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Associate Professor
Areas of Interest:
Rabbinics, Jewish Law and Philosophy
Education:
B.A. (Yeshiva University), M.A., Ph.D. (Harvard University)
Publications:
Edited Books
Maimonides between Philosophy and Halakhah:Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik’s Lectures on the Guide of the Perplexed at the Bernard Revel Graduate School, 1950-51.Based on the notes of Rabbi Gerald (Yaakov) Homnick, Edited, Annotated, and with an Introduction by Lawrence Kaplan. Ktav Press, 2016 (256 pp.)
Essays
“The Purpose of theGuide of the Perplexed, Maimonides’ Theory of Parables, and Sceptical versus Dogmatic Readings of theGuide,”iScepticism and Anti-Scepticism in Medieval Jewish Philosophy and Thought, Maimonides Centre for Advanced Jewish Studies, University of Hamburg. De Gruyter, Berlin (forthcoming)
“Yehezkel Kaufmann, R. Nachman Krochmal, and the ‘Anxiety of Influence,’” inYehezkel Kaufmann and the Reinvention of Jewish Biblical Exegesis, edited by B. Sommer, T. Staubli, and J. Jindo. Orbis Biblicus Orientalis (Academic Press Fribourg, 2017):122-146.
“The Ethos of Submission, Union with the Spirit of the Torah, and Confronting the Challenges of the Time: R. Abraham Isaiah Karelitz, the Hazon Ish,” (in Hebrew) inThe Gdoilim: Leaders who Shaped Israeli Haredi Jewry, eds. Benjamin Brown and Nissim Leon (Jerusalem: Magnes Press and Van Leer Institute, 2017), pp. 479-519.
“Mishneh Torah’s Structure and Meaning: A Counter Response to David Gillis”Hakirah21 (summer, 2016): 53-59.
“Saving Knowledge” (essay on Solomon Schechter’s “Nachman Krochmal and the ‘Perplexities of the Time’’’)Jewish Quarterly Review106:2 (spring, 2016):138-144.
“Was Mendelssohn a Deist or a Theist? and Does It Matter?"Moses Mendelssohn: Enlightenment, Religion, Politics, Nationalism, eds. Michah Gottlieb and Charles H. Manekin (Bethesda Maryland: University Press of Maryland, 2016), pp. 169-203.
Introduction toMaimonides between Philosophy and Halakhah:Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik’s Lectures on the Guide of the Perplexed at the Bernard Revel Graduate School, 1950-51.Based on the notes of Rabbi Gerald (Yaakov Homnick) (Ktav Press, 2016), pp. 20-68.
“Further Reflections on Classification ofMishneh Torah,”Hakirah19 (2015), pp. 29-70.
“Back to Zechariah Frankel and Louis Jacobs? On Integrating Academic Talmudic Scholarship into Israeli Religious Zionist Yeshivot and the Specter of the Historical Development of the Halakah,”Modern Jewish Studies14:1 (2015), pp. 89-108.
“Thoroughly Modern Maimonides?”Review essay of Recent Literature on Maimonides.Jewish Review of Books 5:3 (Fall, 2014), pp. 12-15.
“Kashrut and Kugel: Franz Rosenzweig’sThe Builders,”Jewish Review of Books5:1(winter, 2014), pp. 41-43.
“More Nevukhe ha-Zeman,”Enzyklopadie judischer Geschichte und Kultur, Band 4 (2014) Verlag J.B. Metzler, pp. 231-235.
“Exposition as a High Art: Review Essay of Gerald J. (Ya‘akov) Blidstein,Society and Self: On the Writings of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik,”Hakirah15 (summer, 2013), pp. 61-108
“The Ethical Theories of Rabbis Abraham Isaac Kook and Joseph B. Soloveitchik,”
Oxford Handbook of Jewish Ethics, eds. Jonathan Crane and Elliot Dorff (Oxford, 2013), pp. 166-185.
Review ofEliyahu Stern,The Genius: Elijah of Vilna and the Making of Modern Judaism.New Haven: Yale University Press 2013. Seforim Blog (online). November, 2013.
“Faith, Rebellion, and Heresy in the Writings of R. Azriel of Gerona,”Faith: Jewish Perspectives, eds. Avi Sagi and Dov Schwartz (Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2013), pp. 278-301.
“Rav Soloveitchik’sLonely Man of Faithin Contemporary Modern Orthodox Jewish Thought,’’ (in Hebrew),Rabbi in the New World: The Influence of Rabbi J. B Soloveitchik on Culture, Education, and Jewish Thought, eds. Avinoam Rosenak and Naftali Rothenberg(Magnes Press and Van Leer Institute, 2011), 147-176
“’The Starling’s Caw:’ Judah Halevi as Philosopher, Poet, and Pilgrim,”Review Essay ofAdam Shear,The Kuzari and the Shaping of Jewish Identity, 1167-1900, Cambridge University Press, 2008; Raymond P. Scheindlin,The Song of the Distant Dove: Judah Halevi’s Pilgrimage, Oxford University Press, 2008, and Hillel Halkin,Yehuda Halevi. Next 0Book, Schocken, 2009.Jewish Quarterly Review101:1 (2011): 97-132.
“From Cooperation to Conflict: Rabbi Professor Emanuel Rackman, Rav Joseph B. Soloveitchik, and the Evolution of American Modern Orthodoxy,”Modern Judaism30:1 (Feb., 2010): 1-23.
“A Righteous Judgment on a Righteous People: Rabbi Isaac Hutner’s Implicit Theology of the Holocaust,”Hakirah10 (2010), pp. 101-116.
Translations from Hebrew
R. Nahman Krochmal, Selections fromGuide of the Perplexed of the AgeinJewish Legal Theories: Writings on State, Religion, and Morality, eds. Leora Batnitsky and Yonatan Brafman, Brandeis Library of Jewish Thought (University Press of New England, 2018), pp. 58-64.
Yehezkel Kaufmann, Review Essay of Freud’sMoses and Monotheism(with Briah Kahana) inYehezkel Kaufmann and the Reinvention of Jewish Biblical Exegesis, edited by B. Sommer, T. Staubli, and J. Jindo. Orbis Biblicus Orientalis (Academic Press Fribourg, 2017): 318-336.