Kohelet S Pursuit Of Truth

"Benjamin Segal's translation and literary commentary is arrestingly new. Its most striking innovations include the tracing of change within the book, an exploration of the character of the main speaker, an appreciation of the literary structure, and a sensitivity to the varied voices of the main speaker in this retrospective narrative." -- Back cover

Illuminating Counsel: How the Least Holy Books of the Hebrew Bible Explore Life's Most Important Issues is a study of eleven books of the Hebrew Bible, known collectively as the Ketuvim, or "Writings." Judaism considers these books to be less holy than the other books of the Hebrew Bible. Most people don't even know the Jewish order of the books of the Hebrew Bible is different than the Christian order. Many people seem to think the Hebrew Bible is antiquated and has little relevance to modern life. Even Christians, who value the Hebrew Bible as "Holy Scripture," tend to favor the New Testament. Herein it is argued that the least holy books of the Hebrew Bible are life-changing pieces of literature. Their poetry and prose cover virtually every emotion, every behavior, and every aspect of the human condition. They are as relevant to the committed nonreligious as they are to the religious. So, if you want to plunge the depths of literary sublimity; if you want to explore what it means to be human, to struggle with your mortality, to go through death's dark valley and come out on the other side, to confront your pain and in so doing find healing, then I invite you to read on and discover how the Hebrew Bible illuminates counsel.

This volume completes Stuart Weeks' commentary on the book of Ecclesiastes, also known as Qoheleth. Weeks draws together all the relevant tools for understanding this complex wisdom book in the Old Testament. As is the hallmark of the ICC no stone is left unturned as Weeks considers the full range of linguistic, textual, archaeological, literary and theological interpretations of the text. Week incorporates recent interpretation alongside the history of research to examine the text of Ecclesiastes 6-12 in the closest possible, offering a reading of what may have be the original writer's linguistic and theological intent. The volume is a companion to Weeks' previous commentary on chapters 1-5 of Ecclesiastes, which also contains his exhaustive bibliography of works relevant to the study of the text.

The Book of Deuteronomy depicts Moses addressing Israel before hisown death as he imagines that some day in the future children willask their parents to explain the meaning of the “testimonies, statutes,and judgments” (Deuteronomy 6:20) that are the foundation of thecovenant that binds Israel to its God. He thus frames in specificallyJewish terms the same set of haunting intimations that all thoughtfulpeople bring to the contemplation of their own lives—and, indeed,to life itself: the sense that being alive can or should mean morethan merely not being dead; that the contemplation of even the mostbanal features of daily life can yield rich insight about the nature ofexistence; and the feeling that life itself can be understood as a kindof scrim that might allow us to see through it to the secrets andmysteries that lie beyond.That set of hopeful suppositions inspires moderns just as stronglyand enticingly as it did the ancients. Yet, the specific question of whatit actually means for this or that part of life to mean anything at allother than what it overtly is (or, at least, appears to be) does not seemto have exerted anywhere near as siren a call on our ancient forebearsas it does on us moderns. Still, as we seek meaning in the world andin our lives, it behooves us to ponder the meaning of meaning as well.These twin notions—that life has meaning beyond what the2 Martin S. Cohencasual observer can see easily, and that the effort to uncover anddecipher that meaning can be profound enough to be spirituallytransformational—have animated the contributors to this volume, astheir work demonstrates just how meaningful the search for meaningcan be. Some have approached this from a spiritual point of view,grounding themselves in traditional biblical, talmudic, or mysticalsources. Others have framed their efforts in political terms or in deeplypersonal ones. And still others have attempted to consider the issuethrough the lens of modern philosophical inquiry. But regardless ofthe specific perspective of any individual author, all have in commonthe deep-seated conviction that life bears meaning…and that thatmeaning can best be discovered not by spending a lifetime hoping formomentary satori but rather by standing on the shoulders of fellowtravelers from earlier eras, and from that slightly elevated vantagepoint seeing just a bit further than they could or did. For almost allof our authors, then, the search for meaning is best understood as anon-going, intergenerational effort that links the seekers of all agesto each other through the contemplation of earlier efforts to mineprofundity and significance from the quarry of human life itself. It is,at best, a slow march forward!As readers will see from the Table of Contents, the ancient Bookof Kohelet has served several of our authors as the framework for theirinterpretive work. (Kohelet is the Hebrew name of the biblical bookalso known as Ecclesiastes, which name is derived from the Greektranslation of the work.) Others have chosen to grapple with thequestion Moses imagined future Jewish children eventually puttingto their parents as they wondered what the commandments actually“mean” in terms of the larger picture of Israelite culture and Jewishlife in our own day. Still others have addressed the search for meaningin life today by taking into account the question of human suffering,considering the issue both generally as a philosophical challenge and3 Prefacemore specifically with reference to the Shoah.Taken all together, the contributors to this volume have put forththe notion that life is ennobled, not trivialized, by the contemplativeeffort to seek meaning in the ebb and flow of life’s experiences…andparticularly in those life-experiences related to the service of God.And yet, for all they are united in that conviction, our authors in thisvolume of the Mesorah Matrix series are nonetheless a diverse group:older and younger women and men, North Americans and Israelisliving at home and abroad, seasoned scholars and newly-mintedrabbis and teachers. They are teachers and researchers trained indifferent schools of thought and affiliated with different movementsand institutions within the mosaic of Jewish life that characterizesthe House of Israel as it enters, by its own reckoning, the final quarterof the fifty-eighth century. They are a varied lot, our authors. But inmany ways, they are are, all of them, cut from the same cloth.Our authors work with the original sources and generally presentthem in their own translations. Citations of “NJPS” refer to thecomplete translation of Scripture first published under the titleTanakh: The Holy Scriptures by the Jewish Publication Society inPhiladelphia in 1985. In this volume, as in all books in the MesorahMatrix series, the four-letter name of God is generally representedby “the Eternal” or “Eternal God.” Authors who are specificallydiscussing the actual four-letter name, on the other hand, mayoccasionally depart from this usage in order to more clearly makethe point of their argument. .I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the othersenior editors of the Mesorah Matrix series: David Birnbaum andRabbi Benjamin Blech, as well as Rabbi Saul J. Berman, our associateeditor. They and our able staff have all supported me as I’ve laboredto bring this volume to fruition and I am grateful to them all.As always, I must also express my gratitude to the men and4 Martin S. Cohenwomen, and particularly to the lay leadership, of the synagogueI serve as rabbi: the Shelter Rock Jewish Center in Roslyn, NewYork. Possessed of the unwavering conviction that their rabbi’s bookprojects are part and parcel of his service to them—and, throughthem, to the larger community of those interested in learning aboutJudaism through the medium of the well-written word—they areremarkably supportive of my literary efforts as author and editor. Iam in their debt, and I am therefore very pleased to acknowledgethat debt formally here and wherever I publish my own work or thework of others.

This new volume in the ICC on Ecclesiastes 1-5 brings together all the relevant aids to exegesis - linguistic, textual, archaeological, historical, literary and theological - to enable the scholar to have a complete knowledge and understanding of this Old Testament book. Stuart Weeks incorporates new evidence available in the field, surveys the wealth of secondary literature and provides an extensive introduction to Ecclesiastes as a whole.

In Ecclesiastes, the authorial voice of Qohelet presents an identity that has challenged readers for centuries. This book offers a reception history of the different ways readers have constructed Qohelet as an author. Previous reception histories of Ecclesiastes group readings into "premodern" and "critical," or separate Jewish from Christian readings. In deliberate contrast, this analysis arranges readings thematically according to the interpretive potential inherent in the text, a method of biblical reception history articulated by Brennan Breed. Doing so erases the artificial distinctions between so-called scholarly and confessional readings and highlights the fact that many modern academic readings of the authorship of Ecclesiastes travel in well-worn interpretive paths that long predate the rise of critical scholarship. Thus this book offers a reminder that, while critical biblical scholarship is an essential part of the interpretive task, academic readings are themselves indebted to the Bible’s reception history and a part of it.

There are no pre-packaged “magic bullet” solutions to life’s anticipated and unforeseen hurdles. Catastrophe to Hope: Five Voices of the Bible underscores the inevitable: everyone endures episodes of suffering and trauma. When this happens a person can choose to take "baby" steps to restore some semblance of psychological and spiritual balance. Catastrophe to Hope unveils a blueprint for gradual recovery by looking to five books from the Hebrew Bible for inspiration. Read in light of each other, the books of Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Song of Songs, and Ruth forge a path that slowly moves from the shadows into sunlight. If Lamentations and Ecclesiastes have much to say about languishing in pits of agony and anguish, Esther shows how the will to survive can turn the tables on evil that relies on lies. To restore a measure of equilibrium opens the door to engaging the Song of Songs with its soaring proclamation that love is as fierce as death. The journey toward recovery culminates with Ruth’s transitioning from trauma to triumph and her stalwart conviction that resilience and hope are vital components of humanity’s spiritual DNA. Catastrophe to Hope adds several inspirational stories to punctuate its message of mending and healing. They include works by Shakespeare, Elizabeth Barret Browning, Elie Wiesel, Cynthia Ozick, and the life of Joseph P. Kennedy.

Wake up your Jewish spiritual life and restore your soul. “Has your heart ever been broken—by loss, divorce, disappointment, awe, fear, hope? Have you multitasked, worked past the level of your endurance, accumulated possessions, jumped the hurdles, and gotten the grades only to wonder, “Is that all there is?” Do you wish for a life that is physically grounded, emotionally satisfying, intellectually expansive, and profoundly connected? These are the qualities Judaism can provide when you understand how to practice it.” —from the Introduction This inspiring guidebook is your wake-up call for understanding the powerful intellectual and emotional tools that are essential for a lively, relevant, and fulfilling Jewish spiritual practice. Designed to become a lifelong resource for holy days and Shabbat, it presents Judaism as an evolving tradition in which you are the entrusted heir. The exercises and practices draw from the foundations of Judaism and empower you to create meaningful, satisfying, contemporary Jewish experiences for how you live today.