In From Metaphysics to Midrash, Shaul Magid explores the exegetical tradition of Isaac Luria and his followers within the historical context in 16th-century Safed, a unique community that brought practitioners of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam into close contact with one another. Luria's scripture became a theater in which kabbalists redrew boundaries of difference in areas of ethnicity, gender, and the human relation to the divine. Magid investigates how cultural influences altered scriptural exegesis of Lurianic Kabbala in its philosophical, hermeneutical, and historical perspectives. He suggests that Luria and his followers were far from cloistered. They used their considerable skills to weigh in on important matters of the day, offering, at times, some surprising solutions to perennial theological problems.

Articulates a new, post-ethnic American Jewishness

This book explores the religious thought of Moses Maimonides (1138-1204), the single most influential Jew of the last thousand years. While covering many aspects of his religious philosophy, the central focus of these essays is the way Maimonides elucidated and expressed the universalistic thrust of the Jewish tradition.

Piety and Rebellion examines the span of the Hasidic textual tradition from its earliest phases to the 20th century. The essays collected in this volume focus on the tension between Hasidic fidelity to tradition and its rebellious attempt to push the devotional life beyond the borders of conventional religious practice. Many of the essays exhibit a comparative perspective deployed to better articulate the innovative spirit, and traditional challenges, Hasidism presents to the traditional Jewish world. Piety and Rebellion is an attempt to present Hasidism as one case whereby maximalist religion can yield a rebellious challenge to conventional conceptions of religious thought and practice.

The book Redemption in the Lurianic Kabbalah and Its Branches deals with a little known aspect of Rabbi Luria’s mystic teaching, about Redemption. The author of the book is grateful to Prof. Ronit Meroz from Tel Aviv University for her book on this subject which was Prof. Meroz’s doctoral work at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 1988. The author of this book has taught this subject to US students at the University in Prague for several semesters. Rabbi Luria influenced in an immense way not only Judaism, but even some Christian thinkers, as for example the philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz and the modern theologian Jürgen Moltmann. Everybody will agree that our world needs improvement, and the teaching of Rabbi Luria offers a sort of hope for a better world.

In the sixteenth century, the famous kabbalist Isaac Luria transmitted a secret trove of highly complex mystical practices to a select groups of students. These meditations were designed to capitalize on sleep and death states in order to effectively split one’s soul into multiple parts, and which, when properly performed, permitted the adept to free oneself from the cycle of rebirth. Through an in-depth analysis of these contemplative practices within the broader context of Lurianic literature, Zvi Ish-Shalom guides us on a penetrating scholarly journey into a realm of mystical teachings and practices never before available in English, illuminating a radically monistic vision of reality at the heart of Kabbalistic metaphysics and practice.

It is asserted by Judaism, Christianity and Islam alike that sin is a central part of human life. Where sin comes from, however, is answered differently in the respective religions. While both the Bible and the Qur’an agree that there was a kind of "fall" of Adam at the beginning of human history, this fall is interpreted solely in classical Christian theology in terms of an "original" or "ancestral sin." Moreover, the classical doctrine of original sin is becoming increasingly called into question in today's Christian theology. This example already shows that the concept of sin is anything but clear. What does sin mean? Is sin primarily a violation of God's commandments? Or does the term "sin" refer to a radical corruption of man’s nature? How does sin relate to man’s redemption, toward which all three religions aim? The book "The Concept of Sin in Judaism, Christianity and Islam" addresses these and related questions. It analyzes how "sin" has been understood in the three religions in the past and the present and points out similarities and differences.