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What changes in the conceptualization of God, the ultimate healer, once God himself becomes the object of healing? This article examines the delicate tensions between divine and human agency in the Lurianic kabbalah, focusing on its grammar of action, and the complex relations between the subjects and the objects of this action. Rather than analyzing the relations between the kabbalists and their God through their conscious perceptions, the article explores how these relations emerge from the Lurianic discursive configurations and describes the role of medical discourse in their shaping. I claim that in order to perceive the transformation in the image of God in this early modern kabbalistic corpus, we should place at the heart of our inquiry the questions of who the patient is in the Lurianic medical clinic and how the relations between the human and the divine protagonists of the Lurianic drama are woven in this clinic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent advancements in studying the Ars Notoria, notably through Julian Véronèse's critical edition, have provided insights into its manuscripts and various interpretations. This progress sets the stage for exploring a less examined area: the Jewish reception of the Ars Notoria, a topic ripe for investigation in the current scholarly landscape. This article explores the Jewish engagement with this Christian text, particularly through its Hebrew translation Melekhet Muskelet, as well as a notable discovery that links the Ars Notoria's notae to the Kabbalistic ten sefirot. This connection suggests an early Jewish interest in this Christian magical text. The study, using textual and visual analysis, offers insights into the interplay between medieval Jewish Kabbalah and Christian magical texts, underscoring the need to reevaluate their mutual influences during the 13th and 14th centuries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Medieval Jewish philosophers used cryptic writing 1) to protect innocent believers whose faith could be harmed by uncustomary ideas; 2) to protect the philosopher, whose societal standing might be risked through the expression of uncustomary views; and 3) as a normative characteristic of how philosophy was written. This article demonstrates that, in the halakhic literature, this same technique was utilized by halakhic decisors, and for reasons similar to those of philosophers. A contemporary example helps to make the point. Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, one of the most prominent twentieth century rabbis, used this approach for two of the three reasons cited: to protect readers from falling into inappropriate religious practice and to protect his own status in a community that valued halakhic uniformity. Rabbi Auerbach thus exemplifies the use of halakhic crypticity to maintain a distinction between theoretical "decisions rules" and practical "conduct rules." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a first attempt to classify and present a group of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Hasidic texts as belonging to a specific literary genre: rationales for the commandments. In this category we include Sefer Toldot Ya'akov Yosef , by Ya'akov Yosef of Pollonye; Sefer derekh pikudekhah , by Tsvi Elimelekh of Dinov; Sefer otsar ha-@hayim , by Yits@hak Eizik Ye@hiel Safrin; Likute halakhot , by Nathan Sternharts of Nemirov; Derekh mitsvotekhah , by Menachem Mendel Schneerson; and, finally, Sefer be'erat Miriam , by Avraham Abele Kanarfogel. We survey the works broadly and relate them to one defined literary genre. In so doing, we offer a new framework for a scholarly discussion of the Hasidic occupation with nomos and kabbalah. We demonstrate how Hasidic works discussing rationales for the commandments simultaneously employ halakhic and kabbalistic perspectives, emphasizing the punctiliousness in their fulfilment, their theurgic efficacy, and personal-spiritual completeness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sanford Drob's Kabbalistic Visions: C. G. Jung and Jewish Mysticism examines the parallels between Kabbalistic spiritual practice and Jungian analytic work, including the conjunction of such opposites as male and female and especially of light and dark. The Kabbalah is presented in its historical evolution from an exoteric Jewish tradition to an esoteric interior process that is mirrored in Jungian analysis. This enables us to understand how Jung's late visions were rooted in his controversial but evolving attitude toward Jewish psychology, resulting in the widely noted deepening of his last major works. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A large literature has formed around the question of how Freud's Jewishness and/or Judaism influenced his psychological discoveries and development of psychoanalytic theory and methods. The article organizes the literature into several core theses but brings new clarity and insight by applying two essential criteria to demonstrate an impact of Judaism on Freud's thinking: direct content and historical timing. First, there should be evidence that Freud incorporated actual content from Jewish sources, and second, this incorporation must have occurred during the most crucial period of Freud's early discovery, conceptualization, and development of psychoanalysis, roughly 1893–1910. Thus, for example, Bakan's well‐known theory that Freud studied Kabbala is completely negated by the absence of any evidence in the required time period. Part I reviews the literature on the influence of Freud's ethnic/cultural Jewish identity. Part II introduces the Judaic sacred literature, explores Freud's education in Judaism and Hebrew, and presents evidence that Freud had the motive, means, and resources to discover and draw from the "Dream Segment" of the Talmud—along with the traditional Judaic methods and techniques of textual exegesis. Freud then applied these same Judaic word‐centered interpretive methods—used for revealing an invisible God—to revealing an invisible Unconscious in four successive books in 1900, 1901, and 1905. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What connection with institutional religion ought modern political states promote? As they developed their political thinking in the early years of the Weimar Republic, Leo Strauss and Edith Stein came up with opposite answers to this question. While Strauss discerned in Carl Schmitt's maximalist concept of the theopolitical a possible remedy against the flaws of liberal democracy, Stein ascribed democracy's chance of survival to a renewed distinction between the political and religious spheres. Here, Strauss can be viewed as an heir to the ancient and medieval Jewish understanding of the ideal state, whereas Stein appears rooted in the critical legacy of the German Haskalah. At a fundamental level, the contrast between the two thinkers has to do with a difference in their respective philosophical epistemé. While Strauss, walking in the footsteps of Heidegger, thinks in terms of Geschichlichkeit ("historiality"), Stein applies a phenomenological method based on the intuition of essences and very much indebted to Adolph Reinach's philosophy of law. That Stein's essentialism succeeds where the 'historial' thinking of the young Strauss fails; that is, in diagnosing the nature of the political threat that would soon engulf European Jewry, is the main conclusion of the present paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gershom Scholem devised the ironic formulation that Kafka's literature depicts the Kabbalah from a secular perspective. This declaration, when unraveled, offers an indispensable key to understanding Scholem's views on Kafka. Scholem's formulation stems from his dialectical perspective of Jewish history and his reliance on the notion of Zimzum therewith. For Scholem, Kafka's literature manifests the tenor of the Kabbalah without the Kabbalah's content. The kabbalistic tenor of his literature reflects Kafka's actual world in which God's commandments have dissipated but the faintest whisperings of God can still be sensed. This state of the world is that of the Zimzum at its nadir. Scholem describes Kafka as caught on the border between religion and nihilism; he cannot be religious because when the Zimzum is at its nadir all religious content has disappeared. Yet, Kafka is also not a nihilist because he holds on to the possibility of God's return in a future epoch. In fact, ironically, it is Kafka's depiction of God's hiddenness which causes Scholem to write so adoringly of him despite his bordering on nihilism. That is because for Scholem, one who depicts God's hiddenness, while seeming to embrace nihilism, is actually prophesizing, albeit unconsciously, Judaism's glorious return. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contribution to the essay forum "The Jewish Recipe." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the esoteric writings of the Medieval German Pietists, nocturnal female demons, known as lilioth , preyed upon mortal men who crossed their paths or who laid down to sleep in their territory. These lilioth could smell the scent of a man, whose body carried with it the additional value of sexual allure, and would hunt them down with their finely attuned olfactory sense. Another odor discussed in these texts, the smell of flying ointment, guaranteed invisibility and offered invulnerability to night-time travelers of both sexes which mirrors the phenomenon known in contemporary Latin sources under the term cursus. In these texts, Jewish mystics, before the dawn of the Kabbalah, rewrote the widely known folklore traditions and fairy tales common to both Jewish and Christian cultures in the Middle Ages. The study presented here is therefore aimed to provide insight into a previously underestimated chapter in Jewish esoteric and kabbalistic sensorium, namely, the olfactory experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article looks at the concept of zero, from the philosophical and mathematical sides, in the Jewish tradition from the Bible to the modern age. With regard to philosophy, three aspects will be considered: (1) ex nihilo creation; (2) the definition of the deity as the Naught and the creation out of the Naught; (3) the existence of the vacuum in the material world after the Creation. Two mathematical aspects will be examined: (1) the Hebrew system for designating numbers (numerals) from the Bible until the adoption of the Arabic numerals; (2) the notion of zero as a numerical value. The sources for both discussions are mainly the Bible, rabbinic texts of the Talmudic age, Sefer ha-Yezirah, the medieval philosophic literature (including the work of Abraham Ibn Ezra, the very first Hebrew author to deal with zero), and medieval Kabbalah. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Katherine Olivetti's interview with Pamela Eakins, they explore her path from Stanford academic to Tarot and visionary cosmologist. Eakins describes the creation of the Tarot of the Spirit deck, which she modeled on the Tree of Life that contains the ten powers or points of the Tarot. They discuss the collaboration with Eakins's mother, Joyce Eakins, an artist who painted the Tarot deck, and the synchronicity that led to its publication along with development of Visionary Cosmology, which incorporates contemporary science as a way to redefine the paradigms of how we see and walk in the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The analysis undertaken in this paper sets out with El Lissitzky’s 1919 revolutionary poster entitled Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge. This artwork, composed of simple geometric figures, in which an acute-angled red triangle splits the form of a white circle, was used by Soviet propaganda to affirm the so-called ‘October events’. However, a thorough analysis of the poster, i.e. its sources, inspirations, borrowings and contexts, supports the hypothesis that the principal motif (the wedge) also constitutes a graphic equivalent of a letter of the Hebrew alphabet, the letter yud, represented as a small comma or, significantly, an acute-angled triangle. Such a premise yields further consequences with regard to meanings, encompassing aspects related to the Jewish iconic tradition that involve mysticism, magic, and the kabbalah. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

O presente trabalho aponta para alguns elementos que dizem respeito a concepção da letra Aleph na tradição hebraica. Esta letra parâmetro para pensarmos a tradução a partir da crítica do ritmo desenvolvida por Henri Meschonnic, com as contribuições de Walter Benjamin e Gershom Scholem, acerca de elementos da linguagem de difícil expressão. O som e sua repercussão como posição anterior ao arcabouço dos signos pretensamente cognoscíveis já nos dão um bom prognóstico do quanto a linguagem é mais ampla do que a língua em sua expressão vernacular. O trabalho se divide em três partes e sua conclusão versa sobre a herança dos estudos de Meschonnic para a teoria da tradução em línguas antigas.

This article compares two biblical accounts: the description of the construction of the Tabernacle (Ex. 25–40), and its connection to the myth of Eve's creation (Gen. 2). I aim to reveal the literary and symbolic links between "feminine" attributes in these two formative accounts, from their development in biblical literature to their appearances in rabbinic midrash and medieval Kabbalah. My reading seeks to combine gender, myth, and literary study, to explore how erotic images of the sacred were developed and proliferated over generations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The biblical poem entitled Shir Ha-Shirim (The Song of Songs) composed by Shlomo, the third King of the united tribes of Israel about 1,000 years before the Common Era was composed in Hebrew. However, it was also translated and sung by numerous bards in ancient Arabic dialects, as well as being translated to Kurmanji Kurdish. The King composed this poem to substantiate the primeval identity of his kingdom and its connection to the expanses leading up to Jerusalem and the mountain range surrounding Jerusalem. The poem‘s underlying meaning leans on the King‘s knowledge of the ancient science of Kabbalah. The eight chapters included in the Hebrew Bible as debated in the first century CE, and recorded by the mishnaic Sages of Tiberias in the second century CE, now constitute what we have on record of the Song of Songs. The external shell of the poem, the first chapter of which mentions apple-wine and love, and tribal ethics, symbolizes and reminds of the first moment of love‘s intoxication and knowledge. The King is mentioned in the Qur‘an as prophet Suleimān, and is known in English as King Solomon. This study ends with an original translation of the Song of Songs with Notes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The following consists of the final chapter of my book, The Divine Mind: Exploring the Psychological History of God's Inner Journey, published by Prometheus Books in 2018. The book tells the story of God's evolution as depicted in the three Abrahamic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Needless to say, this parallels the evolution of human consciousness, as each reflects the other. This chapter picks up where an earlier one left off, namely, on the nature of Ein Sof (literally, "infinity" or "without end"). This is the name that the Kabbalists have assigned to the mystical Godhead or absolute nothingness that is beyond anthropomorphic projections and all other gods, including the biblical one. The book won a Nautilus Book Award in the category of "Religion/Spirituality of Western Thought." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica collection focuses on the discourses of Platonic-Hermetic thought. When the Corpus Hermeticum and other ancient texts were translated into Latin in the mid 15th century, they helped to spur the Renaissance. Ideas such as the concept that philosophy amounts to striving after God and that the cosmos is an outflowing of the Divine stimulated developments in Christian mysticism, Jewish Kabbala, alchemy, astrology, magic, Christian theosophy and Rosicrucianism. Although of great cultural significance, these streams of thought were long neglected or suppressed. Now, academia is recognizing the importance of this thought. The BPH pioneered this field of study and helped establish it. In November 2022, the library was added to the UNESCO Nederlands Memory of the World Register. The committee recognized that authors in this library took positions that, while controversial for their time, were progressive steps on the path to modern human rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study I demonstrate a distant reading of Rabbi Kook's early writings from the Žeimelis period, using advanced tools of big data analytics. Analyzing frequent words and phrases in the Žeimelis corpus is coupled with a comparison to the most important corpus of Kook's writing: Shemonah Qevaṣim. This parallelization illustrates the clear and consistent differences between the corpora—verbal and phrasal—as well as some similarities. The Žeimelis period can be described as more particularistic in nature, with an emphasis on traditional rabbinic writing: a strong linkage to rabbinic classical sources, a clear differentiation between Halakhah and Kabbalah, and a wide perspective on numerous subjects, yet without blending them into one. Kook's original teachings were not abandoned in later phases but rather reshaped in a more sophisticated manner. A pan(en)theistic disposition dominates his later works, effecting content and form in unique ways, and creating a more complex and intertwined philosophy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The short fragment prompting this study is a kabbalistic inquiry into three of the positive commandments in which women are especially obligated—the so-called commandments of Hannah. When accounting for these commandments in kabbalistic terms, the fragment endorses the ritual efficacy of Jewish women. It does this in a manner analogous to descriptions of commandments performed by men, in which the practitioner is vested with the power of unifying the divinity and, as a result, drawing down its influence. The sizeable literature on the commandments produced by medieval kabbalists abounds with such descriptions, from which scholars have long sourced information concerning the practices of medieval men performing "Jewish mysticism." The fragment on the commandments of Hannah urges a reassessment of how the literature of medieval kabbalah constructs women's ritual efficacy. After gauging that text's provenance and surveying a host of comparable traditions from authoritative texts, the study proceeds to ask: Do the rationales of the three commandments of Hannah presuppose the application—by women—of esoteric knowledge during ritual performances? The article also highlights the lack of correspondence between (a) the occasional affirmations of women's sacramental efficacy in the texts and (b) the negative consensus concerning the social-historical representation of female practitioners of kabbalah. Without attempting to overturn this consensus, the study aims to recover a phenomenology of commandments performed specifically by women, which is shown to be a rare, albeit representative, feature of medieval kabbalah. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article demonstrates that the knowledge of the Syriac language in Western Europe first developed amongst Christian scholars with a strong interest in Kabbalah and that they attributed a mystical dimension to the Syriac language that was not associated with it before. After a survey of the first authors that played a significant role in shaping the appropriation of Syriac as a mystical language (Teseo Ambrogio, Postel, Widmanstetter), I show that the newly discovered last work of Christian Knorr von Rosenroth constitutes the climax of that movement. The study of the later reception of Knorr's work in modern occultism indicates that the Syriac language was eclipsed by the renewed favor of Hebrew language, considered as the magical and mystical language par excellence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines transreligiosity in the context of the transmission of South Asian concepts of spirituality to the UK in the 20th century. Between the 1920s and 1990s, Indian teacher and author Phiroz Mehta (1902–1994) crossed borders in a colonial and postcolonial shuttling between India and the UK but also transgressed conceptual and practice borders of religion, teaching Indian religious concepts to post-Christian spiritual seekers in 1970s–80s South London. Mehta cultivated an elasticity between many religious and philosophical traditions, recognising the post-institutional fatigue of subjects who sought alternative forms of 'belonging without believing'. Privileging the domestic space for teaching, as well as transitory 'camp' gatherings in the UK and Germany, Mehta often operated in the social margins, combining teachings from Hinduism, Buddhism, and Christianity with Zoroastrianism, Judaism (specifically Kabbalah), and Daoism. He offered his tutees the freedom to practice religion in whatever way they chose by drawing on a broad range of traditions concurrently to create a transreligiosity. This paper examines Panagiotopoulos and Roussou's 'transgressional webs of practising individualised forms of alternative spirituality' in relation to Mehta's followers in the 1970s-1980s and asks how transreligiosity relates to other theoretical analyses, such as religious exoticism, bricolage, religious appropriation, cultural re-articulation or assemblage. This paper focuses on qualitative interviews with original members of the Mehta community conducted between 2021 and 2022. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Kabbalah creation myth, God creates the universe by "stepping back", releasing ten holy vessels with his light—only to have those vessels shatter with shards of divine light, or "shards" scattered throughout the earth. In a parallel approach, this paper suggests that the sacred must be sought in diverse encounters within everyday life and professional practice. In counseling or other therapeutic support, the definition of and search for spiritual dimensions must be broadened to thoughtfully incorporate the diverse experiences and expressions of people with intellectual disabilities. Similarly, those who seek to understand people's relationship with the divine and support meaning in their lives must welcome a wide range of "artistic" engagements, an approach exemplified in grief and loss intervention. This article concludes by pointing towards resonance as a helpful concept to reconceptualize accessible spirituality in future work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes and discusses Green's mystical neo-Hasidic thought, his reshaping of Judaism and his combination of scholarship and existential engagement. I showcase how his vision on the Oneness of all and on the unity in plurality leads him to an appreciation of evolution and to the promotion of love energy in all, to ecological care and to a deep concern for what happens in Israel and Palestine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rabbi Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman (1720–1797), known as the Vilna Gaon (the Gra), became an icon of Torah learning, saintliness, and devotion to Torah values, but beyond his inner circle he was not known well. After his passing, it was left to students and family members to curate the Gaon's image and teachings. R. Hayyim of Volozhin, his leading disciple, was the first to create a narrative describing the Gaon. His introductions to the Vilna Gaon's works set the tone for the other students and family members. However, there were several disagreements within this inner circle, some presented during R. Hayyim's lifetime and others after his passing. The discrepancies are especially evident in views expressed regarding the Gaon's relationship to secular knowledge and his attitude towards Kabbalah. These disagreements demonstrate both how R. Hayyim carefully selected what he wanted to present from the Gaon's biography in order to protect his image and how his characterization of the Gra's views evolved from a scholar well-read in theosophical Kabbalah to a mystic with spiritual abilities—all the while distinguishing the Gaon from the views of Hasidim. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jewish religious life in the Soviet Union is typically the subject of dichotomous depictions that offer only a superficial rendering of this rich and complex environment. This paper aims to complicate this image by pointing out several religious thinkers who engaged with Communist and Marxist ideas and incorporated them into their religious thought, while upholding rabbinic culture. Among the figures and themes examined are Alter Hilewitz's (1906–1994) Hasido-Marxism, Rabbi Avraham Yosef Guttman's (1870–1940) crisis of faith, and Shmuel Alexandrov's (1865–1941) use of Russian Nietzscheanism. Alexandrov was also the narrator who revealed these fascinating ideas to us in a rare collection of his letters, which possesses both a philosophical and a theological nature. These letters, which have received very little attention in previous studies, provide a small window into the conflictual world of rabbis and yeshiva students in the first decade of the Soviet Union. Reviewing the ideas generated in a struggle to make sense of one of the great crises of modern Judaism, and pondering questions of historical perspective and how empathy may distort it, this article wishes to go beyond the image of a defensive preservation of religious life and to re-envision this unique and innovative period of Jewish thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The book Bahir is a linchpin in the current historiography of Kabbalah, yet its origins are murky. The dominant theory, espoused by Gershom Scholem and his successors, treats the Bahir as a stratified work whose earliest elements originated in antiquity in the East. The book supposedly underwent a long, tortuous process of textual consolidation, during which its components came into contact with various esoteric circles, such as the German Pietists and "first kabbalists" of southern France. This account is to a large extent the foundation of an all-encompassing history of Kabbalah's emergence, which has not gone unchallenged but still profoundly shapes scholarly discourse. This study thoroughly reassesses all of the evidence for this grand narrative, and concludes that it is a blend of biased interpretation and imaginative invention, which proceeds from a purist, dichotomizing approach to textual, philological, socio-intellectual, and conceptual history. Furthermore, the narrative's conceptual constructs have constricted scholarly thinking about core kabbalistic ideas, the nature of theosophical kabbalists, and more. Therefore, despite the satisfyingly granular detail of this narrative, we remain very much in the dark about the true origins of the Bahir and, by extension, of early Kabbalah. In the epilogue, I suggest fully reinvestigating the Bahir 's textual tradition, especially in light of recent discoveries, and partly reviving forgotten but promising historical and philological avenues of inquiry in order to write a new history of the so-called first kabbalistic book. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The proper place of Judah Halevi's thought in the initial emergence and subsequent development of medieval kabbalah has been the subject of debate for centuries. The general consensus has it that the Kuzari was not much more than a convenient repository of terms. This study measures the extent of Halevi's impact on early kabbalah by using the Kuzari 's reasons for the sacrificial rite as a test case. Halevi offered an exoteric, more rationalistic explanation and alluded to an esoteric one. Catalonian kabbalists in fact engaged for generations with these two reasons offered by the Kuzari , displaying a shared yet variable approach to Halevi's thought. Unsurprisingly, some grabbed the low-hanging fruit by interpreting Halevi's esoteric reason, which he refused to disclose, in terms of theosophical kabbalah. More unexpected, however, is the possible conceptual indebtedness of the earliest Catalonian kabbalists, like Ezra of Gerona, to Halevi's theurgic conception of the commandments and doctrine of the Godhead. Of particular interest, too, is the fact that later generations of kabbalists interpreted the Kuzari using paradigms they also employed in their conceptualization of theosophical kabbalah, such as astral magic or neoplatonic psychology and spiritual eschatology. Halevi's work was not simply scavenged for its well-wrought nomenclature. If one looks closely, evidence for the Kuzari 's significant and lasting imprint can be found throughout kabbalah: in the doctrine of the Godhead, in the theurgic conception of religious ritual, in the development of an esoteric interpretation of religious praxis, in the establishment of an esoteric reading of Sefer yeẓirah , and more. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By the end of the sixteenth century, textual manifestations of kabbalah—a variety of Jewish mysticism that first emerged in medieval Provence and Catalonia—achieved the status of elite but authoritative lore in Eastern and Central Europe, even if at times they stirred religious opposition. At the same time, and especially in the seventeenth century, the so-called practical kabbalah, associated with magic and a talismanic approach to religious ritual, gained substantial popularity among Ashkenazi (i.e., Eastern and Central European) Jews. This study centers on a multiple-text and composite codex, Oxford-Bodleian MS Michael 473, and throws into relief the dynamics of circulation of various kabbalistic traditions in early modern Eastern and Central Europe. By zooming in on a single codex, this article foregrounds the hermeneutic potential of contextual reading of texts in complex manuscripts and of interpreting material choices taken by their cocreators. It does so with a methodological agenda that goes beyond tracing of authorial genealogies, and beyond the sociology of texts and their producers, toward exploring the interpretive relations of literary and material form in early modern handwritten kabbalistic texts. The article showcases a single textual unit, Qabbalat 'Eser Sefirot , that MS Michael 473 contains, in order to focus on the position of practical kabbalistic texts and practices within the spectrum of kabbalistic traditions of seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century Eastern and Central Europe, ushered in by the contemporary modes of reading and transcription of texts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Furongian–Tremadocian phosphorites of Estonia are sandstone rich in biogenic apatite, represented by brachiopod detritus. The study focuses on the mineralogical and micro-analytical characterisation of phosphorites from the Aseri, Toolse, and Kabala deposits based on FE-SEM and EPMA analyses. The shell fragments are composed of alternating compact and porous laminae, but with considerably poor preservation of pristine textures, superseded by the formation of authigenic CAF-apatite during the early diagenesis. In all settings, the shells showed preferential uptake of Sr into the porous cryptocrystalline laminae. The altered areas are composed of massive apatite crystallites with Mn-enriched layers. They are frequently covered with pyrite, indicating progressive recrystallisation under the influence of interstitial fluids and fluctuations in redox gradients in coastal environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In thirteenth-century Castile, the kabbalist R. Joseph of Hamadan offered an unprecedented articulation of the idea of reincarnation (gilgul), proposing that Jewish men could be reborn as gentiles, women, or even animals. This article studies the formation of the Jewish belief in the transmigration of human souls into animal bodies, focusing on the question of animal pain. It contextualizes the kabbalistic literary treatment of animals by examining the thirteenth-century European genre of bestiaries, which attempted to instill proper morals in readers by associating animals with sinners. Although the idea of animal reincarnation led kabbalists to treat animals as creatures with human souls, it did not lead to a fundamental or radical shift in the treatment of animals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many see the mithnagdim as total rationalists. Therefore it has been assumed that R. Hayyim of Volozhin's approach to Torah study was the same. Although rationalism may be a correct characterization of the method he used in talmudic study, it does not capture how R. Hayyim understood the essence of Torah study. Some have described Nefesh ha-Hayyim as demystifying Kabbalah. I agree that R. Hayyim opposes ecstatic Kabbalah. However, already in 1972 Norman Lamm noticed that R. Hayyim saw Torah study as a form of clinging to God. In my article, I go further and demonstrate how torah lishmah for R. Hayyim is a radical idea that includes a legitimate path to unio mystica , and even a way to divine inspiration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research has criticized medieval Jewish thought for perpetuating misogynist models inherited from Aristotle, which legitimate men's domination of women. Critics have focused on hylomorphism. By identifying man with "form" and women with "matter," Aristotle and his disciples placed the former beside being, intellect, and activity, and the latter beside privation, irrationality, and passivity. This article shows how, during the Renaissance, hylomorphism was transformed by Judah Loew ben Betzalel (Maharal of Prague; 1512?–1609) in a manner more favorable to women. Maharal's thought still has a patriarchal worldview; nevertheless, he recognizes a positive value to matter, the body, and sexuality, assigning woman an active role within the marital couple as well as in the historical process that leads to redemption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents and analyses the structure, functions, and sources of some spells from manuscript 2284 stored at the Jagiellonian University Library in Krakow, titled Księga Kabał Królowej Sobieskiej (The Kabbalah Book of Queen Sobieska). It is a collection of texts about magic, Kabbalah, and astrology, collected by Maria Casimira Sobieska herself during her long sojourn in Italy (1699-1714). The spells presented in the paper were written in Italian by an anonymous author, most likely in Venice between the 17th and 18th century. These spells are an example of ritual magic, which mixes elements from the tradition of the Kabbalah and spellbooks, such as Clavicula Salomonis, in order to reach practical and immediate effects, like riding fast and safe, finding favor with powerful people, or avoiding attacks from enemies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jacob Rhenferd (1654-1712), professor of Hebrew and Oriental languages at the University of Franeker in the United Provinces, is a mostly forgotten figure. This article analyses his theological and historical scholarship, with special attention to his use of Jewish mystical texts. It argues that Rhenferd's conception of philologia sacra was profoundly shaped by kabbalistic insights and that a recourse to Kabbalah provided him with an idiom to articulate anew some foundational Reformed doctrines. Conversely, a comparison with the kabbalistic studies of some of his contemporaries highlights the incipient difficulties faced by a kabbalistic approach to Christian doctrine and its history. The article uses the case of Rhenferd to propose some historiographical revisions about the role of Kabbalah in Christian scriptural philology around the turn of the eighteenth century, about its institutional currency in prominent Reformed academies and,more broadly, about the validity of 'Christian Kabbalah' as a category in modern scholarship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aviva Butt has just finished translating in collaboration with the author, Salim Barakat's first novel Fuqahā' al-alām (Sages of Darkness) written in 1985. The translation was done from a later original Arabic manuscript roughly the same as the 1994 Baghdadi edition. Sages of Darkness is a Kurdish Sufi novel depicting Kurdish life in late Ottoman times. It is, in fact, a philosophical novel with a strong dose of psychological realism, written in a style derived from Classical Modernism. And so, it is mainstream literature, an achievement in view of the late start in novel-writing by the Kurdish far-flung writers' community. The action line, full of suspense, violence, and murder, is greatly about the tribal notable Avdei Sarei, who does everything he can to ensure the survival of his business and the economic health of his endeavors. In this article, the translator of Sages of Darkness analyzes Barakat's novelistic techniques for the purpose of prompting a better understanding of the novel, and by-the-by, if possible, to solve the enigma of the meaning of the title. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Medieval Kabbalistic literature, especially from the last third of the thirteenth century onwards, was very much preoccupied with the notion of a lower-most Sefirah which was perceived by the Kabbalists as female in terms of gender, a notion commonly referred to in scholarship as "Shekhina". An important scholarly attempt to account for the appearance of this highly gendered version of the notion within medieval kabbalistic literature, focused on the somewhat earlier surge in devotion to Mary in the Christian west. This article proposes a different and much wider perspective on this question, contending that both the Christian preoccupation with Mary as well as the Jewish gendering of the Kabbalistic Shekhina, should both be seen as reflecting the various vicissitudes related to women and female gender concepts characterizing the medieval west in this period. Specifically, the article focuses on late medieval Christian literature describing divine or semi-divine female figures who were designated by Barbara Newman as 'Goddesses', suggesting that this literary trend, which is yet another reflection of the aforementioned preoccupation with women and female gender concepts in this period, could shed light on the gendering of the Shekhina in the Kabbalistic literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Studi e Materiali di Storia delle Religioni is the property of Editrice Morcelliana S.p.A. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Cosmopolitanism, which has recently become a matter of great scholarly interest, is an ethical and political theory that envisions all human beings as citizens in a single community. This paper presents a "rooted" approach to cosmopolitanism, claiming that local attachments can be essential to our ability to nurture a cosmopolitan orientation. More specifically, this paper explores the potential that lies in the connection between the ideas of 20th century Kabbalist, Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag (1884–1954), which stem from the mystical interpretation of reality and Jewish scriptures, and cosmopolitanism, viewed from an educational prism. To exemplify how a cosmopolitan-oriented religious education might look, the author presents a hermeneutic account of the social doctrine of Ashlag, whose writings, mediated by both orthodox and secular successors, have influenced millions. Relying on Ashlag's approach to otherness—one of the main themes in cosmopolitanism—the author shows how religious affiliations can serve as a strong impetus for the cultivation of cosmopolitan values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Diacronia is the property of Revista Diacronia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper aims to consider the specific excerpts in which Plato's Timaeus was interpreted by the philosopher and Kabbalist Judah Abravanel, also known as Leo the Hebrew in his major work, the Dialogues of Love. From his experience of solitude lived while in exile in Italy, the Portuguese Jew composes a work written in a structure of double meanings, esoteric and exoteric, through which he interacts with the Neoplatonic Renaissance community of his time while communicating with the Kabbalistic tradition from which he descended as a Sephardic. Interpreting Timaeus in the light of his ancestral cosmogony, Leo the Hebrew wants to prove that Plato was initiated into the teachings of Moses and, therefore, must be included as a Kabbalist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores meaningful intersections between Kabbalah ideas, Jungian analysis, the author's background in dance, and the idea of finding home in soul. Underlying depth work is the art of listening, with the humility of opening to what wants to grow. The Tree of Life imagery—a dynamic and creative dance—has symbolic roots in the heavens, whereas the Sefirot—utterances from God on how to live a holy life—are continually forming and re-forming new beginnings, impregnating and birthing the human soul. The author explores how Kabbalah mythology and Jungian ideas can work in tandem, becoming touchstone and compass in the process of analysis, with receptive ears to the grindstone and the heart pointing to eternity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Dinbilimleri Journal is the property of Dinbilimleri Journal and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

"The Puzzle Master" by Danielle Trussoni is a novel that follows the story of Mike Brink, a former star quarterback who develops acquired savant syndrome after a brain injury. Brink's unique ability to solve puzzles leads him on a journey involving a mysterious murder, Jewish Kabbalah teachings, cryptograms, and an eccentric billionaire's pursuit of immortality. The book explores themes of acquired savant syndrome, mathematical puzzles, Jewish mysticism, and the history of the Kabbalah. While the plot can be occasionally muddled, the book is well-written and engaging, making it a recommended read. [Extracted from the article]

This article examines a previously ignored and unpublished manuscript of the Christian kabbalistic scholar Christian Knorr von Rosenroth, the compiler of Kabbala Denudata , restores it to its proper order, and conclusively identifies it as his personal translation into Latin of Isaac Abarbanel's Introduction to the Prophet Isaiah prepared, we suggest, for this own use and not for publication. Though much of Knorr's previously known work was based upon kabbalistic materials, Abarbanel's Introduction—not a kabbalistic work by contrast—offered a comprehensive view of the Hebrew Bible's prophetic hope. Knorr's Messias Puer , also newly recovered, enables us to discover several of his personal convictions otherwise previously unattested. One of these is his anticipation of a future, this-worldly, Davidic kingdom in the Holy Land. It is in the context of this anticipation of the Consolation of Israel that the translation of the Introduction to the Prophet Isaiah may now be plausibly placed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The last few years have seen a renewed interest in Aristotle's logic in the Jewish tradition, giving a decisive impulse to the research on the Greek-into-Hebrew philosophical transmission in medieval and early modern times. The present article aims to contribute to the studies on Aristotelian logic in Hebrew by focusing on a less explored aspect, namely the reception of Aristotle's Poetics in Jewish culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes two transformative conceptions of qedushah (holiness) in medieval Jewish thought, Moses Maimonides's and Moses Nahmanides's. Maimonides reduces qedushah to the Mosaic commandments which he reconceives as communal institutions to constrain bodily desires and promote intellectualist values and as training for perfected individuals to de-corporealize themselves in imitation of God. Nahmanides argues that Maimonides's legal reduction of qedushah leads to the absurd conclusion that the perfectly scrupulous law-abiding scoundrel who exploits loopholes in the law is qadosh! He therefore reconceives qedushah as a complement to the Mosaic commandments intended to counter the problem of the scoundrel. Thus qedushah is re-born as a corrective to abuse of the Law. Nahmanides then proposes two ways to achieve this goal: i) by rabbinic enactment of more laws to fill in (loop) holes in the Law and ii) by cultivating a virtue-oriented, non-legal conception of holiness as a character-trait that leads agents to act properly and spontaneously without legislation. For Maimonides the ultimate state of qedushah is the dis-embodied state of the intellect, for Nahmanides it is a state in which the whole person, body and soul, clings to the deity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]