Preambles: An Insight into Rabbi Avraham Danzig’s Haye Adam
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Simcha Fishbane
Abstract
The Haye Adam of Rabbi Avraham Danzig (1747-1820) was the first all-encompassing code of Jewish law published since Rabbi Joseph Karo’s Shulchan Aruch (1565). The Hayei Adam ruled on all facets of daily life and was written to assist layman in understanding and comprehending the Shulchan Aruch and its numerous commentaries. This paper analyzes the preludes to each section of the Code, which served as the means to cognize Rabbi Danzig’s implicit message and system of adjudication. Rabbi Danzig understood that he lived in a time and place in which diversity was not the sole challenge to his religious community because the new secular neo-religious and “outside” orthodox groups were a threat. The Rabbi used the platform of his book of halakhah to instruct his educated readers in the correct behavior and theology. This paper takes into consideration the Jewish social historical issues of the period that had direct influences upon the thinking and rulings of Rabbi Danzig as manifested in the Haye Adam.
© 2017 by Academic Studies Press, Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Masthead
- Table of Contents
- From the Guest Editor
- ESSAYS
- Re-Presenting Judaic Law: Rabbi Yudel Rosenberg’s Popular Guides to Halakha and Their Significance
- Halakhic Guidance for Soldiers: The Emergence of a New Corpus
- Immodest Modesty: The Emergence of Halakhic Dress Codes
- From Ideology to Halakhah: Ultra-Orthodox Opposition to Modern Hebrew
- Preambles: An Insight into Rabbi Avraham Danzig’s Haye Adam
- The Medical Cosmology of Halakha: The Expert, the Physician, and the Sick Person on Shabbat in the Shulchan Aruch
- The Kitzur Shulchan Aruch and Its Impact in Hungary and Beyond
- A Matter of Life and Death: The Halakhic Discussion of Suicide as a Philosophical Battleground
- BOOK REVIEWS
- Adam Afterman, “And They Shall Be One Flesh”: On the Language of Mystical Union in Judaism. Leiden: Brill, 2016, 270 pages
- Oded Porat, Sefer B’rit ha-Menuh . a (Book of Covenant of Serenity): Critical Edition and Prefaces [in Hebrew], Jerusalem: Magnes Press and Hotza’at ha-Kibbutz ha-me’uh . ad, 2016. 601 pages
- Elisheva Baumgarten, Ruth Mazo Karras, and Katelyn Mesler, eds. Entangled Histories: Knowledge, Authority, and Jewish Culture in the Thirteenth Century. Jewish Culture and Contexts. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017. 368 pages
- Sara Davidson, The December Project. San Francisco: HarperOne, 2014. 193 pages
- Contributors
Articles in the same Issue
- Masthead
- Table of Contents
- From the Guest Editor
- ESSAYS
- Re-Presenting Judaic Law: Rabbi Yudel Rosenberg’s Popular Guides to Halakha and Their Significance
- Halakhic Guidance for Soldiers: The Emergence of a New Corpus
- Immodest Modesty: The Emergence of Halakhic Dress Codes
- From Ideology to Halakhah: Ultra-Orthodox Opposition to Modern Hebrew
- Preambles: An Insight into Rabbi Avraham Danzig’s Haye Adam
- The Medical Cosmology of Halakha: The Expert, the Physician, and the Sick Person on Shabbat in the Shulchan Aruch
- The Kitzur Shulchan Aruch and Its Impact in Hungary and Beyond
- A Matter of Life and Death: The Halakhic Discussion of Suicide as a Philosophical Battleground
- BOOK REVIEWS
- Adam Afterman, “And They Shall Be One Flesh”: On the Language of Mystical Union in Judaism. Leiden: Brill, 2016, 270 pages
- Oded Porat, Sefer B’rit ha-Menuh . a (Book of Covenant of Serenity): Critical Edition and Prefaces [in Hebrew], Jerusalem: Magnes Press and Hotza’at ha-Kibbutz ha-me’uh . ad, 2016. 601 pages
- Elisheva Baumgarten, Ruth Mazo Karras, and Katelyn Mesler, eds. Entangled Histories: Knowledge, Authority, and Jewish Culture in the Thirteenth Century. Jewish Culture and Contexts. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017. 368 pages
- Sara Davidson, The December Project. San Francisco: HarperOne, 2014. 193 pages
- Contributors
