Author: Boaz Huss
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190086971
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 199
Book Description
Most scholars of Judaism take the term "Jewish mysticism" for granted, and do not engage in a critical discussion of the essentialist perceptions that underlie it. Mystifying Kabbalah studies the evolution of the concept of Jewish mysticism. It examines the major developments in the academic study of Jewish mysticism and its impact on modern Kabbalistic movements in the contexts of Jewish nationalism and New Age spirituality. Boaz Huss argues that Jewish mysticism is a modern discursive construct and that the identification of Kabbalah and Hasidism as forms of mysticism, which appeared for the first time in the nineteenth century and has become prevalent since the early twentieth, shaped the way in which Kabbalah and Hasidism are perceived and studied today. The notion of Jewish mysticism was established when western scholars accepted the modern idea that mysticism is a universal religious phenomenon of a direct experience of a divine or transcendent reality and applied it to Kabbalah and Hasidism. "Jewish mysticism" gradually became the defining category in the modern academic research of these topics. This book clarifies the historical, cultural, and political contexts that led to the identification of Kabbalah and Hasidism as Jewish mysticism, exposing the underlying ideological and theological presuppositions and revealing the impact of this "mystification" on contemporary forms of Kabbalah and Hasidism.
Mystifying Kabbalah
Author: Boaz Huss
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190086971
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 199
Book Description
Most scholars of Judaism take the term "Jewish mysticism" for granted, and do not engage in a critical discussion of the essentialist perceptions that underlie it. Mystifying Kabbalah studies the evolution of the concept of Jewish mysticism. It examines the major developments in the academic study of Jewish mysticism and its impact on modern Kabbalistic movements in the contexts of Jewish nationalism and New Age spirituality. Boaz Huss argues that Jewish mysticism is a modern discursive construct and that the identification of Kabbalah and Hasidism as forms of mysticism, which appeared for the first time in the nineteenth century and has become prevalent since the early twentieth, shaped the way in which Kabbalah and Hasidism are perceived and studied today. The notion of Jewish mysticism was established when western scholars accepted the modern idea that mysticism is a universal religious phenomenon of a direct experience of a divine or transcendent reality and applied it to Kabbalah and Hasidism. "Jewish mysticism" gradually became the defining category in the modern academic research of these topics. This book clarifies the historical, cultural, and political contexts that led to the identification of Kabbalah and Hasidism as Jewish mysticism, exposing the underlying ideological and theological presuppositions and revealing the impact of this "mystification" on contemporary forms of Kabbalah and Hasidism.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190086971
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 199
Book Description
Most scholars of Judaism take the term "Jewish mysticism" for granted, and do not engage in a critical discussion of the essentialist perceptions that underlie it. Mystifying Kabbalah studies the evolution of the concept of Jewish mysticism. It examines the major developments in the academic study of Jewish mysticism and its impact on modern Kabbalistic movements in the contexts of Jewish nationalism and New Age spirituality. Boaz Huss argues that Jewish mysticism is a modern discursive construct and that the identification of Kabbalah and Hasidism as forms of mysticism, which appeared for the first time in the nineteenth century and has become prevalent since the early twentieth, shaped the way in which Kabbalah and Hasidism are perceived and studied today. The notion of Jewish mysticism was established when western scholars accepted the modern idea that mysticism is a universal religious phenomenon of a direct experience of a divine or transcendent reality and applied it to Kabbalah and Hasidism. "Jewish mysticism" gradually became the defining category in the modern academic research of these topics. This book clarifies the historical, cultural, and political contexts that led to the identification of Kabbalah and Hasidism as Jewish mysticism, exposing the underlying ideological and theological presuppositions and revealing the impact of this "mystification" on contemporary forms of Kabbalah and Hasidism.
Reel Kabbalah
Author: Brian Ogren
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 1978840268
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 134
Book Description
Reel Kabbalah: Jewish Mysticism and Neo-Hasidism in Contemporary Cinema studies the ways in which fictional film in the first decade of the twenty-first century represents the esoteric Jewish speculative traditions known as Kabbalah and Hasidism. It examines the textual and conceptual traditions behind five important cinematic representations -- Pi (1998), Ushpizin (2004), Bee Season (2005), The Secrets (2007), and A Serious Man (2009) -- and it considers how film both stands in continuity with those traditions and modifies them in the New Age vein of what is known as neo-Kabbalah and neo-Hasidism. Brian Ogren transforms our understanding of reception history by focusing on how cinema has altered perceptions of Jewish mysticism. In showing how the Jewish speculative traditions of Kabbalah and Hasidism have been able to affect mass-consumed cinematic portrayals of ultimate Truth, this book sheds light on the New Age, pop-cultural dialectic of the particular within the universal and of the universal within the particular.
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 1978840268
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 134
Book Description
Reel Kabbalah: Jewish Mysticism and Neo-Hasidism in Contemporary Cinema studies the ways in which fictional film in the first decade of the twenty-first century represents the esoteric Jewish speculative traditions known as Kabbalah and Hasidism. It examines the textual and conceptual traditions behind five important cinematic representations -- Pi (1998), Ushpizin (2004), Bee Season (2005), The Secrets (2007), and A Serious Man (2009) -- and it considers how film both stands in continuity with those traditions and modifies them in the New Age vein of what is known as neo-Kabbalah and neo-Hasidism. Brian Ogren transforms our understanding of reception history by focusing on how cinema has altered perceptions of Jewish mysticism. In showing how the Jewish speculative traditions of Kabbalah and Hasidism have been able to affect mass-consumed cinematic portrayals of ultimate Truth, this book sheds light on the New Age, pop-cultural dialectic of the particular within the universal and of the universal within the particular.
Kabbalah and Catastrophe
Author: Hartley Lachter
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 1503640906
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 435
Book Description
While premodern kabbalistic texts were not chronicles of historical events, they provided elaborate models for understanding the secret divine plan guiding human affairs. Hartley Lachter analyzes innovative kabbalistic doctrines, such as the idea of reincarnation and the notion of multiple successive universes, through which Jewish mystics sought to demonstrate that the misfortunes of Jewish history were in fact necessary steps toward redemption. Lachter argues that these works, mostly composed between the early 14th century and the generation affected by the Spanish expulsion in the early 16th century, enabled Jewish readers to make sense of the troubling misfortunes of their own time. Kabbalah and Catastrophe uncovers the remarkable variety of ways that kabbalists deployed esoteric tradition to argue that God had not abandoned the Jews to the inscrutable forces of history. Instead, they suggested to readers that Jews are history's primary actors, and that despite their small numbers and lack of military power, Jews nonetheless secretly push history forward. For scholars of Jewish mysticism and medieval Jewish history, Lachter articulates how premodern mystical texts can be crucial sources of insight into how Jews understood the meaning of history.
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 1503640906
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 435
Book Description
While premodern kabbalistic texts were not chronicles of historical events, they provided elaborate models for understanding the secret divine plan guiding human affairs. Hartley Lachter analyzes innovative kabbalistic doctrines, such as the idea of reincarnation and the notion of multiple successive universes, through which Jewish mystics sought to demonstrate that the misfortunes of Jewish history were in fact necessary steps toward redemption. Lachter argues that these works, mostly composed between the early 14th century and the generation affected by the Spanish expulsion in the early 16th century, enabled Jewish readers to make sense of the troubling misfortunes of their own time. Kabbalah and Catastrophe uncovers the remarkable variety of ways that kabbalists deployed esoteric tradition to argue that God had not abandoned the Jews to the inscrutable forces of history. Instead, they suggested to readers that Jews are history's primary actors, and that despite their small numbers and lack of military power, Jews nonetheless secretly push history forward. For scholars of Jewish mysticism and medieval Jewish history, Lachter articulates how premodern mystical texts can be crucial sources of insight into how Jews understood the meaning of history.
Cultic and Further Orders: Semiotics of a Kabbalistic Culture
Author: Maurizio Mottolese
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004499008
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 239
Book Description
Through an unusual investigation of kabbalistic commentaries on prayer and ritual from the viewpoint of cultural semiotics, this book attempts to illuminate the features of a lasting Jewish tradition, showing in particular the relevance of ordering structures in Sephardi Kabbalah.
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004499008
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 239
Book Description
Through an unusual investigation of kabbalistic commentaries on prayer and ritual from the viewpoint of cultural semiotics, this book attempts to illuminate the features of a lasting Jewish tradition, showing in particular the relevance of ordering structures in Sephardi Kabbalah.
Kabbalah as Literature
Author: Gilad Elbom
Publisher: Fortress Press
ISBN: 1506494897
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 214
Book Description
A perpetually creative platform, kabbalistic literature challenges plain, predictable, or privileged interpretations of biblical narratives, reimagining and reinventing familiar characters, episodes, and images. Eve, Esther, and Judith, for example, embody the female aspect of the kabbalistic divinity, as do several nameless women whose roles the Kabbalah augments and celebrates, often in daring and surprising ways. What allows the Kabbalah to revolutionize hermeneutical practices is its capacity to explore a wide variety of styles and genres: drama, poetry, the fairy tale, the picaresque novel, the personal diary, the dream journal, surrealist fiction, magical realism, philosophical investigations, modernist modes of expression, and other storytelling strategies. This book traces the development of kabbalistic literature, from the late Middle Ages to the twenty-first century, while applying kabbalistic methods and sensibilities to the parables of Jesus, the epistles of Paul, and other related texts. Despite its literary and theological sophistication, the Kabbalah rarely promotes its unique version of the human-divine story as a definitive account or an authorized version. Refraining from favoring one meaning at the expense of others, the Kabbalah offers a truly diverse and highly capacious program that serves as a potential antidote to the current division of human experience into proverbial echo chambers.
Publisher: Fortress Press
ISBN: 1506494897
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 214
Book Description
A perpetually creative platform, kabbalistic literature challenges plain, predictable, or privileged interpretations of biblical narratives, reimagining and reinventing familiar characters, episodes, and images. Eve, Esther, and Judith, for example, embody the female aspect of the kabbalistic divinity, as do several nameless women whose roles the Kabbalah augments and celebrates, often in daring and surprising ways. What allows the Kabbalah to revolutionize hermeneutical practices is its capacity to explore a wide variety of styles and genres: drama, poetry, the fairy tale, the picaresque novel, the personal diary, the dream journal, surrealist fiction, magical realism, philosophical investigations, modernist modes of expression, and other storytelling strategies. This book traces the development of kabbalistic literature, from the late Middle Ages to the twenty-first century, while applying kabbalistic methods and sensibilities to the parables of Jesus, the epistles of Paul, and other related texts. Despite its literary and theological sophistication, the Kabbalah rarely promotes its unique version of the human-divine story as a definitive account or an authorized version. Refraining from favoring one meaning at the expense of others, the Kabbalah offers a truly diverse and highly capacious program that serves as a potential antidote to the current division of human experience into proverbial echo chambers.
Keeping the Mystery Alive
Author: Ariana Huberman
Publisher: Academic Studies PRess
ISBN: 1644698986
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 216
Book Description
This book delves into creative renditions of key aspects of Jewish Mysticism in Latin American literature, film, and art from the perspective of literary and cultural studies. It introduces the work of Latin American authors and artists who have been inspired by Jewish Mysticism from the 1960s to the present focusing on representations of dybbuks (transmigratory souls), the presence of Eros as part of the experience of mystical prayer, reformulations of Zoharic fables, and the search for Tikkun Olam (cosmic repair), among other key topics of Jewish Mysticism. The purpose of this book is to open up these aspects of their work to a broad audience who may or may not be familiar with Jewish Mysticism.
Publisher: Academic Studies PRess
ISBN: 1644698986
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 216
Book Description
This book delves into creative renditions of key aspects of Jewish Mysticism in Latin American literature, film, and art from the perspective of literary and cultural studies. It introduces the work of Latin American authors and artists who have been inspired by Jewish Mysticism from the 1960s to the present focusing on representations of dybbuks (transmigratory souls), the presence of Eros as part of the experience of mystical prayer, reformulations of Zoharic fables, and the search for Tikkun Olam (cosmic repair), among other key topics of Jewish Mysticism. The purpose of this book is to open up these aspects of their work to a broad audience who may or may not be familiar with Jewish Mysticism.
Hermetic Spirituality and the Historical Imagination
Author: Wouter J. Hanegraaff
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009123068
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 455
Book Description
Hermetic spirituality in late antiquity was an experiential practice and personal transformation grounded in powerful techniques for consciousness alteration.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009123068
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 455
Book Description
Hermetic spirituality in late antiquity was an experiential practice and personal transformation grounded in powerful techniques for consciousness alteration.
Kabbalah in America
Author: Brian Ogren
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004428143
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 421
Book Description
Kabbalah in America includes chapters from leading experts in a variety of fields and is the first-ever comprehensive treatment of the title subject from colonial times until the present. Until recently, Kabbalah studies have not extensively covered America, despite America’s centrality in modern and contemporary formations. There exist scattered treatments, but no inclusive expositions. This volume most certainly fills the gap. It is comprised of 21 articles in eight sections, including Kabbalah in Colonial America; Nineteenth-Century Western Esotericism; The Nineteenth-Century Jewish Interface; Early Twentieth-Century Rational Scholars; The Post-War Counterculture; Liberal American Denominationalism; Ultra-Orthodoxy, American Hasidism and the ‘Other’; and Contemporary American Ritual and Thought. This volume will be sure to set the tone for all future scholarship on American Kabbalah.
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004428143
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 421
Book Description
Kabbalah in America includes chapters from leading experts in a variety of fields and is the first-ever comprehensive treatment of the title subject from colonial times until the present. Until recently, Kabbalah studies have not extensively covered America, despite America’s centrality in modern and contemporary formations. There exist scattered treatments, but no inclusive expositions. This volume most certainly fills the gap. It is comprised of 21 articles in eight sections, including Kabbalah in Colonial America; Nineteenth-Century Western Esotericism; The Nineteenth-Century Jewish Interface; Early Twentieth-Century Rational Scholars; The Post-War Counterculture; Liberal American Denominationalism; Ultra-Orthodoxy, American Hasidism and the ‘Other’; and Contemporary American Ritual and Thought. This volume will be sure to set the tone for all future scholarship on American Kabbalah.
Kabbalah: Secrecy, Scandal and the Soul
Author: Harry Freedman
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472950968
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 305
Book Description
This book tells the story of the mystical Jewish system known as Kabbalah, from its earliest origins until the present day. We trace Kabbalah's development, from the second century visionaries who visited the divine realms and brought back tales of their glories and splendours, through the unexpected arrival of a book in Spain that appeared to have lain unconcealed for over a thousand years, and on to the mystical city of Safed where souls could be read and the history of heaven was an open book. Kabbalah's Christian counterpart, Cabala, emerged during the Renaissance, becoming allied to magic, alchemy and the occult sciences. A Kabbalistic heresy tore apart seventeenth century Jewish communities, while closer to our time Aleister Crowley hijacked it to proclaim 'Do What Thou Wilt'. Kabbalah became fashionable in the late 1960s in the wake of the hippy counter-culture and with the approach of the new age, and enjoyed its share of fame, scandal and disrepute as the twenty first century approached. This concise, readable and thoughtful history of Kabbalah tells its story as it has never been told before. It demands no knowledge of Kabbalah, just an interest in asking the questions 'why?' and 'how?'
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472950968
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 305
Book Description
This book tells the story of the mystical Jewish system known as Kabbalah, from its earliest origins until the present day. We trace Kabbalah's development, from the second century visionaries who visited the divine realms and brought back tales of their glories and splendours, through the unexpected arrival of a book in Spain that appeared to have lain unconcealed for over a thousand years, and on to the mystical city of Safed where souls could be read and the history of heaven was an open book. Kabbalah's Christian counterpart, Cabala, emerged during the Renaissance, becoming allied to magic, alchemy and the occult sciences. A Kabbalistic heresy tore apart seventeenth century Jewish communities, while closer to our time Aleister Crowley hijacked it to proclaim 'Do What Thou Wilt'. Kabbalah became fashionable in the late 1960s in the wake of the hippy counter-culture and with the approach of the new age, and enjoyed its share of fame, scandal and disrepute as the twenty first century approached. This concise, readable and thoughtful history of Kabbalah tells its story as it has never been told before. It demands no knowledge of Kabbalah, just an interest in asking the questions 'why?' and 'how?'
New Paths in Jewish and Religious Studies
Author: Glenn Dynner
Publisher: Purdue University Press
ISBN: 1612499244
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 569
Book Description
The work of Elliot R. Wolfson has profoundly influenced the fields of Jewish studies as well as philosophy and religion more broadly. His radically new approaches have created pioneering ways of analyzing texts and thinking about religion through the lens of gender, sexuality, and feminist theory. The contributors to New Paths in Jewish and Religious Studies: Essays in Honor of Professor Elliot R. Wolfson, many of whom are internationally renowned scholars, hearken from diverse fields. Each has learned from and collaborated with Wolfson as student or colleague, and each has expanded the new scholarly directions initiated by Wolfson’s groundbreaking work. Wolfson’s scholarship gives us innovative ways to think about Judaism and a fresh understanding of religion. Not only a scholar, Wolfson is one of the most important Jewish thinkers of our day. Chapters are grouped according to the categories of religion, Jewish thought and philosophy, and a focused section on Kabbalah, Wolfson’s primary specialization. The volume concludes with a bibliography of Wolfson’s published work and a selection of his poetry.
Publisher: Purdue University Press
ISBN: 1612499244
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 569
Book Description
The work of Elliot R. Wolfson has profoundly influenced the fields of Jewish studies as well as philosophy and religion more broadly. His radically new approaches have created pioneering ways of analyzing texts and thinking about religion through the lens of gender, sexuality, and feminist theory. The contributors to New Paths in Jewish and Religious Studies: Essays in Honor of Professor Elliot R. Wolfson, many of whom are internationally renowned scholars, hearken from diverse fields. Each has learned from and collaborated with Wolfson as student or colleague, and each has expanded the new scholarly directions initiated by Wolfson’s groundbreaking work. Wolfson’s scholarship gives us innovative ways to think about Judaism and a fresh understanding of religion. Not only a scholar, Wolfson is one of the most important Jewish thinkers of our day. Chapters are grouped according to the categories of religion, Jewish thought and philosophy, and a focused section on Kabbalah, Wolfson’s primary specialization. The volume concludes with a bibliography of Wolfson’s published work and a selection of his poetry.