Episode 94: Dr. Roslyn Weiss "Light of the Lord"

JUDAISM DEMYSTIFIED | A Guide for Today's Perplexed: Confronting the Challenges of This Generation

In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Roslyn Weiss to explore her translation of Hasdai Crescas's Light of the Lord. We delve into the initial inspiration behind her translation project and the challenges she faced in capturing Crescas's philosophical nuances in English. Dr. Weiss provides insight into Crescas’s difficult life and the historical context of his work, highlighting how these factors influence our interpretation of Light of the Lord. We discuss the unique organizational structure Crescas employs and how it serves the development of his philosophical arguments, contrasting it with the structures used by other medieval philosophers like Maimonides. Dr. Weiss elaborates on the intended audience for Crescas’s work and its significance. Crescas's critique of Aristotelian physics and metaphysics is another focal point of our conversation. Dr. Weiss highlights Crescas's arguments and explains why he is so critical of Aristotelian views, comparing Crescas's perspectives with those of his contemporaries. We also explore Crescas’s views on human free will in light of causal necessity and its implications for moral responsibility in Jewish thought. Dr. Weiss discusses Crescas’s approach to the existence of God, the essence of God as infinite love, the justification of commandments, and the balance between rational inquiry and adherence to tradition as presented in Books I-IV of Light of the Lord. Join us for a deep dive into the philosophical world of Hasdai Crescas with Dr. Roslyn Weiss. --- Bio: Roslyn Weiss is Professor Emerita of Philosophy at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA. Her fields of expertise are Ancient Greek Philosophy and Medieval Jewish Philosophy. She has published four books on Plato; a fifth is due out in July 2024. Her most recent publications are the first complete translation into English of the medieval Hebrew philosophical work, Light of the Lord, by Hasdai Crescas (Oxford, 2018), and an edited bi-lingual volume of all of Crescas’s writings (Koren, Library of the Jewish People, 2023). She was a Guggenheim fellow in 2021. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/judaismdemystified/support