Intellectual Jewish History
This class looks at essential Jewish thinkers and texts from the Second Temple until the Modern period, with an emphasis on their religious and pedagogical goals, impact on subsequent Jewish thought, and the influence of surrounding cultures on their formation. Units include Tanakh and its canonization, Tanaim and the Oral Law, Amoraim of Bavel and Eretz Yisrael, North African philosophers and poets, Medieval Ashkenaz and the Tosafists, and Zoharic and Lurianic Kabbalah. Classes consist of guided independent study (seder) of primary texts followed by discussions of the material and larger ideas and concepts.
Intellectual Jewish History: Intellectual Jewish History Event
Intellectual Jewish History: Intellectual Jewish History Class 2: Canon and Apocrypha
Intellectual Jewish History: Intellectual Jewish History – The Mishnah Part I
The Mishnah was put into its final form (ish) by Rabbi Yehudah haNAsi, a scion of a great rabbinic dynasty that began with Hillel and went through various great rabbinic leaders (all named Hillel, Yehudah, Shimon, or Gamliel).
Below are stories involving his grandfather, Rabban Gamliel of Yavneh (or Rabbi Gamilel II), and his father Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel. We will discuss how these stories form the legal and political background for the establishment of the Mishnah.
Intellectual Jewish History: Intellectual Jewish History Event -Mishnah as Literature
Is the Mishnah a patchwork book of law only to be understood through the lens of the Talmud, or a freestanding literary work?
Though through most of Jewish history it was read as the former, modern interpretations such Avraham Walfish and Yaakov Nagen have been arguing for the latter way of seeing the Mishnah.
Intellectual Jewish History: Intellectual Jewish History Event
While the Talmud Yerushalmi was created in a Christian cultural context, the religion in Bavel was Zoroastrianism. In the past 20+ years a new school of scholarship has developed (beginning with Yaakov Elman z”l) that studies the Bavli specifically in its Persian context.
Rav Duker is Mashigiah Ruhani and Director of Programming at Amudim. He enjoys teaching Torah, answering obscure halakhic questions on Whatsapp, and long walks in the rain. The AMUDIM ALUMNI SHIUR is an exclusive interactive class, where you can learn with Amudim staff while sitting in a virtual classroom with fellow alumni.