Philosophy

While the book of Proverbs declares that "beauty is vain" and only "fear of God" is praiseworthy, the Torah notes the beauty of many of its central characters – like Sarah, Rachel, and Joseph, to name a few. Biblical commentators, rabbinic literature, and works of musar and Jewish thought all reckon with the role beauty – physical beauty, spiritual beauty, the beauty of human and animal forms, beauty of the Temple, and more – plays in Judaism, analyzing when it is to be seen as a value to strive for and when it is to be dismissed as a frivolous distraction from more important matters.

Dreams are discussed throughout Jewish literature in a variety of contexts. The Bible features several dreams, such as those in the narrative of Joseph in Genesis. Generations of Jewish sources have analyzed the significance and role of dreams.

Philosophy refers to the study of questions such as faith, reason, knowledge, and existence. Jewish philosophy encompasses generations of books devoted to such topics, as well as parts of biblical and rabbinic literature that incorporate discussions of these topics among other focuses.

Cases and discussion of ethics abound throughout the Jewish textual tradition, as texts aim to instruct and analyze how to live a life of moral principles.

From the outset of the Torah, humans are presented with choices: Adam and Eve eat from the tree of knowledge, despite God's prohibiting them to do so. Moses repeatedly emphasizes the power of human choice in later books of the Torah, like in the verse in Deuteronomy: "I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life." For thousands of years, rabbinic sages and Jewish thinkers have debated to what extent these choices are ours to make, how to reconcile biblical texts that portray that people have free will with other biblical stories – like the hardening of Pharoah’s heart – that seem to suggest otherwise, and how to understand free will in light of God's omnipotence and omniscience.

Many Jewish texts across genres illuminate the effort to define Jewish identity. Opinions vary whether character traits, national qualities, birth status, individual choice, covenantal obligation, spiritual quest, or something else define it.

Worldly knowledge.

The significance of a person's thoughts is discussed throughout Jewish sources in a range of contexts. The Torah, for example, instructs the individual not to harbor hatred in one's heart, rabbinic texts discuss under what conditions thoughts are rendered legally significant, and chasidic texts offer guidance on maintaining positive thinking.

Time is a concept that appears from the very beginning of the Torah, as the world's creation unfolds over seven days, each of which is divided into evening and morning. Sources throughout the Jewish textual tradition discuss how God and people sanctify time, different ways of relating to the passing of time, how time governs the performance of commandments, and how to make the most of one's time.