Ascensions On High In Jewish Mysticism

Ascensions on high took many forms in Jewish mysticism and they permeated most of its history from its inception until Hasidism. The book surveys the various categories, with an emphasis on the architectural images of the ascent, like the resort to images of pillars, lines, and ladders. After surveying the variety of scholarly approaches to religion, the author also offers what he proposes as an eclectic approach, and a perspectivist one. The latter recommends to examine religious phenomena from a variety of perspectives. The author investigates the specific issue of the pillar in Jewish mysticism by comparing it to the archaic resort to pillars recurring in rural societies. Given the fact that the ascent of the soul and pillars constituted the concerns of two main Romanian scholars of religion, Ioan P. Culianu and Mircea Eliade, Idel resorts to their views, and in the Concluding Remarks analyzes the emergence of Eliade's vision of Judaism on the basis of neglected sources.

Ascensions on high took many forms in Jewish mysticism and they permeated most of its history from its inception until Hasidism. The book surveys the various categories, with an emphasis on the archetectural images of the ascent, like the resort images of pillars, lines, and ladders.

It has been asserted that monotheism, in the Jewish tradition, has long been understood both exoterically and esoterically. In the exoteric Scripture-based rabbinic tradition, monotheism is the belief in a one and only God, a belief which goes hand in hand with the affirmation of distinct individual and divine existences, so that there is a dualism between humanity and God. In the esoteric or mystic tradition, this dualism is overcome by a conception of monotheism in which God is One, not only in his ‘Lordship’ but also in his universal reality. That is, God is the only reality, so that everything which exists is in essence an aspect of divinity. Jewish mysticism has both a devotional or practical and an intellectual or speculative side. On its devotional side it emphasizes those aspects of the biblical precepts which serve to promote direct communion between the worshipper and God. On its speculative side it is especially concerned with outlining and bringing into relief the link or links between God and man, or more generally between the Creator and the universe. The focus of this study is on the questions of how and why Jewish mysticism arose and underwent a variegated evolution throughout much of the history of the Jewish people from remote antiquity to the present day.

This book analyzes and describes the development and aspects of imagery techniques, a primary mode of mystical experience, in twentieth century Jewish mysticism. These techniques, in contrast to linguistic techniques in medieval Kabbalah and in contrast to early Hasidism, have all the characteristics of a full screenplay, a long and complicated plot woven together from many scenes, a kind of a feature film. Research on this development and nature of the imagery experience is carried out through comparison to similar developments in philosophy and psychology and is fruitfully contextualized within broader trends of western and eastern mysticism.

Time and Eternity in Jewish Mysticism offers a multivalent picture of a central topic in Jewish mysticism by bringing together diverse academic voices. It offers variant approaches, which have stemmed from intense discussion amongst leading scholars in the field.

The book Zohar – The Book of Splendor is the most important work of the Spanish Kabbalah. Zohar is a Mystical Commentary on the Torah. After the Hebrew Bible and the Talmud it is the third canonical text of Judaism. In this book the reader will have the possibility to read the Mystical Creation Story of the Zohar. Whereas in the Zohar the beginning is connected with the idea of God’s extension in all directions, the reader will have the possibility to read this masterpiece of the Spanish Kabbalah. The Jewish existence in Spain came to an end in the year 1492, when the Jews were expelled from Spain and several years later from Portugal. Rabbi Isaac Luria (1534–1572), the Founder of modern Kabalah, deeply reflected upon the meaning of this worst expulsion of the Middle Ages. Rabbi Luria did not write a lot – he mainly preached and his disciples wrote down what he said. Following a deep meditation, Rabbi Luria came up with a new concept – God put upon Himself a voluntarily Exile, He withdrew from the World – because of His solidarity with Israel. There are many writings falsely attributed to Rabbi Luria. This short Commentary on Zohar by Rabbi Luria is authentic; it was first published in Zion in Jerusalem in 1940, edited by Gershom Scholem. Josef Blaha was born in Brno, Czech Republic in 1963, and is lecturer in Jewish Studies and specializes in Jewish Mysticism. He published fifteen books in Czech and in English dealing with Judaism and especially with the Jewish Mysticism. Josef Blaha teaches the US students at the Charles University in Prague.

This survey of the history of Kabbalah in Italy represents a major contribution from one of the world's foremost Kabbalah scholars. Idel charts the ways that Kabbalistic thought and literature developed in Italy and how its unique geographical situation facilitated the arrival of both Spanish and Byzantine Kabbalah.

To better understand the phenomenon of Literature in the Second Degree – in Jewish and Biblical studies often characterized as parabiblical or Rewritten Bible – the current volume applies the theories of Gerard Genette to ancient and medieval literature from various cultures. Literature in the Second Degree realigns earlier (authoritative) texts to the dynamics of developing cultures and their changing cultural memories. In the case of authoritative base texts, Literature in the Second Degree reaffirms their authority by way of interpretative actualization. In the case of non-authoritative base texts it replaces them to effect cultural forgetting. Far from being just literary forgery (pseudepigraphy), Literature in the Second Degree has an important function in the development of the ancient and medieval cultures.