Academic literature on the topic 'Yeshivah ha-merkazit ha-ʻolamit (Jerusalem)'

In Jewish religious texts, Torah study is placed at the top of the hierarchy of values. This suggests that work as such is of no religious significance; work is rather a prerequisite for the real essentials of life. The Mizrachi religious Zionist movement, founded in 1902 by R. Yitzhak Yaakov Reines (1839–1915), introduced a markedly different view. The movement upheld a concept of work as a religious value, not only an existential need. Later religious Zionist thinkers developed a dialectical notion of the mutual integration of the Torah and labor; this eventually became the motto of the Bnei Akiva youth movement that they inspired. With time, the theological approach of R. Kook the Elder (ReAYaH) and of R. Kook the Younger (RTziYaH) became dominant in religious Zionism. R. Kook the Elder founded the yeshivah at Merkaz ha-rav in Jerusalem, which he also headed; his son eventually succeeded him. To date, the yeshivah has produced a great number of students and rabbis, who made the teaching of the two Rabbis Kook the legacy of the religious Zionist community as a whole. The aim of the present article is to trace the changes taking place in the religious Zionist attitude toward work as this is articulated in the thought of a student of the two Rabbis, Kook whom many regard as the continuator of their teaching today. This is Rabbi Tzvi Israel Thau (b. 1937), one of the most influential rabbinic figures associated with religious Zionism, President of Yeshivat har ha-mor and the spiritual leader of the Torah academies referred to as “yeshivot of the line [ha-kav]”.

Abstract R. Ẓvi Yehudah ha-Kohen Kook (RẒiYah, 1891–1982), the head of the yeshivah at “Merkaz ha-Rav” in Jerusalem, was one of the most prominent religious Zionist leaders of the twentieth century. He was also the son of R. Abraham Isaac ha-Kohen Kook, a relationship that had a decisive impact on his thought and work throughout his life. The purpose of the present study is to shed light on RẒiYah’s attitude toward work. Did he see work as a basic human obligation spelled out by the physical need for survival? Did he associate an ideological value with work, as part of a worldview integrating religious values with extra-religious ones, similar to socialism? Or did he see work as a religious value, one that stemmed from his theology?

On the occasion of Professor Joshua Blau’s centenary jubilee, the book Rav Sa‘adya Ga’on in the focus of controversies in Baghdad: Sa'adya’s Sefer Ha-Galuy and Mevasser's two books of critiques on him, by Joshua Blau himself and Joseph Yahalom, was published in 2019 by the Ben-Zvi Institute for the Study of Jewish Communities in the East of Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The book includes the original Hebrew version of Sefer Ha-Galuy; Sefer Eppiqoros, by Khalaf ibn Sarjadu; The Arabic version (Tafsir) of Sefer Ha-Galuy; and two critical works by by Mevasser ben Nissi Halevi: The Book of Correcting the Errors Found in the Writings of the Fayyumite Rosh Yeshiva, and The Book of Revealing the Errors Found in the Writings of the Fayyumite Rosh Yeshiva. I briefly review the content of these works as well as the cultural and historical background, and focus on the reasons for which Rav Sa‘adya composed Sefer Ha-Galuy and the ten benefits he detailed which may be gained from his work. We stress additional insights that the modern reader may find in this work, among them a glimpse into Rav Sa‘adya’s methodology in his Biblical commentary as reflected in his usage of biblical words in Sefer Ha-Galuy. We also discuss the history of the publication of Sefer Ha-Galuy throughout the past century and a half, little by little, until the nearly complete edition by Blau and Yahalom. The newly published translation reads fluently and is enlightening, bringing the reader into the atmosphere of those distant days. The reconstruction of the manuscript from the Geniza fragments is mostly plausible, but seems to be incorrect in a few places. I present here three additional yet unpublished fragments of the Sefer Ha-Galuy that include sections not included in the new printed edition, and suggest that some of the printed sections should be reordered. In addition, considerations regarding the internal coherency of the text, as well as the physical properties of the Geniza fragments, may lead to a slightly different ordering. One of the newly presented fragments reveals that in his commentary on the Sefer Ha-Galuy Rav Sa‘adya aimed at demonstrating the utility of high mathematics to Torah study, thereby emphasizing his own personal virtue as one having extensive knowledge in these fields. Furthermore, one can learn from the new Geniza sections about the proper order in which Rav Sa‘adya mentions the people whom he attacks in this manuscript, including a name that has disappeared so far from the eyes of the researchers, Judah the son of the Exilarch, David Ben Zakkai. The edition is accompanied by brief expansive comments. I illustrate how these may be the basis for further discussions, addressing the calculation of the end-of-days included in Sefer Ha-Galuy, probably as part of Rav Sa‘adya's method of historiography, which divides Jewish history into periods of 500 years.

Abstract Rabbi Yoel Schwartz and Rabbi Yitzchak Goldstein both live their lives within the orbit of the Israeli ultra-Orthodox Jewish world. As youths, they both received traditional Jewish educations and then went on to do advanced rabbinical studies. Rabbi Schwartz has been a student at several of Israel’s most prestigious yeshivot (advanced rabbinical academies) including the Mir yeshiva in Jerusalem and the Ponevitz yeshiva in BneiBrak. He now is a member of the teaching faculty at Yeshiva D’var Yerushalyim in Jerusalem. He has published very widely on ethical issues in the Jewish tradition and has produced commentaries on biblical and rabbinic texts. In addition, he has addressed contemporary theological subjects in a variety of publications. For example, he has written about the issues surrounding conversion to Judaism; the issues of peace, materialism, and spirituality; and the holiness of the human body, as seen from an ultra-Orthodox perspective. He is also the author of a book in Hebrew entitled Zechut Avot (Merit ef the Fathers). Rabbi Goldstein did his rabbinic studies at Yeshiva Yoesodei Ha-Torah inJerusalem and now teaches at the Ithri yeshiva. He is the author of a number of articles for the important Encyclopedia ef the Talmud published in [Hebrew] in Jerusalem.