Aggression and Community

Paradoxes of Andalusian Culture

Bibliographic Data

ID5778893
AuthorsD Ellis (0000-0002-5655-7890), David Gilmore (0000-0003-1090-3804), David H Gilmore
Year1988
Volume17
Issue2
Pages165-165
Publication date1988-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueContemporary Sociology A Journal of Reviews (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0094-3061 • E-ISSN: 1939-8638
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.2307/2070545
OpenAlexW2025875029
LanguageEN
Citations received38

patients. But Yagel's healing activities had a deeper significance. He ministered to a vulnerable and profoundly disturbed Jewish community: the Spanish expulsion was a recent memory, and northern Italy was experiencing growing anti-Semitism. In such a situation, the good physician made sense of the universe. He did so by interpreting illness in a manner totally consistent with Judaic sources and values but at the same time congruent with established medical theory. Essentially the same approach was applied to other fields of inquiry. Yagel's work has to be approached in cultural and temporal context. As Ruderman expresses it, tension inherent in simultaneously demarcating the boundaries and promoting dialogue and integration between Judaism and other cultures constitutes the central dilemma of Jewish life, especially in modern times (159). Yagel, an early-modern intellectual, vividly exemplifies the search for concordance in Jewish and non-Jewish traditions and testimonies. The second contextual consideration has to do with the status of knowledge. His was perhaps the last generation that could seriously approach as one domain what we would now term occult and scientific spheres. This linkage of kabbalah, magic, and science-essentially an attempt to understand the underlying unity of all things-would soon break up as science increasingly became defined as the world of the rational and testable. For its part, kabbalah would shortly be transformed from a potentially syncretic discipline to a Jewish pietistic movement devoted to prayer and ritual. In conclusion, this is a fascinating portrait of an individual and his intellectual world. It should serve well not only students of earlymodern Europe but all concerned with understanding the many-stranded and intertwined origins of the Western cultural tradition

Medieval and Classical Philosophy

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