Divine and Demonic in the Poetic Mythology of the Zohar

Divine and Demonic in the Poetic Mythology of the Zohar PDF Author: Nathaniel Berman
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 900438619X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
Nathaniel Berman’s Divine and Demonic in the Poetic Mythology of the Zohar: The “Other Side” of Kabbalah offers a new approach to the central work of Jewish mysticism, the Sefer Ha-Zohar (“Book of Radiance”). Berman explicates the literary techniques through which the Zohar constructs a mythology of intricately related divine and demonic personae. Drawing on classical and modern rhetorical paradigms, as well as psychoanalytical theories of the formation of subjectivity, Berman reinterprets the meaning of the Zohar’s divine and demonic personae, exploring their shared origins and their ongoing antagonisms and intimacies. Finally, he shows how the Zoharic portrayal of the demonic, the “Other Side,” contributes to reflecting on alterity of all kinds.

Divine and Demonic in the Poetic Mythology of the Zohar

Divine and Demonic in the Poetic Mythology of the Zohar PDF Author: Nathaniel Berman
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 900438619X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 326

Get Book Here

Book Description
Nathaniel Berman’s Divine and Demonic in the Poetic Mythology of the Zohar: The “Other Side” of Kabbalah offers a new approach to the central work of Jewish mysticism, the Sefer Ha-Zohar (“Book of Radiance”). Berman explicates the literary techniques through which the Zohar constructs a mythology of intricately related divine and demonic personae. Drawing on classical and modern rhetorical paradigms, as well as psychoanalytical theories of the formation of subjectivity, Berman reinterprets the meaning of the Zohar’s divine and demonic personae, exploring their shared origins and their ongoing antagonisms and intimacies. Finally, he shows how the Zoharic portrayal of the demonic, the “Other Side,” contributes to reflecting on alterity of all kinds.

Gabriel's Palace

Gabriel's Palace PDF Author:
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0195093887
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 433

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Book Description
Over 150 tales from the Talmud, the Zohar, Jewish folktales, and Hasidic lore.

Divine Scapegoats

Divine Scapegoats PDF Author: Andrei A. Orlov
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 1438455836
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 354

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Book Description
Explores the paradoxical symmetry between the divine and demonic in early Jewish mystical texts. Divine Scapegoats is a wide-ranging exploration of the parallels between the heavenly and the demonic in early Jewish apocalyptical accounts. In these materials, antagonists often mirror features of angelic figures, and even those of the Deity himself, an inverse correspondence that implies a belief that the demonic realm is maintained by imitating divine reality. Andrei A. Orlov examines the sacerdotal, messianic, and creational aspects of this mimetic imagery, focusing primarily on two texts from the Slavonic pseudepigrapha: 2 Enoch and the Apocalypse of Abraham. These two works are part of a very special cluster of Jewish apocalyptic texts that exhibit features not only of the apocalyptic worldview but also of the symbolic universe of early Jewish mysticism. The Yom Kippur ritual in the Apocalypse of Abraham, the divine light and darkness of 2 Enoch, and the similarity of mimetic motifs to later developments in the Zohar are of particular importance in Orlov’s consideration.

Seekers of the Face

Seekers of the Face PDF Author: Melila Hellner-Eshed
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 1503628582
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 557

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Book Description
A magisterial, modern reading of the deepest mysteries in the Kabbalistic tradition. Seekers of the Face opens the profound treasure house at the heart of Judaism's most important mystical work: the Idra Rabba (Great Gathering) of the Zohar. This is the story of the Great Assembly of mystics called to order by the master teacher and hero of the Zohar, Rabbi Shim'on bar Yochai, to align the divine faces and to heal Jewish religion. The Idra Rabba demands a radical expansion of the religious worldview, as it reveals God's faces and bodies in daring, anthropomorphic language. For the first time, Melila Hellner-Eshed makes this challenging, esoteric masterpiece meaningful for everyday readers. Hellner-Eshed expertly unpacks the Idra Rabba's rich grounding in tradition, its probing of hidden layers of consciousness and the psyche, and its striking, sacred images of the divine face. Leading readers of the Zohar on a transformative adventure in mystical experience, Seekers of the Face allows us to hear anew the Idra Rabba's bold call to heal and align the living faces of God.

Return to the Place

Return to the Place PDF Author: Jill Hammer
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781953829870
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Rabbi Jill Hammer has taken ancient Jewish mystical text and transformed it into a contemporary guide for meditative practice. In Return to the Place, Rabbi Hammer guides the reader through the story of creation as the ancient text of the Sefer Yetzirah draws readers in and invites them to become participants in the book's vibrant incantations, bringing the Creator's sacred energy into the world. The Sefer Yetzirah is a creation story like none other, describing the creation of the world in cryptic, mystical, poetic text. Rabbi Jill Hammer has taken a fresh look at this text that scholars believe goes back to the sixth century CE, embracing this text with healing intention. Through guided meditations at each step along the way, Rabbi Hammer allows readers to dig deeply into the text to experience the potential power of these ancient writings. Hammer builds a thought-provoking bridge from the past to the present-translating the text and focusing on its key aspects to give readers a relevant focus for contemplation. Advance Praise "Sefer Yetzirah has been called the foundational text of Jewish mysticism, but despite many scholarly attempts to explain it, readers still find its language baffling and its message indecipherable. Now Rabbi Jill Hammer has clarified the text for us all. Without ruining its mystery, she reveals its cosmic vision of 'space, time, and body-soul.' Beyond this, she has created a new-ancient meditative practice based on this mystical masterpiece. Her superb achievement is a gift for all of us!" -Dr. Daniel Matt, author of The Essential Kabbalah: The Heart of Jewish Mysticism "A tour de force -at once scholarly, whimsical, deeply poetic, and eminently accessible. Hammer combines translation, commentary, and meditations with her uniquely seasoned sensibility, one that balances feminine and masculine, sensual and philosophical." -Rabbi Tirzah Firestone, author of The Receiving: Reclaiming Jewish Women's Wisdom "Rabbi Hammer, one of the most original religious guides of our time, opens up for us a text that has fascinated mystics and philosophers for more than a millennium - and yet has remained deeply mysterious. Return to the Place shows us that the Sefer Yetzirah is a 'doorway into the deep structure of creation'-with the power to transform the cosmos as well as each person's most intimate experience." -Dr. Nathaniel Berman, author of Divine and Demonic in the Poetic Mythology of the Zohar "Like its subject, the mysterious Book of Creation, Return to the Place brilliantly defies categorization. It is a detailed commentary, a bold spirit-guide, and a valuable work of scholarship. It is both audacious and perspicacious. And no one could have written it but Rabbi Dr. Jill Hammer." -Rabbi Dr. Jay Michaelson, author of Everything is God: The Radical Path of Non-Dual Judaism

Humanity Divided

Humanity Divided PDF Author: Manuel Duarte de Oliveira
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110741083
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 584

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Book Description
With exacting scholarship and fecund analysis, Manuel Oliveira probes through the lens of Martin Buber (1878-1965) the theological and political ambiguities of Israel’s divine election. These ambiguities became especially pronounced with the emergence of Zionism. Wary, indeed, alarmed by the tendency of some of his fellow Zionists to conflate divine chosenness with nationalism, Buber sought to secure the theological significance of election by both steering Zionism from hypertrophic nationalism and by a sustained program to revalorize what he called alternately “Hebrew Humanism.” As Oliveira demonstrates, Buber viewed the idea of election teleologically, espousing a universal mission of Israel, which effectively calls upon Zionism to align its political and cultural project to universal objectives. Thus, in addressing a Zionist congress, he rhetorically asked, “What then is this spirit of Israel of which you are speaking? It is the spirit of fulfillment. Fulfillment of what? Fulfillment of the simple truth that man has been created for a purpose (...) Our purpose is the upbuilding of peace (...) And that is its spirit, the spirit of Israel (...) the people of Israel was charged to lead the way to righteousness and justice.”

Demons, Angels, and Writing in Ancient Judaism

Demons, Angels, and Writing in Ancient Judaism PDF Author: Annette Yoshiko Reed
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 052111943X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 365

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Book Description
A new explanation of the beginnings of Jewish angelology and demonology, drawing on non-canonical writings and Aramaic Dead Sea Scrolls.

Rediscovering Enoch? The Antediluvian Past from the Fifteenth to Nineteenth Centuries

Rediscovering Enoch? The Antediluvian Past from the Fifteenth to Nineteenth Centuries PDF Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004537511
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 464

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Book Description
As the first volume to focus on texts and traditions about Enoch between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries, this book brings specialists in antiquity into conversation with specialists in early modernity, exploring the reimagination of the antediluvian past.

Supernal Serpent

Supernal Serpent PDF Author: Andrei A. Orlov
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197684149
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
"A certain king built himself a palace and summoned two persons to decorate it for him. The king divided his palace into two parts, putting one person in charge of one half and the second in charge of the other. One of the persons decorated his part of the palace with beautiful paintings of birds and animals. But the second person painted his half of the palace with black dye which was reflecting everything like a mirror. When the king came to judge the two decorations, everything he had seen in the first person's part he also saw in the second's part, since it was reflected in its black dye like in a mirror. Not only that, but even all the king could wish to put in the first half of his palace appeared in the second half. This found favor in the eyes of the king"--

The Heresy of Jacob Frank

The Heresy of Jacob Frank PDF Author: Jay Michaelson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019753063X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
The Heresy of Jacob Frank is the first monograph length study on the religious philosophy of Jacob Frank (1726-1791), who, in the wake of false messiah Sabbetai Zevi, led the largest mass apostasy in Jewish history. Based on close readings of Frank's late teachings, recorded in 1784 and 1790, this book challenges scholarly presentations of Frank that depict him as a sex-crazed "degenerate," and presents Frank as an original and prescient figure at the crossroads of tradition and modernity, reason and magic, Kabbalah and Western Esotericism. Frank's worldview combines a skeptical rejection of religious law as ineffectual and repressive with a supernatural, esoteric myth of immortal beings, material magic, and worldly power. With close readings of the theological and narrative passages of Frank's teachings, Michaelson shows how the Frankist sect evolved from its Sabbatean roots and the infamous 1757-59 disputations before the Catholic Church, into a Western Esoteric society based on alchemy, secrecy, and sexual liberation. Sexual ritual, apparently tightly limited and controlled by the sect, was not a libertine bacchanal but an enactment of the messianic reality, a corporealization of what would later become known as spirituality. While Frank was undoubtedly a manipulative, even abusive leader whose sect mostly disappeared from history, Michaelson suggests that his ideology anticipated themes that would become predominant in the Haskalah, Early Hasidism, and even contemporary 'New Age' Judaism. In an inversion of traditional religious values, Frank's antinomian theology held personal flourishing to be a religious virtue, affirmed only the material, and transferred messianic eros into social, sexual, and political reality.