98 research outputs found
Directing the Heart: Early Rabbinic Language and the Anatomy of Ritual Space
No full textNeis traces an expression of bodily language (kavvanat halev, literally “directing the heart”) from biblical to early rabbinic sources and demonstrates how it oriented people to the affective, physical, and spatial dimensions of prayer. Rejecting a binary that would treat such language as either mental/subjective (and thus metaphorically) or soley physical/objective , Neis argues that we must unpack the fraught meaning of such corporeal spatial terminology to understand “rabbinic concepts of body-mind, ritual technology, and sacred geography." Neis highlights the guidelines for the body in prayer mode found in the rulings of Mishnah and Tosefta Berakhot, which provide a geography and choreography of bodily and affective orientation that calls into question the notion of a fixed, mandate to turn toward the site of the Jerusalem Temple. Although later directions found in the Babylonian Talmud on the praying toward the holy of holies have come to be viewed as normative, Neis warns against reading these into the earlier sources on prayer, finding multiple focal points in her anatomy of the tannaitic evidence. Analyzing kavvanat halev in Mishnah Rosh Hoshana 3 and its parallel in the Tosefta, Neis shows how the sages turned hearing into ritual listening and ordinary gazing into observing, directions grounded in the body, space, and affect. Neis closes with a section on the broader implications of this analysis for scholarly discussions of mind/body dualisms and metaphorical and embodied language
When a Human Gives Birth to a Raven
No full textThis book investigates rabbinic treatises relating to animals, humans, and other life-forms. Through an original analysis of creaturely generation and species classification by late ancient Palestinian rabbis and other thinkers in the Roman Empire, Rafael Rachel Neis shows how rabbis blurred the lines between humans and other beings, even as they were intent on classifying creatures and tracing the contours of what it means to be human. Recognizing that life proliferates by mechanisms beyond sexual copulation between two heterosexual “male” and “female” individuals of the same species, the rabbis proposed intricate alternatives. In parsing a variety of creatures, they considered overlaps and resemblances across seemingly distinct species, upsetting in turn unmitigated claims of human distinctiveness. When a Human Gives Birth to a Raven enters conversations in animal studies, queer theory, trans theory, and feminist science studies to provincialize sacrosanct ideals of reproduction in favor of a broader range that spans generation, kinship, and species. The book thereby offers powerful historical alternatives to the paradigms associated with so-called traditional ideas.
“An original and groundbreaking study, Neis’s analyses open a window to a much more complex and surprising intellectual world than the rabbis usually get credit for. This book is provocative, thoughtful, and timely.” — MIRA BALBERG, Professor of History and Endowed Chair in Ancient Jewish Civilization, University of California, San Diego
“A trailblazing work that introduces a new, sophisticated discourse in the study of rabbinic literature. Neis is at home in the classical rabbinic texts, with their philological complexity and immense width, encompassing half a millennium and diverse historical circumstances.” — GALIT HASAN-ROKEM, Professor Emerita of Hebrew Literature and Folklore Studies, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Tribological analisys of engineering plastics
No full textNeste trabalho são estudados três plásticos de engenharia, o polioximetileno (POM-C), a poliamida 6 (PA6) e o acrilonitrila butadieno estireno (ABS). São analisadas suas propriedades tribológicas através de ensaios do tipo pino-sobre-disco. Foram realizados ensaios stick-slip no POM-C e no PA6, utilizando contracorpo de aço SAE 1020 e contracorpo de ferro fundido cinzento para o PA6. Para a determinação do limite PV (produto entre pressão de contato e velocidade de deslizamento) do ABS foi utilizado um contracorpo de ferro fundido cinzento. O POM-C não apresentou a ocorrência do fenômeno stick-slip. O PA6 apresentou stick-slip em todas as condições de ensaio. O PA6 apresentou maior severidade de stick-slip quando atritado em um contracorpo de ferro fundido cinzento. O ABS mostrou valores de limite PV relativamente altos para combinações de pressão de contato e velocidade de deslizamento.In this paper the tribological properties of three engineering plastics are studied: polyoxymethylene (POM-C), polyamide 6 (PA6) and acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS). The experiments were carried out through a pin-on-disc tribometer. Stick-slip tests have been carried out in the POM-C and the PA6, using SAE 1020 steel counterpart for both polymers and gray cast iron counterpart for PA6. For determination of the PV limit (multiplication between contact pressure and slip velocity) of ABS a gray cast iron was used as counterpart. The POMC did not present the occurrence of the stick-slip phenomenon. The PA6 showed stick-slip in all tested conditions, for both counterpart materials. The stick-slip presented higher severity in case of PA6 rubbed against gray cast iron material. The ABS when rubbed on the gray cast iron showed relatively high PV limit values for applications of contact pressure and slip velocity combinations
Book Preview: Rabbis & the Reproduction of Species
No full textThis is pre-publication preview introduces the major questions, methods, and insights of my book When a Human Gives Birth to a Raven: Rabbis & the Reproduction of Species (UC Press, 2023)
In Comics: When a Human Gives Birth to a Raven
No full textIn comics: how ancient rabbis upend “traditional” ideas of reproduction, gender, and humanity. A blog post commissioned by UC Press Blog about the book When a Human Gives Birth to a Raven: Rabbis and the Reproduction of Species.
Link: https://www.ucpress.edu/blog/64217/in-pictures-how-ancient-rabbis-upend-traditional-ideas-of-reproduction-gender-and-humanity
Desenvolvimento de uma API escalável para gestão de simulados e avaliações educacionais
No full textA crescente demanda por métodos de ensino mais dinâmicos e personalizados, especialmente diante dos desafios enfrentados por estudantes e professores na preparação para exames como o ENEM, evidencia a necessidade de soluções tecnológicas eficazes no ambiente educacional. Este trabalho apresenta o desenvolvimento de uma API RESTful escalável voltada à geração automatizada de simulados educacionais baseados em questões do Exame Nacional do Ensino Médio (ENEM). A proposta visa atender tanto estudantes, que buscam reforço e autoavaliação,
quanto professores, que necessitam de agilidade na elaboração de avaliações. O sistema backend foi desenvolvido utilizando tecnologias como Python, Flask, MySQL, Docker e Jupyter Notebook, com foco na modularidade, reprodutibilidade e integração futura com interfaces web ou mobile. A obtenção das questões foi realizada por meio da API pública “enem.dev”, garantindo dados estruturados e confiáveis. O sistema permite a
geração de simulados personalizados, exportáveis em formato DOCX ou JSON, categorizados por áreas do conhecimento. A arquitetura proposta assegura a integridade dos dados e a escalabilidade da aplicação. Foram analisadas plataformas similares, como Brasil Escola, Beduka e Estuda.com, identificando-se lacunas no atendimento a professores. A solução proposta diferencia-se por contemplar ambos os públicos e por oferecer flexibilidade na criação dos simulados. Os testes foram realizados com ferramentas como Insomnia, validando a funcionalidade dos endpoints. Os resultados demonstram que a aplicação é eficaz e promissora para o uso educacional, com potencial de expansão para novos formatos e funcionalidades.
Conclui-se que a tecnologia, quando bem aplicada, pode contribuir significativamente para a melhoria do ensino e da aprendizagem.This paper presents the development of a scalable RESTful API designed for the automated generation of educational mock exams based on questions from the Brazilian
National High School Exam (ENEM). The proposed solution aims to support both students, seeking reinforcement and self-assessment, and teachers, who require agility in creating assessments. The backend system was developed using technologies such as
Python, Flask, MySQL, Docker, and Jupyter Notebook, focusing on modularity, reproducibility, and future integration with web or mobile interfaces. The questions were
sourced from the public API “enem.dev,” ensuring structured and reliable data. The system enables the creation of customizable mock exams, exportable in DOCX or JSON formats, categorized by knowledge areas. The proposed architecture ensures data
integrity and application scalability. Several existing platforms, such as Brasil Escola, Beduka, and Estuda.com, were analyzed, revealing a gap in addressing teachers' needs. The proposed solution stands out by serving both audiences and offering flexibility in exam creation. The endpoints were tested using tools like Insomnia, validating the expected functionality. Results show that the application is effective and promising for educational use, with potential for expansion into new formats and features. It is concluded that technology, when properly applied, can significantly enhance teaching and learning processes
‘Their Backs toward the Temple, and Their Faces toward the East:’ The Temple and Toilet Practices in Rabbinic Palestine and Babylonia
No full textThis article treats the cultural meaning of rabbinic toilet rules from their Tannaitic instantiation through to later developments in Palestine and Mesopotamia. It argues that these rules draw their corporeal and mental bearings from the Jerusalem temple, in inverse and opposite directions to prayer deportment. It shows how the juxtaposition of the sacred (temple) and profane (toilet) triggered the temple in unlikely instances under the guise of prohibition. As such, toilet rules are the underside of a rabbinic mapping project, similar to rules of bodily orientation in prayer. This map, effectively drawn by corporeal direction and orientation, with the (absent) temple at its center, traversed Palestine and the Diaspora, and ignored contemporary religious and imperials maps and limes. Thus developing toilet practices can tell us something about how a minority religious and social formation shaped bodily functions not necessarily in the more predictable terms of disgust and expulsion but rather as devices through which to uphold a lost center
"All that is in the Settlement" : Humans, Likeness, and Species in the Rabbinic Bestiary
No full text***For a copy of the article please write to [email protected]***
While biologists argue about the limits and definition of a species, the urge to cluster and distinguish among the plenitude of lifeforms that populates the planet remains. Contemporary concerns about attempts to clone monkeys and to engineer human-porcine chimeras point to problems with species boundaries, resemblances, and causing suffering to other creatures. The fears about resemblances (and attendant slippery slope concerns) relate to how humans may be implicated. Such concerns about resemblances among kinds, the boundaries between species, and attempts to uphold distinctions, also populated late ancient zoological and anthropological thought, including that of the rabbis. While the rabbis drew somewhat on tselem elohim (humans as images of God) to theorize human reproduction and uniqueness, this article traces an alternative zoological vision that integrated humans among other kinds, while explaining resemblances among species with a theory of territorial doubles. This theory of territorial doubles claimed that all creatures—including humans—have versions that exist in the wild and in the sea. The article follows rabbinic zoological classifications as they sought to order lifeforms, viewed as similar and/or distinct
When Species Meet in the Mishnah
No full textThis short essay considers rabbinic ideas of reproduction, likeness, and species variation in conversation with the work of Joann Sfar and Sunaura Taylor. Part of Ancient Jew Review's Forum on Animals
Interspecies and Cross-species Generation:
No full textThis article treats late ancient rabbinic texts (ca. 1st-early 3rd cents. CE), reading them as biology, and following their ideas about the limits and possibilities of reproductive and species variation. I read sources from the tractates of Niddah, Kil’ayim, and Bekhorot, in the Mishnah and Toseta, as expressions of a science of generation, or a biology, in which nonhuman zoology and human gynecology were entwined. I argue that the rabbis, like other ancient thinkers, understood that creatures of a particular kind (or species), including the human-kind, might deliver a creature that appears to be of a different kind. I show that in the majority of cases the Tannaim believed these species nonconforming offspring not to be genuine hybrids, that is, they did not believe that they were the results of cross-species mating. Rather, they understood most species-variation to be spontaneously arising. By reading Bekhorot and Kilayim together, I note how the human features in such cases of species variation, as well as in rabbinic zoological distinctions between *different* kinds that nonetheless looked alike. In other words, I tackle the rabbinic principle that all animals have doubles in the wild and in the seas, including the human
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