Be-Ron Yahad

The present volume honors Rabbi Professor Nehemia Polen, a rare scholar whose religious teachings, spiritual writings, and academic scholarship come together into a sustained project of interpretive imagination and engagement. With intellectual integrity and remarkable religious insight, Polen’s work expands the reach of Torah into an academic quest for ever-broadening depth and connectivity. The essays in this collection, written by students, colleagues, and friends, are a testament to his enduring impact on the scholarly community. The contributions explore a range of historical periods and themes, centering upon the fields dear to Polen’s heart, but they are united by a common thread: each essay is grounded in deeply engaged textual scholarship casting a glance upon the sources that is at once critical and beneficent. As a whole, they seek to give readers a richer sense of the fabric of Jewish interpretation and theology, including the history of Jewish mysticism, the promise and perils of exegesis, and the contemporary relevance of premodern and early modern texts.