Gender and dialogue in the rabbinic prism ; translated translated from Hebrew by Edward Levin / Admiel Kosman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kosman, Admiel, 1957-

Contributor:

Levin, Edward.

Series:

Studia Judaica (Walter de Gruyter & Co.) ; Bd. 50.

Studia Judaica Forschungen zur Wissenschaft des Judentums ; Bd. 50

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Rabbinical literature--History and criticism.

Rabbinical literature.

Women in rabbinical literature.

Man-woman relationships.

Masculinity--Religious aspects--Judaism.

Masculinity.

Psychoanalysis and religion.

Judaism and psychoanalysis.

Jewish philosophy.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (276 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Boston : De Gruyter, 2012.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The author applies the fields of gender studies, psychoanalysis, and literature to Talmudic texts. In opposition to the perception of Judaism as a legal system, he argues that the Talmud demands inner spiritual effort, to which the trait of humility and the refinement of the ego are central. This leads to the question of the attitude to the Other, in general, and especially to women. The author shows that the Talmud places the woman (who represents humility and good-heartedness in the Talmudic narratives) above the character of the male depicted in these narratives as a scholar with an inflated sense of self-importance. In the last chapter (that in terms of its scope and content could be a freestanding monograph) the author employs the insights that emerged from the preceding chapters to present a new reading of the Creation narrative in the Bible and the Rabbinic commentaries. The divine act of creation is presented as a primal sexual act, a sort of dialogic model of the consummate sanctity that takes its place in man's spiritual life when the option of opening one's heart to the other in a male-female dialogue is realized.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

In Place of an Introduction: On Gender Issues and Their Possible Significance for Understanding the Spiritual World of the Rabbis

Chapter One. The Woman's Spiritual Place in the Talmudic Story: A Reading of the Narrative of Mar Ukba and His Wife

Chapter Two. Rabbi Akiva and the Daughter of Ben Kalba Savua: On the Conception of Love in the Spiritual World of the Talmudic Story

Chapter 3. "Internal Homeland" and "External Homeland": A Literary and Psychoanalytical Study of the Narrative of R. Assi and His Aged Mother

Chapter 4. The Female Breast and the Mouth Opened in Prayer

Chapter Five. A Reading of the Creation Narrative: Femininity and Masculinity in the Prism of the Bible and the Midrash

Afterword

Bibliography

Index

Index of Sources

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781283856478

1283856476

9783110218640

311021864X

OCLC:

821198769