Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction: Engagement : Religious Devotion, Academic Relativity, and Beyond / Elisha Anscelovits, Sergey Dolgopolski, and Ethan B. Katz -- Chapter 1: Terms : Is Jewish Studies Devotionist, Relativist or Transcendentalist? / Sergey Dolgopolski -- Chapter 2: Philosophy : Moses Mendelssohn, Leo Strauss, and the Relativist/Devotionist Divide / Bruce Rosenstock -- Chapter 3: History : Devotionist Textual Scholarship and Historical Consciousness in Early Modern Responsa / Tamara Morsel-Eisenberg -- Chapter 4: Law :The Mothers, the Mamzerim, and the Rabbis: A Post-Holocaust Halakhic Debate as Legal and Historical Source / Elisha Ancselovits and Ethan B. Katz -- Chapter 5: Language : Did the Medieval Grammarians' Scientific Approach to Hebrew Reject or Embrace Tradition? / Daniel Isaac -- Chapter 6: Ethics : Debating the Proper Orientation of the Ethical Self in Rabbinic and Monastic Sources from Late Antiquity / Matthew Goldstone -- Chapter 7: Pain Milk and Blood, Or the Critical Place of Suffering for Sages and Readers of the Talmud / Yonah Lavery-Yisraeli -- Chapter 8: Consent : Coercion, Consent, and Self in the Redaction of a Bavli Sugya / Aviva Richman -- Chapter 9: Feminism : Relativity and Devotion, the Yarmulke, and the Ex-Bais Yaakov Girl / Naomi Seidman -- Chapter 10: PostModernism : Rav ShaGar and the Allures of the PostModern / David N. Myers -- Chapter 11: Education Devotionist and Relativist Learning in Early Childhood Religious Education / Jaclyn Rubin-Blaier -- Afterword: Limits Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis / Philip Lieberman.

"This book rethinks the relationship between the world of the traditional Jewish study hall (the beit midrash) and the academy, Can these two institutions overcome their vast differences? Should they attempt to do so? If not, what could two methods of study seen as diametrically opposed possibly learn from one another? How might they help each other reconceive of their interrelationship, themselves, and the broader study of Jews and Judaism? This book begins with three distinct approaches to these challenges. The chapters then follow the approaches through an interdisciplinary series of pioneering case studies that reassess a range of topics including religion and pluralism in Jewish education; pain, sexual consent, and ethics in the Talmud; the place of reason and devotion among Jewish thinkers as diverse as Moses Mendelssohn, Jacob Taubes, Sarah Schenirer, Ibn Chiquitilla, Yair Ḥayim Bacharach, and the Rav Shagar; and Jewish law as a response to the post-Holocaust landscape. The authors are scholars of rabbinics, history, linguistics, philosophy, law, and education, many of whom also have traditional religious training or ordination. The result is a book designed for learned scholars, non-specialists, and students of varying backgrounds, and one that is sure to spark debate in the university, the beit midrash, and far beyond"-- Provided by publisher.