Grounded Spirituality: Aspects of Rabbinic Culture in its Late Antique Context

This book provides insight into the unique world of rabbinic religiosity in late antiquity. Treating a variety of central subjects that shaped the religious outlook of the Jewish sages of the Midrash and Talmud, the book serves as a guide and introduction to reading rabbinic sources of the first five centuries CE. Each chapter chooses an intriguing rabbinic text on an important aspect of religion, reads it closely and compares it to other texts of the Rabbis and other religious and philosophic cultures of late antiquity. The book hopes to show the brilliant effort to develop a religiosity both earthy and ethereal at the same time.