Max Kadushin – författare

Describes the actual mode of thought of the Rabbis of the Midrash and the Talmud, and indicates how they derived their own moral teachings from the Bible.This book represents a new approach to the Midrash, based on the analysis of rabbinic thought developed by Dr. Kadushin in his books Organic Thinking, The Rabbinic Mind, and others. It describes the actual mode of thought of the Rabbis of the Midrash and the Talmud, and indicates how they derived their own moral teachings from the Bible. It enables us to see why syllogistic, step-by-step logic is no guide to an understanding of Jewish ethics-or of any ethics, for that matter.The text of the Mekilta-the Midrash used here-is carefully analyzed and explained, and each rabbinic "value concept" involved is pointed out. Halakah (law), too, is shown to be closely related to the teachings, parables and analogies of the Midrash, since the law is also often a concretization of these same value concepts.This book provides an indispensable tool for the teachings of Midrash and should allow for much wider use of that literature in adult education courses. The intelligent layman can now see for himself "how it works." Those with more specialized interests will find references to classical and modern commentaries and explanations of many doubtful or difficult passages.

Thorough analysis of rabbinic thought.The proof that organic thinking is a genuine phenomenon, not an artifact, rests with the actual analysis of rabbinic literacy material, to which so many pages of this book are devoted. Rabbinic thought is concerned with numerous rabbinic concepts, terms peculiar to itself. These concepts are certainly not united in logical fashion and their relationship with each other defies diagrammatic representation. Instead, every concept is related to every other concept because every concept is a constituent part of the complex as a whole. Conversely, the complex of concepts as a whole enters into the constitution of every concept; and thus every concept is in constant, dynamic relationship with every other concept. Rabbinic thought, hence, is organismic, for only in an organism are the whole and its parts mutually constitutive. Indeed, the rabbinic organic complex affords an instance wherein the organismic process can be viewed with exceptional clarity. Since we are dealing with definite concepts and terms, it is merely a question of tracing these terms through all their interrelations. A clearly discernible pattern will then emerge, firm enough to supply the necessary cohesion, yet remarkably elastic, even fluid. The elastic, organismic qualities of the concepts enable them to canalize experience, to give it order and harmony without loss to its richness and variety, in fact, to evoke rich variety by virtue of the subtle, flexible order. But we must not imagine that the complicated structure renders organic thinking a difficult feat. Breathing is effortless though it involves a complicated structure; so with organic thinking.

Describes how Halakah, or Jewish Law, enables the individual to achieve religious experience.This book claims that cultural phenomena exist in rabbinic Judaism worship and ethics. Each individual has his own personal experiences in both spheres, but what make the experiences possible are the values of society. Theories depicting the individual as the creative rebel who overcomes the bonds of routine and inertia with which the tribe would enslave him certainly do not apply to rabbinic Judaism, and in essence probably to no religion. Such theories must use terms like worship, repentance, or love-terms and ideas provided by the tribe and by society. Worship and ethics are closely associated in rabbinic Judaism. The creative agency which developed both spheres is Halakah, the rabbinic law, and their close association is likewise largely due to Halakah. The aim of this book is to describe how Halakah, working with the value concepts of the folk as a whole, enables the individual to achieve religious experience.

Explores the wider aspects of the rabbinic mind.Rabbinic literature is viewed here as an expression of the concepts of the Rabbis, creative concepts that canalized their thinking. This book is concerned chiefly with the wider aspects of the rabbinic mind. It discusses such problems as the transmission of social values, the integration of the self, and the relation of the self to society. It treats such topics as the category of significance, indeterminacy of belief, normal mysticism, the commonplace and the holy, rabbinic dogma, and the relation of rabbinic thought to philosophy. The sources on which these discussions are based are drawn from both the Haggadah and the Halakah.

Attempts to discover a coherent unity in rabbinic theology.In this study of Seder Eliahu, the author endeavors to describe the various rabbinic ideas the book contains, and, in addition, the principle of coherence uniting these ideas. The attempt to discover a coherent unity in rabbinic theology is a hazardous undertaking. However, the author believes that we ought not to reconcile ourselves to accepting rabbinic theology as a congeries of ideas unrelated to each other, an inarticulate mass of separate concepts. Despite the warnings of Schechter and Moore, the author attempted for a time to cast the rabbinic concepts in the Seder into some sort of logical order. A careful analysis yielded the conviction that this Midrash does possess coherence, but of an entirely different kind from that produced by logical, systematic thought. The author calls this type of thinking "organic thinking" or "harmonious thinking." In the light of the organic coherence of rabbinic theology, the individual concepts reveal a structure otherwise not to be discerned.