The Blessing Of A B Minus

Counsel parents of teens on how to overcome anxiety and dependence in older children by drawing on a Jewish system of character refinement that focuses on developing a young person's sound judgment.

Provides parents with advice on using Jewish teachings from the Torah and Talmud to overcome struggles with raising children, nurture strengths and uniqueness, and encourage respectfulness towards their parents and others.

qVeneration of the Host and of saintly relics can only be understood as closely interrelated aspects of medieval piety. This book offers a rich account of one of the most revealing dimensions of medieval belief and practice.

In the Book of Ecclesiastes the main character, already rich in material wealth, seeks wisdom and looks upon the lessons of his own life. Inspired by that search, bestselling philosopher Haim Shapira muses on the perennial questions most relevant to our lives. Ecclesiastes is among the most poetic books of the Old Testament, full of famous and resonant verses: 'Vanity of vanities, all is vanity'; 'A time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance'; 'I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind'. It is traditionally attributed to King Solomon (r. 970-930 BC), who advises us to avoid seeking happiness in worldly things and focus instead on the eternal truths. The book poses many vital questions: Is life nonsense and suffering or bliss? Is there any meaning to our actions under the sun? What will happen at the end? Is there any advantage to wisdom? Why can't a just regime be established? What are the relationships between happiness and wealth? What is the source of emotions and what do we know about desires? Can knowledge of death serve as a guide to life? King Solomon does not instruct us to think like him, nor does he guide us towards a particular path. Ecclesiastes sends us on a journey into The Valley of Great Questions: Abel, man, world, labor, advantage, sun, goodness, time, light, evil spirit, wisdom, love, fear of God, death, and more... Haim Shapira's rich and rigorously informed analysis allows King Solomon's voice to speak to us across the millennia, offering remarkably up-to-the-minute insights for people of all faiths and none. If you want advice about living a better life (and to learn about the meaning of life), would it not be wise to receive it from King Solomon – the wisest man of all time?

Exploration of differences between women: good women who were absorbed into society, and those whose social role condemned them to its fringes.

Narrative Art and Poetry in the Books of Samuel is the vast undertaking to interpret all the material in Samuel. Everything that the text has to offer can only be understood and appreciated to the full, and its interpretation can only lay claim to full validity by means of an integral view. Therefore the author has developed a textual model which regards and covers the composition of the Samuel books as a hierarchy of twelve levels. The Hebrew text is the long section which inextricably interweaves the demise of king Saul and the rise of David into a subtle and complicated dialectic of election and rejection. The author’s model of the ‘semiotic scale’ enables him to chart the different levels of the textual hierarchy and exactly determine the weight and range of action of each formal fact within the whole.

A beautifully detailed literary study of Prudentius's eulogies of the Christian martyrs