RT Article
T1 “Taking Precedence over the Torah”: Vows and Oaths, Abstinence and Celibacy in Naḥmanides’s Oeuvre
JF The journal of Jewish thought & philosophy
VO 28
IS 2
SP 121
OP 150
A1 Yiśraʾeli, ʿOded 1960-
LA English
YR 2020
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1733531602
AB This article explores the ascetic tendencies of Naḥmanides (R. Moses ben Naḥman, ca. 1194-1270) as reflected in his oeuvre as a whole, including his halakhic, kabbalistic, exegetical, and philosophical output. A close examination of Naḥmanides’s kabbalistic commentary to a talmudic sugiya concerning the differences between oaths and vows uncovers the austere and ascetic ethos in his teaching and its central place in his religious world. This perspective is linked to the nature of human beings and the human soul, the relationship between body and psyche, the meaning of life and the overcoming of death, and the status of the Torah and the connection between observance of the commandments and the voluntary hasidic ethos.
K1 Naḥmanides
K1 Torah observance
K1 Asceticism
K1 Commandments
K1 Human Soul
K1 Oaths
K1 Vows
DO 10.1163/1477285X-12341307