Table Of ContentMonographs oft he
Hebrew Union College
Number29
Happiness in
Premodern judaism:
Virtue, Knowledge, and
Well-Being
Monographs of the Hebrew Union College
1. Lewis M. Barth, An Analysis ofVatican 30
2. Samson H. Levey, The Messiah: An Aramaic Interpretation
3. Ben Zion Wacholder, Eupolemus: A Study ofjudaeo-Greek Literature
4. Richard Victor Bergren, The Prophets and the Law
5. Benny Kraut, From Reform judaism to Ethical Culture: The Religious Evolution
ofF elix Adler
6. David B. Ruderman, The World ofa Renaissance jew: The Life and Thought of
Abraham ben Mordecai Farrisol
7. Alan Mendelson, Secular Education in Philo ofA lexandria
8. Ben Zion Wacholder, The Dawn of Qumran: the Sectarian Torah and the
Teacher ofR ighteousness
9. Stephen M. Passamaneck, The Traditional jewish Law ofS ale: Shulban Arukh,
lfoshen Mishpat, Chapters 189-240
10. Yael S. Feldman, Modernism and Cultural Transfer: Gabriel Preil and the Tradi
tion ofj ewish Literary Bilingualism
11. Raphael Jospe, Torah and Sophia: The Life and Thought of Shem Tov ibn
Falaquera
12. Richard Kalmin, The Redaction oft he Babylonian Talmud: Amoraic or Saboraic?
13. Shuly Rubin Schwartz, The Emergence ofj ewish Scholarship in America: The
Publication oft he jewish Encyclopedia
14. John C. Reeves, jewish Lore in Manichaean Cosmogony: Studies in the Book of
Giants Traditions
15. Robert Kirschner, Baraita De Melekhet Ha-Mishkan: A Critical Edition with In
troduction and Translation
16. Philip E. Miller, Karaite Separatism in Nineteenth-Century Russia: joseph
Solomon Lutski's Epistle ofI srael's Deliverance
17. Warren Bargad, "To Write the Lips ofS leepers':· The Poetry ofA mir Gilboa
18. Marc Saperstein, "Your Voice Like a Ram's Horn':· Themes and Texts in Tradi
tional jewish Preaching
19. Emanuel Melzer, No \\'Jay Out: The Politics ofP olish jewry, 1935-1939
20. Eric L. Friedland, "Wf>re Our Mouths Filled With Song':· Studies in Liberal jew
ish Liturgy
21. Edward Fram, Ideals Face Reality: jewish Law and Life in Poland 1550-1655
22. Ruth Langer, To Worship God Properly: Tensions Between Liturgical Custom and
Halakhah in judaism
23. Nili Sacher Fox, In the Service of the King: Officialdom in Ancient Israel and
Judah
24. Carole B. Balin, To Reveal Our Hearts: jewish Women Writers in Tsarist Russia
25. Shaul Bar, A Letter That Has Not Been Read: Dreams in the Hebrew Bible
26. Eric Caplan, From Ideology to Liturgy: Reconstructionist Worship and American
Liberal judaism
27. Rina Lapidus, Between Snow and Desert Heat: Russian Influences on Hebrew Lit
erature, 1870-1970
28. Howard L. Apothaker, Sifra, Dibbura deSinai: Rhetorical Formulae, Literary
Structures, and Legal Traditions
29. Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, Happiness in Premodern judaism: Virtue, Knowledge,
and wt-ll-Being
Happiness in
Premodern Judaism
Virtue, Knowledge, and Well-Being
Hava Tirosh-Samuelson
HEBREW UNION COLLEGE PRESS
CINCINNATI
© Copyright 2003 by the Hebrew Union College Press
Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Tirosh-Samuelson, Hava, 1950-
Happiness in premodern Judaism: virtue, knowledge, and well-being I
Hava Tirosh-Samuelson.
p. em. -(Monographs of the Hebrew Union College ; no. 29)
Includes bibliographic references and index.
ISBN 0-87820-453-9 (alk. paper)
1. Joy-Religious aspects-Judaism. 2. Happiness-Religious aspects
Judaism. I. Title. II. Series
BM645.J67T57 2003
296.3'6----d.c21
2002191909
Printed on acid-free paper in the United States of America
Distributed by Wayne State University Press
4809 Woodward Avenue, Detroit, MI 48201
Toll-free 1-800-978-7323
Contents
Acknowledgments
1x
Abbreviations
x1
Preface 1
1. Thinking Happiness: Greek and Hellenistic Views 9
2. Ashrei: Torah, Wisdom, and Living Rightly in
Ancient Judaism 55
3. The Happy Life ofTorah in Rabbinic Judaism 101
4. Happiness and the Cultivation of Character in Islam 143
5. Perfectly Happy: Maimonides' Conception of Happiness 192
6. The Maimonidean Controversies: Debating the
Meaning of Happiness 246
7. The Kabbalistic Prescription for Happiness 291
8. Intellectual Perfection and Jewish-Christian Rivalry 343
9. Religious Perfection and the Interplay of Philosophy
and Kabbalah 394
Postscript 439
Notes 450
Bibliographic Essay 550
Index 574
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Acknowledgments
This book has been in the making for over a decade. It began in a paper de
livered in 1991 in a conference on Jews in Iberia commemorating the SOOth
anniversary of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain. The article presented at
that conference appeared in print in 1998 in In Iberia and Beyond: Hispanic
jews Between Cultures, ed. Bernard Dov Cooperman (Newark: University of
Delaware Press, 1998). Parts of this paper are now found in Chapters Eight
and Nine of this study, reconfigured into a new context. Since that confer
ence I have published several articles, and sections from them are included
in this book. Most of Chapter Five appeared as "Maimonides' View of Hap
piness: Philosophy, Myth and the Transcendence of History," in jewish His
tory and jewish Memory: Essays in Honor of Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, ed.
Elisheva Carlebach, John M. Efron and David N. Myers (Brandeis Univer
sity Press for the University Press of New England, 1998). Chapter Eight in
cludes material from "Jewish Philosophy on the Eve of Modernity,"
published in History ofj ewish Philosophy ed. Daniel H. Frank and Oliver
Leaman (London and New York: Routledge, 1997) and Chapter Nine in
cludes material published in that essay as well as in "The Ultimate End of
Human Life in Postexpulsion Philosophic Literature," in Crisis and Creativ
ity in the Sephardic World: 1391-1648, ed. Benjamin Gampel (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1997). I thank these publishers for allowing me
to use this copyrighted material in this study.
A grant from the Amado Foundation enabled me to access pertinent
texts extant only in manuscripts. I thank Dr. Abraham David of the Micro
filmed Hebrew Manuscripts Institute in the National and University Li
brary in Jerusalem for helping me to obtain relevant manuscripts over the
past two decades.
Most of the work on this text was carried out while I was on the faculty
of the Department of Religious Studies of Indiana University. A release
from teaching duties in Fall 1994, Fall 1995, and the academic year of
1997/98 enabled me to write the first three chapters. Conversations with
my colleagues in the department of Religious Studies, especially the late
Professor J. Samuel Preus and the recently retired Professor James Hart,
helped me sharpen my presentation and analysis. Also helpful were the
questions and comments of those who listened to my talks at the American
Academy of Religion, the Association of Jewish Studies, the University of
IX
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