Download or read book A History of Kabbalah written by Jonathan Garb and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-07-23 with total page 525 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jonathan Garb's A History of Kabbalah: From the Early Modern Period to the Present Day is a lucid and sophisticated account of the multifaceted nature of Jewish mysticism, focusing on its development from the spiritual revolution that took place in Safed in the sixteenth century until the present. Opening the secrets of the kabbalah to a wider audience, Garb judiciously argued that how important the mystical and esoteric tradition has been in Jewish history and in the cultural and intellectual life of Europe more generally. One of the more methodologically innovative aspects of Garb's book is his contention that kabbalah became a major factor in the religious life of Jews in the modern age due to print and others forms of rapid communication, a process that has magnified significantly in recent years due to the digital revolution. Informative and provocative, A History of Kabbalah will surely be of interest to a wide readership.
Download or read book Origins of the Kabbalah written by Gershom Scholem and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2019-02-26 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book The Everything Kabbalah Book written by Mark Elber and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2011-12-15 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Furnishing an accessible introduction to the traditions and teachings of the Kabbalah, this informative volume discusses the origins, history, study, and trends of Jewish mysticism, covering such topics as meditation and mystical techniques, the Kabbalahistic theory of creation and the human role in the universe, Kabbalahistic philosophy, and more.
Download or read book Heavenly Powers written by Neil Asher Silberman and published by Booksales. This book was released on 2001-03 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ancient Jewish spiritual tradition of Kabbalah is shown to be far more than an otherworldly, occult way of knowledge -- it is a direct, often revolutionary response to the tyranny of earthly potentates and kings.
Download or read book The Early Kabbalah written by Joseph Dan and published by Paulist Press. This book was released on 1986 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here are previously unavailable texts, including The Book Bahir and the writings of the Iyyum circle, that were written during the first one hundred years of this movement that was to become the most important current in Jewish mysticism. This movement began in the late 12th century among Rabbinic Judaism in southern Europe.
Download or read book Kabbalah and the Founding of America written by Brian Ogren and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2021-07-20 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the influence of Kabbalah in shaping America’s religious identity In 1688, a leading Quaker thinker and activist in what is now New Jersey penned a letter to one of his closest disciples concerning Kabbalah, or what he called the mystical theology of the Jews. Around that same time, one of the leading Puritan ministers developed a messianic theology based in part on the mystical conversion of the Jews. This led to the actual conversion of a Jew in Boston a few decades later, an event that directly produced the first kabbalistic book conceived of and published in America. That book was read by an eventual president of Yale College, who went on to engage in a deep study of Kabbalah that would prod him to involve the likes of Benjamin Franklin, and to give a public oration at Yale in 1781 calling for an infusion of Kabbalah and Jewish thought into the Protestant colleges of America. Kabbalah and the Founding of America traces the influence of Kabbalah on early Christian Americans. It offers a new picture of Jewish-Christian intellectual exchange in pre-Revolutionary America, and illuminates how Kabbalah helped to shape early American religious sensibilities. The volume demonstrates that key figures, including the well-known Puritan ministers Cotton Mather and Increase Mather and Yale University President Ezra Stiles, developed theological ideas that were deeply influenced by Kabbalah. Some of them set out to create a more universal Kabbalah, developing their ideas during a crucial time of national myth building, laying down precedents for developing notions of American exceptionalism. This book illustrates how, through fascinating and often surprising events, this unlikely inter-religious influence helped shape the United States and American identity.
Download or read book Zohar the Book of Enlightenment written by Daniel Chanan Matt and published by Paulist Press. This book was released on 1983 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first translation with commentary of selections from The Zohar, the major text of the Kabbalah, the Jewish mystical tradition. This work was written in 13th-century Spain by Moses de Leon, a Spanish scholar.
Download or read book The Scandal of Kabbalah written by Yaacob Dweck and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2013-12-26 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How the Jewish culture war over Kabbalah began 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 range of previously unexamined sources, this book tells the story of the first criticism of Kabbalah, Ari Nohem, written by Leon Modena in Venice in 1639. In this scathing indictment of Venetian Jews who had embraced Kabbalah as an authentic form of ancient esotericism, Modena proved the recent origins of Kabbalah and sought to convince his readers to return to the spiritualized rationalism of Maimonides. The Scandal of Kabbalah examines the hallmarks of Jewish modernity displayed by Modena's attack—a critical analysis of sacred texts, skepticism about religious truths, and self-consciousness about the past—and shows how these qualities and the later history of his polemic challenge conventional understandings of the relationship between Kabbalah and modernity. Dweck argues that Kabbalah was the subject of critical inquiry in the very period it came to dominate Jewish life rather than centuries later as most scholars have thought.
Download or read book Shamanic Trance in Modern Kabbalah written by Jonathan Garb and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2011-05-15 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Theory of shamanism, trance, and modern Kabbalah -- The shamanic process: descent and fiery transformations -- Empowerment through trance -- Shamanic Hasidism -- Hasidic trance -- Trance and the nomian.
Download or read book A Brief Guide to Judaism written by Naftali Brawer and published by Robinson. This book was released on 2013-02-07 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Jewish religion is one of the major faiths of the world yet one of the least understood. In a wide-ranging and accessible guide for the general reader Rabbi Naftali Brawer outlines the major themes and history of over 5,000 years of Jewish faith from its Abrahamic origins and the foundations of Jerusalem to the eras of exile, diaspora, and persecution. From ritual and practise to faith and politics, the theology and history of Judaism are bound together. Brawer argues that Judaism is poised between heaven and earth. On the one hand it calls on its adherents to transcend the material world through ritual and prayer: on the other hand Judaism positively celebrates joys of food, family and society. Through this seeming paradox, Brawer explores the nature and characteristics of faith - God and Man, Torah, Mitzvah, the Jewish People and the Land of Israel. He also shows how ritual and practise punctuate Jewish existence, from daily prayers to the rites of passage that chart a lifetime.
Download or read book Kabbalah and Sex Magic written by Marla Segol and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2021-06-16 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this provocative book, Marla Segol explores the development of the kabbalistic cosmology underlying Western sex magic. Drawing extensively on Jewish myth and ritual, Segol tells the powerful story of the relationship between the divine and the human body in late antique Jewish esotericism, in medieval kabbalah, and in New Age ritual practice. Kabbalah and Sex Magic traces the evolution of a Hebrew microcosm that models the powerful interaction of human and divine bodies at the heart of both kabbalah and some forms of Western sex magic. Focusing on Jewish esoteric and medical sources from the fifth to the twelfth century from Byzantium, Persia, Iberia, and southern France, Segol argues that in its fully developed medieval form, kabbalah operated by ritualizing a mythos of divine creation by means of sexual reproduction. She situates in cultural and historical context the emergence of Jewish cosmological models for conceptualizing both human and divine bodies and the interactions between them, arguing that all these sources position the body and its senses as the locus of culture and the means of reproducing it. Segol explores the rituals acting on these models, attending especially to their inherent erotic power, and ties these to contemporary Western sex magic, showing that such rituals have a continuing life. Asking questions about its cosmology, myths, and rituals, Segol poses even larger questions about the history of kabbalah, the changing conceptions of the human relation to the divine, and even the nature of religious innovation itself. This groundbreaking book will appeal to students and scholars of Jewish studies, religion, sexuality, and magic.
Download or read book Moses Cordovero s Introduction to Kabbalah written by Moses ben Jacob Cordovero and published by KTAV Publishing House, Inc.. This book was released on 1994 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1587, Moses Cordovero's now classic introduction to Kabbalah, Or Ne'erav, was intended to serve several purposes; it was meant both to provide a justification for the study of Kabbalah and to encourage that study by providing detailed instructions for interested laymen on how to go about that study; indeed, it was intended as a precis of Cordovero's much larger Pardes Rimmonim. In many ways, Cordovero was ideally suited to compose such a work. His teacher of rabbinics was no other than R. Joseph Caro, author of the Shulhan Arukh, which rapidly became the halakhic code par excellence. His master in Kabbalah was Solomon ha-Levi Alkabetz, whose sister he subsequently married. The result of his studies with both was no less than a kabbalistic "code", a systematic kabbalistic theology of the Zohar, the basic text of Jewish mysticism. But this work was too large, and too complex to be easily mastered. Moreover, it assumed too much previous knowledge to serve as an introduction to the subject; hence the need for Or Ne'erav. Or Ne'erav succeeded in fulfilling all these purposes, and has remained a classic introduction to the study of Kabbalah - and is used as such to this day. Dr. Robinson's accurate but readable translation is the first English rendition of this essential work. -- Back cover.
Download or read book A Kabbalistic View of History written by Z'Ev Ben Shimon Halevi and published by . This book was released on 2016-04-20 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of humanity and the purpose of Existence are described in terms of kabbalistic principles. As evolution moves from savagery to civilisation, different levels of mankind emerge with their personal and collective karma. Cosmic cycles are taken into account as they influence history, while the development is monitored by Providence.
Download or read book Kabbalah Decoder written by Janet Berenson-Perkins and published by Barron's Educational Series. This book was released on 2000 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Readers are guided to understand and use the Kabbalah's beneficial images, rites, and lore for their personal earthly and spiritual fulfillment. More than 300 illustrations.
Download or read book Kabbalah written by Gershom Scholem and published by Quadrangle/The New York Times Book Company. This book was released on 1974 with total page 510 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Kabbalah written by Perle Epstein and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2001-02-13 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Unraveling the web of ancient traditions hidden in such texts as the Sefer Yetzirah and the Zohar, this book traces history and offers an accessible introduction to understanding Kabbalah and its practices. Jewish mysticism has flourished—sometimes brilliantly, sometimes darkly—over five thousand years. This pioneering, popular text on Jewish mysticism was the first written for a general audience, and in it, Perle Besserman offers a lively and accessible introduction to the methods, schools, and practitioners of this intriguing world. She traces the history of Kabbalah through the lives of its illustrious scholars and saints and unravels the web of ancient traditions hidden in such texts as Sefer Yetzirah and the Zohar. Running through these pages are the words of the outstanding Kabbalists and mystics—including Simeon bar Yohai, Isaac Luria, Abraham Abulafia, and the Baal Shem Tov—giving instructions on practices ranging from contemplation of the Bible’s secret teachings to ritual, ecstatic prayer, and intensive meditation.
Download or read book Origins of the Kabbalah written by Gershom Gerhard Scholem and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2019-02-26 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
