Pamphlets: The Zahava and Moshael Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12202/4590

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  • ItemRestricted
    POL 1401: Great Political Thinkers: Ancient Political Thought
    (2021-01) Rogachevsky, Neil
    Course Description It has been commonly said that Western Civilization—of which America has long been considered a part—was formed through the combination of, or creative tension between, the ideas typified by two cities: Athens and Jerusalem. Scholars have recently highlighted Biblical teachings ideas on questions we might now call political. But it is in the political thought of Greece that we find active philosophic reflection on the nature of politics and an argument for the centrality of politics in human life. One can even go further: in the writers of Greek antiquity we encounter the argument that the study of politics may be the key to understanding everything. This course aims to offer an introductory tour through the political thought of several of the greatest minds of Greece. But their insights are not only “Greek” insights; they remain relevant and in need of reckoning with in our times. Those insights relate to questions including: what is the relationship between individual excellence and communal excellence? Is thought superior to action or is action superior to thought? What is justice and how much justice can be realized in the world? What does war teach us about human nature? What is virtue and what is its relation to laws? To what extent are knowledge and politics tied together? These questions, and many more, will be addressed through a careful and close reading of seminal texts of ancient political thought: Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian war, Plato’s Republic, and Aristotle’s Politics. Read in tandem, these works present difficult and richly illuminating accounts of fundamental questions thoughtful people face in all times and places
  • ItemRestricted
    JHIS 4938H - A Topics: Malbim & Modernity / JPHI 1918H – A Topics: Malbim & Modernity
    (2021-01) Lerner, Dov
    Course Overview The aim of this class is to explore the thought of one of the most well-known Jewish exegetes of the nineteenth century—Malbim—with a heavy emphasis on his historical and intellectual context. We will survey the major intellectual movements of modern Europe—the Enlightenment and Romanticism—through the prism of some of the key texts that defined the respective projects, and then consider their impact on the role of the Bible in European life, and the resulting crises which faced the newly emancipated Jews of Europe. After examining the attempts of Mendelssohn, Meklenburg, and Hirsch, to conserve Jewish tradition, we will turn to Malbim. The theses of his sermons and the themes of his exegesis will be explored alongside some of the biblically inspired literature of the age—including Lord Byron’s Cain. We will conclude the course with an assessment of how Malbim’s claims have fared over the past one hundred and fifty years.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Priestly predicaments : analysing "Sof Tuma Latzet" according to Maimonides.
    (Maggid Books, 2015) Shabtai, David
    Rabbi Jonathan Sacks is one of the most distinguished rabbinic leaders of our day and a world-renowned spokesman for Judaism. To honor him upon his retirement from the chief rabbinate of the United Hebrew Congregations of Great Britain and the Commonwealth, his colleagues from the London Beth Din and the United Synagogue have produced a volume of stellar rabbinic scholarship. In this volume, eminent rabbis such as Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein and Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz join together with many others in tribute to a scholar and a leader.
  • ItemOpen Access
    The Source of Faith Examined.
    (Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought at Yeshiva University, 2015) Segal, Aaron
    Someone who wants to understand the content of Jewish faith can pick up nearly any article or listen to any number of sihot by Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, and find an illuminating treatment of some aspect of that issue. The same can be said of someone who seeks to know what being a ma’amin [believer] entails, what sort of intellectual stance and emotional attitudes are required in order to be a faithful Jew. But the same cannot be said of someone who asks, especially in light of everything else he knows and all the intellectual challenges he confronts as a religious Jew, whether he should or at least may have such faith. This essay explores how and why religious ethics, theology, and the phenomenology of faith figure prominently in R. Lichtenstein’s thought; whereas normative epistemology does not.
  • ItemOpen Access
    On Faith and Democracy as a New Form of Religion: A Few Tocquevillian Reflections.
    (Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought at Yeshiva University, 2017) Holbreich, Matthew; Craiutu, Aurelian
  • ItemOpen Access
    In the Valley of the Dry Bones: Lincoln’s Biblical Oratory and the Coming of the Civil War.
    (Imprint Academic, 2014) Holbreich, Matthew; Petranovich, Danilo
    Co-authored by the Straus Center’s Resident Scholar, Dr. Matthew Holbreich, this article investigates Lincoln’s public use of the Bible before he became President of the United States. The rhetorical tropes of covenant, purification, sacrifice and rebirth illuminate a previously under-appreciated dimension of Lincoln’s Biblical oratory. A close study of those themes reveals a consistently radical and polarizing Lincoln from his early speeches (Lyceum and Temperance) to his late pre-Presidential ones (Peoria and House Divided). At the heart of this unity was an uncompromisingly moral vision of the Union. The article concludes with some reflections on the enduring importance of the Bible.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Adams, Jefferson, and the Jews: Supplementary Readings.
    (The Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought. Yeshiva University., 2012) Soloveichik, Meir
    Throughout the academic year 2011–2012, the Straus Center been presented seminars and lectures on the subject of “Jewish Ideas and American Democracy.” Our goal is to bring classic Jewish texts into conversation with the foundational works of American political thought. In so doing, we consider the following questions: How did Jewish notions of politics, the social contract, and covenant impact the eventual structure and nature of the United States? How did the Bible figure in the debates about democracy and monarchy that took place during the time of America’s founding? In what way is the United States different from European democracies, and what is the role of religion in American public life? As a supplement to a discussion of Thomas Jefferson’s and John Adams’ views of religion in general and Judaism in particular, we present the following sources and articles to facilitate further reflection on the aforementioned questions.
  • ItemOpen Access
    God’s Providence and the United States A Thanksgiving Reader on Judaism, Thanksgiving and the American Idea.
    (Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought at Yeshiva University, 2013-11) Soloveichik, Meir
    Much has been made in the media of the fact that the American holiday of Thanksgiving occurs this year on what is, for Jews, the first day of Chanukah.While this has provided much fodder for humorous remarks about "Thanksgiving," in fact, the convergence of calendars ought to inspire us to ponder how the Jewish penchant for expressing thanks and gratitude to God may have impacted America millennia later.As millions of Americans prepare to observe Thanksgiving, The Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought presents this essay, and the sources that follow, to help provide a framework for reflecting on the American holiday that is upon us, and on the Jewish ideas that may have inspired it. [From Introduction]