New Releases by David Novak

Both epic lament and lyric journey, The Requiem explores the limits of grief and joy. Stunned by the sudden vision of an abandoned love, the poet finds himself in an underrealm, beside the stream of memory.-Non Fit Press.

Natural law is the idea that our basic moral principles apply to every human being, and are accessible to human reason. Most people have assumed that since Judaism seems to consist of a specific historical revelation and a specific tradition, that an idea such as natural law is foreign to it. This book shows that natural law is part of Judaism, and that it is consistent with its specific revelation and tradition. In this book, not only is the history of an idea shown with great accuracy, but the idea of natural law is presented as a way of conveying some of Judaism''s meaning for life today.

Offers a Jewish assessment of the Vatican statement "We Remember." Characterizes disappointment about the statement voiced by Jews as mistaken, unjust, and based on a misunderstanding of Catholic (and Jewish) theology. Argues that an apology to the Jews would not be appropriate since those to whom an apology is due are no longer alive, Catholics do not believe in inherited guilt, and an apology would be basically rhetorical. Stresses that repentance ("We Remember" used the Hebrew term "teshuvah") is appropriate, as the Church assumes collective responsibility for antisemitism. Appreciates the effort as part of a recognition of the Jewish origins of Christianity and its coexistence with the Jewish people until the end of history. Contends that the document tried to say too much, especially failing when it praised Pius XII for helping Jews during the Holocaust while that question requires further study. Overall, views "We Remember" as a most positive contribution to Christian-Jewish relations. Praises John Paul II for his unprecedented efforts at rapprochement with Jews and Judaism.

In this book, David Novak conducts an historical, philosophical and theological reflection on the central Jewish doctrine of Israel''s election by God, also known as the idea of the chosen people. Historically, he analyses the great change in modern Jewish thought brought about by Spinoza''s inversion of the doctrine: that it was not God who elected Israel, but Israel who elected God. The development of that inversion is illustrated by the thought of the German philosopher-theologian, Hermann Cohen. Philosophically, Novak explores the ontological implications of the two differing theologies of election. Theologically, he argues for the correlation of election and revelation, and maintains that a theology of election is required in order to deal with two central questions, namely: who are the Jews, and how are Jews to be related to the world? The constructive picture which results leads to a fresh understanding of Jewish modernity.

Johnny Appleseed makes friends with some bears by feeding them his apples.

When the little ant slips on a snowflake on his way home, he''s sure the snowflake did it on purpose. But the snowflake blames someone else. Pretty soon, everyone is blaming someone else.

An old scrapbook in the back of a closet is found to contain photos, mementos, and a special letter about the love of parents for their children.

Leading contemporary Jewish thinker David Novak has here compiled ten of his essays on a variety of issues in Jewish ethics. Drawing constantly on classical Jewish tradition, Novak also looks at a wide range of modern critical scholarship on the ancient sources. He aims to point out certain common features of Jewish and Christian ethics and the normative implications of this overlapping of traditions; he assumes the reality of a "Judeo-Christian ethic," while refusing to minimize the doctrinal differences between the two traditions. The essays address such major normative issues in social justice as ecology, war and peace, the treatment of minorities, and the approach to AIDS patients. This combination of theoretical reflection and practical application, along with careful and detailed analysis of classical Jewish texts, makes the book a welcome contribution to contemporary ethical theory and normative ethics as well as a work of original Jewish theology.

With superior instruction in arithmetic for developmental students, this skill-building worktext balances careful explanations with problem-solving practice. A five-step algorithm for problem solving, introduced in Chapter 1, provides students with a supportive framework for solving word problems and other exercises. Over 5000 problems provide ample, varied practice.

This is one of the first studies to examine the Jewish-Christian relationship from a philosophical and theological viewpoint.

A retrospective study of 1353 occupational injuries occurring at a chemical manufacturing facility in Houston, Texas from January, 1982 through May, 1988 was performed to investigate the etiology of the occupational injury process. Injury incidence rates were calculated for various sub-populations of workers to determine differences in the risk of injury for various groups. Linear modeling techniques were used to determine the association between certain collected independent variables and severity of an injury event. Finally, two sub-groups of the worker population, shiftworkers and injury recidivists, were examined. An injury recidivist as defined is any worker experiencing one or more injury per year. Overall, female shiftworkers evidenced the highest average injury incidence rate compared to all other worker groups analyzed. Although the female shiftworkers were younger and less experienced, the etiology of their increased risk of injury remains unclear, although the rigors of performing shiftwork itself or ergonomic factors are suspect. In general, females were injured more frequently than males, but they did not incur more severe injuries. For all workers, many injuries were caused by erroneous or foregone training, and risk taking behaviors. Injuries of these types are avoidable. The distribution of injuries by severity level was bimodal; either injuries were of minor or major severity with only a small number of cases falling in between. Of the variables collected, only the type of injury incurred and the worker''s titlecode were statistically significantly associated with injury severity. Shiftworkers did not sustain more severe injuries than other worker groups. Injury to shiftworkers varied as a 24-hour pattern; the greatest number occurred between 1200-1230 hours, (p = 0.002) by Cosinor analysis. Recidivists made up 3.3% of the population (23 males and 10 females), yet suffered 17.8% of the injuries. Although past research suggests that injury recidivism is a random statistical event, analysis of the data by logistic regression implicates gender, area worked, age and job titlecode as being statistically significantly related to injury recidivism at this facility.

Designed as a historical study of the Noahide Laws, this monograph aims to trace the development of the concept of gentile normativeness in the history of Jewish law and theology. In addition, it seeks to show how this concept had internal influence on the development of that law and theology.

A revision of the author''s thesis, Georgetown University, 1971. Bibliography: p. 129-134. Includes index.