Kabbalah and Criticism

Kabbalah and Criticism
Author: Harold Bloom
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 75
Release: 2005-08-23
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 082641737X

Kabbalah and Criticism may be justly regarded as the cardinal work of Harold Bloom's enterprise. This book is the keystone in the arch; it clarifies the development of his earlier books and indicates the direction of his future work. Kabbalah and Criticism provides a study of the Kabbalah itself, of its great commentators and the "revisionary ratios" they employed, and of its significance as a model for contemporary criticism. It is thus an indispensable book for all students of literature as well as for all those who are fascinated by this singularly rich body of mystical writings the influence of which is possibly greater now than at any other time.

Kabbalah and Criticism

Kabbalah and Criticism
Author: Harold Bloom
Publisher:
Total Pages: 126
Release: 1984
Genre: Cabala
ISBN:

This book provides a study of the Kabbalah itself, of its great commentators and the 'revisionary ratios' they employed, and of its significance as a model for contemporary criticism.

The Scandal of Kabbalah

The Scandal of Kabbalah
Author: Yaacob Dweck
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2013-12-26
Genre: History
ISBN: 0691162158

The Scandal of Kabbalah is the first book about the origins of a culture war that began in early modern Europe and continues to this day: the debate between kabbalists and their critics on the nature of Judaism and the meaning of religious tradition. From its medieval beginnings as an esoteric form of Jewish mysticism, Kabbalah spread throughout the early modern world and became a central feature of Jewish life. Scholars have long studied the revolutionary impact of Kabbalah, but, as Yaacob Dweck argues, they have misunderstood the character and timing of opposition to it. Drawing on a rang.

Absorbing Perfections

Absorbing Perfections
Author: Moshe Idel
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 686
Release: 2008-10-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0300135076

In this wide-ranging discussion of Kabbalah—from the mystical trends of medieval Judaism to modern Hasidism—one of the world’s foremost scholars considers different visions of the nature of the sacred text and of the methods to interpret it. Moshe Idel takes as a starting point the fact that the postbiblical Jewish world lost its geographical center with the destruction of the temple and so was left with a textual center, the Holy Book. Idel argues that a text-oriented religion produced language-centered forms of mysticism. Against this background, the author demonstrates how various Jewish mystics amplified the content of the Scriptures so as to include everything: the world, or God, for example. Thus the text becomes a major realm for contemplation, and the interpretation of the text frequently becomes an encounter with the deepest realms of reality. Idel delineates the particular hermeneutics belonging to Jewish mysticism, investigates the progressive filling of the text with secrets and hidden levels of meaning, and considers in detail the various interpretive strategies needed to decodify the arcane dimensions of the text.

Kabbalah and Eros

Kabbalah and Eros
Author: Moshe Idel
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 381
Release: 2005-01-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 030010832X

In this book, the world's foremost scholar of Kabbalah explores the understanding of erotic love in Jewish mystical thought. Encompassing Jewish mystical literatures from those of late antiquity to works of Polish Hasidism, Moshe Idel highlights the diversity of Kabbalistic views on eros and distinguishes between the major forms of eroticism. The author traces the main developments of a religious formula that reflects the union between a masculine divine attribute and a feminine divine attribute, and he asks why such an "erotic formula" was incorporated into the Jewish prayer book. Idel shows how Kabbalistic literature was influenced not only by rabbinic literature but also by Greek thought that helped introduce a wider understanding of eros. Addressing topics ranging from cosmic eros and androgyneity to the affinity between C. J. Jung and Kabbalah to feminist thought, Idel's deeply learned study will be of consuming interest to scholars of religion, Judaism, and feminism.

Meditation and Kabbalah

Meditation and Kabbalah
Author: Aryeh Kaplan
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 366
Release: 1995
Genre: Cabala
ISBN: 1568213816

Meditative methods of Kabbalah. A lucid presentation of the meditative methods, mantras, mandalas and other devices used, as well as a penetrating interpretation of their significance in the light of contemporary meditative research.

Origins of the Kabbalah

Origins of the Kabbalah
Author: Gershom Gerhard Scholem
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 511
Release: 2019-02-26
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0691184305

With the publication of The Origins of the Kabbalah in 1950, one of the most important scholars of our century brought the obscure world of Jewish mysticism to a wider audience for the first time. A crucial work in the oeuvre of Gershom Scholem, this book details the beginnings of the Kabbalah in twelfth- and thirteenth-century southern France and Spain, showing its rich tradition of repeated attempts to achieve and portray direct experiences of God. The Origins of the Kabbalah is a contribution not only to the history of Jewish medieval mysticism, but also to the study of medieval mysticism in general. Now with a new foreword by David Biale, this book remains essential reading for students of the history of religion.

Kabbalah

Kabbalah
Author: Avraham Yaakov Finkel
Publisher: Feldheim Publishers
Total Pages: 456
Release: 2002
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9781568712185

Hear the authentic wisdom of the Kabbalists, the masters of esoteric, mystical Jewish teachings, throughout the ages. This deeply reverent and beautifully written book offers excerpts from the major Kabbalistic works from the ancient texts to the recent insights of the chassidic masters together with fascinating biographical sketches of the great Kabbalists. The book includes introductory material that explains some of the most important concepts and terms of Kabbalah. It is an essential text for anyone who wishes to gain insight into the world of Jewish mysticism.

Between Kant and Kabbalah

Between Kant and Kabbalah
Author: Alan L. Mittleman
Publisher: SUNY Press
Total Pages: 242
Release: 1990-01-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780791402399

Detective Dave and his crime-solving mother return to take on the religious establishment out West, as Mom traces the connection between a small-time preacher's murder, some shady real estate promoters, the High Episcopal Church, and assorted fanatics

Dante, Eros, and Kabbalah

Dante, Eros, and Kabbalah
Author: Mark Jay Mirsky
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
Total Pages: 254
Release: 2003-10-01
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9780815630272

Did Dante Alighieri, author of The Divine Comedy as a young man in Florence sleep with Beatrice Portinari before and after her marriage? Did the poet travel after her death through Hell to find her again? The clues to this academic detective story, writes Mark Jay Mirsky, lie not only in Dante's earlier poetry, The New Life, or in The Divine Comedy, but in the Zohar of Moses de Leon, a Jewish text written some years before and based on Neoplatonic ideas similar to those that inspired Dante. Purgatorio and Paradiso, the second and third volumes of the Commedia, are inaccessible to most readers unfamiliar with the boldness of Dante's use of the philosophical debate in the Middle Ages. Does Dante's Commedia hint at his hope of intimacy with Beatrice in the Highest Heaven? In this book Mirsky distinctively traces the influence on Dante of Provencal poets, medieval theologians, Dante's personal life, and the sources of his classical education to propose a radical reading of Dante. The text compounds the riddles of dream, poetry, philosophy, and Dante's concealed autobiography in his work. It treats the Commedia in the spirit of its title, as a hopeful and comic vision of the other world.