Publication
Imprint: New Haven, Connecticut : Yale University Press, ©1998. Responsibility: Moshe Idel. Language: Translated in part from the Hebrew. Physical: Text : 1 volume : x, 451 pages ; 24 cm. Features: Includes appendices, bibliography, indexes.
Call number
History / Idel
ISBN
0300082886 / 9780300082883
Collections
CSS Library Notes
Description: In this stimulating book, one of the world’s leading scholars of Jewish thought examines the long tradition of Jewish messianism and mystical experience. Moshe Idel calls upon his profound knowledge of ancient and medieval texts and of Jewish, Christian, Islamic, and Eastern sources to uncover new perspectives on the nature and development of Jewish messianism. He shows that, contrary to Gershom Scholem’s view that mysticism and messianism are incompatible religious tendencies, they are in fact closely related spiritual phenomena. Messianism regularly emerges from mystical experiences, Idel contends.
Exploring the interplay of Jewish messianism and mysticism from the twelfth through the eighteenth centuries, the book looks closely at pivotal figures and movements, including Abraham Abulafia, Sabbatai Sevi, and Hasidism. Idel discerns three types of messianism—theosophical-theurgical, ecstatic, and talismanic—and through these demonstrates that Kabbalah, from the very beginning, was messianically oriented. He counters the common belief that messianism typically arises as a response to such calamities as the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 and shows that messiahs often gain great popularity in times of political tranquility. Idel also finds that Jewish messianic and mystical experience bears a much greater resemblance to Christian messianism than has been recognized before. -- from publisher
Table of Contents: Pre-Kabbalistic Jewish forms of messianism --
Abraham Abulafia : ecstatic Kabbalah and spiritual messianism --
Concepts of messiah in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries : theosophical forms of Kabbalah --
Messianism and Kabbalah, 1470-1540 --
From Italy to Safed and back, 1540-1640 --
Sabbateanism and mysticism --
Hasidism : mystical messianism and mystical redemption --
Concluding remarks.
Appendix one: Ego, ergo sum messiah: on Abraham Abulafia's Sefer ha-Yashar
Appendix two: Tiqqun Hatzot: a ritual between myth, messianism, and mysticism
Appendix three: Some modern reverberations of Jewish mysticism
FY2004 /
Exploring the interplay of Jewish messianism and mysticism from the twelfth through the eighteenth centuries, the book looks closely at pivotal figures and movements, including Abraham Abulafia, Sabbatai Sevi, and Hasidism. Idel discerns three types of messianism—theosophical-theurgical, ecstatic, and talismanic—and through these demonstrates that Kabbalah, from the very beginning, was messianically oriented. He counters the common belief that messianism typically arises as a response to such calamities as the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 and shows that messiahs often gain great popularity in times of political tranquility. Idel also finds that Jewish messianic and mystical experience bears a much greater resemblance to Christian messianism than has been recognized before. -- from publisher
Table of Contents: Pre-Kabbalistic Jewish forms of messianism --
Abraham Abulafia : ecstatic Kabbalah and spiritual messianism --
Concepts of messiah in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries : theosophical forms of Kabbalah --
Messianism and Kabbalah, 1470-1540 --
From Italy to Safed and back, 1540-1640 --
Sabbateanism and mysticism --
Hasidism : mystical messianism and mystical redemption --
Concluding remarks.
Appendix one: Ego, ergo sum messiah: on Abraham Abulafia's Sefer ha-Yashar
Appendix two: Tiqqun Hatzot: a ritual between myth, messianism, and mysticism
Appendix three: Some modern reverberations of Jewish mysticism
FY2004 /
Physical description
x, 451 p.; 24 cm
Description
"One of the worl'ds leading scholars of Jewish thought examines the long tradition of Jewish messianism and mystical experience."
Language
Original language
Hebrew
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LibraryThing member stevenschroeder
Moshe Idel's thick description of relationships between messianism and mysticism in some key representatives of Jewish mystical tradition will be a stretch for general readers, but the effort demanded by the book will be richly rewarded. A running controversy with Gershom Scholem regarding the
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relationship between messianism and mysticism is the unifying force behind Idel's wide-ranging argument. Scholem sees the two as incompatible, but Idel offers substantial evidence that they can coexist (and have coexisted in a number of important thinkers). Idel is particularly interested in opening investigation of Kabbalah to a rainbow of messianic models rather than insisting on a monolithic approach. One effect of this interest is to shift messianic ideas from a distant apocalyptic future to a transformative present. Discussion of tiqqun as completion of the deity is relevant not only to Jewish messianism but also to a broad range of mystical traditions, as Idel notes in comparative discussion of Jewish, Christian, and Buddhist mysticism. That every moment of time is a gate that may admit messianic transformation of the world imparts a seriousness to everyday action that belies popular perception of mysticism as otherworldly. The book's thorough documentation will provide serious students with an excellent roadmap for further exploration. Show Less