The original work has been a favorite of both scholars and laypeople for its straightforward style, in contrast to other medieval writings on ethics that are largely theoretical and reflective.

Composed in Germany in the early thirteenth century by Judah ben Samuel he-hasid, Sefer Hasidim, or "Book of the Pietists," is a compendium of religious instruction that portrays the everyday life of Jews as they lived together with and apart from Christians in towns such as Speyer, Worms, Mainz, and Regensburg. A charismatic religious teacher who recorded hundreds of original stories that mirrored situations in medieval social living, Judah's messages advocated praying slowly and avoiding honor, pleasure, wealth, and the lures of unmarried sex. Although he failed to enact his utopian vision of a pietist Jewish society, his collected writings would help shape the religious culture of Ashkenazic Judaism for centuries. In "Sefer Hasidim" and the Ashkenazic Book in Medieval Europe, Ivan G. Marcus proposes a new paradigm for understanding how this particular book was composed. The work, he contends, was an open text written by a single author in hundreds of disjunctive, yet self-contained, segments, which were then combined into multiple alternative versions, each equally authoritative. While Sefer Hasidim offers the clearest example of this model of composition, Marcus argues that it was not unique: the production of Ashkenazic books in small and easily rearranged paragraphs is a literary and cultural phenomenon quite distinct from anything practiced by the Christian authors of northern Europe or the Sephardic Jews of the south. According to Marcus, Judah, in authoring Sefer Hasidim in this manner, not only resisted Greco-Roman influences on Ashkenazic literary form but also extended an earlier Byzantine rabbinic tradition of authorship into medieval European Jewish culture.

Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liady (1745-1812), in imperial Russia, was the founder and first rebbe of Chabad, a branch of Hasidic Judaism that flourishes to the present day. The Chabad-Lubavitch movement he founded in the region now known as Belarus played, and continues to play, an important part in the modernization processes and postwar revitalization of Orthodox Jewry. Drawing on historical source materials that include Shneur Zalman's own works and correspondence, as well as documents concerning his imprisonment and interrogation by the Russian authorities, Etkes focuses on Zalman's performance as a Hasidic leader, his unique personal qualities and achievements, and the role he played in the conflict between Hasidim and its opponents. In addition, Etkes draws a vivid picture of the entire generation that came under Rabbi Shneur Zalman's influence. This comprehensive biography will appeal to scholars and students of the history of Hasidism, East European Jewry, and Jewish spirituality.

Alongside the formal development of Judaism from the eleventh through the sixteenth centuries, a robust Jewish folk religion flourished—ideas and practices that never met with wholehearted approval by religious leaders yet enjoyed such wide popularity that they could not be altogether excluded from the religion. According to Joshua Trachtenberg, it is not possible truly to understand the experience and history of the Jewish people without attempting to recover their folklife and beliefs from centuries past. Jewish Magic and Superstition is a masterful and utterly fascinating exploration of religious forms that have all but disappeared yet persist in the imagination. The volume begins with legends of Jewish sorcery and proceeds to discuss beliefs about the evil eye, spirits of the dead, powers of good, the famous legend of the golem, procedures for casting spells, the use of gems and amulets, how to battle spirits, the ritual of circumcision, herbal folk remedies, fortune telling, astrology, and the interpretation of dreams. First published more than sixty years ago, Trachtenberg's study remains the foundational scholarship on magical practices in the Jewish world and offers an understanding of folk beliefs that expressed most eloquently the everyday religion of the Jewish people.

“Jewish thinkers don’t talk all that much about love. All too often we leave that to Christian theologians. But in this excellent volume, Rabbi Joseph Telushkin puts the commandment to love at the center of Jewish theology and experience. This is a book that will change the way you think about–and practice–Judaism.” –Professor Ari L. Goldman, Columbia University, and author of The Search for God at Harvard “Love your neighbor as yourself” is the best-known commandment in the Bible. Yet we rarely hear anyone talk about how to apply these words in daily life. In this landmark work, Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, one of the premier scholars and thinkers of our time, gives both Jews and non-Jews an extraordinary summation of what Jewish tradition teaches about putting these words into practice. Writing with great clarity and simplicity as well as with deep wisdom, Telushkin covers topics such as love and kindness, hospitality, visiting the sick, comforting mourners, charity, relations between Jews and non-Jews, compassion for animals, tolerance, self-defense, and end-of-life issues. This second volume of the first major code of Jewish ethics written in the English language is breathtaking in its scope and will undoubtedly influence readers for generations to come. It offers hundreds of practical examples from the Torah, the Talmud, the Midrash, and both ancient and modern rabbinic commentaries–as well as contemporary anecdotes–all teaching us how to care for one another each and every day. A Code of Jewish Ethics, Volume 2: Love Your Neighbor as Yourself is a consummate work of scholarship. Like its acclaimed predecessor, which received the National Jewish Book Award, it is rich with ideas to contemplate and discuss, while being primarily a book to live by. Nothing could be more important in these strife-torn times than learning how to love our neighbors as ourselves. The message of this book is as vital and timely now as it has been since time immemorial.

Frieden explores methods of dream interpretation in the Bible, the Talmud, and in the writings of Sigmund Freud, and brings to light Freud's troubled relationship to his Judaic forerunners. This book reveals unfamiliar associations in intellectual history and challenges received ideas in biblical, Talmudic, and Freudian scholarship. Freud distanced himself from dream interpreters such as Joseph and Daniel by rejecting their intuitive methods and their claims to predict the future. While biblical and Talmudic dream interpretation generally involve prophecy, Freud sought to limit himself to the determination of prior causes in the dreamer's life. Nevertheless, Frieden demonstrates that Freud's strategies of interpretation, and especially his use of "free association," inevitably guide the dreamer toward a future. This resonance between ancient prophecy and modern psychology is merely one example of the concealed relationship between Judaic and psychoanalytic dream interpretation. Frieden shows the role both of actual influences and influences denied by Freud.