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Re-Biographing and Deviance examines the Jewish Midrashic model for self-renewal through time. In this important new study, author Rotenberg questions how traditional Judaism, with its contradictory notions of teshuvah (repentance) and of remembrance of the past, allows for the contemporary Jew to maintain a healthy cognitive dialogue between past failures and future aspirations. The author illustrates how the Midrashic narrative philosophy entails a psychotherapeutic system for reinterpretation of past sins into positive future-oriented biographies--which in turn provide fuel for Jewish vitality and its continuity between past, present and future.
While the term midrash--from the Hebrew darash, searched or interpreted--can refer to both legal and extralegal scriptural exegesis, it most commonly refers to symbolic legends, stories, and parables used to make moral or ethical concepts accessible to the layman. As such, midrash encompasses an open-ended method of exposition that often allows for the coexistence of seemingly contradictory interpretations of holy writ in a kind of dialogue with each other. In Rewriting the Self, Mordechai Rotenberg illustrates how "midrashic" dialogue between a person's past and present may assist in the reorganization of ostensibly contrasting conditions or positions, so that by reinterpreting a failing past according to future aspirations, cognitive discord may be reduced and one may begin to rehabilitate and enhance one's life. Rotenberg argues that the foundations of what he calls a "dialogic" psychology of progress, as well as a pluralistic, free choice approach to psychotherapy, may be identified in Judaism's midrashic "metacode." From a practical, therapeutic perspective, a teacher or therapist would no longer be an elite interpreter of a student or client's past, authorized to give the only authentic analysis of that person's problems. Rather, he would be able to offer a variety of options, both rational and emotional. In Rewriting the Self, Rotenberg demonstrates his theory with several case studies of "rewriting" oneself from both the Midrash and Talmud. He contrasts this method with other psychotherapies. This volume is the third in a trilogy (the previous two, Damnation and Deviance and Hasidic Psychology, are also published by Transaction) that seeks to present a "dialogistic" psychology as an alternative framework to the perspective that predominates in Western social sciences. It is an original work that will be welcomed by psychotherapists, social scientists, and students of theology.
This unique text uses historical and contemporary examples to demonstrate how deviance is socially constructed, depending on time, place, and situation.
Jewish Scriptural interpretation entails a potential therapeutic bridge between the rational-material and the irrational-mystic in the world of psychotherapy. PaRDeS, as this system is known, is derived from the following concepts. "P" denotes peshat, the plain interpretation of the text, which translates into a rational interpretation of life. "R" symbolizes remez, hinting at a related religious concept, which becomes a symbolic view of life. "D" stands for derash, the homiletic way of interpreting a text, or a narrative reading of life. And "S" represents sod, or the mystery behind an idea, which in psychological terms becomes a mystic understanding of life. Mordechai Rotenberg believes that it is by engaging readings in a "dialogue" with each other, as in the Jewish hermeneutic tradition, the psychology underlying one's existence may be more readily understood. While Rotenberg acknowledges that it is legitimate to focus on one cognitive-rational or one narrative-storytelling therapeutic method in the course of therapy, he argues that a comprehensive theory of psychotherapy should include treatment possibilities for both rational and irrational manifestations of behavior, thereby engulfing all aspects of human behavior. For Rotenberg, a person's life becomes the "text," subject to being read and interpreted. If that person wishes to change his or her behavior via psychotherapy, then a hermeneutic system must be employed to understand that person's life. However, many systems interpret a person's life according to the particular theory espoused by the therapist. Rotenberg, in contrast, introduces a balanced theory bridging the rational and the irrational. Between Rationality and Irrationality emphasizes that it is more important for a therapist to learn his client's own "language" than to impose his own doctrinaire interpretation. This edition includes a new introduction by the author, as well as an appendix explicating an original psychological interpretation of PaRDeS
'Understanding Deviance' provides an indispensable guide to the major themes and theories which have come to form the sociology of crime and deviance, from their origins in the research of the University of Chicago sociology department in the 1920s to the most recent work in cultural criminology.
This work is the first study in any language of the thought and writings of Rabbi Zadok HaKohen of Lublin (1823-1900), who created a blend of ecstatic Hasidism and intellectual Talmud study. With extensive citations of his writings, it will be an entry point to his thought for many American readers. To illuminate R. Zadok's innovative spiritual path, in which one attains mystical experience through intellectual study of Torah, Brill explores the realm of spiritual psychology with particular attention to individual growth, sin, determinism, and pluralism. He shows that R. Zadok's thought combined mystical, Aristotelian, and psychological elements. This work also sheds important light on Lithuanian talmudic intellectualism and Polish Hasidism. It is the first book to present a critical, analytical portrait of hasidic theology. Particular attention is paid to R. Zadok's teacher, Rabbi Mordekhai Leiner of Izbica, whose individualistic philosophy undergirds R. Zadok's teachings on the subject of free will. Finally, this superb study addresses the question of how a Jewish thinker in a traditional milieu was able to derive a theology with many elements we would consider modern, even though he was largely insulated from and, in theory, opposed to contemporary Western, non-religious thinkers. Published in association with Yeshiva University Press
This book, rather ironically, uses the written word to draw together threads from science, psychotherapy, scripture, and homiletics that can help us recognize and reclaim the power of oral-aural storying as a way of knowing. Story as a Way of Knowing will open your mind and imagination to new ways of thinking and knowing about yourself, others, your world, and your God.
Against the background of Socrates' insight that the unexamined life is not worth living, Reading Our Lives: The Poetics of Growing Old investigates the often overlooked inside dimensions of aging. Despite popular portrayals of mid- and later life as entailing inevitable decline, this book looks at aging as, potentially, a process of poiesis: a creative endeavor of fashioning meaning from the ever-accumulating texts - memories and reflections-that constitute our inner worlds. At its center is the conviction that although we are constantly reading our lives to some degree anyway, doing so in a mindful matter is critical to our development in the second half of life. Drawing on research in numerous disciplines affected by the so-called narrative turn - including cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and the psychology of aging - authors Randall and McKim articulate a vision of aging that promises to accommodate such time-honored concepts as wisdom and spirituality: one that understands aging as a matter not merely of getting old but of consciously growing old.
This book examines Torah and its interpretation both as a recurring theme in the early rabbinic commentary and as the very practice of the commentary. It studies the phenomenon of ancient rabbinic scriptural commentary in relation to the perspectives of literary and historical criticisms and their complex intersection. The author discusses extensively the nature of ancient commentary, comparing and contrasting it with the antecedents in the pesharim of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the allegorical commentaries of Philo of Alexandria. He develops a model for a dynamic understanding of the literary structure and sociohistorical function of early rabbinic commentary, and then applies this model to the Sifre — to the oldest extant running commentary to Deuteronomy and one of the oldest rabbinic collections of exegesis. Fraade examines the commentary's representation of revelation and its reception at Mt. Sinai, with particular attention to its fractured refiguration and interrelation of Scripture, tradition, and history. He discusses the commentary's discursive empowering of the class of sages in their collective self-understanding as Israel's authorized teachers, leaders, legislators, and judges. The author also probes the tension between Torah and nature as witnesses to Israel's covenant with God.
A concise volume aimed at researchers and academics in sociology, anthropology, psychology and interpersonal communication.