Download or read book Mystic Tales from the Zohar written by Aryeh Wineman and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 1998-04-19 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Zohar is the central text of the Jewish Kabbalah. This collection presents original translations of eight of the most well developed narratives in the Zohar along with notes and detailed commentary. These tales deal with themes of sin and repentance, death, exile, redemption, and resurrection. Most importantly, they are literature and are here analyzed as such.
Download or read book Mystic Tales from the Zohar written by Aryeh Wineman and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 1998-04-19 with total page 175 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contains translations of eight narratives from Zohar, the central text of Kabbalah, on themes of sin and repentance, death, exile, redemption, and resurrection, and includes notes and commentary.
Download or read book Jewish Mysticism and Kabbalah written by Frederick E Greenspahn and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2011-11-01 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the past generation, scholars have devoted increasing attention to the diverse forms that Jewish mysticism has taken both in the past and today: what was once called “nonsense” by Jewish scholars has generated important research and attention both within the academy and beyond, as demonstrated by the popular fascination with figures such as Madonna and Demi Moore and the growing interest in spirituality. In Jewish Mysticism and Kabbalah, leading experts introduce the history of this scholarship as well as the most recent insights and debates that currently animate the field in a way that is accessible to a broad audience. From mystical outpourings in ancient Palestine to the Kabbalah Centre, and from attitudes towards gender to mystical contributions to Jewish messianic movements, this volume explores the various expressions of Jewish mysticism from antiquity to the present day in an engaging style appropriate for students and non-specialists alike.
Download or read book The Zohar written by and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 596 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Art of Mystical Narrative written by Eitan P. Fishbane and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-11-22 with total page 535 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book The Mystical Exodus in Jungian Perspective written by Shoshana Fershtman and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-04-07 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Mystical Exodus in Jungian Perspective explores the soul loss that results from personal, collective, and transgenerational trauma and the healing that unfolds through reconnection with the sacred. Personal narratives of disconnection from and reconnection to Jewish collective memory are illuminated by millennia of Jewish mystical wisdom, contemporary Jewish Renewal and feminist theology, and Jungian and trauma theory. The archetypal resonance of the Exodus story guides our exploration. Understanding exile as disconnection from the Divine Self, we follow Moses, keeper of the spiritual fire, and Serach bat Asher, preserver of ancestral memory. We encounter the depths with Joseph, touch collective grief with Lilith, experience the Red Sea crossing and Miriam’s well as psychological rebirth and Sinai as the repatterning of traumatized consciousness. Tracing the reawakening of the qualities of eros and relatedness on the journey out of exile, the book demonstrates how restoring and deepening relationship with the Sacred Feminine helps us to transform collective trauma. This text will be key reading for scholars of Jewish studies, Jungian and post-Jungian studies, feminist spirituality, trauma studies, Jungian analysts and psychotherapists, and those interested in healing from personal and collective trauma. Cover art: 'Radiance' by Elaine Greenwood
Download or read book Fallen Animals written by Zohar Hadromi-Allouche and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2017-10-05 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The premise of Fallen Animals is that some how and in some way The Fall of Adam and Eve as related in the Bible has affected all living beings from the largest to the smallest, from the oldest to the youngest, regardless of gender and geography. The movement from the blissful arena of the Garden of Eden to the uncertain reality of exile altered in an overt or nuanced fashion the attitudes, perceptions, and consciousness of animals and humanity alike. Interpretations of these reformulations as well as the original story of the Paradise Garden have been told and retold for millennia in a variety of cultural contexts, languages, societies, and religious environments. Throughout all those retellings, animals have been a constant presence positively and negatively, actively and passively, from the creation of birds, fish, and mammals to the agency of the serpent in the Fall narrative. The serpent in the Garden of Eden is but one example of the ambivalence which has characterized the human-animal relationship over the centuries, both across, and within, cultures, societies and traditions. The book examines the interpretations, functions and interactions of the Fall — physical, moral, artistic and otherwise — as represented through animals, or through human-animal interactions.
Download or read book A River Flows from Eden written by Melila Hellner-Eshed and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-29 with total page 489 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the Zohar, the jewel in the crown of Jewish mystical literature, the verse "A river flows from Eden to water the garden" (Genesis 2:10) symbolizes the river of divine plenty that unceasingly flows from the depths of divinity into the garden of reality. Hellner-Eshed's book investigates the flow of this river in the world of the Zoharic heroes, Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai and his disciples, as they embark upon their wondrous spiritual adventures. By focusing on the Zohar's language of mystical experience and its unique features, the author is able to provide remarkable scholarly insight into the mystical dimensions of the Zohar, namely the human quest for an enhanced experience of the living presence of the divine and the Zohar's great call to awaken human consciousness.
Download or read book The Zohar written by Daniel Chanan Matt and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2009 with total page 650 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This third volume of completes the Zohar's commentary on the book of Genesis. Throughout, the Zohar probes the biblical text and seeks deeper meaning--for example, the divine intention behind Joseph's disappearance, or the profound significance of human sexuality.
Download or read book Shared Stories Rival Tellings written by Robert C. Gregg and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015-08-05 with total page 690 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are considered kindred religions-holding ancestral heritages and monotheistic belief in common-but there are definitive distinctions between these "Abrahamic" peoples. Shared Stories, Rival Tellings explores the early exchanges of Jews, Christians, and Muslims, and argues that their interactions were dominated by debates over the meanings of certain stories sacred to all three communities. Robert C. Gregg shows how Jewish, Christian, and Muslim interpreters--artists as well as authors--developed their unique and particular understandings of narratives present in the two Bibles and the Qur'an. Gregg focuses on five stories: Cain and Abel, Sarah and Hagar, Joseph and Potiphar's Wife, Jonah and the Whale, and Mary the Mother of Jesus. As he guides us through the often intentional variations introduced into these shared stories, Gregg exposes major issues under contention and the social-intellectual forces that contributed to spirited, and sometimes combative, exchanges among Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Offering deeper insight into these historical moments and their implications for contemporary relations among the three religions, Shared Stories, Rival Tellings will inspire readers to consider--and reconsider--the dynamics of traditional and current social-religious competition.
Download or read book A Philosopher of Scripture written by Raphael Dascalu and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2019-08-05 with total page 489 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tanḥum b. Joseph ha-Yerushalmi (d. 1291, Fusṭāṭ, Egypt) was a rigorous linguist and philologist, philosopher and mystic, and a biblical exegete of singular breadth. As well as providing us with an insight into the inner world of a profound and original thinker, his oeuvre sheds light on a Jewish historical and cultural milieu that remains relatively poorly understood: the Islamic East in the post-Maimonidean period. In A Philosopher of Scripture: The Exegesis and Thought of Tanḥum ha-Yerushalmi, Raphael Dascalu presents the first detailed intellectual portrait of Tanḥum ha-Yerushalmi. Tanḥum emerges as a polymath with a clear intellectual program, an eclectic thinker who brought multiple traditions together in his search for the philosophical meaning of Scripture.
Download or read book Happiness in Premodern Judaism written by Hava Tirosh-Samuelson and published by Hebrew Union College Press. This book was released on 2003-12-31 with total page 609 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is not common to think that Jews were interested in happiness or that Judaism has anything to say about happiness. On the contrary, the concept of happiness was a central concern of Jewish thinkers. Hava Tirosh-Samuelson shows that rabbinic Judaism regarded itself primarily as a prescription for the attainment of happiness, and that the discourse on happiness captures the evolution of Jewish intellectual history from antiquity to the seventeenth century. These claims make sense if one understands happiness as human flourishing on the basis of Aristotle's thought in the Nichomachean Ethics. Linking virtue, knowledge, and well-being, Aristotle's analysis of happiness can be traced in Jewish understanding of human flourishing as early as the Greco-Roman world, but the fusion of Greek and Judaic perspectives on happiness reached its zenith in in the Middle Ages in the thought of Moses Maimonides and his followers. Even the controversies about Maimonides' ideas could be viewed as discussions about the meaning of happiness and the way to attain it within Judaism. Much of this book, then, concerns the reception of Aristotle's Ethics in medieval Jewish philosophy. This book shows how a certain notion of happiness reflects the intellectual culture of a given period, including cultural exchanges among Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. Demonstrating the discourse on happiness as a dramatic interplay between Wisdom and Torah, between philosophy and religion, between reason and faith, Hava Tirosh-Samuelson presents, to specialists and non-specialists alike, a fascinating tour of Jewish intellectual history.
Download or read book The Book of Miracles written by Kenneth L. Woodward and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2001-07-10 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Woodward offers an intellectually rich look at the five great religions' foundational miracles and those of the later sages and saints.
Download or read book A Journey into the Zohar written by Nathan Wolski and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2012-02-01 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An introduction to the Zohar, the crowning work of medieval Kabbalah. Includes original translations and analysis.
Download or read book Roads to Utopia written by David Greenstein and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2014-02-12 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the greatest book of Jewish mysticism, the Zohar is a revered and much-studied work. Yet, surprisingly, scholarship on the Zohar has yet to pay attention to its most unique literary device—the presentation of its insights while its teachers walk on the road. In these pages, rabbi and scholar David Greenstein offers the first examination of the "walking on the road" motif. Greenstein's original approach hones in on how this motif expresses the struggles with spatiality and the everyday presented in the Zohar. He argues that the walking theme is not a metaphor for realms to be collapsed into or transcended by the holy, as conventional interpretations would have it. Rather, it conveys us into those quotidian spaces that are obdurately present alongside the realm of the sacred. By embracing the reality of mundane existence, and recognizing the prosaic dimensions of the worldly path, the Zohar is an especially exceptional mystical treatise. In this volume, Greenstein makes visible a singular, though previously unstudied, achievement of the Zohar.
Download or read book Jonah written by Amy Erickson and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2021-05-18 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The dominant reading of the book of Jonah—that the hapless prophet Jonah is a lesson in not trying to run away from God—oversimplifies a profoundly literary biblical text, argues Amy Erickson. Likewise, the more recent understanding of Jonah as satire is problematic in its own right, laden as it is with anti-Jewish undertones and the superimposition of a Christian worldview onto a Jewish text. How can we move away from these stale interpretations to recover the richness of meaning that belongs to this short but noteworthy book of the Bible? This Illuminations commentary delves into Jonah’s reception history in Christian, Jewish, and Islamic contexts while also exploring its representations in visual arts, music, literature, and pop culture. After this thorough contextualization, Erickson provides a fresh translation and exegesis, paving the way for pastors and scholars to read and utilize the book of Jonah as the provocative, richly allusive, and theologically robust text that it is.
Download or read book The Novel An Alternative History written by Steven Moore and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2013-09-17 with total page 705 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Encyclopedic in scope and heroically audacious, The Novel: An Alternative History is the first attempt in over a century to tell the complete story of our most popular literary form. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the novel did not originate in 18th-century England, nor even with Don Quixote, but is coeval with civilization itself. After a pugnacious introduction, in which Moore defends innovative, demanding novelists against their conservative critics, the book relaxes into a world tour of the pre-modern novel, beginning in ancient Egypt and ending in 16th-century China, with many exotic ports-of-call: Greek romances; Roman satires; medieval Sanskrit novels narrated by parrots; Byzantine erotic thrillers; 5000-page Arabian adventure novels; Icelandic sagas; delicate Persian novels in verse; Japanese war stories; even Mayan graphic novels. Throughout, Moore celebrates the innovators in fiction, tracing a continuum between these pre-modern experimentalists and their postmodern progeny. Irreverent, iconoclastic, informative, entertaining-The Novel: An Alternative History is a landmark in literary criticism that will encourage readers to rethink the novel.
