"#EishetChayil: Woman of Valor – Heroines of Our History is a commentary on the 22 verses of #Proverbs 31, based on #midrash, the #Talmud, classic #rabbinic texts, and #ChabadHassidut. It is published by #Kehot, the central publishing house of the #Chabad-#Lubavitch movement.

The #book does not merely explain “Eishet Chayil”; it positions it as a sweeping #theological and historical statement about #Jewish #womanhood and Jewish survival. The tone is set early on, with sentences like, “At every critical juncture of our long and challenging history, you will find the fearless and wise eishet chayil shepherding us toward our destiny.”

One of the book’s central claims is clear and consistent: Jewish #history does not merely include #women; it is propelled by them."

https://www.jpost.com/judaism/article-895357

"#Ziegler’s Ruth: From Alienation to Monarchy is a 534-page book on a four-chapter #megillah. The disproportion is the point. Ziegler, a faculty member at #HerzogCollege and teacher at #MatanandMidreshetMoriah, spent more than two decades teaching #MegillatRuth in #bateimidrash before committing these #shiurim to print. What she has produced is not a work of academic #biblical criticism.

It is a work of #Torah, one that happens to deploy #literary tools in service of the sacred text’s deeper meaning. The methodology she calls “#literary-#theological,” a term she credits to #Rabbi #ShalomCarmy, fulfills something Rabbi #AharonLichtenstein called for in a 1962 lecture at #SternCollege: the application of close reading and literary analysis to #Tanach, not to evaluate the text but to hear it more clearly. “I have eschewed a pretense of academic detachment,” she writes...”

https://www.jpost.com/judaism/article-895368

"#JennaWeissmanJoselit was looking for a project that wasn’t so “heavily freighted” after her #book on the #American “embrace” of the #TenCommandments came out in 2017. “Out of the blue,” an editor at the #Jewish Lives #biography series, a #Yale #University Press and #LeonDBlack Foundation project, asked her to #write a book about #Rabbi #MordecaiKaplan, founder of #Reconstructionist #Judaism.

“Without missing a beat and without thinking what this entailed, I said, ‘Yes, yes. Of course, of course,’” the Charles E. Smith #professor of #Judaicstudies and of #history at #GeorgeWashingtonUniversity told JNS.

She didn’t question why she was chosen. “I’m not the obvious person. I’m not an intellectual #historian,” #WeissmanJoselit said. “I don’t swim in those high-minded #philosophical, #theological waters.”

The historian had known of #Kaplan and had explored a “smidgen” of his diaries, but not all 70 years of them..."

https://www.jns.org/feature/reconstructionist-judaism-founder-mordecai-kaplan-a-restless-soul-who-speaks-to-the-moment-per-new-book

"Unfortunately, many people know the holiday of #Purim, which occurs next week, only as the “#Jewish #Halloween” – as a big dress-up (or strip-down) party celebrated with meaningless mirth and carnival-like abandon.

I beg to offer a more sober, #theological, and #kabbalistic gloss on the #holiday.
#Tanach (the Bible), #Talmud, #Halacha, and #Kabbalah elevate #wine from beverage to blessing – linking joy to holiness, song to gratitude, and harvest to hope.

Drinking wine on Purim is a method of catapulting our consciousness to a perfected world where God’s presence is dominant and evil is vanquished.

Throughout the Jewish canon, beginning with the Bible, the vital relationships between man and woman, between man and God, and between the Jewish people and their God are expressed via the metaphors of vine and wine."

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-888108

RE: https://mastodon.green/@juliette/115903958104560104

Often overlooked in #theological writings is the fourth wise person, magi #4. A somewhat neurodivergent unnamed individual who brought the gift of "I'm shutting the fuck up, how about I'll take care of the screaming poop machine for an hour so you can take a peaceful bathroom break."

It was much appreciated.

#christianity