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Jewish philosophy



 
 
Jewish philosophy refers to the conjunction between serious study of philosophy and Jewish theology. In a broad sense, it refers to all philosophical activity carried out by Jews or in relation to the religion of Judaism. In the narrow sense, it is often used to refer to the views of the medieval Jewish scholastics, influenced by Aristotle
Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greeks philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, Poetics , theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology and zoology....
 to a greater or lesser extent.

rding to Jewish tradition, Abraham
Abraham

Abraham is a man featured in the Book of Genesis and an important figure in several monotheistic religions. Judaism, Christianity and Islam traditions regard him as the founding Patriarchs of the Israelites, Ishmaelites and Edomite peoples....
 was a trained astronomer who arrived at a belief in monotheism
Monotheism

In theology, monotheism is the belief that only one god exists. The concept of "monotheism" tends to be dominated by the concept of God in the Abrahamic religions, such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and the Neoplatonism concept of God as put forward by Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite....
 on purely philosophical grounds before receiving any prophetic revelation from God.






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Jewish philosophy refers to the conjunction between serious study of philosophy and Jewish theology. In a broad sense, it refers to all philosophical activity carried out by Jews or in relation to the religion of Judaism. In the narrow sense, it is often used to refer to the views of the medieval Jewish scholastics, influenced by Aristotle
Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greeks philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, Poetics , theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology and zoology....
 to a greater or lesser extent.

Ancient Jewish philosophy


Biblical philosophy

According to Jewish tradition, Abraham
Abraham

Abraham is a man featured in the Book of Genesis and an important figure in several monotheistic religions. Judaism, Christianity and Islam traditions regard him as the founding Patriarchs of the Israelites, Ishmaelites and Edomite peoples....
 was a trained astronomer who arrived at a belief in monotheism
Monotheism

In theology, monotheism is the belief that only one god exists. The concept of "monotheism" tends to be dominated by the concept of God in the Abrahamic religions, such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and the Neoplatonism concept of God as put forward by Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite....
 on purely philosophical grounds before receiving any prophetic revelation from God.

The Book of Psalms contains appeals to philosophical speculation, such as invitations to admire the wisdom of God through his works. Other books of philosophical interest are Proverbs
Book of Proverbs

The Book of Proverbs is a book of the Hebrew Bible , included in the collected works known as the "Writings" or Ketuvim....
 and Ecclesiastes
Ecclesiastes

Ecclesiastes is a book of the Hebrew Bible. The English name derives from the Greek language translation of the Hebrew #Title.The main speaker in the book, identified by the name or title Qohelet, introduces himself as "son of David, and king in Jerusalem." The work consists of personal or autobiographic matter, at times expressed in aph...
.

Philo of Alexandria

Philo of Alexandria (20 BCE - 40 CE) was a Hellenized
Hellenistic civilization

File:Diadochen1.pngHellenistic civilization represents the zenith of Ancient Greece influence in the Classical Antiquity from 323 BC to about 146 BC ....
 Jewish philosopher born in Alexandria, Egypt.

Philo included in his philosophy both the wisdom of Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece

The term Ancient Greece refers to the period of History of Greece lasting from the Greek Dark Ages ca. 1100 BC and the Dorian invasion, to 146 BC and the Roman Republic conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth ....
 and Judaism, which he sought to fuse and harmonize by means of the art of allegory that he had learned as much from Jewish exegesis as from the Stoics. His work was not widely accepted in Judaism, though it later became important to Christian theologians. Philo made his philosophy the means of defending and justifying Jewish religious truths. These truths he regarded as fixed and determinate; and philosophy was used as an aid to truth, and as a means of arriving at it. With this end in view Philo chose from the philosophical tenets of the Greeks, refusing those that did not harmonize with the Jewish religion, as, e.g., the Aristotelian doctrine of the eternity and indestructibility of the world.

Medieval Jewish philosophy

Early Jewish philosophy was heavily influenced by the philosophy of Plato
Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greece Greeks philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Platonic Academy in Ancient Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the western world....
, Aristotle
Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greeks philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, Poetics , theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology and zoology....
 and Islamic philosophy
Islamic philosophy

Islamic philosophy is a branch of Islamic studies, and is a longstanding attempt to create harmony between philosophy and the religious teachings of Islam ....
. Many early medieval Jewish philosophers (from the 8th century to end of the 9th century) were especially influenced by the Islamic Mutazilite philosophers; they denied all limiting attributes of God
God

God is a deity in theism and deism religions and other belief systems, representing either the sole deity in monotheism, or a principal deity in polytheism....
 and were champions of God's unity and justice.

A path towards synthesis is to apply analytical philosophy to one's own religion in order to strengthen the basis of that faith. Among Jewish thinkers who had this view one may note Saadia Gaon
Saadia Gaon

Rabbi Se`adiah ben Yosef Gaon , , was a prominent rabbi, Jew philosopher, and exegete of the Geonim period.He is known for his works on Hebrew language, Halakha, and Jewish philosophy....
, Gersonides
Gersonides

Levi ben Gershon , better known as Gersonides or the Ralbag , was a famous rabbi, philosopher, Talmudist, mathematician, astronomer/astrologer....
, and Abraham Ibn Daud
Abraham ibn Daud

Abraham ibn Daud was a History of the Jews in Spain astronomy, historian, and philosopher; born at Toledo, Spain about 1110; died, according to common report, a martyr about 1180....
. In this latter case a religious person would also be a philosopher, by asking questions such as:

  • What is the nature of God
    Names of God in Judaism

    In Judaism, the name of God is more than a distinguishing title. It represents the Jewish conception of the divine nature, and of the relation of God to the Jewish people....
    ? How do we know that God exists?
  • What is the nature of revelation
    Torah

    The term "Torah" , or Five Books of Moses or Pentateuch, refers to the entirety of Judaism's founding Halakha and ethical religious texts....
    ? How do we know that God reveals his will to mankind?
  • Which of our religious traditions must be interpreted literally?
  • Which of our religious traditions must be interpreted allegorically?
  • What must one actually believe to be considered a true adherent of our religion?
  • How can one reconcile the findings of philosophy with religion?
  • How can one reconcile the findings of science with religion?


According to some views, this may perhaps be the task of Jewish philosophy, but there is no way to end the debate conclusively. Over time Aristotle came to be thought of as the philosopher par excellence among Jewish thinkers. This tendency was no less marked in the Islamic, the Christian Byzantine and the Latin-Christian schools of thought.

Saadia Gaon

Saadia Gaon
Saadia Gaon

Rabbi Se`adiah ben Yosef Gaon , , was a prominent rabbi, Jew philosopher, and exegete of the Geonim period.He is known for his works on Hebrew language, Halakha, and Jewish philosophy....
 (892-942) is considered one of the greatest of the early Jewish philosophers. His Emunoth ve-Deoth
Emunoth ve-Deoth

Emunoth ve-Deoth written by Rabbi Saadia Gaon - originally Kitab al-Amanat wal-l'tikadat - was the first systematic presentation and philosophic foundation of the dogmas of Judaism....
 (Beliefs and opinions) was originally called Kitab al-Amanat wal-l'tikadat, the "Book of the Articles of Faith and Doctrines of Dogma". It was the first systematic presentation and philosophic foundation of the dogmas of Judaism, completed in 933.

In it he posits the rationality of the Jewish faith, with the restriction that reason must capitulate wherever it contradicts tradition. Dogma must take precedence of reason. Thus in the question concerning the eternity of the world, reason teaches since Aristotle, that the world is without beginning; that it was not created; in contrast, Jewish dogma asserts a creation out of nothing. Since the time of Aristotle it was held that logical reasoning could only prove the existence of a general form of immortality, and that no form of individual immortality could exist. Mainstream Jewish dogma, in contrast, maintained the immortality of the individual. Reason, therefore, must give way in Saadia's view.

In the scheme of his work Saadia closely followed the rules of the Mutazilites (the rationalistic dogmatists of Islam, to whom he owed in part also his thesis and arguments), adhering most frequently to the Mutazilite school of Al-Jubbai. He followed the Mutazilite Kalam, especially in this respect, that in the first two sections he discussed the metaphysical problems of the creation of the world (i.) and the unity of God (ii.), while in the following sections he treated of the Jewish theory of revelation
Revelation

Revelation is the act of revealing or disclosing, or making something obvious and clearly understood through active or passive communication with the divinity....
 (iii.) and of the doctrines of belief based upon divine justice, including obedience and disobedience (iv.), as well as merit and demerit (v.). Closely connected with these sections are those which treat of the soul
Soul

In many religions and parts of philosophy, the soul is the immaterial part of a person. It is usually thought to consist of one's thoughts and Personality psychology, and can be synonymous with the spirit, mind or self....
 and of death (vi.), and of the resurrection of the dead (vii.), which, according to the author, forms part of the theory of the Messianic redemption
Jewish Messiah

Messiah In Jewish eschatology, the term came to refer to a future Jewish monarch from the Davidic line, who will be "anointed" with holy anointing oil and rule the Jewish people during the Messianic Age....
 (viii.). The work concludes with a section on the rewards and punishments of the future life (ix.)

Avicebron, Solomon ibn Gabirol

The Jewish poet-philosopher Solomon Ibn Gabirol
Solomon ibn Gabirol

Solomon ibn Gabirol, also Solomon ben Judah was an al-Andalus Hebrew poet and Jewish philosopher. He was born in M?laga about 1021; died about 1058 in Valencia ....
 is also known as Avicebron. He died about 1070 CE. He was influenced by Plato
Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greece Greeks philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Platonic Academy in Ancient Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the western world....
. His classic work on philosophy was Mekor Chayim, "The Source of Life". His work on ethics is entitled Tikkun Middot HaNefesh, "Correcting the Qualities of the Soul".

In Gabirol's work Plato is the only philosopher referred to by name. Characteristic of the philosophy of both is the conception of a Middle Being between God and the world, between species and individual. Aristotle had already formulated the objection to the Platonic theory of ideas, that it lacked an intermediary or third being between God and the universe, between form and matter. This "third man," this link between incorporeal substances (ideas) and idealess bodies (matter), is, with Philo, the Logos; with Gabirol it is the divine will. Philo gives the problem an intellectual aspect; while Gabirol conceives it as a matter of volition, approximating thus to such modern thinkers as Schopenhauer and Wundt.

Gabirol was one of the first teachers of Neoplatonism in Europe. His role has been compared to that of Philo. Philo had served as the intermediary between Greek philosophy
Greek philosophy

Greek philosophy focused on the role of reason and inquiry. Many philosophers today concede that Greek philosophy has shaped the entire Western thought since its inception....
 and the Oriental world; a thousand years later Gabirol occidentalized Greco-Arabic philosophy and restored it to Europe. The philosophical teachings of Philo and Ibn Gabirol were largely ignored by their fellow Jews; the parallel may be extended by adding that Philo and Gabirol alike exercised a considerable influence in extra-Jewish circles: Philo upon early Christianity, and Ibn Gabirol upon the scholasticism of medieval Christianity.

Gabirol's philosophy made little impression on later Jewish philosophers. His greatest impact is in the area of the Jewish liturgy. His work is quoted by Moses ibn Ezra
Moses ibn Ezra

Rabbi Moses ben Jacob ibn Ezra, known as ha-Sallah was a Jewish, Spanish philosopher, linguist, and poet. He was born at Granada about 1055 – 1060, and died after 1138....
 and Abraham ibn Ezra
Abraham ibn Ezra

Rabbi Abraham ben Meir ibn Ezra was born in Tudela, Islamic Spain, and died c. 1164 .. .He was one of the most distinguished Jewish men of letters and writers of the Middle Ages....
. Christian scholastics, including Albertus Magnus
Albertus Magnus

Saint Albertus Magnus, Ordo Praedicatorum , also known as Saint Albert the Great and Albert of Cologne, was a Dominican Order Dominican friar and bishop who achieved fame for his comprehensive knowledge of and advocacy for the peaceful Relationship between religion and science....
 and his pupil, Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas

Saint Thomas Aquinas, Dominican Order was a priest of the Roman Catholic Church in the Dominican Order from Italy, and an immensely influential philosopher and theologian in the tradition of scholasticism, known as Doctor Angelicus and Doctor Communis....
, defer to him frequently and gratefully.

Karaite philosophy

A sect which rejects the Rabbinical Works, Karaism, developed its own form of philosophy, a Jewish version of the Islamic Kalâm. Early Karaites based their philosophy on the Islamic Motazilite Kalâm
Islamic philosophy

Islamic philosophy is a branch of Islamic studies, and is a longstanding attempt to create harmony between philosophy and the religious teachings of Islam ....
; some later Karaites, such as Aaron ben Elijah of Nicomedia (fourteenth century), reverted, in his Etz Hayyim (Hebrew
Hebrew language

Hebrew is a Semitic languages of the Afro-Asiatic languages. Modern Hebrew is spoken by more than seven million people in Israel and Classical Hebrew is used for prayer or study in Jews communities around the world....
, "Tree of Life") to the views of Aristotle
Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greeks philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, Poetics , theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology and zoology....
.

Bahya ibn Paquda's Duties of the Heart

Bahya ibn Paquda
Bahya ibn Paquda

Bahya ben Joseph ibn Paquda was a Jewish philosopher and rabbi who lived at Saragossa, Spain, in the first half of the eleventh century. He is often referred to as Rabbeinu Bachya....
 lived in Spain in the first half of the eleventh century. He was the author of the first Jewish system of ethics, written in Arabic in 1040 under the title Al Hidayah ila Faraid al-hulub, "Guide to the Duties of the Heart", and translated into Hebrew by Judah ben Saul ibn Tibbon
Judah ben Saul ibn Tibbon

Judah ben Saul ibn Tibbon was a translator and physician.Born in Granada, he left Spain in 1150, probably on account persecution by the Almohades, and went to Lunel in southern France....
 in 1161-1180 under the title Chovot ha-Levavot
Chovot ha-Levavot

Chovot ha-Levavot or Chovos ha-Levavos, , is the primary work of the Jewish philosopher Bahya ibn Paquda, full name Bahya ben Joseph ibn Pakuda....
, 'Duties of the Heart'.

Though he quotes Saadia Gaon's works frequently, he belongs not to the rationalistic school of the Motazilities whom Saadia follows, but, like his somewhat younger contemporary, Solomon ibn Gabirol
Solomon ibn Gabirol

Solomon ibn Gabirol, also Solomon ben Judah was an al-Andalus Hebrew poet and Jewish philosopher. He was born in M?laga about 1021; died about 1058 in Valencia ....
 (1021-1070), is an adherent of Neoplatonic mysticism. He often followed the method of the Arabian encyclopedists known as "the Brethren of Purity
Brethren of Purity

The Brethren of Purity were a mysterious secret society, whose identity has never been become clear, Early Islamic philosophy in Basra, Iraq - which was then the seat of the Abbasid Caliphate - sometime in the second half of the 10th century Common Era....
". Inclined to contemplative mysticism and asceticism, Bahya eliminated from his system every element that he felt might obscure monotheism, or might interfere with Jewish law. He wanted to present a religious system at once lofty and pure and in full accord with reason.

Yehuda Halevi and the Kuzari

The Jewish poet-philosopher Yehuda Halevi
Yehuda Halevi

Judah Halevi, in full Judah ben Shemuel Ha-Levi, also Yehuda Halevi, or Yehuda ben Samuel Halevi was a Sephardic philosopher and poet....
 (twelfth century) in his polemical work Kuzari
Kuzari

The Kuzari is one of most famous works of the medieval Spain Jewish philosopher and poet Rabbi Yehuda Halevi. Divided into five essays , it takes the form of a dialogue between the Paganism monarch of the Khazars and a Jew who was invited to instruct him in the tenets of the Judaism....
 made strenuous arguments against philosophy. He became thus the Jewish Al-Ghazali
Al-Ghazali

Abu ?amid Mu?ammad ibn Mu?ammad al-Ghazali was born and died in Tus, in the Khorasan province of Persia. He was an Islamic theology, Fiqh, Islamic philosophy, Islamic astronomy, Islamic psychology and Sufism of Persian people origin, and remains one of the most celebrated scholars in the history of Sunni Islamic thought....
, whose The Incoherence of the Philosophers
The Incoherence of the Philosophers

The Incoherence of the Philosophers in Arabic is the title of a landmark 11th century polemic by the Sufism sympathetic Imam Al-Ghazali of the Ash'ari school of Islamic theology criticizing the Avicennism school of early Islamic philosophy....
 was perhaps the model for the Kuzari.

Human reason on a surface level, at any rate as expressed in the philosophy of Aristotle
Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greeks philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, Poetics , theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology and zoology....
 and Avicenna
Avicenna

, known as Abu Ali Sina Balkhi or Ibn Sina and commonly known in English by his Latinized name Avicenna , was a Persian people polymath and the foremost Islamic medicine and Early Islamic philosophy of his time....
, is considered false and illusory; rather inward illumination based on truths instilled by God in the human soul is considered paramount. The Kuzari describes representatives of different religions and of philosophy disputing before the king of the Khazars concerning the respective merits of the systems they stand for, the victory being ultimately awarded to Judaism.

Judah ha-Levi could not bar the progress of Aristotelianism
Aristotelianism

Aristotelianism is a Tradition#Philosophical tradition of philosophy that takes its defining inspiration from the work of Aristotle. Sometimes contrasted by critics with the rationalism and Platonic idealism of Plato, Aristotelianism is understood by its proponents as critically developing Plato?s theories....
 among the Arabic-writing Jews. As among the Arabs, Avicenna
Avicenna

, known as Abu Ali Sina Balkhi or Ibn Sina and commonly known in English by his Latinized name Avicenna , was a Persian people polymath and the foremost Islamic medicine and Early Islamic philosophy of his time....
 and Averroes
Averroes

Abu 'l-Walid Mu?ammad ibn A?mad ibn Rushd , better known just as Ibn Rushd , and in European literature as Averroes , was an Al-Andalus-Arab Muslim polymath: a master of early Islamic philosophy, Islamic theology, Maliki Sharia and Fiqh, Logic in Islamic philosophy, Psychology in medieval Islam, Arabic music theory, and the Scien...
 leaned more and more on Aristotle, so among the Jews did Abraham ibn Daud and Maimonides
Maimonides

Moses Maimonides, also known as Rabbi Moses ben Maimon , the Rambam, and Musa ibn Maymun , was born in C?rdoba, Spain, Spain on March 30, 1135, and died in Egypt on December 13, 1204.....
.

Maimonides

Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon (1135 - 1204), ??? ??? ?? ??????, known commonly by his Greek
Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
 name Maimonides
Maimonides

Moses Maimonides, also known as Rabbi Moses ben Maimon , the Rambam, and Musa ibn Maymun , was born in C?rdoba, Spain, Spain on March 30, 1135, and died in Egypt on December 13, 1204.....
, was a Jew
Jew

A Jew is a member of the Jewish people, an ethnoreligious group that traces its ancestry to the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East....
ish rabbi
Rabbi

Rabbi , in Judaism, means a religious ?teacher?, or more literally, ?my great one?, when addressing any master. The word rabbi derives from the Hebrew root word , rav, which in biblical Hebrew means ?great?, used in many senses, including the sense of a ?master? and apprentice, whence someone who is a distinguished ?teacher?....
, physician
Physician

A physician, medical practitioner, doctor of medicine, or medical doctor practices medicine, and is concerned with maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease and injury....
, and philosopher.

Maimonides held that no positive attributes can be predicated to God. The number of His attributes would seem to prejudice the unity of God. In order to preserve this doctrine undiminished, all anthropomorphic attributes, such as existence, life, power, will, knowledge - the usual positive attributes of God in the Kalâm - must be avoided in speaking of Him. Between the attributes of God and those of man there is no other similarity than one of words (homonymy), no similarity of essence ("Guide," I 35, 56). The negative attributes imply that nothing can be known concerning the true being of God, which is what Maimonides really means. Just as Kant declares the Thing-in-itself to be unknowable, so Maimonides declares that of God it can only be said that He is, not what He is.

Maimonides wrote his thirteen principles of faith, which he stated that all Jews were obligated to believe. The first five deal with knowledge of the Creator. The next four deal with prophecy and the Divine Origin of the Torah. The last four deal with Reward, Punishment and the ultimate redemption.

The principle which inspired all of Maimonides' philosophical activity was identical with the fundamental tenet of Scholasticism: there can be no contradiction between the truths which God
God

God is a deity in theism and deism religions and other belief systems, representing either the sole deity in monotheism, or a principal deity in polytheism....
 has revealed and the findings of the human mind in science and philosophy. Moreover, by science and philosophy he understood the science and philosophy of Aristotle
Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greeks philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, Poetics , theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology and zoology....
. In some important points, however, he departed from the teaching of the Aristotelian text, holding, for instance, that the world is not eternal, as Aristotle taught, but was created ex nihilo, as is taught explicitly in the Bible. Again, he rejected the Aristotelian doctrine that God's provident care extends only to humanity, and not to the individual. But, while in these important points Maimonides anticipated the Scholastics and possibly influenced them, he was led by his admiration for the neo-Platonic commentators and by the bent of his own mind to maintain many doctrines which the Scholastics could not accept.

Jewish philosophy after Maimonides

Rabbi Levi ben Gershon
Gersonides

Levi ben Gershon , better known as Gersonides or the Ralbag , was a famous rabbi, philosopher, Talmudist, mathematician, astronomer/astrologer....
, also known as Gersonides, or the Ralbag, (1288-1345) is best known for his work Milhamot HaShem (or just Milchamot), ("Wars of the Lord"). Among scholastics, Gersonides was perhaps the most advanced; he placed reason above tradition. The Milhamot HaShem is modelled after the Guide for the Perplexed
Guide for the Perplexed

The Guide for the Perplexed is one of the major works of Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, better known as Maimonides or "the Rambam". It was written in the 12th Century in the form of a three-volume letter to his student, Rabbi Joseph ben Judah of Ceuta, the son of Rabbi Judah, and is the main source of the Rambam's philosophical views, as opposed t...
 of Maimonides
Maimonides

Moses Maimonides, also known as Rabbi Moses ben Maimon , the Rambam, and Musa ibn Maymun , was born in C?rdoba, Spain, Spain on March 30, 1135, and died in Egypt on December 13, 1204.....
. It may be seen as an elaborate criticism from a philosophical point of view (mainly Averroistic) of the syncretism of Aristotelianism and Jewish orthodoxy as presented in that work.

Hasdai Crescas
Hasdai Crescas

Hasdai ben Abraham Crescas was a Jewish philosopher and a renowned halakhist . Along with Rambam, Ralbag, and Joseph Albo, he is known as one of the major practitioners of the rationalism approach to Jewish philosophy, and his positions on issues of natural law and free will in Or Hashem can be seen as precursors to those of Spinoza....
 (1340-1410) is best known for his Or Hashem
Or Hashem

Or Hashem, The Light of the Lord, is the primary work of Rabbi Hasdai Crescas , a Jewish philosopher. As Adonai is one of the names of God in Judaism, the book is usually called Or Hashem in verbal usage to avoid mentioning God's name directly....
 ("Light of the Lord"). Crescas' avowed purpose was to liberate Judaism from what he saw as the bondage of Aristotelianism, which, through Maimonides
Maimonides

Moses Maimonides, also known as Rabbi Moses ben Maimon , the Rambam, and Musa ibn Maymun , was born in C?rdoba, Spain, Spain on March 30, 1135, and died in Egypt on December 13, 1204.....
, influenced by Ibn Sina, and Gersonides
Gersonides

Levi ben Gershon , better known as Gersonides or the Ralbag , was a famous rabbi, philosopher, Talmudist, mathematician, astronomer/astrologer....
 (Ralbag), influenced by Ibn Roshd (Averroes) threatened to blur the distinctness of the Jewish faith, reducing the doctrinal contents of Judaism to a surrogate of Aristotelian concepts. His book, Or Hashem
Or Hashem

Or Hashem, The Light of the Lord, is the primary work of Rabbi Hasdai Crescas , a Jewish philosopher. As Adonai is one of the names of God in Judaism, the book is usually called Or Hashem in verbal usage to avoid mentioning God's name directly....
, comprises four main divisions (ma'amar), subdivided into kelalim and chapters (perakim): the first treating of the foundation of all belief—the existence of God; the second, of the fundamental doctrines of the faith; the third, of other doctrines which, though not fundamental, are binding on every adherent of Judaism; the fourth, of doctrines which, though traditional, are without obligatory character, and which are open to philosophical construction.

Joseph Albo
Joseph Albo

Joseph Albo was a Jew philosophy and rabbi who lived in Spain during the fifteenth century, known chiefly as the author of Sefer ha-Ikkarim , the classic work on the Jewish principles of faith....
 was a Spanish rabbi, and theologian of the fifteenth century, known chiefly as the author of the work on the Jewish principles of faith, his Ikkarim. Albo limited the fundamental Jewish principles of faith to three: (1) The belief in the existence of God; (2) in revelation; and (3) in divine justice, as related to the idea of immortality. Albo finds opportunity to criticize the opinions of his predecessors, yet he takes pains to avoid heresy hunting. A remarkable latitude of interpretation is allowed; so much so, that it would indeed be difficult under Albo's theories to impugn the orthodoxy of even the most theologically liberal Jews. Albo rejects the assumption that creation ex nihilo is an essential implication of the belief in God. Albo freely criticizes Maimonides' thirteen principles of belief and Crescas' six principles.

Isaac Abravanel commented on Maimonides' thirteen principles in his Rosh Amanah. According to him, if one must reduce Judaism to a set of credal propositions, Maimonides' attempt cannot be improved upon. At the same time, the actually binding part of Judaism is the entire body of 613 mitzvot rather than any set of beliefs.

Position in the history of thought

The scholastics preserved the continuity of philosophical thought. Without the activity of these Arabic-Jewish philosophers, the culture of the Western world could scarcely have taken the direction it has, at least not at the rapid rate which was made possible through the agency of the Humanists and of the Renaissance. The Jewish philosophers of the Arab-speaking world were the humanists of the Middle Ages. They established and maintained the bond of union between the Arabic philosophers, physicians, and poets on the one hand, and the Latin-Christian world on the other.

Gersonides, Gabirol, Maimonides, and Crescas are considered of eminent importance in the continuity of philosophy, for they not only illumined those giants of Christian scholasticism, Albertus Magnus
Albertus Magnus

Saint Albertus Magnus, Ordo Praedicatorum , also known as Saint Albert the Great and Albert of Cologne, was a Dominican Order Dominican friar and bishop who achieved fame for his comprehensive knowledge of and advocacy for the peaceful Relationship between religion and science....
 and Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas

Saint Thomas Aquinas, Dominican Order was a priest of the Roman Catholic Church in the Dominican Order from Italy, and an immensely influential philosopher and theologian in the tradition of scholasticism, known as Doctor Angelicus and Doctor Communis....
, but their light has penetrated deeply into the philosophy of modern times.

Jewish Mysticism, Kabbalah


The general difference between the Kabbalists and exponents of Philosophy is due to their different views of the power of human intellect from first principles in apprehending the Divine. Kabbalists accept the conclusions of unaided reason in support of the Torah in general, such as the teachings of Maimonides
Maimonides

Moses Maimonides, also known as Rabbi Moses ben Maimon , the Rambam, and Musa ibn Maymun , was born in C?rdoba, Spain, Spain on March 30, 1135, and died in Egypt on December 13, 1204.....
, but hold that the Divine transcendent levels themselves can only be articulated by the mystical, hidden level of Torah interpretation, which is governed by its own traditional system of hermeneutics. This is wisdom from revelation ("God's intellect" as it were), rather than unaided intellect (man's intellect). The Jewish mystical tradition claims to originate in the prophetic traditions of the Bible, and became expressed in developing conceptual form. With its wide dissemination in the Jewish world of the late Middle Ages, it became the mainstream Jewish theology, sidelining the earlier school of Philosophy that had expressed Jewish belief in the framework of Greek thought. Philosophers, on the other hand, hold that human intellect from first principles is the requisit path to perception and knowledge, though the great medieval Jewish philosophers also believed that there is an authentic mystical level to the Torah. See Hasidic philosophy below for the later development of the Jewish mystical tradition that unites the two realms.

Renaissance Jewish philosophy

Classical Judaism saw the development of a brand of Jewish philosophy drawing on the teachings of Torah
Torah

The term "Torah" , or Five Books of Moses or Pentateuch, refers to the entirety of Judaism's founding Halakha and ethical religious texts....
 mysticism derived from the esoteric teachings of the Zohar
Zohar

The Zohar is widely considered the most important work of Kabbalah, or Jewish mysticism. It is a mystical commentary on the Torah , written in medieval Aramaic language....
 and the teachings of Rabbi Isaac Luria
Isaac Luria

Rabbi Isaac Luria was a Judaism mystic in Safed. His name today is attached to all of the mystic thought in the town of Safed in 16th century Ottoman Palestine....
. This was particularly embodied in the voluminous works of Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel
Judah Loew ben Bezalel

Judah Loew ben Bezalel also written as Yehudah ben Bezalel Levai [or Loewe, L?we], was an important Talmudic scholar, Kabbalah, and philosopher who served as a leading rabbi in Prague for most of his life....
 known as the Maharal of Prague
Prague

Prague is the Capital and World's largest cities of the Czech Republic. Its official name is Hlavn? mesto Praha, meaning Prague, the Capital City....
.


One work that gained considerable influence in the Christian world was the Dialoghi d'Amore of Judah Leon Abravanel
Judah Leon Abravanel

Judah Leon Abravanel was a Jewish Portugal physician, poet and philosopher. His work Dialoghi d'amore was one of the most important philosophical works of his time....
 (known as Leone Ebreo). This took the form of a series of dialogues between "Philo" and "Sophia", and may be compared with the Renaissance Platonism of Ficino and Pico della Mirandola, but had no explicit Jewish content.

Blends between Kabbalah and Italian Platonism are found in later Jewish thinkers, most explicitly in Moses Chaim Luzzatto (in particular his Derech ha-Elohim, "the Way of God"). This kind of thought also forms the background to thinkers such as Isaiah Horowitz
Isaiah Horowitz

Isaiah Horowitz , was a well-known rabbi and Kabbalah. He is also known as Shelah HaKadosh - "the Holy Shelah" - from the title of his best-known work....
 (the Shene Luchot ha-Berit) and Aryeh Leib Heller and had some influence on the Tanya
Tanya

Tanya is a book more commonly known by its opening word although titled Likkutei Amarim , an early work of Hasidic Judaism, written by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the founder of Chabad, in 1797 CE....
.

Enlightenment Jewish philosophers


Baruch Spinoza
Baruch Spinoza

Baruch or Benedict de Spinoza was a Netherlands Philosophy of Iberian Jews origin. Revealing considerable scientific aptitude, the breadth and importance of Spinoza's work was not fully realized until years after his death....
 adopted Pantheism
Pantheism

Pantheism is the view that everything is part of an all-encompassing Immanence abstract God. In pantheism the Universe, or nature, and God are equivalent....
 and broke with Orthodox Judaism
Orthodox Judaism

Orthodox Judaism is a Jewish denominations of Judaism that adheres to a relatively strict constructionist and application of the laws and ethics first canonized in the Talmudic texts and as subsequently developed and applied by the later authorities known as the Gaonim, Rishonim, and Acharonim....
. Nevertheless the Jewish influence in his work, for example from Maimonides and Leone Ebreo, is evident. Some contemporary critics (e.g. Wachter, Der Spinozismus im Judenthum) claimed to detect the influence of the Kabbalah
Kabbalah

Kabbalah is a discipline and school of thought discussing the mysticism aspect of Judaism. It is a set of esoteric teachings that are meant to explain the relationship between an infinite, eternal and essentially unknowable Creator deity with the finite and mortal universe of His creation....
, while others (e.g. Leibniz
Gottfried Leibniz

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was a Germany polymath who wrote primarily in Latin and French language.He occupies an equally grand place in both the history of philosophy and the history of mathematics....
) regarded Spinozism as a revival of Averroism
Averroism

Averroism is the term applied to either of two philosophy trends among scholasticism in the late 13th century, the first of which was based on the Early Islamic philosophy Averroes's interpretations of Aristotle and his reconciliation of Aristotelianism with the Islamic faith....
.

Moses Mendelssohn
Moses Mendelssohn

Moses Mendelssohn was a German Jewish philosopher to whose ideas the renaissance of European Jews, Haskalah is indebted. For some he was the third Moses heralding a new era in the history of the Jewish people....
 sought to harmonize Judaism with the teachings of the Enlightenment. He believed that the theological content of Judaism did not go beyond "natural theology", and that Judaism as such was not revealed religion but revealed legislation.

Post-Enlightenment Jewish philosophers


  • Samuel Hirsch
    Samuel Hirsch

    Samuel Hirsch, was a major Reform Judaism religious philosopher and rabbi.Born in Thalfang, He first became rabbi at Dessau in 1838 but was forced to resign in 1841 because he promoted a radically liberal form of Judaism, later to become known as classic German Reform Judaism....
     (belonging to Reform Judaism
    Reform Judaism

    Reform Judaism refers to the spectrum of beliefs, practices and organizational infrastructure associated with Reform Judaism in Reform Judaism and in Reform Judaism ....
    .)
  • Salomon Formstecher
  • Samson Raphael Hirsch
    Samson Raphael Hirsch

    Samson Raphael Hirsch was a Germany rabbi best known as the intellectual founder of the Torah im Derech Eretz school of contemporary Orthodox Judaism....
     (philosophy of Torah im Derech Eretz
    Torah im Derech Eretz

    Torah im Derech Eretz is a philosophy of Orthodox Judaism articulated by Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch , which formalizes a relationship between traditionally observant Judaism and the modern world....
    ; belonged to the Neo-Orthodox movement of 19th century Germany, combating Reform Judaism
    Reform Judaism

    Reform Judaism refers to the spectrum of beliefs, practices and organizational infrastructure associated with Reform Judaism in Reform Judaism and in Reform Judaism ....


Modern Jewish philosophy

One of the major trends in modern Jewish philosophy was the attempt to develop a theory of Judaism through existentialism
Existentialism

Existentialism is a term that has been applied to the work of a number of nineteenth and twentieth century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, took the human subject — not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual and his or her conditions of existence — as a starting point...
. One of the primary players in this field was Franz Rosenzweig
Franz Rosenzweig

Franz Rosenzweig was an influential Jewish theology and philosophy....
. While researching his doctoral dissertation on the 19th-century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Rosenzweig reacted against Hegel's idealism and favored an existential approach. Rosenzweig, for a time, considered conversion to Christianity, but in 1913, he turned to Jewish philosophy. He became a philosopher and student of Hermann Cohen. Rozensweig's major work, Star of Redemption, is his new philosophy in which he portrays the relationships between God, humanity and world as they are connected by creation, revelation and redemption. Later Jewish existentialists include Conservative rabbis Neil Gillman
Neil Gillman

Neil Gillman is an USA rabbi and philosopher, affiliated with Conservative Judaism....
 and Elliot N. Dorff
Elliot N. Dorff

Elliot N. Dorff is a Conservative Judaism rabbi, a professor of Jewish theology at the American Jewish University in California , author, and a bio-ethicist....
.

Perhaps the most controversial form of Jewish philosophy that developed in the early 20th century was the religious naturalism of Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan
Mordecai Kaplan

Mordecai Menahem Kaplan was a rabbi and the founder of Reconstructionist Judaism.Kaplan was born in Lithuania and was Semicha at Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City in 1902....
. His theology was a variant of John Dewey
John Dewey

John Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist, and school reform whose thoughts and ideas have been highly influential in the United States and around the world....
's philosophy. Dewey's naturalism combined atheist beliefs with religious terminology in order to construct a religiously satisfying philosophy for those who had lost faith in traditional religion. In agreement with the classical medieval Jewish thinkers, Kaplan affirmed that God is not personal, and that all anthropomorphic descriptions of God are, at best, imperfect metaphors. Kaplan's theology went beyond this to claim that God is the sum of all natural processes that allow man to become self-fulfilled. Kaplan wrote that "to believe in God means to take for granted that it is man's destiny to rise above the brute and to eliminate all forms of violence and exploitation from human society."

One of the more recent trends has been a reframing of Jewish theology through the lens of process philosophy
Process philosophy

Process philosophy identifies metaphysics reality with change and dynamism. Since the time of Plato and Aristotle, philosophers have posited true reality as "timeless", based on permanent Substance theorys, whilst processes are denied or subordinated to timeless substances....
, and more specifically process theology
Process theology

Process theology is a school of thought influenced by the metaphysical process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead . While there are process theologies that are similar, but unrelated to the work of Whitehead the term is generally applied to the Whiteheadian school....
. Process philosophy suggests that fundamental elements of the universe are occasions of experience. According to this notion, what people commonly think of as concrete objects are actually successions of these occasions of experience. Occasions of experience can be collected into groupings; something complex such as a human being is thus a grouping of many smaller occasions of experience. In this view, everything in the universe is characterized by experience (which is not to be confused with consciousness); there is no mind-body duality under this system, because "mind" is simply seen as a very developed kind of experiencing.

Inherent to this worldview is the notion that all experiences are influenced by prior experiences, and will influence all future experiences. This process of influencing is never deterministic; an occasion of experience consists of a process of prehending other experiences, and then a reaction to it. This is the process in process philosophy. Process philosophy gives God a special place in the universe of occasions of experience. God encompasses all the other occasions of experience but also transcends them; thus process philosophy is a form of panentheism
Panentheism

Panentheism is a belief system which posits that God exists and interpenetrates every part of nature, and timelessly extends beyond as well. Panentheism is distinguished from pantheism, which holds that God is synonymous with the material universe....
.

The original ideas of process theology were developed by Charles Hartshorne
Charles Hartshorne

Charles Hartshorne was a prominent American philosopher who concentrated primarily on the philosophy of religion and metaphysics. He developed the Neoclassicism idea of God and produced a modal logic Arguments for the existence of God that was a development of Anselm of Canterbury's Ontological Argument....
 (1897-2000), and influenced a number of Jewish
Judaism

Judaism is a set of beliefs and practices originating in the Hebrew Bible , as later further explored and explained in the Talmud and other texts....
 theologians, including British
United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom , the UK or Britain,is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe....
 philosopher Samuel Alexander (1859-1938), and Rabbi
Rabbi

Rabbi , in Judaism, means a religious ?teacher?, or more literally, ?my great one?, when addressing any master. The word rabbi derives from the Hebrew root word , rav, which in biblical Hebrew means ?great?, used in many senses, including the sense of a ?master? and apprentice, whence someone who is a distinguished ?teacher?....
s Max Kaddushin, Milton Steinberg and Levi A. Olan, Harry Slominsky and to a lesser degree, Abraham Joshua Heschel
Abraham Joshua Heschel

Abraham Joshua Heschel was a Warsaw-born American rabbi and one of the leading Jewish theologians of the 20th century....
. Today some rabbis who advocate some form of process theology include Donald B. Rossoff, William E. Kaufman
William E. Kaufman

William E. Kaufman is a rabbi, a philosopher, and an author of several books and academic articles.He is a member of the Rabbinical Assembly, the international association of Conservative Judaism....
, Harold Kushner
Harold Kushner

Harold S. Kushner is a prominent United States rabbi aligned with the progressive wing of Conservative Judaism....
, Anton Laytner, Gilbert S. Rosenthal, Lawrence Troster
Lawrence Troster

Rabbi Lawrence Troster is Director of the Fellowship program and Rabbinic Scholar-in-Residence for GreenFaith, the interfaith environmental coalition in New Jersey....
 and Nahum Ward.

Perhaps the most unexpected change in Jewish religious thinking in the late 20th century was the resurgence of interest in Kabbalah
Kabbalah

Kabbalah is a discipline and school of thought discussing the mysticism aspect of Judaism. It is a set of esoteric teachings that are meant to explain the relationship between an infinite, eternal and essentially unknowable Creator deity with the finite and mortal universe of His creation....
. Many philosophers do not consider this to be a form of philosophy, as Kabbalah is a form of mysticism. Mysticism is generally understood as an alternative to philosophy, and not a variant of philosophy.

Haredi theology


At the same time, Haredi Judaism has seen a resurgence of a systematic philosophical format for its beliefs. The founder of this system was Rabbi Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler
Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler

Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler was an influential Orthodox Judaism rabbi, Talmudic scholar, and Jewish philosopher of the 20th century. He is best known as mashgiach ruchani of the Ponevezh yeshiva in Israel and through collections of his writings published posthumously by his pupils....
, a student of the Kelm
KELM

KELM may refer to:* the ICAO code for Elmira-Corning Regional Airport* KELM-LP, a low-power television station licensed to Reno, Nevada, United States...
 mussar yeshiva and later Mashgiach
Mashgiach ruchani

Mashgiach Ruchani or mashgiach for short, means a spiritual supervisor or guide; better known by the colloquial term "Super Rabbi". It is a title which usually refers to a rabbi who has an official position within a yeshiva and is responsible for the non-academic areas of yeshiva students' lives....
 (spiritual supervisor) of Ponevezh yeshiva. Although never formally committing his ideas for publication, after his death in 1953 his students compiled and organized his numerous manuscripts in a five-volume work titled "Michtav Ma'Eliyahu", later translated into English and published as "Strive for Truth". His ideas have been popularized and promulgated by many Haredi educators. Notable among them are his student Rabbi Aryeh Carmel (main redactor of "Michtav Ma'Eliyahu") and Rabbi Dr. Akiva Tatz
Akiva Tatz

Akiva Tatz is a prominent South African Orthodox Judaism Jewish rabbi, inspirational speaker and writer and is heavily involved in Orthodox Jewish outreach....
 (author of many works and a well known lecturer and activist in the kiruv (outreach) movement).

Haredim consider the fusion of religion
Religion

A religion is an organized approach to human spirituality which usually encompasses a set of myth, symbols, beliefs and practices, often with a supernatural or transcendence quality, that give meaning to the practitioner's experiences of life through reference to a higher power or truth....
 and philosophy
Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, truth, beauty, justice, validity, mind, and language....
 as difficult because classical philosophers start with no preconditions for which conclusions they must reach in their investigation, while classical religious believers have a set of religious principles of faith that they hold one must believe.

Some maintain, however, that in reality it is incorrect to direct this criticism solely at religious philosophy. Rabbi Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler
Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler

Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler was an influential Orthodox Judaism rabbi, Talmudic scholar, and Jewish philosopher of the 20th century. He is best known as mashgiach ruchani of the Ponevezh yeshiva in Israel and through collections of his writings published posthumously by his pupils....
 (Strive for Truth Vol. 1) contends that no human being can possibly claim objectivity in philosophical investigations with moral implications: "..a person senses in advance that the answer will make a significant difference...On the solution will depend whether he will be obliged for the rest of his life to struggle with his baser desires...or whether he will be able to live without a higher responsibility". On this basis Dessler maintains that only those who have spent years concentrating on the subjugation of their desires to their intellect, can even begin to claim intellectual impartiality. Indeed, according to this it is more likely for religious philosophy to succeed in attaining the truth then secular philosophy.

Some, however, hold that one cannot simultaneously be a philosopher and a true adherent of a revealed religion. In this view, all attempts at synthesis ultimately fail. For example, Rabbi Nachman of Breslov
Nachman of Breslov

Nachman of Breslov , also known as Reb Nachman of Bratslav, Reb Nachman Breslover , Nachman from Uman , was the founder of the Breslov ....
, seen as the most imaginative and poetic Hasidic mystic, views all philosophy as untrue and heretical. In this he represents one strand of Hasidic thought, with creative emphasis on the emotions. Approaching this point of view from the opposite direction, Baruch Spinoza
Baruch Spinoza

Baruch or Benedict de Spinoza was a Netherlands Philosophy of Iberian Jews origin. Revealing considerable scientific aptitude, the breadth and importance of Spinoza's work was not fully realized until years after his death....
, a pantheist, views revealed religion as inferior to philosophy, and thus saw traditional Jewish philosophy as an intellectual failure.

Others hold that a synthesis between the two is possible. One way to find a synthesis is to use philosophical arguments to prove that one's religious principles are true. This is a common technique found in the writings of many religious traditions, including Judaism, Christianity
Christianity

Christianity is a Monotheistic religion #Christian view religion centered on the life and teachings of Jesus as New Testament view on Jesus' life....
 and Islam
Islam

Islam is a Monotheism, Abrahamic religion originating with the teachings of the Prophets of Islam Muhammad, a 7th century Arab religious and political figure....
, but this is not generally accepted as true philosophy by philosophers. One example of this approach is found in the writings of Lawrence Kelemen
Lawrence Kelemen

Rabbi Lawrence Kelemen is an Orthodox Judaism rabbi living in Israel. He is an author of many books, most notably Permission to Believe , Permission to Receive , and To Kindle A Soul ....
, in his Permission to Believe, (Feldheim 1990). A synthesis on a more profound level is seen in the works of the Hasidic leaders, who express an intellectual articulation of Hasidic thought, most notably in Habad, which seeks to bring Hasidism into complete intellectual analysis. On this they take a different view of mainstream philosophy to Rabbi Nachman of Breslov. In the writings of Habad, Hasidus is seen as able to unite all parts of Torah thought, from the schools of philosophy to mysticism, by uncovering the illminating Divine essence that permeates and transcends all approaches. One example of this is given by Schneur Zalman of Liadi in the early chapters of the Tanya
Tanya

Tanya is a book more commonly known by its opening word although titled Likkutei Amarim , an early work of Hasidic Judaism, written by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the founder of Chabad, in 1797 CE....
. In a paranthetical side-column to the main text, the Kabbalists are said to agree with Maimonides' description that "God is the knower, the knowledge, and the known", but that this statement only applies to certain, stated Kabbalistic levels of Divinity, and no higher. For a fuller treatment of the nature and essence of Hasidic thought, and its relation to other disciplines in Judaism, see Hasidic philosophy
Hasidic philosophy

Hasidic Philosophy or Hasidus are the teachings, interpretations of Judaism, and philosophy underlying the modern Hasidic movement.The word derives from the Hebrew "hesed" , and the appellation "hasid" has a history in Judaism for a person who has sincere motives in serving God and helping others....
.

Hasidic philosophy

Hasidic philosophy is the thought and teachings of the Hasidic movement founded by the Baal Shem Tov. It expressed the Kabbalistic tradition in a new paradigm in relation to man, and so could be conveyed to the Jewish masses. As the movement grew, it developed into various different interpretations, formed by the circles of close followers of the Baal Shem Tov, and his successor Dov Ber of Mezeritch. In the school of Chabad
Chabad

*Chabad is an acronym for Chochmah, Binah, and Da'at, the three levels of Sefirot related to cognition according to the Kabbalah.*Chabad-Strashelye, Strashelye is a branch of the Chabad school of Hasidic Judaism....
, formed by Schneur Zalman of Liadi, the mystical revivalism of the early Hasidic Masters was brought into a systematic philosophical articulation, that brought the esoteric Kabbalah
Kabbalah

Kabbalah is a discipline and school of thought discussing the mysticism aspect of Judaism. It is a set of esoteric teachings that are meant to explain the relationship between an infinite, eternal and essentially unknowable Creator deity with the finite and mortal universe of His creation....
 of Isaac Luria
Isaac Luria

Rabbi Isaac Luria was a Judaism mystic in Safed. His name today is attached to all of the mystic thought in the town of Safed in 16th century Ottoman Palestine....
 into understanding. Interpreting the verse from Job
Book of Job

The Book of Job is one of the books of the Hebrew Bible. It relates the story of Job , his trials at the hands of Satan, his theological discussions with friends on the origins and nature of his suffering, and finally a response from God....
, "from my flesh I see God", Shneur Zalman explained the inner meaning, or "soul", of the Jewish mystical tradition in intellectual form, by means of analogies drawn from the human realm. As explained and continued by the later leaders of Chabad, this enabled the human mind to grasp concepts of Godliness, and so enable the heart to feel the love and awe of God, emphasised by all the founders of hasidism, in an internal way. This development, the culminating level of the Jewish mystical tradition, in this way bridges philosophy and mysticism, by expressing the transcendent in human terms. See Hasidic philosophy
Hasidic philosophy

Hasidic Philosophy or Hasidus are the teachings, interpretations of Judaism, and philosophy underlying the modern Hasidic movement.The word derives from the Hebrew "hesed" , and the appellation "hasid" has a history in Judaism for a person who has sincere motives in serving God and helping others....
 for a more detailed treatment.

Holocaust theology

Judaism has traditionally taught that God is omnipotent
Omnipotence

Omnipotence is unlimited power.Monotheism religions generally attribute omnipotence to only the deity of whichever faith is being addressed. In the religious philosophy of most Western monotheistic religions, omnipotence is often listed as one of a deity's characteristics among many, including omniscience, omnipresence, and omnibenevolence...
 (all powerful), omniscient
Omniscience

Omniscience is the capacity to know everything infinitely, or at least everything that can be known about a character including thoughts, feelings, life and the universe, etc....
 (all knowing) and omnibenevolent
Omnibenevolence

Omnibenevolence is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as "unlimited or infinite benevolence". It is sometimes held to be impossible for a deity to exhibit both this property and omniscience and omnipotence....
 (all good). Yet, these claims are in jarring contrast with the fact that there is much evil
Evil

Evil, in many cultures, is a broad term used to describe intentional negative moral acts or thoughts that are cruel, unjust or selfish. Evil is usually good and evil, which describes acts that are kind, just or unselfish....
 in the world. Perhaps the most difficult question that monotheists have confronted is "how can one reconcile the existence of this view of God with the existence of evil?" This is the problem of evil. Within all the monotheistic faiths many answers (theodicies) have been proposed. However, in light of the magnitude of evil seen in the Holocaust, many people have re-examined classical views on this subject. How can people still have any kind of faith after the Holocaust? This set of Jewish philosophies is discussed in the article on Holocaust theology
Holocaust theology

Holocaust theology refers to a body of theology and philosophy debate, soul-searching, and analysis, with the subsequent related literature, that attempts to come to grips with various conflicting views about the role of God in this human world and the events of the European the Holocaust that occurred during World War II when around 11 mill...
.

Modern Jewish philosophers

The following philosophers have had a substantial impact on the philosophy of modern day Jews who identify as such. They are writers who consciously dealt with philosophical issues from within a Jewish framework.

Orthodox Judaism philosophers

  • Eliezer Berkovits
    Eliezer Berkovits

    Eliezer Berkovits , was a rabbi, theologian, and educator in the tradition of Modern Orthodox Judaism....
  • Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler
    Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler

    Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler was an influential Orthodox Judaism rabbi, Talmudic scholar, and Jewish philosopher of the 20th century. He is best known as mashgiach ruchani of the Ponevezh yeshiva in Israel and through collections of his writings published posthumously by his pupils....
  • Samson Raphael Hirsch
    Samson Raphael Hirsch

    Samson Raphael Hirsch was a Germany rabbi best known as the intellectual founder of the Torah im Derech Eretz school of contemporary Orthodox Judaism....
  • Abraham Isaac Kook
    Abraham Isaac Kook

    File:Abraham Isaac Kook 1924.jpgAbraham Isaac Kook was the first Ashkenazi Jews chief rabbi of the British Mandate for Palestine, the founder of the Religious Zionism Yeshiva Merkaz HaRav, Jewish thinker, Halacha, Kabbalah and a renowned Torah scholar....
  • Emmanuel Levinas
    Emmanuel Lévinas

    Emmanuel Levinas was a France philosopher and Talmudic commentator....
  • Joseph Soloveitchik
    Joseph Soloveitchik

    Joseph Ber Soloveitchik w was an United States Orthodox Judaism rabbi, Talmudist and modern Jewish philosophy. He was a descendant of the Lithuanian Jews Brisk yeshivas....


Conservative Judaism philosophers

  • Bradley Shavit Artson
    Bradley Shavit Artson

    Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson is an author, speaker, and the Dean of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at the American Jewish University in Los Angeles, California, where he is Vice-President....
  • Elliot N. Dorff
    Elliot N. Dorff

    Elliot N. Dorff is a Conservative Judaism rabbi, a professor of Jewish theology at the American Jewish University in California , author, and a bio-ethicist....
  • Neil Gillman
    Neil Gillman

    Neil Gillman is an USA rabbi and philosopher, affiliated with Conservative Judaism....
  • Abraham Joshua Heschel
    Abraham Joshua Heschel

    Abraham Joshua Heschel was a Warsaw-born American rabbi and one of the leading Jewish theologians of the 20th century....
  • Max Kadushin
    Max Kadushin

    Rabbi Max Kadushin is a significant figure in the Conservative Judaism movement best known for his organic philosophy of rabbinics.After graduating from New York University, Kadushin studied for the rabbinate at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America during the 1920s....
  • William E. Kaufman
    William E. Kaufman

    William E. Kaufman is a rabbi, a philosopher, and an author of several books and academic articles.He is a member of the Rabbinical Assembly, the international association of Conservative Judaism....
  • Harold Kushner
    Harold Kushner

    Harold S. Kushner is a prominent United States rabbi aligned with the progressive wing of Conservative Judaism....


Reform Judaism philosophers

  • Emil Fackenheim
    Emil Fackenheim

    Emil Ludwig Fackenheim, Doctor of Philosophy was a noted Jewish philosopher and Reform rabbi.Born in Halle, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, he was arrested by the Nazism on the night of November 9, 1938, known as Kristallnacht....


Reconstructionist Judaism philosophers

  • Mordecai Kaplan
    Mordecai Kaplan

    Mordecai Menahem Kaplan was a rabbi and the founder of Reconstructionist Judaism.Kaplan was born in Lithuania and was Semicha at Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City in 1902....


Humanistic Judaism philosophers

  • Sherwin T. Wine


Others
  • Martin Buber
    Martin Buber

    Martin Buber was an Austrian-Israeli-Jewish philosopher, translator, and educator, whose work centered on theism ideals of religious consciousness, interpersonal relations, and community....
  • Morris Raphael Cohen
    Morris Raphael Cohen

    Morris Raphael Cohen was a Jewish philosopher, lawyer and legal scholar who united pragmatism with logical positivism and linguistic Discourse analysis....
  • Will Herberg
    Will Herberg

    Will Herberg was an American Jewish writer, intellectual and scholar. He was known as a social philosopher and sociologist of religion, as well as a Jewish theologian....
  • Moses Mendelssohn
    Moses Mendelssohn

    Moses Mendelssohn was a German Jewish philosopher to whose ideas the renaissance of European Jews, Haskalah is indebted. For some he was the third Moses heralding a new era in the history of the Jewish people....
  • Franz Rosenzweig
    Franz Rosenzweig

    Franz Rosenzweig was an influential Jewish theology and philosophy....
  • Richard Rubenstein
    Richard Rubenstein

    Richard L. Rubenstein is an educator in religion and a major writer in the United States Jewish community, noted particularly for his contributions to Holocaust theology....


Philosophers informed by their Jewish background
  • Theodor Adorno
  • Hannah Arendt
    Hannah Arendt

    Hannah Arendt was an influential Germany-Jewish political theorist. She has often been described as a philosopher, although she always refused that label on the grounds that philosophy is concerned with "man in the singular." She described herself instead as a political theory because her work centers on the fact that "men, not Man, live on...
  • Walter Benjamin
    Walter Benjamin

    Walter Bendix Sch?nflies Benjamin was a Germany-Jewish Marxist literary critic, essayist, translator, and philosopher. He was at times associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory and was also influenced by the writings of his younger contemporaries Bertolt Brecht, who developed Marxist aesthetics of dialectical materialism, and G...
  • Constantin Brunner
    Constantin Brunner

    Constantin Brunner was the pen-name of the Germany Jewish philosopher Leopold Wertheimer. He was born in Altona . He came from a prominent Jewish family that had lived in the vicinity of Hamburg for generations; his grandfather, Akiba Wertheimer, was chief Rabbi of Altona and Schleswig-Holstein....
  • Hermann Cohen
    Hermann Cohen

    Hermann Cohen was a Germany-Jewish philosophy, one of the founders of the University of Marburg School of Neo-Kantianism, and he is often held to be "probably the most important Jewish philosopher of the nineteenth century" ....
  • Erich Fromm
    Erich Fromm

    Erich Seligmann Fromm was an internationally renowned social psychology, psychoanalyst, and humanism philosophy. He was associated with what became known as the Frankfurt School of critical theory....
  • Nachman Krochmal
    Nachman Krochmal

    Nachman Kohen Krochmal was a Jewish Austrian philosopher, theology, and historian....
  • Max Horkheimer
    Max Horkheimer

    Max Horkheimer was a Germany philosopher and sociologist, and a founding member of the Frankfurt School)....
  • Emmanuel Lévinas
    Emmanuel Lévinas

    Emmanuel Levinas was a France philosopher and Talmudic commentator....
  • Leo Strauss
    Leo Strauss

    Leo Strauss was a Germany-born Jewish-American Political philosophy who specialized in classical political philosophy. He spent most of his career as a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, where he taught several generations of students and published 15 books....
  • Henri Bergson
    Henri Bergson

    Henri-Louis Bergson was a French philosophy, influential in the first half of the 20th century....
  • Isaiah Berlin
    Isaiah Berlin

    Sir Isaiah Berlin, Order of Merit was a philosopher and historian of ideas, regarded as one of the leading liberal thinkers of the twentieth century....


Jewish Science Movement

  • Alfred G. Moses
  • Morris Lichtenstein
    Morris Lichtenstein

    Morris Lichtenstein was the founder of the Jewish Science.Born in Lithuania he later moved to Cincinnati, Ohio where he was ordained by Hebrew Union College in 1916, becoming the first Eastern European student to ever study at the institution....
  • Tehilla Hirshenson Lichtenstein


See also

  • Jewish history
    Jewish history

    Jewish history is the history of the Jewish people, Judaism, and Jewish culture. Since Jewish history encompasses nearly four thousand years and hundreds of different populations, any treatment can only be provided in broad strokes....
  • Jewish principles of faith
    Jewish principles of faith

    Although Jews and religious leaders share a core of monotheism principles, Judaism has no formal statement of principles of faith such as a creed that is recognized or accepted by all....
  • Hasidic philosophy
    Hasidic philosophy

    Hasidic Philosophy or Hasidus are the teachings, interpretations of Judaism, and philosophy underlying the modern Hasidic movement.The word derives from the Hebrew "hesed" , and the appellation "hasid" has a history in Judaism for a person who has sincere motives in serving God and helping others....


External links

  • , Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy


Further reading

  • and