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Obadiah Sforno
Ovadia ben Jacob Sforno (Obadja Sforno, Hebrew: עובדיה ספורנו) was an Italian rabbi, Jewish commentaries on the Bible, Biblical commentator, philosopher and physician. A member of the Sforno (family), Sforno family, he was born in Cesena about 1475 and died in Bologna in 1550. Biography After acquiring in his native town a thorough knowledge of Hebrew language, Hebrew, rabbinic literature, mathematics, and philosophy, he went to Rome to study medicine. There his learning won for him a prominent place among scholars; and when Johann Reuchlin, Reuchlin was at Rome (1498-1500) and desired to perfect his knowledge of Secular Jewish culture#Literature, Hebrew literature, Cardinal Domenico Grimani advised him to apply to Obadiah. Equally high was Obadiah's reputation as a casuist. Meir ben Isaac Katzenellenbogen, Meïr Katzenellenbogen consulted him on legal questions, and Joseph Colon invoked his authority.Responsa, p. 96, No. 192, Sudilkov, 1834 At the request of ...
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Jewish Philosophy
Jewish philosophy () includes all philosophy carried out by Jews, or in relation to the religion of Judaism. Until modern ''Haskalah'' (Jewish Enlightenment) and Jewish emancipation, Jewish philosophy was preoccupied with attempts to reconcile coherent new ideas into the tradition of Rabbinic Judaism, thus organizing emergent ideas that are not necessarily Jewish into a uniquely Jewish scholastic framework and world-view. With their acceptance into modern society, Jews with secular educations embraced or developed entirely new philosophies to meet the demands of the world in which they now found themselves. Medieval re-discovery of ancient Greek philosophy among the Geonim of 10th century Babylonian academies brought rationalist philosophy into Biblical-Talmudic Judaism. The philosophy was generally in competition with Kabbalah. Both schools would become part of classic rabbinic literature, though the decline of scholastic rationalism coincided with historical events which drew ...
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Mathematics
Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics with the major subdisciplines of number theory, algebra, geometry, and analysis, respectively. There is no general consensus among mathematicians about a common definition for their academic discipline. Most mathematical activity involves the discovery of properties of abstract objects and the use of pure reason to prove them. These objects consist of either abstractions from nature orin modern mathematicsentities that are stipulated to have certain properties, called axioms. A ''proof'' consists of a succession of applications of deductive rules to already established results. These results include previously proved theorems, axioms, andin case of abstraction from naturesome basic properties that are considered true starting points of ...
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Rashi
Shlomo Yitzchaki ( he, רבי שלמה יצחקי; la, Salomon Isaacides; french: Salomon de Troyes, 22 February 1040 – 13 July 1105), today generally known by the acronym Rashi (see below), was a medieval French rabbi and author of a comprehensive commentary on the Talmud and commentary on the Hebrew Bible (the ''Tanakh''). Acclaimed for his ability to present the basic meaning of the text in a concise and lucid fashion, Rashi appeals to learned scholars and beginning students, and his works remain a centerpiece of contemporary Jewish studies. His commentary on the Talmud, which covers nearly all of the Babylonian Talmud (a total of 30 out of 39 tractates, due to his death), has been included in every edition of the Talmud since its first printing by Daniel Bomberg in the 1520s. His commentaries on the Tanakh—especially his commentary on the Chumash (the "Five Books of Moses")—serves as the basis of more than 300 "supercommentaries" which analyze Rashi's choice of langu ...
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Kabbalah
Kabbalah ( he, קַבָּלָה ''Qabbālā'', literally "reception, tradition") is an esoteric method, discipline and Jewish theology, school of thought in Jewish mysticism. A traditional Kabbalist is called a Mekubbal ( ''Məqūbbāl'' "receiver"). The definition of Kabbalah varies according to the tradition and aims of those following it, from its origin in medieval Judaism to its later adaptations in Western esotericism (Christian Kabbalah and Hermetic Qabalah). Jewish Kabbalah is a set of esoteric teachings meant to explain the relationship between the unchanging, eternal God in Judaism, God—the mysterious ''Ein Sof'' (, ''"The Infinite"'')—and the mortal, finite universe (God's Genesis creation narrative, creation). It forms the foundation of Mysticism, mystical religious interpretations within Judaism. List of Jewish Kabbalists, Jewish Kabbalists originally developed their own transmission of Primary texts of Kabbalah, sacred texts within the realm of Jewish traditio ...
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Biblical Exegesis
Biblical criticism is the use of critical analysis to understand and explain the Bible. During the eighteenth century, when it began as ''historical-biblical criticism,'' it was based on two distinguishing characteristics: (1) the concern to avoid dogma and bias by applying a neutral, non-sectarian, reason-based judgment to the study of the Bible, and (2) the belief that the reconstruction of the historical events behind the texts, as well as the history of how the texts themselves developed, would lead to a correct understanding of the Bible. This sets it apart from earlier, pre-critical methods; from the anti-critical methods of those who oppose criticism-based study; from later post-critical orientation, and from the many different types of criticism which biblical criticism transformed into in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Most scholars believe the German Enlightenment () led to the creation of biblical criticism, although some assert that its roots ...
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Yeshiva
A yeshiva (; he, ישיבה, , sitting; pl. , or ) is a traditional Jewish educational institution focused on the study of Rabbinic literature, primarily the Talmud and halacha (Jewish law), while Torah and Jewish philosophy are studied in parallel. The studying is usually done through daily ''shiurim'' (lectures or classes) as well as in study pairs called '' chavrusas'' (Aramaic for 'friendship' or 'companionship'). ''Chavrusa''-style learning is one of the unique features of the yeshiva. In the United States and Israel, different levels of yeshiva education have different names. In the United States, elementary-school students enroll in a ''cheder'', post- bar mitzvah-age students learn in a ''metivta'', and undergraduate-level students learn in a ''beit midrash'' or ''yeshiva gedola'' ( he, ישיבה גדולה, , large yeshiva' or 'great yeshiva). In Israel, elementary-school students enroll in a ''Talmud Torah'' or ''cheder'', post-bar mitzvah-age students l ...
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Joseph Colon
Joseph Colon ben Solomon Trabotto, also known as Maharik, (c. 1420 in Chambéry – Pavia in 1480) was a 15th-century rabbi who is considered Italy's foremost Judaic scholar and Talmudist of his era. Early years Colon (whose name is related to the French word ', or 'dove') was a scion of the Jewish pedigree, Trabotto family, which traced its lineage to Rashi and was known for its large number of scholars. After the final expulsion of Jews from the Ancien Regime in France, French Kingdom in 1394, his family emigrated first to the Franche-Comté and subsequently settled in the city of Chambéry, the capital of the Duchy of Savoy, which was home to a significant population of rabbinic scholars. Among these were Yohanan Treves, the last chief rabbi of France and Yeshaya Astruc ben Abba Mari. The exact year and place of Colon's birth cannot be determined, but is estimated to be at the beginning of the 1420s in Chambéry, a city whose Jewish population was overwhelmingly made up of ...
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Meir Ben Isaac Katzenellenbogen
Meir ben Isaac Katzenellenbogen (c. 1482 – 12 January 1565) (also, Meir of Padua, or Maharam Padua, he, מאיר בן יצחק קצנלנבויגן) was a German rabbi born in Katzenelnbogen. Biography Meïr ben Isaac, who was often called after his native town, was the founder of the Katzenellenbogen family. After studying at Prague under the well-known casuist Jacob Pollak, he went to Padua and entered the ''yeshiva'' of Judah Minz, whose granddaughter, Hannah, he afterwards married. He succeeded his father-in-law, Abraham Minz, in the chief rabbinate of Padua, which office he held until his death on 12 January 1565 (epitaph below). He was the father of Samuel Judah Katzenellenbogen. Meïr was also nominal rabbi of Venice, where he went several times a year, but he had his fixed residence at Padua. Meïr was considered by his contemporaries a great authority on Talmudic and rabbinical matters, and many rabbis consulted him, among them: Moses Alashkar, Obadiah Sforno, and hi ...
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Casuist
In ethics, casuistry ( ) is a process of reasoning that seeks to resolve moral problems by extracting or extending theoretical rules from a particular case, and reapplying those rules to new instances. This method occurs in applied ethics and jurisprudence. The term is also commonly used as a pejorative to criticize the use of clever but unsound reasoning, especially in relation to moral questions (as in sophistry). It is the " udy of cases of conscience and a method of solving conflicts of obligations by applying general principles of ethics, religion, and moral theology to particular and concrete cases of human conduct. This frequently demands an extensive knowledge of natural law and equity, civil law, ecclesiastical precepts, and an exceptional skill in interpreting these various norms of conduct." It remains a common tool for applied ethics. Etymology According to the Online Etymological Dictionary, the term and its agent noun "casuist", appearing from about 1600, derive f ...
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Domenico Grimani
Domenico Grimani (19 February 1461 – 27 August 1523) was an Italian nobleman, theologian and cardinal. Like most noble churchman of his era Grimani was an ecclesiastical pluralist, holding numerous posts and benefices. Desiderius Erasmus dedicated to Grimani his ''Musica''. Biography Born in Venice, he was the eldest of five sons of Antonio Grimani, the oldest elected Doge of Venice, and his wife Catarina Loredan. Antonio was elected doge in 1521, when Domenico was already a cardinal. He exhibited an early predilection for humanist studies, which was encouraged by teachers in his native Venice and then in the ambit of the Medicean academy in Florence, where he moved in the circle of Lorenzo de' Medici among scholars like Pico della Mirandola and Poliziano. He obtained a doctorate in canon law at the University of Padua on 23 October 1487 and was elected a Senator of Venice that same year. He became a cardinal in 1493, an appointment paid by his father with a sum of aro ...
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Secular Jewish Culture
Jewish culture is the culture of the Jewish people, from its formation in ancient times until the current age. Judaism itself is not a faith-based religion, but an orthoprax and ethnoreligion, pertaining to deed, practice, and identity. Jewish culture covers many aspects, including religion and worldviews, literature, media, and cinema, art and architecture, cuisine and traditional dress, attitudes to gender, marriage, and family, social customs and lifestyles, music and dance. Some elements of Jewish culture come from within Judaism, others from the interaction of Jews with host populations, and others still from the inner social and cultural dynamics of the community. Before the 18th century, religion dominated virtually all aspects of Jewish life, and infused culture. Since the advent of secularization, wholly secular Jewish culture emerged likewise. History There has not been a political unity of Jewish society since the united monarchy. Since then Israelite populations ...
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Johann Reuchlin
Johann Reuchlin (; sometimes called Johannes; 29 January 1455 – 30 June 1522) was a German Catholic humanist and a scholar of Greek and Hebrew, whose work also took him to modern-day Austria, Switzerland, and Italy and France. Most of Reuchlin's career centered on advancing German knowledge of Greek and Hebrew. Early life Johann Reuchlin was born at Pforzheim in the Black Forest in 1455, where his father was an official of the Dominican monastery. According to the fashion of the time, his name was graecized by his Italian friends into Capnion (Καπνίων), a nickname which Reuchlin used as a sort of transparent mask when he introduced himself as an interlocutor in the ''De Verbo Mirifico''. He remained fond of his home town; he constantly calls himself Phorcensis, and in the ''De Verbo'' he ascribes to Pforzheim his inclination towards literature. Here he began his Latin studies in the monastery school, and, though in 1470 he was for a short time at Freiburg, that univer ...
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