time. This is because the "Haggadah" is essentially a rabbinic work, much of which is written in a style similar to that found in the classic works of...
The Passover Seder, the most popular and widely celebrated occasion on the annual Jewish calendar, and its "Haggadah," which is a unique combination o...
"The Moral Maxims of the Sages of Israel" is a study of the moral maxims of the sages of Israel, who thrived from 300 B.C.E. to 200 C.E., that are contained in the work known as Pirkei Avot, probably the oldest anthology of its kind in literary history. Although the work has been translated from the original Hebrew numerous times, much of it remains inaccessible because of the epigrammatic rather than discursive style of the original, which employs idiomatic expressions, unusual turns of phrase, grammatically awkward constructions, euphemisms, and plays on words that confound even those who...
"The Moral Maxims of the Sages of Israel" is a study of the moral maxims of the sages of Israel, who thrived from 300 B.C.E. to 200 C.E., that are con...
"The Trials of Abraham" is based on the premise that the primary concern of the Torah is with establishing a conceptual framework within which a unique nation might emerge and flourish for the exclusive purpose of facilitating the emergence of a model civilization for eventual emulation by all the peoples of the earth. "The Trials of Abraham" is devoted to a consideration of how the biblical author sought to explain through narrative rather than analysis why Abraham was chosen to be the founding patriarch of that new nation.
The saga of Abraham is presented in the book of Genesis in a...
"The Trials of Abraham" is based on the premise that the primary concern of the Torah is with establishing a conceptual framework within which a uniqu...
Judaism has always had adherents that, driven by both awe and love of God, strove to penetrate the mystery of divine wisdom and grasp what the philosopher deemed to be beyond the reach of man's rational faculty, as well as to explore other mysteries that seem to leap out from the pages of Scripture.
These metarational leaps of intellect and imagination generally fit into the categories of the exoteric and the esoteric, referring to teachings traditionally considered suitable for public instruction and those deemed inappropriate for such purpose. The exoteric includes those attempts at...
Judaism has always had adherents that, driven by both awe and love of God, strove to penetrate the mystery of divine wisdom and grasp what the philoso...
This study of the biblical creation narrative, and the wide variety of ways in which it has been interpreted over more than two millennia, is based on the thesis that, notwithstanding its mythopoeic presentation, the essential purpose of the biblical author is to set forth the most essential elements of a political theology, elaborated further through the other narratives and constitutional writings contained in the remainder of the Torah or Pentateuch, that is to serve as the basis upon which an ideal moral and just civilization was to emerge.
Approaching the biblical creation narrative...
This study of the biblical creation narrative, and the wide variety of ways in which it has been interpreted over more than two millennia, is based on...
Justice is a theme that courses throughout the literature of Judaism, and yet, it would be difficult to find anything beyond an occasional journal or book article that directly addresses the subject for a variety of reasons that are discussed in this book. Writing on a topic like justice in Judaism entails a number of special problems. Because there are no classical traditional works specifically addressed to the subject, notwithstanding that the idea of justice pervades the entire corpus of Judaic literature, one must in effect construct a theory of what the ancients and their disciples...
Justice is a theme that courses throughout the literature of Judaism, and yet, it would be difficult to find anything beyond an occasional journal or ...
