The Rabbinic Mind

Rabbinic literature is viewed here as an expression of the concepts of the Rabbis, creative concepts that canalized their thinking. This book is concerned chiefly with the wider aspects of the rabbinic mind. It discusses such problems as the transmission of social values, the integration of the self, and the relation of the self to society. It treats such topics as the category of significance, indeterminacy of belief, normal mysticism, the commonplace and the holy, rabbinic dogma, and the relation of rabbinic thought to philosophy. The sources on which these discussions are based are drawn from both the Haggadah and the Halakah.