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The Jewish Moral Virtues is a book of musar - practical ethical wisdom applied to contemporary life. In form and purpose, it is parallel to William Bennett's bestselling Book of Virtues. Authors Borowitz and Schwartz synthesize traditional scholarship from a wide range of Jewish sources with personal insights into modern ethical dilemmas. Traditionally, Jewish ethical teachers have been concerned with law or general guidance for a good life, i.e., virtue, rather than philosophical meditations upon specific issues. This collection is structured upon the twenty-four virtues selected by a thirteenth-century Roman Jew, Yehiel ben Yekutiel, including trustworthiness, lovingkindness, compassion, generosity, charity, humility, and pure-heartedness, among others, and expands to include wisdom from the ancient rabbis, medieval philosophers, and Yehiel's successors over the past seven centuries.
How do modern Jews understand virtues such as courage, humility, justice, solidarity, or love? In truth: they have fiercely debated how to interpret them. This groundbreaking anthology of musar (Jewish traditions regarding virtue and character) explores the diverse ways seventy-eight modern Jewish thinkers understand ten virtues: honesty and love of truth; curiosity and inquisitiveness; humility; courage and valor; temperance and self-restraint; gratitude; forgiveness; love, kindness, and compassion; solidarity and social responsibility; and justice and righteousness. These thinkers--from the Musar movement to Hasidism to contemporary Orthodox, Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist, Renewal, Humanist, and secular Jews--often agree on the importance of these virtues but fundamentally disagree in their conclusions. The juxtaposition of their views, complemented by Geoffrey Claussen's pointed analysis, allows us to see tensions with particular clarity--and sometimes to recognize multiple compelling ways of viewing the same virtue. By expanding the category of musar literature to include not only classic texts and traditional works influenced by them but also the writings of diverse rabbis, scholars, and activists--men and women--who continue to shape Jewish tradition, Modern Musar challenges the fields of modern Jewish thought and ethics to rethink their boundaries--and invites us to weigh and refine our own moral ideals.
Rabbi Joseph Telushkin combed the Bible, the Talmud, and the whole spectrum of Judaism's sacred writings to give us a manual on how to lead a decent, kind, and honest life in a morally complicated world. "An absolutely superb book: the most practical, most comprehensive guide to Jewish values I know." —Rabbi Harold Kushner, author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People Telushkin speaks to the major ethical issues of our time, issues that have, of course, been around since the beginning. He offers one or two pages a day of pithy, wise, and easily accessible teachings designed to be put into immediate practice. The range of the book is as broad as life itself: • The first trait to seek in a spouse (Day 17) • When, if ever, lying is permitted (Days 71-73) • Why acting cheerfully is a requirement, not a choice (Day 39) • What children don't owe their parents (Day 128) • Whether Jews should donate their organs (Day 290) • An effective but expensive technique for curbing your anger (Day 156) • How to raise truthful children (Day 298) • What purchases are always forbidden (Day 3) In addition, Telushkin raises issues with ethical implications that may surprise you, such as the need to tip those whom you don't see (Day 109), the right thing to do when you hear an ambulance siren (Day 1), and why wasting time is a sin (Day 15). Whether he is telling us what Jewish tradition has to say about insider trading or about the relationship between employers and employees, he provides fresh inspiration and clear guidance for every day of our lives.
Accounting for the Commandments in Medieval Judaism explores the discursive formation of the commandments as a generative matrix of Jewish thought and life in the posttalmudic period, correlating the diverse domains of jurisprudence, philosophy, ethics, pietism, and kabbalah.
Drawing on multiple interconnected scriptural and spiritual sources, the Jewish tradition of ethical reflection is intricate and nuanced. This book presents scholarly Jewish perspectives on suffering, healing, life, and death, and it compares them with contemporary Christian and secular views. The Jewish perspectives presented in this book are mainly those of orthodox scholars, with the responses representing primarily Christian-Catholic points of view. Readers unfamiliar with the Jewish tradition will find here a practical introduction to its major voices, from Spinoza to Jewish religious law. The contributors explore such issues as active and passive euthanasia, abortion, assisted reproduction, genetic screening, and health care delivery. Offering a thoughtful and thought-provoking dialogue between Jewish and Christian scholars, Jewish and Catholic Bioethics is an important contribution to ecumenical understanding in the realm of health care.
What is good character? What are the traits of a good person? How should virtues be cultivated? How should vices be avoided? The history of Jewish literature is filled with reflection on questions of character and virtue such as these, reflecting a wide range of contexts and influences. Beginning with the Bible and culminating with twenty-first-century feminism and environmentalism, Jewish Virtue Ethics explores thirty-five influential Jewish approaches to character and virtue. Virtue ethics has been a burgeoning field of moral inquiry among academic philosophers in the postwar period. Although Jewish ethics has also flourished as an academic (and practical) field, attention to the role of virtue in Jewish thought has been underdeveloped. This volume seeks to illuminate its centrality not only for readers primarily interested in Jewish ethics but also for readers who take other approaches to virtue ethics, including within the Western virtue ethics tradition. The original essays written for this volume provide valuable sources for philosophical reflection.
Philosopher, physician, and master of rabbinical literature, Moses ben Maimon (1135-1204) strove to reconcile biblical revelation with medieval Aristotelianism. His writings, especially the celebrated Guide for the Perplexed, exercised considerable influence on both Jewish and Christian scholasticism and brought him lasting renown as one of the greatest medieval thinkers. This volume contains his most significant ethical works, newly translated from the original sources by Professors Raymond L. Weiss and Charles E. Butterworth, well-known Maimonides scholars. Previous translations have often been inadequate — either because they were not based on the best possible texts or from a lack of precision. That deficiency has been remedied in this text; the translations are based on the latest scholarship and have been made with a view toward maximum accuracy and readability. Moreover, the long "Letter to Joseph" has been translated into English for the first time. This edition includes the following selections: I. Laws Concerning Character Traits (complete) II. Eight Chapters (complete) III. On the Management of Health IV. Letter to Joseph V. Guide of the Perplexed VII. The Days of the Messiah Taken as a whole, this collection presents a comprehensive and revealing overview of Maimonides' thought regarding the relationship of revelation and reason in the sphere of ethics. Here are his teachings concerning "natural law," secular versus religious authority, the goals of moral conduct, diseases of the soul, the application of logic to ethical matters, and the messianic era. Throughout, the great sage is concerned to reconcile the apparent divergence between biblical teachings and Greek philosophy.
Britain's most authentically prophetic voice - Daily Telegraph 'The choice with which humankind is faced is between the idea of power and the power of ideas.' From his appointment as Chief Rabbi in 1991, through to his death in November 2020, Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks made an incalculable contribution not just to the religious life of the Jewish community but to the national conversation - and increasingly to the global community - on issues of ethics and morality. Commemorating the first anniversary of his death, this volume brings together a compelling selection of Jonathan Sacks' BBC Radio Thought for the Day broadcasts, Credo columns from The Times, and a range of articles published in the world's most respected newspapers, along with his House of Lords speeches and keynote lectures. First heard and read in many different contexts, these pieces demonstrate with striking coherence the developing power of Sacks' ideas, on faith and philosophy alike. In each instance he brings to bear deep insights into the immediate situation at the time - and yet it as if we hear him speaking to us afresh, giving us new strength to face the challenges and complexities of today's world. These words of faith and wisdom shine as a beacon of enduring light in an increasingly conflicted cultural climate, and prove the timeless nature and continued relevance of Jonathan Sacks' thought and teachings. One of the great moral thinkers of our time - Robert D. Putnam, author of Bowling Alone
Includes bibliographical references (p. 357-358).