Overview

This annotated bilingual edition presents to readers for the first time a key Hebrew book of Jewish Enlightenment. Printed in Berlin in 1791, Joel Bril’s Hebrew introductions to Psalms constitute the earliest interpretation of Moses Mendelssohn’s language philosophy, translation theory, and aesthetics. In these introductions, Mendelssohn emerges as a critic of Maimonides who located eternal felicity not in union with the Active Intellect but in the aesthetic experience of the divine through sacred poetry. Bril’s theoretical insights, the broad range of his myriad textual sources, and his linguistic innovations make the Book of the Songs of Israel a touchstone of modern Hebrew literary theory and Jewish thought.

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9789004398948

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Yael Sela (D.Phil. Oxford 2010), Humboldt Research Fellow at Goethe University Frankfurt, has authored studies in modern German Jewish history, including The People of the Song: Biblical Poetry, Translation, and the Reception of Moses Mendelssohn in the Berlin Haskalah (Brill, forthcoming).

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