Grounded Spirituality - Aspects of Rabbinic Culture in its Late Antique Context

Grounded Spirituality provides insight into the unique world of rabbinic religiosity in late antiquity, from around 1-500 C.E. Treating a variety of central subjects that shaped the religious outlook of the Jewish sages of the Midrash and Talmud, this book serves as a guide and introduction to reading rabbinic sources. Each chapter chooses an intriguing rabbinic text on an important aspect of religion, reads it closely and compares it to other texts of the Rabbis and other religious and philosophic cultures of late antiquity. Marc Hirshman explores the implications of these themes for contemporary religion, asking what lessons are to be learned from rabbinic thought, and what place should they have on the development of religion and humanities in the twenty-first century.