Absorbing Perfections: Kabbalah and Interpretation
Oct 2008 · Yale University Press
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About this ebook
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.
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3.3
3 reviews
Tony Bonanno
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July 24, 2014
Our prophetic alarm is now then awoke as we now shall be gathered again as Pardes essenes will be seen of the blind of Spirit towards a realism the Wordly must see that of Pardes 3 which is coded in the Cohenene unbeknownst of the 3rd which we began to be September 21 1998 to the granted vision of R ibn. Itzak Newtono(Isaac Newton)when the highest purge of Anti Semites leads us in towards what is the 2062 ce. We gain the tears of weariness of this delusional of 1-2 Sefer Dimensions. Anonymous shall not be!
About the author
Moshe Idel is Max Cooper Professor of Jewish Thought, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, and senior researcher at the Shalom Hartman Institute.
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