Sod ha-Shabbat

Sod ha-Shabbat PDF Author: Elliot K. Ginsburg
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438404123
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description
The Sabbath has been one of the most significant and beloved institutions of Jewish life since late antiquity. Over a period of several centuries, the classical Kabbalists developed a rich body of ritual and myth that articulated a fresh vision of the Sabbath. The mystical understanding of the Sabbath was assimilated by virtually every Jewish community. This volume is a translation and critical commentary to Sod ha-Shabbat, a treatise on the mystical Sabbath by the influential Spanish-Turkish Kabbalist, R. Meir ibn Gabbai. This important text, the most systematic treatment of the Sabbath in classical Kabbalah, has been inaccessible to the English reader until now. The study includes an Introduction to ibn Gabbai's life and work, accompanied by extensive critical notes that clarify general problems of translation and place the work in its historical context. Broader theoretical issues regarding myth and the ritual process are also discussed.

Sod ha-Shabbat

Sod ha-Shabbat PDF Author: Elliot K. Ginsburg
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438404123
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 282

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Sabbath has been one of the most significant and beloved institutions of Jewish life since late antiquity. Over a period of several centuries, the classical Kabbalists developed a rich body of ritual and myth that articulated a fresh vision of the Sabbath. The mystical understanding of the Sabbath was assimilated by virtually every Jewish community. This volume is a translation and critical commentary to Sod ha-Shabbat, a treatise on the mystical Sabbath by the influential Spanish-Turkish Kabbalist, R. Meir ibn Gabbai. This important text, the most systematic treatment of the Sabbath in classical Kabbalah, has been inaccessible to the English reader until now. The study includes an Introduction to ibn Gabbai's life and work, accompanied by extensive critical notes that clarify general problems of translation and place the work in its historical context. Broader theoretical issues regarding myth and the ritual process are also discussed.

Tree of Souls

Tree of Souls PDF Author: Howard Schwartz
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195327136
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 705

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Book Description
Drawing from the Bible, the Pseudepigrapha, the Talmud and Midrash, the kabbalistic literature, medieval folklore, Hasidic texts, and oral lore collected in the modern era, Schwartz has gathered together nearly 700 of the key Jewish myths. For each myth, he includes extensive commentary, revealing the source of the myth and explaining how it relates to other Jewish myths as well as to world literature --from publisher description

The Sabbath in the Classical Kabbalah

The Sabbath in the Classical Kabbalah PDF Author: Elliot K. Ginsburg
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438404115
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 362

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Book Description
This book is a critical study of the mystical celebration of Sabbath in the classical period of Kabbalah, from the late twelfth to the early sixteenth centuries. The Kabbalists' re-reading of the earlier Jewish tradition has been called a model of "mythopoeic revision," a revision rooted in a world-view that stressed the interrelation of all worlds and levels of being. This is the first work, in any language, to systematically collect and analyze all the major innovations in praxis and theology that classical Kabbalah effected upon the development of the Rabbinic Sabbath, one of the most central areas of Jewish religious practice. The author analyzes the historical development of the Kabbalistic Sabbath, constructs a theoretical framework for the interpretation of its dense myth-ritual structure, and provides a phenomenology of key myths and rituals. It is one of the first Kabbalistic studies to integrate traditional textual-historical scholarship with newer methods employed in the study of religion and symbolic anthropology.

The Sabbath, Aaron to Zohar

The Sabbath, Aaron to Zohar PDF Author: Norman McClelland
Publisher: Outskirts Press
ISBN: 1977246087
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
This book not only argues for the sanctity of the seventh-day Sabbath. It is this author’s view that Christians have ample justification for observing Sunday as a holy day, but not to claim that it has the same blessed and made holy power to it that the seventh-day Sabbath has. Moreover, it is here pointed out that even the Quran, if read carefully, can support the seventh-day Sabbath.

The Heart of the Matter

The Heart of the Matter PDF Author: Arthur Green
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 0827612133
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 388

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Book Description
"Judaism, like all the great religions, has a strand within it that sees inward devotion as an opening of the human heart to God's presence. This voice is not always easy to hear in a tradition where so much attention is devoted to the how rather than the why of religious living. The devotional claim, certainly a key part of Judaism's biblical heritage, has reasserted itself in the teachings of individual mystics and in the emergence of religious movements over the long course of Jewish history. This volume represents Rabbi Arthur Green's own quest for such a Judaism, both as a scholar and as a contemporary seeker. This collection of essays brings together Green's scholarly writings, centered on the history of early Hasidism, and his highly personal approach to a rebirth of Jewish spirituality in our own day. In choosing to present them in this way, he asserts a claim that they are all of a piece. They represent one man's attempt to wade through history and text, language and symbol, an array of voices both past and present, while always focusing on the essential question "What does it mean to be a religious human being, and what does Judaism teach us about it?" This, the author considers to be the heart of the matter." -- Publisher's description.

The Enlightened Will Shine

The Enlightened Will Shine PDF Author: Pinchas Giller
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438404093
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 199

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Book Description
This book analyzes the use of symbolism and theurgy in two sections of the Zohar, the central text of the kabbalah. These compositions, Tiqqunei ha-Zohar and Ra'aya Meheimna have been particularly loved by kabbalists. Giller demonstrates the significance of their contributions to theosophical kabbalah.

The Art of Mystical Narrative

The Art of Mystical Narrative PDF Author: Eitan P. Fishbane
Publisher:
ISBN: 0199948631
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 535

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Book Description
In the study of Judaism, the Zohar has captivated the minds of interpreters for over seven centuries, and continues to entrance readers in the modern day. Yet despite these centuries of study, very little attention has been devoted to the literary dimensions of the text. The Art of Mystical Narrative argues that the Zohar story must be understood first and foremost as a work of the fictional imagination.

Defender of the Faithful

Defender of the Faithful PDF Author: Arthur Green
Publisher: Brandeis University Press
ISBN: 168458101X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
"Defender of the Faithful is an intellectual and religious biography of Levi Yitshak of Berdychiv (1740-1809), one of the most fascinating and colorful Hasidic leaders of his time. Featuring examples of Levi Yitshak's extraordinary texts alongside insightful analysis, Arthur Green examines both Levi Yitshak's theology and broader philosophy"--

Hidden Intercourse

Hidden Intercourse PDF Author: Wouter J. Hanegraaff
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9047443586
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 566

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Book Description
From rumours about gnostic orgies in antiquity to the explicit erotic symbolism of alchemical texts, from the subtly coded eroticism of medieval kabbalah to the sexual magic practiced by contemporary occultists and countercultural translations of Asian Tantra, the history of Western esotericism is rich in references to the domains of eros and sexuality. This volume, which brings together an impressive array of top-level specialists, is the first to analyze the eroticism of the esoteric without sensationalism or cheap generalizations, but on the basis of expert scholarship and attention to textual and historical detail. While there are few other domains where the imagination may so easily run wild, the various contributions seek to distinguish fact from fiction--only to find that historical realities are sometimes even stranger than the fantasies. In doing so, they reveal the outlines of a largely unknown history spanning more than twenty centuries.

Through a Speculum That Shines

Through a Speculum That Shines PDF Author: Elliot R. Wolfson
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 069121509X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 463

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Book Description
A comprehensive treatment of visionary experience in some of the main texts of Jewish mysticism, this book reveals the overwhelmingly visual nature of religious experience in Jewish spirituality from antiquity through the late Middle Ages. Using phenomenological and critical historical tools, Wolfson examines Jewish mystical texts from late antiquity, pre-kabbalistic sources from the tenth to the twelfth centuries, and twelfth- and thirteenth-century kabbalistic literature. His work demonstrates that the sense of sight assumes an epistemic priority in these writings, reflecting and building upon those scriptural passages that affirm the visual nature of revelatory experience. Moreover, the author reveals an androcentric eroticism in the scopic mentality of Jewish mystics, which placed the externalized and representable form, the phallus, at the center of the visual encounter. In the visionary experience, as Wolfson describes it, imagination serves a primary function, transmuting sensory data and rational concepts into symbols of those things beyond sense and reason. In this view, the experience of a vision is inseparable from the process of interpretation. Fundamentally challenging the conventional distinction between experience and exegesis, revelation and interpretation, Wolfson argues that for the mystics themselves, the study of texts occasioned a visual experience of the divine located in the imagination of the mystical interpreter. Thus he shows how Jewish mystics preserved the invisible transcendence of God without doing away with the visual dimension of belief.