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Author | : Boaz Huss |
Publisher | : Liverpool University Press |
Total Pages | : 392 |
Release | : 2016-05-12 |
Genre | : Social Science |
ISBN | : 178962486X |
Download The Zohar: Reception and Impact Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
National Jewish Book Awards Finalist for the Nahum N. Sarna Memorial Award for Scholarship, 2016. From its first appearance, the Zohar has been one of the most sacred, authoritative, and influential books in Jewish culture. Many scholarly works have been dedicated to its mystical content, its literary style, and the question of its authorship. This book focuses on different issues: it examines the various ways in which the Zohar has been received by its readers and the impact it has had on Jewish culture, including the fluctuations in its status and value and the various cultural practices linked to these changes. This dynamic and multi-layered history throws important new light on many aspects of Jewish cultural history over the last seven centuries. Boaz Huss has broken new ground with this study, which examines of the reception and canonization of the Zohar as well as its criticism and rejection from its inception to the present day. His underlying assumption is that the different values attributed to the Zohar are not inherent qualities of the zoharic texts, but rather represent the way it has been perceived by its readers in different cultural contexts. He therefore considers not only the attribution of different qualities to the Zohar through time but also the people who were engaged in attributing such qualities and the social and cultural functions associated with their creation, re-creation, and rejection. For each historical period from the beginning of Zohar scholarship to the present, Huss considers the social conditions that stimulated the veneration of the Zohar as well as the factors that contributed to its rejection, alongside the cultural functions and consequences of each approach. Because the multiple modes of the reception of the Zohar have had a decisive influence on the history of Jewish culture, this highly innovative and wide-ranging approach to Zohar scholarship will have important repercussions for many areas of Jewish studies.
Author | : Eric Lawee |
Publisher | : Oxford University Press |
Total Pages | : 480 |
Release | : 2019-04-09 |
Genre | : Religion |
ISBN | : 0190937858 |
Download Rashi's Commentary on the Torah Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
Winner of the Jewish Book Council Nahum M. Sarna Memorial Award in Scholarship This book explores the reception history of the most important Jewish Bible commentary ever composed, the Commentary on the Torah of Rashi (Shlomo Yitzhaki; 1040-1105). Though the Commentary has benefited from enormous scholarly attention, analysis of diverse reactions to it has been surprisingly scant. Viewing its path to preeminence through a diverse array of religious, intellectual, literary, and sociocultural lenses, Eric Lawee focuses on processes of the Commentary's canonization and on a hitherto unexamined--and wholly unexpected--feature of its reception: critical, and at times astonishingly harsh, resistance to it. Lawee shows how and why, despite such resistance, Rashi's interpretation of the Torah became an exegetical classic, a staple in the curriculum, a source of shared religious vocabulary for Jews across time and place, and a foundational text that shaped the Jewish nation's collective identity. The book takes as its larger integrating perspective processes of canonicity as they shape how traditions flourish, disintegrate, or evolve. Rashi's scriptural magnum opus, the foremost work of Franco-German (Ashkenazic) biblical scholarship, faced stiff competition for canonical supremacy in the form of rationalist reconfigurations of Judaism as they developed in Mediterranean seats of learning. It nevertheless emerged triumphant in an intense battle for Judaism's future that unfolded in late medieval and early modern times. Investigation of the reception of the Commentary throws light on issues in Jewish scholarship and spirituality that continue to stir reflection, and even passionate debate, in the Jewish world today.
Author | : Samuel Joseph Kessler |
Publisher | : SBL Press |
Total Pages | : 243 |
Release | : 2022-12-16 |
Genre | : Biography & Autobiography |
ISBN | : 1951498933 |
Download The Formation of a Modern Rabbi Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
An intellectual biography that critically engages Adolf Jellinek’s scholarship and communal activities Adolf Jellinek (1821–1893), the Czech-born, German-educated, liberal chief rabbi of Vienna, was the most famous Jewish preacher in Central Europe in the second half of the nineteenth century. As an innovative rhetorician, Jellinek helped mold and define the modern synagogue sermon into an instrument for expressing Jewish religious and ethical values for a new era. As a historian, he made groundbreaking contributions to the study of the Zohar and medieval Jewish mysticism. Jellinek was emblematic of rabbi-as-scholar-preacher during the earliest, formative years of communal synagogues as urban religious space. In a world that was rapidly losing the felt and remembered past of premodern Jewish society, the rabbi, with Jellinek as prime exemplar, took hold of the Sabbath sermon as an instrument to define and mold Judaism and Jewish values for a new world.
Author | : Eitan Fishbane |
Publisher | : Oxford University Press, USA |
Total Pages | : 535 |
Release | : 2018 |
Genre | : Literary Criticism |
ISBN | : 0199948631 |
Download The Art of Mystical Narrative Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
In the study of Judaism, the Zohar has captivated the minds of interpreters for over seven centuries, and continues to entrance readers in contemporary times. Yet despite these centuries of study, very little attention has been devoted to the literary dimensions of the text, or to formal appreciation of its status as one of the great works of religious literature. The Art of Mystical Narrative offers a critical approach to the zoharic story, seeking to explore the interplay between fictional discourse and mystical exegesis. Eitan Fishbane argues that the narrative must be understood first and foremost as a work of the fictional imagination, a representation of a world and reality invented by the thirteenth-century authors of the text. He claims that the text functions as a kind of dramatic literature, one in which the power of revealing mystical secrets is demonstrated and performed for the reading audience. The Art of Mystical Narrative offers a fresh, interdisciplinary perspective on the Zohar and on the intersections of literary and religious studies.
Author | : Yves Mühlematter |
Publisher | : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG |
Total Pages | : 312 |
Release | : 2021-06-08 |
Genre | : History |
ISBN | : 3110660334 |
Download Occult Roots of Religious Studies Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
The historiographers of religious studies have written the history of this discipline primarily as a rationalization of ideological, most prominently theological and phenomenological ideas: first through the establishment of comparative, philological and sociological methods and secondly through the demand for intentional neutrality. This interpretation caused important roots in occult-esoteric traditions to be repressed. This process of “purification” (Latour) is not to be equated with the origin of the academic studies. De facto, the elimination of idealistic theories took time and only happened later. One example concerning the early entanglement is Tibetology, where many researchers and respected chair holders were influenced by theosophical ideas or were even members of the Theosophical Society. Similarly, the emergence of comparatistics cannot be understood without taking into account perennialist ideas of esoteric provenance, which hold that all religions have a common origin. In this perspective, it is not only the history of religious studies which must be revisited, but also the partial shaping of religious studies by these traditions, insofar as it saw itself as a counter-model to occult ideas.
Author | : Harry Freedman |
Publisher | : Bloomsbury Publishing |
Total Pages | : 304 |
Release | : 2019-01-24 |
Genre | : Religion |
ISBN | : 1472950968 |
Download Kabbalah: Secrecy, Scandal and the Soul Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
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?'
Author | : Yaacob Dweck |
Publisher | : Princeton University Press |
Total Pages | : 498 |
Release | : 2019-08-06 |
Genre | : Religion |
ISBN | : 0691189943 |
Download Dissident Rabbi Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
A revelatory account of a spiritual leader who dared to assert the value of rabbinic doubt in the face of messianic certainty In 1665, Sabbetai Zevi, a self-proclaimed Messiah with a mass following throughout the Ottoman Empire and Europe, announced that the redemption of the world was at hand. As Jews everywhere rejected the traditional laws of Judaism in favor of new norms established by Sabbetai Zevi, and abandoned reason for the ecstasy of messianic enthusiasm, one man watched in horror. Dissident Rabbi tells the story of Jacob Sasportas, the Sephardic rabbi who alone challenged Sabbetai Zevi's improbable claims and warned his fellow Jews that their Messiah was not the answer to their prayers. Yaacob Dweck's absorbing and richly detailed biography brings to life the tumultuous century in which Sasportas lived, an age torn apart by war, migration, and famine. He describes the messianic frenzy that gripped the Jewish Diaspora, and Sasportas's attempts to make sense of a world that Sabbetai Zevi claimed was ending. As Jews danced in the streets, Sasportas compiled The Fading Flower of the Zevi, a meticulous and eloquent record of Sabbatianism as it happened. In 1666, barely a year after Sabbetai Zevi heralded the redemption, the Messiah converted to Islam at the behest of the Ottoman sultan, and Sasportas's book slipped into obscurity. Dissident Rabbi is the revelatory account of a spiritual leader who dared to articulate the value of rabbinic doubt in the face of messianic certainty, and a revealing examination of how his life and legacy were rediscovered and appropriated by later generations of Jewish thinkers.
Author | : Melila Hellner-Eshed |
Publisher | : Stanford University Press |
Total Pages | : 557 |
Release | : 2021-09-14 |
Genre | : Religion |
ISBN | : 1503628582 |
Download Seekers of the Face Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
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.
Author | : Olaf Glöckner |
Publisher | : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG |
Total Pages | : 290 |
Release | : 2024-07-22 |
Genre | : History |
ISBN | : 3111046834 |
Download Shmuel Hugo Bergmann Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
In recent years, the interest on life and work of the Jewish writer, philosopher, mystic and politician Shmuel Hugo Bergmann (1883–1975) has perceptibly increased. Well-known as a protagonist of the famous "Prague Circle", Bergmann headed for Palestine in 1920, became the driving force for building the Jewish National Library in Jerusalem and finally advanced as first Rector of the Hebrew University. All his life, close ties to the Czech Republic remained. In the State of Israel, Bergmann became a leading philosopher and highly admired cultural figure. He himself showed great interest in world religions, mysticism, and Western esotericism. Bergmann also emerged as an important point of reference for left-wing Israeli discourse. Up from the late 1920ies has was one of the protagonists of the “Brit Shalom”, an initiative which called for an advocated peaceful coexistence of Jews and Arabs and a bi-national State in Israel/Palestine. In this volume, distinguished historians, scholars of religion, and cultural scientists conflate a fascinating life story of a man who always worked on social and educational improvements and searched for fairness and deeper truths in a world full of conflict and antagonisms.
Author | : Andrea Gondos |
Publisher | : State University of New York Press |
Total Pages | : 280 |
Release | : 2020-11-01 |
Genre | : Religion |
ISBN | : 1438479735 |
Download Kabbalah in Print Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
Demonstrates the impact of print culture on the spread of Jewish mysticism, focusing on Kabbalistic study guides by R. Yissakhar Baer of seventeenth-century Prague. How did Jewish mysticism go from arcane knowledge to popular spirituality? Kabbalah in Print examines the cultural impact of printing on the popularization, circulation, and transmission of Kabbalah in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The Zohar, in particular, generated a large secondary literature of study guides and reference works that aimed to ease the linguistic and conceptual challenges of the text. The arrival of printed classics of Kabbalah was soon followed by the appearance of new literary genres—anthologies, digests, lexicons, and other learning aids—that mediated mystical primary sources to a community of readers not versed in this lore. A detailed investigation of the four works by R. Yissakhar Baer (ca.1580–ca.1629) of Prague sheds light on the literary strategies, pedagogic concerns, and religious motivations of secondary elites, a new cadre of authors empowered by the opportunities that printing opened up. Andrea Gondos highlights shifting intellectual and cultural boundaries in the early modern period, when the transmission of Kabbalah became a meeting point connecting various strata of Jewish society as well as Jewish and Christian intellectuals. Andrea Gondos is Emmy Noether Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute of Jewish Studies at Free University Berlin, Germany. She is the coeditor (with Daniel Maoz) of From Antiquity to the Postmodern World: Contemporary Jewish Studies in Canada.