Pinchas Polonsky
Pinchas Polonsky (, ; born 11 February 1958) is a Russian-Israeli Jewish-religious philosopher, researcher, and educator active among the Russian-speaking Jewish community. He has written original books and a number of translations of works on Judaism. During his underground activities in Moscow (1977–1987), he taught Judaism and was one of the founders of Machanaim. He lives in Israel, is an activist in the process of the modernization of Judaism and is a researcher on the topics of Rav Kook. Polonsky is the author of a commentary on the Torah under the title "Bible Dynamics". Polonsky initiated EJWiki, an academic encyclopedia on Jewish and Israeli topics. Biography Born 1958 in Moscow into a family of secular assimilated Jews,«Восемнадцать», составитель З. Вагнер, издательство «Шамир», Иерусалим, 1989, с. 202—217 he attended Special Math School No. 7 with a focus on math and physics. Upon graduating in 1975 a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Yeshiva
A yeshiva (; ; pl. , or ) is a traditional Jewish educational institution focused on the study of Rabbinic literature, primarily the Talmud and halacha (Jewish law), while Torah and Jewish philosophy are studied in parallel. The studying is usually done through daily '' shiurim'' (lectures or classes) as well as in study pairs called '' chavrusas'' ( Aramaic for 'friendship' or 'companionship'). '' Chavrusa''-style learning is one of the unique features of the yeshiva. In the United States and Israel, different levels of yeshiva education have different names. In the U.S., elementary-school students enroll in a '' cheder'', post- bar mitzvah-age students learn in a '' mesivta'', and undergraduate-level students learn in a '' beit midrash'' or '' yeshiva gedola'' (). In Israel, elementary-school students enroll in a Talmud Torah or '' cheder'', post-bar mitzvah-age students learn in a ''yeshiva ketana'' (), and high-school-age students learn in a ''yeshiva gedola''. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Machzor
The ''machzor'' (, plural ''machzorim'', and , respectively) is the prayer book which is used by Jews on the High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Many Jews also make use of specialized ''machzorim'' on the three pilgrimage festivals of Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot. The ''machzor'' is a specialized form of the '' siddur'', which is generally intended for use in weekday and Shabbat services. The word ''machzor'' means "cycle"; the root ח־ז־ר means "to return". The term ''machzor'' originally referred to a book containing prayers for the entire year, including weekdays and Shabbat as well as holidays. Later (first in Ashkenazi communities) a distinction developed between the '' siddur'', which included weekday and Shabbat prayers, and the ''machzor'', which included festival prayers. Nevertheless, the original type of Machzor containing all of the prayers for the year continued to be used (even if less common) at least into the 20th century. Origins and pecul ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Reform Judaism
Reform Judaism, also known as Liberal Judaism or Progressive Judaism, is a major Jewish religious movements, Jewish denomination that emphasizes the evolving nature of Judaism, the superiority of its Jewish ethics, ethical aspects to its ceremonial ones, and belief in a continuous revelation which is closely intertwined with human reason and not limited to the Theophany at Mount Sinai (Bible), Mount Sinai. A highly Religious liberalism, liberal strand of Judaism, it is characterized by little stress on ritual and personal observance, regarding Jewish law as non-binding and the individual Jew as autonomous, and by a great openness to external influences and Progressivism, progressive values. The origins of Reform Judaism lie in German Confederation, mid-19th-century Germany, where Rabbi Abraham Geiger and his associates formulated its early principles, attempting to harmonize Jewish tradition with modern sensibilities in the age of Jewish emancipation, emancipation. Brought to Am ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Siddur
A siddur ( ''sīddūr'', ; plural siddurim ) is a Jewish prayer book containing a set order of daily prayers. The word comes from the Hebrew root , meaning 'order.' Other terms for prayer books are ''tefillot'' () among Sephardi Jews, ''tefillah'' among German Jews, and ''tiklāl'' () among Yemenite Jews. History The earliest parts of Jewish prayer books are the '' Shema Yisrael'' ("Hear O Israel") (Deuteronomy 6:4 ''et seq'') and the Priestly Blessing ( Numbers 6:24-26), which are in the Torah. A set of eighteen (currently nineteen) blessings called the ''Shemoneh Esreh'' or the ''Amidah'' (Hebrew, "standing rayer), is traditionally ascribed to the Great Assembly in the time of Ezra, at the end of the biblical period. The name ''Shemoneh Esreh'', literally "eighteen", is a historical anachronism, since it now contains nineteen blessings. It was only near the end of the Second Temple period that the eighteen prayers of the weekday Amidah became standardized. Even at ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Passover Seder
The Passover Seder is a ritual feast at the beginning of the Jewish holidays, Jewish holiday of Passover. It is conducted throughout the world on the eve of the 15th day of Nisan in the Hebrew calendar (i.e., at the start of the 15th; a Hebrew day begins at sunset). The day falls in late March or in April of the Gregorian calendar. Passover lasts for seven days in Israel and, among most minhag, customs, eight days in the Jewish diaspora. Where seven days of Passover are observed, a seder is held on the first night; where eight days are observed, seders are often held on the first two nights, the 15th and 16th of Nisan. The Seder is a ritual involving a retelling of the story of the liberation of the Israelites from slavery in ancient Egypt, taken from the Book of Exodus () in the Torah. The Seder itself is based on the Hebrew Bible, Biblical verse 613 Mitzvot, commanding Jews to retell the story of the The Exodus, Exodus from Egypt: "You shall tell your child on that day, saying ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Haggadah
The Haggadah (, "telling"; plural: Haggadot) is a foundational Jewish text that sets forth the order of the Passover Seder. According to Jewish practice, reading the Haggadah at the Seder table fulfills the mitzvah incumbent on every Jew to recount the The Exodus, Egyptian Exodus story to their children on the first night of Passover. History Authorship According to Jewish tradition, the Haggadah developed during the Mishnah, Mishnaic and Talmudic periods, although the exact timeframe is unknown. It has existed in different forms over history and therefore cannot be attributed to a single author. Its corporate author is traditionally designated as the ''Baal Haggadah'' (master of the Haggadah). There is also a tradition that the term ''Baal Haggadah'' refers to an anonymous individual from the time of the Gaonim who devised the standard version used today. It is unlikely that it was assembled before the time of Judah bar Ilai (), the latest Tannaim, tanna quoted therein. It is us ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Passover
Passover, also called Pesach (; ), is a major Jewish holidays, Jewish holiday and one of the Three Pilgrimage Festivals. It celebrates the Exodus of the Israelites from slavery in Biblical Egypt, Egypt. According to the Book of Exodus, God in Judaism, God commanded Moses to tell the Israelites to slaughter a lamb and mark their doorframes with its blood, in addition to instructions for consuming the lamb that night. For that night, God would send the Destroying angel (Bible), Angel of Death to bring about the Plagues of Egypt, tenth plague, in which he would Plagues of Egypt#plague10, smite all the firstborn in Egypt. But when the angel saw the blood on the Israelites' doorframes, he would ''pass over'' their homes so that the plague should not enter (hence the name). The story is part of the broader Exodus narrative, in which the Israelites, while living in Egypt, are enslaved en masse by the Pharaoh to suppress them; when Pharaoh refuses God's demand to let them go, God sends ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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West Bank
The West Bank is located on the western bank of the Jordan River and is the larger of the two Palestinian territories (the other being the Gaza Strip) that make up the State of Palestine. A landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the Levant region of West Asia, it is bordered by Jordan and the Dead Sea to the east and by Israel (via the Green Line (Israel), Green Line) to the south, west, and north. Since 1967, the territory has been under Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Israeli occupation, which has been Legality of the Israeli occupation of Palestine, regarded illegal under the law of the international community. The territory first emerged in the wake of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War as a region occupied and subsequently Jordanian annexation of the West Bank, annexed by Jordan. Jordan ruled the territory until the 1967 Six-Day War, when it was occupied by Israel. Since then, Israeli Civil Administration, Israel has administered the West Bank (ex ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ariel University
Ariel University (), previously a public college known as the Ariel University Center of Samaria, is an Israeli university located in the urban Israeli settlement of Ariel in the West Bank. The college preceding the establishment of Ariel University was founded in 1982 as a regional branch of Bar-Ilan University. Originally located in the settlement of Kedumim, it moved to Ariel where it built a larger campus and went on to become the largest Israeli public college. In the 2004–05 academic year, the affiliation with Bar-Ilan ended and it became an independent college. On 17 July 2012, the Council for Higher Education in Judea and Samaria voted to grant the institution full university status. This move was praised by the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Minister of Education Gideon Saar, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and some Knesset members as well as Nobel Prize in Economics winning mathematician Robert Aumann. The Council of presidents of Israeli Universities ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sociology Of Religion
Sociology of religion is the study of the beliefs, practices and organizational forms of religion using the tools and methods of the discipline of sociology. This objective investigation may include the use both of Quantitative research, quantitative methods (surveys, polls, demographic and census analysis) and of Qualitative research, qualitative approaches (such as participant observation, interviewing, and analysis of archival, historical and documentary materials). Modern sociology as an academic discipline began with the analysis of religion in Émile Durkheim's 1897 suicide (Durkheim book), study of suicide rates among Catholic Church, Catholic and Protestantism, Protestant populations, a foundational work of social research which served to distinguish sociology from other disciplines, such as psychology. The works of Karl Marx (1818–1883) and Max Weber (1864–1920) emphasized the relationship between religion and the economic system, economic or social structure of soci ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Talmud
The Talmud (; ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of Haskalah#Effects, modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the centerpiece of Jewish culture, Jewish cultural life and was foundational to "all Jewish thought and aspirations", serving also as "the guide for the daily life" of Jews. The Talmud includes the teachings and opinions of thousands of rabbis on a variety of subjects, including halakha, Jewish ethics, Jewish philosophy, philosophy, Jewish customs, customs, Jewish history, history, and Jewish folklore, folklore, and many other topics. The Talmud is a commentary on the Mishnah. This text is made up of 63 Masekhet, tractates, each covering one subject area. The language of the Talmud is Jewish Babylonian Aramaic. Talmudic tradition emerged and was compiled between the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE and the Arab conquest in the early seve ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |