Trata-se de estudar as principais mudanças rituais e doutrinárias observadas recentemente no judaísmo em São Paulo, com ênfase nas transformações introduzidas nas sinagogas da cidade e mais pormenorizadamente na Congregação Mekor Haim. A investigação sociológica está centrada nas modificações que dizem respeito às influências entre o judaísmo asquenazita e o sefaradita, tanto entre ortodoxos e não ortodoxos. Para introduzir a questão no Brasil, a tese se detém preliminarmente nas mudanças ocorridas ao longo da história judaica. / The intention was to study the principal changes in rites and doctrine recently observed in Judaism in Sao Paulo, with emphasis on changes introduced into the city synagogues, the Mekor Haim Congregation in particular. The sociological study focuses on modifications due to influences between Askhenazite and Sephardite Judaism, and between Orthodoxy and Non-Orthodoxy. By way of introduction to the question in Brazil the thesis firstly looks at changes which have occurred throughout Jewish history.

Trata-se de estudar as principais mudanças rituais e doutrinárias observadas recentemente no judaísmo em São Paulo, com ênfase nas transformações introduzidas nas sinagogas da cidade e mais pormenorizadamente na Congregação Mekor Haim. A investigação sociológica está centrada nas modificações que dizem respeito às influências entre o judaísmo asquenazita e o sefaradita, tanto entre ortodoxos e não ortodoxos. Para introduzir a questão no Brasil, a tese se detém preliminarmente nas mudanças ocorridas ao longo da história judaica. / The intention was to study the principal changes in rites and doctrine recently observed in Judaism in Sao Paulo, with emphasis on changes introduced into the city synagogues, the Mekor Haim Congregation in particular. The sociological study focuses on modifications due to influences between Askhenazite and Sephardite Judaism, and between Orthodoxy and Non-Orthodoxy. By way of introduction to the question in Brazil the thesis firstly looks at changes which have occurred throughout Jewish history.

Emil Ludwig Fackenheim became a Rabbi even as the Holocaust was claiming the lives of six million Jews. Further study, first in Scotland and then in Canada, brought him to an impressive academic career in philosophy, to which he committed much of his life and writings. Yet he was also driven to try to respond theologically to the Shoa, so as to offer Judaism a genuine alternative to the nineteenth century tradition of liberal Judaism which had not been able to withstand or fight against National Socialism when Hitler came to political power. By going behind that failed nineteenth century tradition, primarily in dialogue with the thought of Rosenzweig and Buber, Fackenheim thought, by the middle of the sixth decade of the twentieth century, that he had rediscovered a solid core for post-Auschwitz Jewish faith: one rooted in a recovery of supernatural revelation, of God's presence in, and the messianic goal of, history. The Six Day War of June 1967 threw his careful reconstruction of Jewish faith into disarray, however. Facing a second Holocaust in one lifetime; and with an acute awareness that once again the Jewish people stood alone, Fackenheim raised questions about God and history and the Messianic which utterly destroyed his reconstruction. Even as he struggled with the crisis, however, he began to discern that hope had become a commandment. He began a process of even more profound reconstruction (or "destructive recovery") of the faith that radically reshaped the possibility of hope for Jewish faith in a post-Shoa world. And Christian theologians in dialogue with him find it necessary to embark on a destructive recovery of hope for the Christian tradition as an authentically Christian response to Auschwitz. Emerging from that dialogue is a fresh appreciation of the self-critical tradition of the theology of the cross.

Thesis (M.A.)--Brandeis University, 2009. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on May 29, 2009). Includes bibliographical references.

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The Name of God has formed a crucial element of Jewish thought throughout its history, from the Biblical text, through the rabbinic and kabbalistic writings and into the modern age when the topic has still been a focal point for Jewish philosophers. The purpose of this study is to examine the texts of Judaism, especially those within the mystical tradition, pertaining to the Name of God, and to offer a philosophical analysis of these as a means of understanding the metaphysical role of the name generally, in terms of its relationship with identity. While the materials are historical, the aim is a speculative re/construction of a systematic philosophical approach to naming from these materials. Beginning with the formation of rabbinic Judaism in Late Antiquity, I will progress through the development of the motif into the Medieval Kabbalah, where the Name reaches its grandest and most systematic statement – and the one which has most helped to form the ideas of Jewish philosophers in the 20th Century. This will highlight certain metaphysical ideas which have developed within Judaism from the Biblical sources, and which present a direct challenge to the paradigms of western philosophy. Thus a grander subtext is a criticism of the Greek metaphysics of being which the west has inherited, and which Jewish philosophers often subject to challenges of varying subtlety; it is these philosophers who often place a peculiar emphasis on the personal name, and this emphasis seems to depend on the historical influence of the Jewish metaphysical tradition of the Name of God.

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The period of the Judges reflects a time in history where early monotheism comes into contact with many forces and influences. The most crucial of these is the Canaanite peoples with their religious practices which were focused largely on Baal and the pantheon of which he was a part. This study seeks to show that the Canaanite religious ideas had a detrimental influence on early monotheism as reflected in the book of Judges. This led to a downward spiral in which ‘everyone did what was right in his own eyes’ and consequently abandoned absolute monotheism for a syncrestic religion which led to religious and social chaos. The Canaanite religious forces which influenced the development of monotheism in this period are studied in the lives of four of the major judges, Deborah, Gideon, Jephthah and Samson. The findings are then applied to today’s world in which similar influences are found. The methodology used to analyse the texts is V.K. Robbins’ socio-rhetorical method in which the layers of various texts are exposed to reveal a rich tapestry of meaning and understanding. Simultaneous analysis pertaining to narrative literature is also done. A brief description of the characteristics of Yahweh is established from the book of Judges and is used as the point of comparison with a similar description of the various gods and goddess of the Canaanite pantheon based on the Ugaritic literature. Each judge is placed in the historical, geographical, social and religious context of the narrative and the influences of the Canaanites highlighted. Applications for today are also made. The results of the study show that continuing association with the Canaanites led to the infiltration of their religious ideas into early monotheism. This encouraged the Israelites to abandon their unique monotheism for a blend of monotheism and polytheism which allowed everyone to live his life in the manner he believed was right for him. A similar situation is found in the 21st century AD. / Prof. J.H. Coetzee

The Or ha-Sekhel of Abraham ben Asher (Venice, 1567) is of great importance in the history of the study of midrash because it is the first book in which Genesis Rabba was accompanied by commentaries, one spuriously attributed to Rashi and the other written by Abraham ben Asher himself. The composition of a commentary on a midrash was something of a novelty in the mid-16th-century; immediate precedents are hard to identify. Yet, several such commentaries and a large number of prints of Midrash Rabba were published at this time, suggesting that the status of this ‘anthology of midrashim’ was undergoing a period of transition. The need for a correct text and the explanation of obscure vocabulary was foremost in the minds of interpreters such as Issachar Berman of Poland. However, the increasing importance of midrash in the sermons of the Iberian immigrants to the Ottoman Empire also inspired the composition of more discursive commentaries. The homiletic nature of Abraham ben Asher’s expositions suggests that they should be seen in this context. His incorporation of an earlier commentary falsely attributed to Rashi into the Or ha-Sekhel might be understood as an effort to ground his innovative presentation of Genesis Rabba as a text requiring thorough study and the guidance of learned commentators in the work of Rashi himself. Understanding the way Abraham ben Asher has compiled these texts in the Or ha-Sekhel sheds new light on the pervasive interest in midrash in the 16th-century and the outpouring of commentaries on Midrash Rabba at this time.