David Sclar
David Sclar studies Jewish history and culture in the early modern period. He earned his doctorate at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and has held fellowships at Harvard University, Princeton University, the University of Oxford, the University of Toronto, New York University, and the Center for Jewish History. His research explores book history, individual intention and communal identity, and the correlation between intellectual and social history.
He worked for several years in the Special Collections department of the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary, where he maintained and catalogued rare material and co-curated exhibitions. Currently, he is a Department Guest with the Program in Judaic Studies at Princeton University, and teaches history and serves as Librarian and Director of Student Research at The Frisch School.
Address: New York, New York, United States
He worked for several years in the Special Collections department of the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary, where he maintained and catalogued rare material and co-curated exhibitions. Currently, he is a Department Guest with the Program in Judaic Studies at Princeton University, and teaches history and serves as Librarian and Director of Student Research at The Frisch School.
Address: New York, New York, United States
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Books by David Sclar
Among the intellectual luminaries dotting the millennia of Jewish history, none shines brighter than Maimonides (1138-1204). He was a rabbi, jurist, Talmudist, philosopher, physician, astronomer, and communal leader, and produced a myriad of writings on halakhah, theology, medicine, and philosophy that have attained near-canonical status. We have more source material from or about Maimonides than possibly any other Jewish figure in the medieval period, and more has been written about him than perhaps any other Jew in history. Epithets like the 'Great Eagle' and the 'Western Light?' and the glorifying statement 'From Moses to Moses, none arose like Moses?' reflect centuries of authority, influence, and fascination.
The Golden Path traces the impact and reception of Maimonides and his thought through a study of materiality, specifically the production and dissemination of textual objects. It consists of two sections: a descriptive catalogue of an exceptional private collection of manuscripts and rare books; and essays from leading scholars on aspects of Maimonides's cultural context, influence, and appropriation through disparate eras and geopolitical spheres. Combining intellectual, reception, and book historical research, the heavily illustrated volume explores his effects in assorted social and political circumstances, across diverse intellectual and cultural environments.
Journal Articles by David Sclar
News that Moses Hayim Luzzatto (ca. 1707–ca. 1746) was the recipient of heavenly revelations touched off a controversy that engulfed European rabbinic networks for several years. Led by Moses Hagiz, Jewish religious leaders far and wide condemned Luzzatto and his mystical messianic group as heretical. However, the Luzzatto controversy was far more complicated than merely a case of the rabbinic establishment suppressing a heretical thinker. Responses varied in enthusiasm, denunciation, and ambivalence, reflecting a rabbinic culture impacted by age, ethnicity, family, geography, ideology, and social networks. Opinions and alliances shifted, criticism levied at Luzzatto and his group in Padua proved idiosyncratic, and Luzzatto began and ended his short but prodigious career as a celebrated rabbinic author. The broad spectrum of responses to Luzzatto indicates a need to reassess notions of the rabbinate, heresy, and spiritual leadership and consider the interplay between local and pan-Jewish identities. This essay discusses how intercommunal relationships and rabbinic autonomy played a role in the developments, and how variegated responses to the controversy revealed a wide range of social and religious emphases in early modern Jewish culture.
Using previously unpublished archival material, this article demonstrates that Luzzatto was highly regarded in Amsterdam’s generally insular Portuguese community. He received charity and a regular stipend to study in the Ets Haim Yeshiva, forged relationships with both rabbinic and lay leaders, and arguably influenced the community’s religious outlook. However, a comparison of the manuscript and print versions of Mesillat yesharim, his famous Musar treatise com- posed and published in the city, reveals the limitations under which Luzzatto lived. Research into Luzzatto’s time in Amsterdam reveals the man’s enduring self-assurance and relentless critique of his critics, as well as the Portuguese rabbinate’s broadening horizons.
Book Chapters by David Sclar
Essays by David Sclar
Encyclopedia Entries by David Sclar
Among the intellectual luminaries dotting the millennia of Jewish history, none shines brighter than Maimonides (1138-1204). He was a rabbi, jurist, Talmudist, philosopher, physician, astronomer, and communal leader, and produced a myriad of writings on halakhah, theology, medicine, and philosophy that have attained near-canonical status. We have more source material from or about Maimonides than possibly any other Jewish figure in the medieval period, and more has been written about him than perhaps any other Jew in history. Epithets like the 'Great Eagle' and the 'Western Light?' and the glorifying statement 'From Moses to Moses, none arose like Moses?' reflect centuries of authority, influence, and fascination.
The Golden Path traces the impact and reception of Maimonides and his thought through a study of materiality, specifically the production and dissemination of textual objects. It consists of two sections: a descriptive catalogue of an exceptional private collection of manuscripts and rare books; and essays from leading scholars on aspects of Maimonides's cultural context, influence, and appropriation through disparate eras and geopolitical spheres. Combining intellectual, reception, and book historical research, the heavily illustrated volume explores his effects in assorted social and political circumstances, across diverse intellectual and cultural environments.
News that Moses Hayim Luzzatto (ca. 1707–ca. 1746) was the recipient of heavenly revelations touched off a controversy that engulfed European rabbinic networks for several years. Led by Moses Hagiz, Jewish religious leaders far and wide condemned Luzzatto and his mystical messianic group as heretical. However, the Luzzatto controversy was far more complicated than merely a case of the rabbinic establishment suppressing a heretical thinker. Responses varied in enthusiasm, denunciation, and ambivalence, reflecting a rabbinic culture impacted by age, ethnicity, family, geography, ideology, and social networks. Opinions and alliances shifted, criticism levied at Luzzatto and his group in Padua proved idiosyncratic, and Luzzatto began and ended his short but prodigious career as a celebrated rabbinic author. The broad spectrum of responses to Luzzatto indicates a need to reassess notions of the rabbinate, heresy, and spiritual leadership and consider the interplay between local and pan-Jewish identities. This essay discusses how intercommunal relationships and rabbinic autonomy played a role in the developments, and how variegated responses to the controversy revealed a wide range of social and religious emphases in early modern Jewish culture.
Using previously unpublished archival material, this article demonstrates that Luzzatto was highly regarded in Amsterdam’s generally insular Portuguese community. He received charity and a regular stipend to study in the Ets Haim Yeshiva, forged relationships with both rabbinic and lay leaders, and arguably influenced the community’s religious outlook. However, a comparison of the manuscript and print versions of Mesillat yesharim, his famous Musar treatise com- posed and published in the city, reveals the limitations under which Luzzatto lived. Research into Luzzatto’s time in Amsterdam reveals the man’s enduring self-assurance and relentless critique of his critics, as well as the Portuguese rabbinate’s broadening horizons.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLF6IVQZ92dcbh_a_YDsKr84mVYVQ10AQA
The exhibition The Golden Path: Maimonides Across Eight Centuries, on view May 9 -- December 31, 2023 at the Yeshiva University Museum (YUM) in the Center for Jewish History, tracks Maimonides and his thought through a study of materiality. It focuses on manuscripts and rare printed books, as well as visual depictions in prints and paintings, from collections around the world, exploring specific items within their varied historical, cultural, and Maimonidean contexts. The exhibition is organized by guest curator David Sclar and is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue co-published by Liverpool University Press. It explores Maimonides’ authority and impact as well as the Mediterranean and Islamic contexts in which he lived.
The exhibition includes items that have never before been displayed in public. Among the pieces that will be on loan to YUM are important and rare examples—such as 13th-century Yemenite manuscripts, early printed books from Italy and the Ottoman Empire, and texts produced by and for Christian audiences—from the Hartman Family Collection, the most significant private collection of Maimonides manuscripts and rare books; and spectacular manuscripts, some in Maimonides’ own hand, borrowed from the Bodleian Libraries in Oxford, the British Library, the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary, the National Library of Israel, the Jewish Theological Seminary, the Royal Library in Copenhagen, and elsewhere.
Particularly exciting pieces include:
A beautifully carved 11th century panel from a door to the Torah Ark in Cairo’s Ben Ezra Synagogue, which was known to Maimonides himself. This panel is co-owned by YUM and by the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore.
A manuscript written by Isaac Newton, on loan from the National Library of Israel, in which he cites Maimonides’ Laws of the New Moon in his proposal for reform of the Julian calendar.
Fragments from the Cairo Genizah on loan from the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary, including one fragment with Maimonides’ signature and others in his hand.
A manuscript of the Mishneh Torah that was personally approved by Maimonides in a statement written in his own hand. This volume will be on loan from the Bodleian Libraries at the University of Oxford.
A volume of Maimonides’ commentary on the Mishnah. This volume, with notes by the sage himself, includes a well-known sketch of the Temple Menorah, which has in recent decades become the model for menorahs used in public Hanukkah celebrations across the world. This manuscript is also on loan from the Bodleian Libraries
An illuminated manuscript of the monumental philosophical treatise Moreh Nevukhim, or Guide of the Perplexed, on loan from The Royal Library in Copenhagen. The manuscript was completed in Catalonia in 1348 and is considered one of the finest examples of the illumination traditions of that time and place.
The partnerships with international collections are unprecedented, and the exhibition stands to be one of the most impressive collections of Maimonides artifacts ever to be displayed together, and the first to focus as much on the man himself and his impact as on the items.