July | 2025 | The Book of Doctrines and Opinions:
1 post published by Alan Brill during July 2025| The Book of Doctrines and Opinions:
1 post published by Alan Brill during July 2025| The Book of Doctrines and Opinions:
Before I continue my series on Rabbi Eliezer Melamed and post his views of Christianity and other religions, I will take a digression and present on the classic book by Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver, Wh…| The Book of Doctrines and Opinions:
Continuing my discussion about Rabbi Melamed on Other Religions. I started with his statements on Hinduism and will now look at his broader premises- see “The Divine Spark among Other Religions” a…| The Book of Doctrines and Opinions:
3 posts published by Alan Brill during June 2025| The Book of Doctrines and Opinions:
For more than a century, many of the writings of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook remained in manuscript, hidden away from the public eye. The works of Rabbi Kook that were published in the interim had many passages removed from them. … Continue reading →| The Book of Doctrines and Opinions:
The Israeli rabbinic world has finally begun to take account of the religions of the world, especially Hinduism and Buddhism, and has recently declared that they have the same status as Christianity. Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, of Yeshivat Har … Continue reading →| The Book of Doctrines and Opinions:
How can you have Religious Zionists who write poetry and music as a religious quest but who also want to override government decisions? How can you have some who want meditation, spirituality, and …| The Book of Doctrines and Opinions:
My friend, colleague, and fellow interfaith traveler Rabbi Dr. Yakov Nagen recently had his book “God Shall be One” – Reenvisioning Judaism’s Approach to Other Religions (Maggid Press, 2024) …| The Book of Doctrines and Opinions:
What are the Lurianic Kabbalistic intentions? How do they work and how does one read the baroque pictorial notations of a Lurianic siddur? This interview may be one of the first explanations in Eng…| The Book of Doctrines and Opinions:
What is the role of the ethical principles in the Talmud in creating modern Jewish thought? Gerald (Yaakov) Blidstein, a former Professor at Ben Gurion University thought that these principles sat uneasily into the Talmud with its former system of … Continue reading →| The Book of Doctrines and Opinions:
There is a mild debate in Israel over a little introduction to medieval thought published by Prof Shalom Sadik who advocates a Maimonidean rational naturalism and Rabbi Shmuel Ariel who presents a religious critique Prof Sadik in his book A … Continue reading →| The Book of Doctrines and Opinions:
Diwali was this past Friday. In 2014, 10 years ago, I posted about my spending Diwali on the Ganges River. These observations became the basis for my book Rabbi on The Ganges: A Hindu-Jewish Encounter (2019), But for those who … Continue reading →| The Book of Doctrines and Opinions:
For those who bought the new volume of Rabbi Shagar translations which I edited with Levi Morrow (Maggid – Koren 2024). There was one small 1500 word section that was removed from the book by…| The Book of Doctrines and Opinions:
Fethullah Gulen, the leader of the Hizmat movement, a modernist Sufi-inspired Islamic movement from Turkey died last week. In 2018, I was privileged to spend 2 days in his secluded compound, where he allowed me to sit in on his … Continue reading →| The Book of Doctrines and Opinions:
Folks, I will be back after the holiday of Simchat Torah, starting on Thursday, Oct 31st. I plan on starting to post weekly. Once again, I will keep you informed about what I am reading and writing…| The Book of Doctrines and Opinions:
