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Rabbinic Thought between Philosophy and Literature
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Rabbinic Thought between Philosophy and Literature

A special issue of Religions (ISSN 2077-1444).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 May 2025) | Viewed by 3279

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Sergey Dolgopolski

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Departments of Jewish Thought and Comparative Liteature, University at Buffalo, SUNY, Buffalo, NY 14260, USA
Interests: interactions between Talmud and philosophy; literary theory; theory of rhetoric; interactions between Talmud, rhetoric and literature

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue conceives Jewish Thought in broad terms to include rabbinic corpora from late antiquity to modernity in various manifestations and genres, in and beyond rabbinic institutions, in relationships to the traditions of philosophy and literature.

In a short form, the guiding question of this issue is: Where does rabbinic texts and thought belong in the unfolding history of relationships between philosophy and literature, logos and mimesis, concept and image, word and world, forgetting and remembering? These terms of the differences and connections between philosophy and literature multiply, proliferate and continuously unfold, just as the history of their relationship does.

In a regnant understanding, philosophy traditionally works in and with concepts, while literature in and with images. However, words, a seeming middle ground between concepts and images can both strive for clarity like the concepts and also remain opaque and laden with hidden regions of meaning like images. Words both enable and resist conceptual clarity, eradicate and evoke opaqueness. Traditionally, philosophy and literature went differently about words. Literature let words be, allowed for their intrinsically enigmatic/opaque, rather than transparent and obvious nature. Philosophy worked through the opaque matter of words towards the seemingly translucent meaning and spirit. So has it been: a fight for words, a struggle of “either/or” between the tradition of philosophy and that of literature. Yet a space in-between, a third ground began to emerge.

In the last and this century, both philosophy and literature renegotiated these relationships between concept, image, and word anew. That renegotiation enabled a new question: where does rabbinic thought belong in the newly charted space between traditional philosophical thinking in concepts, literary thinking in images and the currently reshaping relationships between them when it comes to words?

The aim of this issue is to address the question of where rabbinic thought belongs in this space between literature and philosophy. A variety of approaches and chronological periods are welcome. Of special interest would be analyses addressing rabbinic states and acts of mind. That means mental states and mental acts are not only described but also performed in rabbinic corpora of different periods. If noetics names the study of mental states and acts, then a particular interest of this special issue has to do with rabbinic noetics most broadly construed.

A longer term practical goal is to prepare the ground and probe approaches leading to a historical dictionary of rabbinic states and acts of mind, i.e., the dictionary of rabbinic noetics from late antiquity to modernity. Essays exploring rabbinic texts of different periods and addressing fragments, figures and practices of thought in the rabbinic corpora are thereby invited to rethink the standing of the rabbinic corpora on the horizon shaped by the currently predominant history of noetics, in the aspect of the productive tension between philosophy and literature The papers could chart a broader historical perspective and/or offer a text-based study of a term, figure or practice of thought in rabbinic and/or literary and/or philosophical corpus of a given period that relates to how rabbis understand, discuss, or perform mental states and mental acts. Contributors in noetics might consider and reconsider the additional historical contextualization in the Appendix.

Prof. Dr. Sergey Dolgopolski
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • rabbinics
  • Talmud
  • midrash
  • comparative literature
  • continental philosophy
  • history of mind and mental states
  • word-image-concept
  • noetics
  • Jewish literature
  • Jewish thought
  • Late Antiquity and Middle Ages
  • history and theory of thought

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Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

17 pages, 374 KB  
Article
The Forgotten Torah and the Formation of the Talmudic Subject
by Azzan Yadin-Israel
Religions 2025, 16(9), 1118; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16091118 - 28 Aug 2025
Viewed by 180
Abstract
The account of the fetus learning the Torah in its mother’s womb, forgetting it and reacquiring it (b. Niddah 30b) has often been compared to Plato’s doctrine of recollection or anamnesis. This essay argues that such a comparison is misguided, as the Talmudic [...] Read more.
The account of the fetus learning the Torah in its mother’s womb, forgetting it and reacquiring it (b. Niddah 30b) has often been compared to Plato’s doctrine of recollection or anamnesis. This essay argues that such a comparison is misguided, as the Talmudic story does not include the recollection of the forgotten Torah, nor does it address the philosophical difficulties that inform Plato’s doctrine, which arise from a commitment to a two-world ontology. Indeed, the story may be seen as an example of the general absence of a transcendent realm in the Talmud. In Plato’s stead, I argue that Lacan’s formation of the subject offers a more fruitful comparison, and that the Torah-learning fetus may be interpreted as an attempt to overcome the Lacanian moments of alienation that result in humanity’s tragic fate. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Rabbinic Thought between Philosophy and Literature)
23 pages, 375 KB  
Article
Hermeneutic Strategy of Rabbinic Literature
by Ilya Dvorkin
Religions 2025, 16(9), 1107; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16091107 - 26 Aug 2025
Viewed by 250
Abstract
This work is devoted to the development of dialogical hermeneutics. As a special field of research, hermeneutics was formed as a result of the efforts of Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger, and Gadamer. The first source of hermeneutics is Aristotle’s treatise “On Interpretation”, which formulates [...] Read more.
This work is devoted to the development of dialogical hermeneutics. As a special field of research, hermeneutics was formed as a result of the efforts of Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger, and Gadamer. The first source of hermeneutics is Aristotle’s treatise “On Interpretation”, which formulates the special type of speech—‘logos apophantikos’—that aligns speech with the identification of thinking and being. However, this approach is challenged by the hermeneutics of the sophists, for whom speech is a command, a prayer, a question, an answer, or a narrative. The second source of hermeneutics is the predominantly Protestant tradition of interpreting biblical texts. This paper examines the hermeneutic strategies of Jewish classical texts, which differ significantly from the Christian tradition of understanding text. Jewish classical texts, from Tanakh and Talmud to Jewish mysticism and philosophy, are more focused not on propositions, but on commands, prayers, questions, answers, dialogue, and narrative. Thus, the hermeneutic strategy of Jewish texts converges with investigations of the Greek sophists. Particular emphasis is placed on the medieval Jewish philosophy. The paper examines three works: “Emunot ve-deot” by Saadia Gaon, “Kuzari” by Halevi, and “Guide of the Perplexed” by Maimonides. In this regard, we discuss the system of dual argumentation, the relation between halakha and aggadah, and the strategy of concealment and revelation in language—approaches that in many ways present an alternative to the hermeneutics of understanding. The Study of rabbinic tradition leads us to the development of dialogical hermeneutics that forms the methodological foundation of humanistic culture. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Rabbinic Thought between Philosophy and Literature)
20 pages, 303 KB  
Article
“Forever Strange in This World.” Susan Taubes’ Diasporic Thinking
by Libera Pisano
Religions 2025, 16(8), 1074; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16081074 - 19 Aug 2025
Viewed by 610
Abstract
This essay explores the philosophical core of Susan Taubes’ thought through her diasporic ontology—a philosophy of becoming that does not derive from statics but precedes and reconfigures them. Instead of treating exile as loss or as a deviation from origin, Taubes roots [...] Read more.
This essay explores the philosophical core of Susan Taubes’ thought through her diasporic ontology—a philosophy of becoming that does not derive from statics but precedes and reconfigures them. Instead of treating exile as loss or as a deviation from origin, Taubes roots her thinking in displacement, challenging fixed identities, theological certainties, and static notions of belonging. Although overshadowed by her husband Jacob and, due to the fragmentation of her work and her tragic death, largely neglected—with the important exception of the work of Elliot R. Wolfson, who in recent years has contributed enormously to her discovery in the field of Jewish philosophy—Taubes’ writings offer a radical rethinking of Jewish thought as a diasporic identity grounded in hermeneutic openness. Through a close reading of her letters and novel Divorcing, this paper reveals how her diasporic thinking—also evident in her critical engagement with Heidegger—forms the basis for rejecting theological dogma, Zionist ideologies, and the reification of meaning, while opening space for a lived understanding of Judaism. Moreover, I show how, by accepting worldliness as brokenness, her post-apocalyptic hopelessness does not collapse into nihilism but instead clears the ground for radical openness, where meaning emerges not from redemption but from the refusal to close the interpretive horizon. More than a thinker to be studied, Taubes enables a change of perspective: through her lens, concepts like Heimat or identity lose their static authority and are re-seen from the standpoint of exile. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Rabbinic Thought between Philosophy and Literature)
14 pages, 308 KB  
Article
Repentance and the Reversal of Time: Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik’s Temporal Philosophy
by Roni Bar Lev, Hananel Rosenberg and Chen Sabag-Ben Porat
Religions 2025, 16(6), 771; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16060771 - 13 Jun 2025
Viewed by 462
Abstract
This article discusses the dominant understanding of the concept of repentance in the thought of the Jewish philosopher Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, and the original interpretation he offers of this religious idea. It explores how his interpretation of the way repentance operates upon [...] Read more.
This article discusses the dominant understanding of the concept of repentance in the thought of the Jewish philosopher Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, and the original interpretation he offers of this religious idea. It explores how his interpretation of the way repentance operates upon the human soul is based on Max Scheler’s thought regarding remorse, while adding another layer of meaning grounded in Henri Bergson’s philosophical conception of time as “durée”. Against this background, the article argues that Soloveitchik’s identification with the notion of time as “durée” stems both from a philosophical perspective that runs through significant parts of his thought, and from a personal biographical stance and his understanding of the religious experience of the talmid chacham (Torah scholar)—one who internalizes Torah study and dialectical reasoning in essential life concerns. This stance structures both the mental experience that enables repentance, contingency, and reversibility in time, and the homiletical–intellectual performance that affirms and constructs a Hegelian dialectic between past and present, ultimately forming a synthesis that is repentance. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Rabbinic Thought between Philosophy and Literature)
34 pages, 5849 KB  
Article
The Origins and Worldwide Significance of Judaic Hermeneutics
by Andrew Schumann
Religions 2025, 16(6), 717; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16060717 - 3 Jun 2025
Viewed by 802
Abstract
This paper explores the origins and global significance of Judaic hermeneutics as a foundational logical culture, arguing that it constitutes one of the earliest and most sophisticated systems of reasoning in human history. Far beyond a method of religious interpretation, Rabbinic hermeneutics represents [...] Read more.
This paper explores the origins and global significance of Judaic hermeneutics as a foundational logical culture, arguing that it constitutes one of the earliest and most sophisticated systems of reasoning in human history. Far beyond a method of religious interpretation, Rabbinic hermeneutics represents a logic in practice: a structured, culturally embedded framework of inference rules (middôt), such as qal wāḥōmer (a fortiori reasoning), that guided legal deliberation and textual exegesis. By comparing Judaic hermeneutic methods with Greco-Roman rhetoric, Indian logic, and Chinese philosophy, this study reveals that similar logemes—elementary reasoning units—appear only in these four ancient traditions. All emerged within a narrow geographic corridor (32–38° N latitude) historically linked by trade routes, particularly the Silk Road. Drawing on legal documents and logic history, this paper argues that logical cultures did not arise from isolated individuals, but from collective intellectual traditions among elites engaged in commerce, law, and education. Judaic hermeneutics, with its roots in Babylonian legal traditions and its codification in the Talmud, offers a clear example of logic as a communal, evolving practice. This study thus reframes the history of logic as a pluralistic, global phenomenon shaped by cultural, economic, and institutional contexts. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Rabbinic Thought between Philosophy and Literature)
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