Adoption in Judaism

Abstract : This article examines of the place of adoption in Jewish thought and law. Adoption is undocumented in the Hebrew Bible, but some verses suggest—or have been said to describe—realities similar to adoption. Beginning with a discussion of the immutability of the relationships in the biological family, this article discusses the merits of caring for orphans and the special halakhic situations that arise for a Jewish family that pursues a civil adoption. The article concludes with a discussion of adoption as a metaphor for a convert's relationship with the ancestors of the Jewish people.     

论犹太教末世论

末世论是犹太教原创性教义之一,在2000多年的发展过程中,演变成为一种复杂的思想体系。复杂不仅体现在内容繁多,更体现在各派别在认识上矛盾重重,甚至互相对立,并且在发展过程中又受到波斯等外来思想的影响。对此,本文意在对犹太教末世论思想进行简单梳理,同时对其产生的原因和本质进行比较详细地分析。     

Judaism and bereavement

Conclusion The Jewish way of death is a simple, thoughtful, ever sensitive set of ritual practices based on faith and guided by the wish to console the bereaved intelligently. Knowledge of it, and the resolve to utilize its wisdom, hold out a ray of light in our blackest moments. It can help us find the path leading out of the valley of shadows.     

犹太教的自我诠释--再论什么是犹太教

作者认为,界说犹太教的难点有二：一是其独特性不在其信仰观念而源自历史经验,要从历史演变中把握其独特性;二是其多样性是社会发展的产物,要在歧异中寻求一致,以其本质去统一其多样性。本文从拉比犹太教入手,将不同时期不同派别的犹太教所作的自我诠释,综合推演出犹太教的分解式定义,以求更深入地探讨和认识组成犹太教的不同传统。     

论犹太教的契约观

本文为一篇探讨犹太教的契约观由来及影响的学术论文。首先阐明了犹太教的契约观的定义;随后,介绍、评论了犹太教的契约观的由来,包括3部分:上帝与挪亚订立的契约、上帝与亚伯拉罕订立的契约、上帝与以色列人订立的契约;接着,介绍了犹太教的契约观的两个重要影响:形成了犹太人的天赋使命感,规定了犹太人特有的生活方式;最后,以简短的结语总结了犹太教的契约观在犹太教历史上的积极作用。     

罗马的犹太政策

犹太人只要交纳必需的赋税,只要不威胁国家安全,罗马政府就允许他们按照其祖先的律法生活。犹太人虽然不拥有完全的自治权,但有权裁决内部纠纷,其宗教自由也能够得到罗马政权的保障和宽容。自恺撒为这种政策奠定恰当的法律形式以来,它在基督教获得全面胜利以前具有很强的稳定性。由于有关犹太人的文献在罗马世界的地方文献中保存得最好,考察罗马的犹太政策为我们了解罗马的宗教政策和民族政策提供了独特的视角。     

French Calvinism and Judaism

Abstract

Calvin's language against the Jews, as that of the other Reformers, is invariably harsh. Nevertheless, some of his doctrines—the quasi equal status of the two Testaments in matters of faith, but also Original Sin which transformed all human beings, the Jews among them, into sinners—make room for new attitudes: Jews are bad, corrupt and stupid, but Catholics are even worse. Calvin believes that there are still some elected among the Jews. With Beza, this legacy then deepens. Despite variations (millenarianism and irenism, the continually worsening status of the Huguenots), changed attitudes towards the Jews survive in the 17th century, and in the Refuge are reinforced by direct contact with Jews and new conceptions of Jewish history, which in Bayle and Basnage becomes normal human history. Persecutions are not divine punishment, but human evil, and parallelisms between Jewish and Huguenot history become evident. In France's ‘Desert’ clandestine and persecuted Huguenots identify themselves with the captive and persecuted Jews and Jerusalem under siege.     

Creation and the Symbiosis of Science and Judaism

It seems to me that the critical questions that science and natural philosophy raise for Jewish theology are the following: Does God evolve? Does the universe have or even need an interpretation, specifically with reference to the fact that most of the universe most of the time is uninhabitable, and there may be many more than one universe? Does the universe need a beginning? What is distinctive about human consciousness, intelligence, and ethics in the light of evidence for evolution from all of the life sciences? Finally, will both life and the universe end? These questions are not only modern. They contain all the primary issues that have dominated rabbinic thought. That agenda can be summarized in six topics: How should we model what we believe about (1) God, (2) the world, and (3) the human being; and how should we understand the relations between them, that is, between (4) God and the world (or, creation), (5) God and the human (or, revelation), and (6) the human and the world (or, redemption)? In this paper I focus on the fourth issue, creation. My answer is presented in detail in my Judaism and the Doctrine of Creation(Samuelson 1994). Here I shall summarize my conclusions there concerning science, Jewish texts, and the correlation between them.     

Emmanuel Levinas and the New Science of Judaism

This article addresses Emmanuel Levinas's re‐conceptualization of Jewish identity by examining his response to a question he himself poses: “In which sense do we need a Jewish science?” First, I attend to Levinas's critique of modern science of Judaism, particularly as it was understood in the critical approaches of the nineteenth‐century school of thought, Wissenschaft des Judentums. Next, I detail Levinas's own constructive proposal that would, in his words, “enlarge the science of Judaism.” He retrieved classical textual sources that modern Judaism had neglected, while at the same time he enlarged Judaism's relevance beyond a historical community by turning to phenomenology as a rigorous science. Finally, I conclude with some reflections on the broader implications of this new science of Judaism for Jewish ethics and identity in a post‐war period.     

Masturbation from Judaism to Victorianism

This article demonstrates how masturbation, based on a misconception of Genesis 38:7–10, was judged harshly in both Judaism and Christianity, laying the foundation historically for social and religious hostility toward sex. Masturbation, known as the secret sin, a threat to the human race, and an ontic evil, was condemned officially in 1054 by Pope Leo IX.From the medieval era to Victorianism there evolved new distortions of religion and science, so that masturbation was regarded as unnatural sex, murder, a diabolical practice, and the cause of two-thirds of all diseases and disorders including insanity, neurosis, and neurasthenia. Masturbation has historically served as the catalyst for social change in sexual attitudes.     

Judaism and philosophy in Levinas

Summary The fundamental message of Jewish thought in Levinas' version can be summarized by the following quote: It ties the meaning of all experiences to the ethical relation among humans; it appears to the personal responsibility of man, who, thereby, knows himself irreplaceable to realize a human society in which humans treat one another as humans. This realization of the just society is ipso facto an elevation of man to the society with God. This society is human happiness itself and the meaning of life. Therefore, to say that the meaning of the real must be understood in function of ethics, is to say that the universe is sacred. But it is sacred in an ethical sense. Ethics is an optics of the divine. No relation to God is more right or more immediate.The Divine cannot manifest itself except through the neighbor. For a Jew, incarnation is neither possible, nor necessary. After all, Jeremiah himself said it: To judge the case of the poor and the miserable, is not that to know me? says the Eternal. The One who is revealed in this ethical religion differs greatly from the almighty and triumphant God whose image dominates any thought in which politics procures the highest perspective. The Master of the world is power-less against human violence and sin, vulnerable and persecuted. His passing by is not in the thunderstorm, not in the earthquake, and not in the fire either, but after the fire there was a voice of subtle silence (1 Kings 19:11–12). God penetrates the world almost imperceptibly, in extreme humility.

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