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Here's how restrictions apply. I'd like to read this book on Kindle Don't have a Kindle? Share your thoughts with other customers. Write a customer review. Showing of 1 reviews. Top Reviews Most recent Top Reviews. There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later. I am far from an expert in medieval Jewish history or in Kabbalah, but it seems to me that this book is a lucid and masterful introduction to some of the key issues.
What is, after all, the connection between ethics and mysticism? Dan asks that interesting question, and -- particularly in connection with the Lurianic Kabbalah, his answers are very thought-provoking. One person found this helpful. Amazon Giveaway allows you to run promotional giveaways in order to create buzz, reward your audience, and attract new followers and customers.
Learn more about Amazon Giveaway. Jewish Mysticism and Jewish Ethics. See, relatedly, Ivan G. Marcus, Piety and Society Leiden: Brill, , pp. Labyrinthos, , pp. See further Appendix 4. It is appropriate, notwithstanding differences between different forms of Jewish mysticism, to make comparisons and generalizations based on shared similarities; see, e. SUNY Press, , pp.
Kanarfogel, Peering , pp. Syracuse University Press, , p. See also Scholem, Major Trends , pp. Besides Scholem and Dan, Joseph Hacker also sees as a turning point in Christian persecution of Jewry and in Jewish responses to it. I suggest that such a search is in vain, and the test is invalid, as indicated above. University Press of Florida, , pp. A mystic who waits until the time seems propitious for a suicidal act that will bring an apocalyptic and messianic end to history and the suffering of his people still acts out of hopelessness and not — as Idel suggests — out of hope; compare ibid.
See also note 2. See further Appendix 5. In contrast, Western civilization has drawn its strength from its simultaneous embrace of Greek knowledge and Jewish holiness or morality; see also Jeffrey Hart, Smiling Through the Cultural Catastrophe New Haven: Yale University Press, These books raise questions that, I believe, require serious introspection by Jewish scholars, including not only rabbis but academic scholars as well. I see no reasons, based on the need for academic objectivity, for the latter to avoid these issues.
To the contrary; we need their objectivity to address the questions. Some of the other contradictions I have alluded to include the following: How do they allow Jewry to carry out the biblical injunction of destroying Amalek in every generation in which nations appear that deliberately attack and terrorize defenseless, innocent non-combatants Deut. How do they allow Jewry to engage in imitatio dei Ex. Moshe Sokol [Northvale, New Jersey: The Free Press, Perhaps the common European Ashkenazic heritage of post-Zionist secularists and ultra-Orthodox mystics provides a causal linkage; see, e.
Jewish Publication Society, , pp. Goitein, Jews and Arabs New York: On the issue of evil, see also note Yeshivat Kol Yehudah, ], vol. See further Appendix 6. See also notes 34 and See further Appendix 7.
Sokol Northvale, New Jersey: See also note See further Appendix 8. Sometimes, the extreme application of the separatist impulse of Hasidism can cause self-inflicted harm, e. Judah Wistinetzki Frankfurt am Main: Wahrmann, , sec. Baer, Jews in Christian Spain , vol.
Brill, , ch. See also Ben-Sasson, Jewish People , pp. But this is not nearly as important as the power and influence that kabbalah, and kabbalists, acquired through their activity in that controversy, to the point where they more than equaled the influence of Maimonidean rationalism and its supporters by the end of that period ibid. Harvard University Press, , ch.
Jewish Publication Society, , vol. Isadore Twersky and Bernard Septimus Cambridge: Harvard University Press, , pp. Zimmels, Ashkenazim and Sephardim London: Marla Publications, , pp. See also Katz, Exclusiveness and Tolerance, p. Yale University Press, ], pp.
This opening, for a short time, of Judaism to new ideas and attitudes is reflected in a number of studies; e. Bernard Dov Cooperman Cambridge: Note the reference to the connections between the cosmopolitan intelligentsia of Prague and the Cracow community of Isserles, ibid. On Isserles and the propriety of studying the material world and its nature, see R. It is worth noting that, although they knew kabbalah, and used it in some of their writings, the eclectic rabbinic figures discussed above, e. See further Appendix 9. NYU Press, , pp. Marvin Fox applied a kind of hybrid analysis, similar to my own in some respects, in concluding that Rav Kook was — a poet!
In their embrace of the world, they hearken back to Immanuel of Rome fourteenth century and the great figures of Golden Age Spain; see, e. The Case of R. Transaction, , pp. Studies in Jewish Thought New York: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, ; idem. See also Faur, Homo Mysticus , p. Vintage Books, , pp. The continuing attraction of Hasidism to modern Jews, secular as well as religious, whether of Ashkenazi or Oriental origin, seems to be attributable to the mystical leadership of the zaddik or the rebbe of a particular Hasidic group.
Dan, Jewish Mysticism , vol. Note the connection between mystical yihud and the same term used in as synonymous with martyrdom; see Katz, Exclusiveness and Tolerance , pp. See further Appendix Jewish Publication Society, , , pp. Kanarfogel touches on issues of idolatry in Peering , pp. Pantheism, with all of its dangers to monotheistic belief and normative practices, is an aspect of mysticism; see Scholem, Major Trends , pp.
Idel, Hasidism , pp. This defies the historical record that it first erupted as hekhalot mysticism, outside of talmudic culture C. Even non-Hasidic Jews accepted his special powers.
In a sense, the Rebbe — as he is now viewed as a quasi-deity by many in Habad — serves a function similar to the shekhinah , as an object of adoration and devotion, perhaps even worship, that is interposed between God and the male worshipper. Of course, in the case of the Rebbe, this puts the male worshipper in a male-to-male relationship. It may be noted, however, that homoerotic relationships are not uncommon in kabbalah; Wolfson, Speculum , pp. Jewish Lights, , pp. Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. See also Idel, Kabbalah , pp. Jewish Lights, , Volume 1. Brill, , p. In such cases, I believe each group will inevitably strive to prove its superiority and assert its dominance.
The martyrs were undoubtedly aware of the anonymously written historical work, the book of Yosippon , which appeared circa C. University of Washington Press, , pp. Kregel Publications, , pp. Family murders and suicides similar to those in Rhineland Germany took place in Spain in , when Jews were faced with the choice of death or forced conversion to Christianity; see Yitzhak Baer, A History of the Jews in Christian Spain Philadelphia: In offering their own radical but limited expansion of the talmudic doctrine of passive martyrdom where fear of unbearable torture is involved, R.
Tam and the tosafists who followed his lead were rejecting aggadah -based and other arguments that some historians have recently offered, eight hundred years after the fact, to support the martyrdoms from a halakhic standpoint. These arguments are based on material that — like the material in the Chronicles — was surely known to the tosafists over the two-hundred-year period spanned by their rulings, in which they generally sanctioned suicide only in the face of unbearable torture.
Meir of Rothenburg ibid. Meir relied on the prior acts of pious Jews ibid. There is only one notable case in the Chronicles of a mass suicide or murder done out of fear of torture; Chazan, First Crusade , p. Ben-Shalom attributes the change in the Sephardi attitude when faced with conversion or martyrdom — from conversion in by the fanatical Moslem Almohades tribes to martyrdom in by Christian mobs — to Jewish absorption of Christian theology and ideology in the interim, glorifying suffering and martyrdom at the hands of their enemies.
In this regard, the Chronicles of the martyrdom repeatedly emphasize that their method was unprecedented; see, e. The two causes identified by Dan — i. Prayer is a call for help, comfort and consolation from a loving parent, sought through union with God, the loving Parent, and the necessary new theosophic understanding of the dynamic process among the sefirot within the Godhead that made such union doctrinally possible.
See Dan, Jewish Mysticism , vol. See also note 28; but cf. Marcus, Piety , p.
Faur treats these and related aspects of mysticism, such as those discussed by J. This mythology postulates that evil existed within the Godhead , which sought to cleanse itself through the process of Creation. Thus, it thrives as a divine power in the world even now; Dan, Jewish Mysticism , vol. While theurgy in kabbalah, which postulates that man can restore the harmony that was lost within the Godhead during Creation, is hubristic on an external, formal, level, it bespeaks a radical pessimism, signifying — especially in its Lurianic formulation — that redemption can come about only if fallible human Jews can manage to mend the divinity and overcome the divine power of evil in the world by the performance of ritual and ethical commandments.
A specific example is the reaction of traditional Jewish communities in early modern Europe toward the Jewish practice of medicine. We may well surmise the influence that these doctors had on the best and the brightest young Jews with whom they subsequently came in contact, regarding traditional Judaism, and the resultant defections that ensued from what these young men came to see as superstitious and narrow-minded religion. The Sephardi tradition is significantly different, perhaps because it developed in the tolerant and culturally rich and stimulating environment of medieval Islamic Spain, and — with the subsequent decline of Islam in the modern period — Sephardic Jewry did not have to face the challenges of modernity until their return to the State of Israel; see, e.
NYU Press, ], pp. Moreover, their view fails to take into account the impact on the masses caused by the mediative role of their rabbis teaching them Lurianic kabbalah; thus, they learned it from an intellectual elite, who were familiar with it. Second , Ta-Shma cites the broad cultural interests of the two eighteenth century rabbis, Emden and Eybeshitz, but neither was a kabbalist; the former was strongly opposed to Lurianic kabbalah and its Sabbatean offspring, which he accused Eybeshitz of embracing, and the latter strongly denied any sympathies with this strain of kabbalah.
In any case, neither was a supporter much less an enthusiast of science, accepting it only to a limited extent and for a limited purpose; see, e. Oxford University Press, , p. What point could there be in the human pursuit of scientific or any other form of progress in the world if evil was an inherent condition of God and His creation? Fourth , the factors cited by Ruderman in lieu of Lurianic kabbalah to explain the decline of budding rationalism by the early seventeenth century Jewish Thought , p.
Books in European Languages. Il paradiso nella mistica ebraica tr. Lista, Il Carubbo, Il figlio nel misticismo ebraico, tr. Maria-Magdalena Angelescu, Iassi, Polirom, Evrei lui Saturn, tr.
The psychoanalytic view of Jewish mysticism is in broad agreement with the foregoing express and implied definitions and causes of mysticism. In addition to addressing these kinds of questions, other problematic aspects of Jewish mysticism, many of which have been criticized by J. Ben-Shalom attributes the change in the Sephardi attitude when faced with conversion or martyrdom — from conversion in by the fanatical Moslem Almohades tribes to martyrdom in by Christian mobs — to Jewish absorption of Christian theology and ideology in the interim, glorifying suffering and martyrdom at the hands of their enemies. Visualization of Colors more. In offering their own radical but limited expansion of the talmudic doctrine of passive martyrdom where fear of unbearable torture is involved, R. The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia.
Dumitru Polirom, Iassi, Lumi vechi, oglinzi noi, tr. Carac, Hasefer, Bucarest, Regalzi, Jaca Book, Milano, Nahmanide, De la perfection de la loi, tr. Thimme, Judischer Verlag, Berlin, Gli ebrei di Saturno, Shabbat, sabba e sabbatianismo, tr. Zevi Giuntina, Firenze, Carolina Cohan, Lilmod, Buenos Aires, more. Paradisul in misticismul iudaic, tr. Antoaneta Ralian Est, Bucharest, Kabbala und Eros tr. Elke Morlok, Surkamp, Frankfurt Pablo Garcia Acosta Siruela, Madrid Ana-Elena Moldovan, Hasefer, Bucharest, Filiacion y misticismo judio tr. Carolina Kohan, Lilmod, Buenos Aires, Fiul lui Dumnezeu si mistica evreiasca, tr.
Maria Magdalena Anghelescu, Polirom, Iasi, more.