Edited by: Dov Schwartz, Ronit Irshai
Professor Tamar Ross is one of the most prominent, original and daring figures in the religious world in the last generation. Her writings deal with Rabbi Kook's philosophy, musar and Hasidism, and she is considered the leading thinker of Jewish-Orthodox feminism in Israel and around the world. At the basis of her spiritual and intellectual unrest are important theological and epistemological questions concerning the ability and existential need to reconcile a deep commitment to religious tradition on the one hand and a commitment of no less than philosophical, critical, and feminist insights on the other. Ross's personal and philosophical journey to connect the worlds yielded complex interpretive insights. Can a thought that empties religious truths from their accepted set of truths be reconciled with a vibrant, committed and dedicated theology? Is it possible to hold onto tradition with criticism towards it? Ross's discussion of these questions with tools from the philosophy of language, the philosophy of law, the philosophy of religion, the theory of interpretation, theories of gender, and more, is the thread in her extensive work. This collection of articles, "A New Spirit in the Palace of Torah", is dedicated to Prof. Tamar Ross. The articles, written by top researchers in interdisciplinary fields, seek to touch upon questions of infrastructure that resonate with her thought, and constitute an essential foundation for research and thought, as well as an existential preoccupation with conceptual questions of renewed Judaism.