Michael Fishbane

Nathan Cummings Professor of Jewish Studies and Chair of the Committee on Jewish Studies Michael Fishbane, PhD

Exegesis - interpretation and explanation of sacred texts - is the quintessence of rabinic thought. This volume delineates the connections between biblical interpretation and Jewish religious thought.

On Jewish Thought and Theology

The Exegetical Imagination

"In Fragile Finitude, the long-awaited follow-up to Sacred Attunement(2008), Fishbane clears new ground for theological experience and its expressions through a novel reinterpretation of the Book of Job. His reinterpretation is based on the traditional four types of Jewish Scriptural exegesis: the contextual plain sense; the rabbinic legal and theological sense; the figural philosophical and spiritual sense; and the symbolic mystical sense. The first focuses on worldly experience; the second on communal forms of life and thought in the rabbinic tradition; the third on personal development; and the fourth on transcendent and cosmic orientations. Through these four modes, Fishbane manages to transform Jewish theology from within, at once reinvigorating a long tradition and moving beyond it. What he offers is nothing short of a way to reorient our lives in relation to the Divine and our fellow humans"--

A Jewish Hermeneutical Theology

Fragile Finitude

Michael A. Fishbane

The lines of Michael Fishbane’s book trace the spiritual face of Judaism in one of its many appearances. Fishbane explores the quest for spiritual perfection in early rabbinic sources and in Jewish philosophy and mysticism. The "kiss of God," a symbol for union with God, and the ritual practices—meditation and performance—connected with it are presented. The book identifies a persistent passion for religious perfection, expressed as the love of God unto death itself. The masters of the tradition cultivated this ideal in all periods, in diverse genres, and in different modes. Rabbinic law and midrash, medieval philosophy and mysticism, public and private ritual all contributed to its development. Rooted in the understanding that the spiritual life requires discipline, the sages set up different ladders of ascension. For some, the Law itself was the means of spiritual growth; for others, more private practices were built upon its foundation. But all agreed that the purification of desire and the perfection of the soul offered the hope of personal salvation. None denied the historical redemption of the nation.

Spiritual and Mystical Death in Judaism

The Kiss of God

The world we engage with is a vibrant collage brought to consciousness by language and our creative imagination. It is in the symbolic forms of language that the human world of value is revealed, and it is there that religious scholar Michael Fishbane dwells in his latest contribution to Jewish thought. In Fragile Finitude, Fishbane clears new ground for theological living through a novel reinterpretation of the Book of Job. On this basis he offers a contemporary engagement with the four classical types of Jewish Scriptural exegesis. The first focuses on worldly experience, the second on communal forms of practice and thought in the rabbinic tradition, the third on personal development, and the final on transcendent and cosmic orientations. Through these four modes, Fishbane manages to transform Jewish theology from within, at once reinvigorating a long tradition and moving beyond it. What he offers is nothing short of a way to reorient our lives in relation to the divine and our fellow humans. Written from within the Jewish tradition, Fragile Finitude is intended for readers across the religious spectrum.

Collected Essays

Biblical Text and Exegetical Culture

"In this almost painfully beautiful book... Fishbane... explores the question of the kind of canon, privileged status, or Logos, the Torah actually has for the post-modern Western Jew. " -- Theology Today "A book well worth reading." -- The Jerusalem Post "This wonderful volume documents the intellectual and spiritual odyssey of one of North America's foremost Jewish biblical scholars." -- Shofar

Essays in Biblical Hermeneutics

The Garments of Torah

"Shir ha-Shirim" -- Top of the title page.

Michael Fishbane

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