Halakhic Morality: Essays on Ethics and Masorah

by Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik

Overview

In this volume's opening essay, Rabbi Soloveitchik writes: Nowadays a basic investigation of morality and ethos would be of great importance. There is a crying need for clarification of many practical problems, both in the individual-private and in the social-ethical realms. There are too many uncertainties in which we live today, uncertainties about what we ought to do. We should try to infer from our ethical tradition certain standards that should govern our conduct. In particular, I notice confusion among rabbis as regards basic problems whose solution cannot be found in the Shulhan Arukh and must rather be inferred by way of deduction from ancient principles and axioms.
He approaches this task through an in-depth examination of the beginning of Pirkei Avot, raising topics such as: the sources of ethics, power and persuasion, elitism and democracy, educational philosophy, study and action, freedom and coercion, and more. These follow essays on a variety of related themes, including charity and fellowship, law and ethics, styles of religious observance, and the centrality of humility in Jewish life. Maggid Books is honored to bring these hitherto unpublished essays to a long-awaiting public.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781592644636
Publisher:	Koren Publishers
Publication date:	01/10/2017
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	252
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.60(h) x 1.30(d)

Table of Contents

Preface vii

Introduction ix

I Pirkei Avot and Jewish Ethics

Two Dimensions of Masorah 3

Avot 1.1 Prom Sinai to the Men of the Great Assembly 13

Avot 1.2 The World Rests upon Three Things 63

Avot 1.3 Against Religious Pragmatism 93

Avot 1.4 Controversy and Continuity 109

II Aspects of Jewish Ethics

Tzedakah: Brotherhood and Fellowship 123

Halakhic Morality 181

Religious Styles 193

Torah and Humility 209

Source Index 223

Subject and Name Index 231