Absorbing perfections : Kabbalah and interpretation / Moshe Idel.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Idel, Moshe, 1947-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Bible. Pentateuch--Criticism, interpretation, etc., Jewish.

Bible.

Cabala--History.

Cabala.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xvii, 668 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New Haven : Yale University Press, c2002.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

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.

Contents:

The world-absorbing text

The God-absorbing text : black fire on white fire

Text and interpretation affinities in Kabbalah

The book that contains and maintains all

Magical and magical-mystical arcanizations of canonical books

Torah study and mystical experiences in Jewish mysticism

Secrecy, binah, and derishah

Semantics, constellation, and interpretation

Radical forms of Jewish hermeneutics

The symbolic mode of theosophical-theurgical Kabbalah

Allegories, divine names, and experiences in ecstatic Kabbalah

Tzerufei otiyyot : mutability and accommodation of the Torah in Jewish mysticism

Tradition, transmission, and techniques

Concluding remarks

Appendix 1. Pardes : the fourfold method of interpretation

Appendix 2. Abraham Abulafia's Torah of blood and ink

Appendix 3. R. Isaac of Acre's exegetical quandary

Appendix 4. The exile of the Torah and the imprisonment of secrets

Appendix 5. On oral Torah and multiple interpretations in Hasidism

Appendix 6. "Book of God"/"book of law" in late-fifteenth-century Florence.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (p. 493-645) and index.

ISBN:

9786611734862

9781281734860

1281734861

9780300135077

0300135076

OCLC:

1013960618