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In On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism, Gershom Scholem guides the reader through the central themes in the intricate history of the Kabbalah, clarifying the relations between mysticism and established religious authority, the mystics' interpretation of the Torah and their attempts to discover the hidden meaning underlying Scripture, the tension between the philosophical and the mystical concepts of God, and the symbolism employed in mystical religion.
- Sales Rank: #139036 in Books
- Published on: 1996-01-30
- Released on: 1996-01-30
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.00" h x .60" w x 5.20" l, .60 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 240 pages
Amazon.com Review
Gershom Scholem, who died in 1982, remains the biggest gun in kabbalah scholarship, and On the Kabbalah and its Symbolism is perhaps his most accessible book on the subject. It contains definitive essays on the relation of the Torah to Jewish mysticism, the mythology of the kabbalah, and the place of Jewish mystics in the Jewish community. This book helped reinvigorate 20th-century Jewish studies with an awareness of the living reality of God, after the 19th century's more astringent scholarly emphasis on law and philosophy. It shows how Jewish mystics have been less concerned with adherence to orthodoxy than their Christian counterparts, and freer in their expression of the divine aspects of eroticism. Furthermore, Scholem offers great insight regarding the ways that kabbalah has not only threatened the authority of institutional religion, but also served as a source of its vitality. --Michael Joseph Gross
Review
"Along with Scholem's Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, this is the standard work in its field."
-- Choice
"Comprises some of Scholem's most broadly conceived intellectual efforts, dealing with such universal issues as creativity and tradition, Scripture and its interpretation, religion and myth, and the nature of religious authority."
-- Arthur Green,
Brandeis University
"Makes the intricate and fascinating world of kabbalistic symbol and myth accessible to a wider audience, rendering it in terms that are of interest to contemporary readers."
-- Elliot R. Wolfson,New York University
Language Notes
Text: English (translation)
Original Language: German
Most helpful customer reviews
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful.
Gem of a book
By Peter Uys
This absorbing work by the famous scholar of Jewish mysticism is profound yet accessible to the lay reader. Kabbalah which means `tradition' played an important part in religious life until the late 18th century. With the coming of modernism and emancipation it lost its universality in Jewish life until interest revived in the 20th century. Its symbols are intimately interwoven with the history of the Jewish people and its core message is one of Messianic hope. The Kabbalah represents a majestic image of exile, redemption & rebirth. In order to get the big picture, Scholem combined historical analysis with a phenomenological approach in order to capture the totality; only thus can Kabbalah be understood.
In all traditions there's tension between religious authority & mysticism. The author discusses the problematic position of the mystic who operates within a paradigm of values, doctrines & dogmas; very rarely in a void. The obscure, anonymous mystic exists also but this study is concerned with mysticism as historical phenomenon, which contains two complementary aspects: the revolutionary and the conservative. In communication, mystics mostly use the symbols and theology of their own tradition, simultaneously transforming & developing the tradition. The mystic discovers new meaning in scripture; mystical exegesis may be compared to a key. The conservative aspect of the practice is rooted in the established framework of a religious tradition. The interesting case of Richard Maurice Bucke is mentioned as an example of a seeker after the universals of religion.
Chapter 3 investigates the meaning of Torah in Jewish mysticism. This rich tapestry encompasses the role of the Name of God, explication of the Name, the concept of a fabric woven of many names & Torah as a living organism. The distinction between the written & oral Torah with regard to the two trees of paradise and the two sets of tablets given to Moses at Sinai is analyzed here. Scholem then explains the multiple or infinite meanings of the text & the various levels thereof. He explores the history of the 4-fold "Pardes" interpretation: the literal, allegorical, Talmudic/Aggadic & mystical layers. According to the sages, the Absolute Torah varies with the state of mankind, the historical period and the cosmic cycles. In this chapter one learns of the great Kabbalists like Moses de Leon, Bahya ben Asher, Joseph Gikatila and the School of Safed where legendary names like Moses Cordovero & Isaac Luria taught the mysteries.
Scholem observes that the original impulse of Judaism was a reaction against mythology. Rabbinical Judaism attempted to avoid mythical images & symbols while ordinary people have a need for them; in this way developed the split between pure theological formula versus the concept of a living God. The appearance of the Book Bahir with its innovative cosmology initiated the tension between the Maimonidean philosophical view and the mystical concept of the Divine. Myth thus reappeared in Judaism through the Kabbalah, emphasizing the difference between the idea of the Eternal and the idea of Law. Rabbinical Judaism & Kabbalah held radically different views also on the question of evil.
The ten sefiroth or modes of action through which creation proceeds is a theogonic process of emanation. Key concepts like the infinite & unknowable Ein-Sof and the Shekhinah which is identified with the soul, the community of Israel & the Sabbath are clearly explained, as well as the idea of the exile of Shekhinah. The "Tsimtsum" or material creation was an act of self-limitation by God in order to allow free will. In other words, the Big Bang represents a partial withdrawal of the Deity from a particular dimension & space-time continuum. In the process, the "Shevirah" or breaking of the vessels occurred, an explanation for the imperfection of the world. "Tikkun" is the healing of the wound caused by Shevirah, a process of repair & restoration. Adam Kadmon represents the perfect, archetypal human.
Kabbalistic ritual is a blend of the traditional & the new, the latter focusing on the interconnectedness of all levels of being in all dimensions. This innovation in ritual intended to establish harmony between the rigidity of judgment & the flowing quality of mercy, reconciliation through sacred marriage, the redemption of the Shekhinah and protection against evil. Rituals involving the Sabbath were particularly elaborate, and the day of rest itself acquired new significance including an anthropomorphic aspect as the bride of the Divine. The last chapter on the Golem is a lengthy and detailed study of the myth and legend surrounding the making of a humanoid automaton and is not as fascinating as the other chapters. My mind kept wandering to the movie Young Frankenstein, an unforgettable comedy.
On the Kabbalah and its Symbolism is a work of impressive scholarship and an ideal introduction to Jewish mysticism; it also provides valuable insights on comparative mysticism & spirituality, symbolism and history. The reader learns about books like the Zohar, the Book of Creation, Book Bahir & Book Yetsirah amongst others, as well as the great mystics of Europe and of Safed in Israel. The text is filled with footnotes & bibliographic references for further study. The book concludes with an index. I also recommend The Thirteen Petalled Rose by Adin Steinsaltz and Cracking the Bible Code: The Scientific Search for the Existence of God by Dr Jeffrey Satinover, two books with remarkable information on Kabbalah, cosmology & history.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful.
Ian Myles Slater on: Easy Introduction to Complexity
By Ian M. Slater
Kabbalah ("that which is received," or "Tradition") is an esoteric form of Judaism, which flourished from the High Middle Ages to the seventeenth century. Even a truly basic introduction demands some prior knowledge of post-Biblical Jewish history, and exoteric Judaism; otherwise, references to names, locales, philosophical schools, and periods of time, are likely to blur together, even if briefly defined in the volume itself. For a reliable, and fairly brief, introduction, I would suggest, among many worthy titles, "Back to the Sources: Reading the Classic Jewish Texts," edited by Barry W. Holtz (1984), which covers most of the relevant literature, albeit sometimes very briefly.
The leading twentieth-century scholar in the field -- in fact, the one person who did most to establish the study of Jewish mysticisms (note the plural) as intellectually respectable -- was Gershom Scholem. His collection "On the Kabblah and Its Symbolism" was originally published as "Zur Kabbala und ihrer Symbolik" in 1960, with an English translation by Ralph Manheim in 1965, from Schocken Books, and reissued with a New Foreword by Bernard McGinn, 1996. It contains five essays of increasing specificity: "Religious Authority and Mysticism," "The Meaning of the Torah in Jewish Mysticism," "Kabbalah and Myth," "Tradition and New Creation in the Ritual of the Kabbalists," and, finally, "The Idea of the Golem," or artificial human being.
The essays were lectures originally delivered at the C.G. Jung's "Eranos" conferences in Zurich, in the 1950s (one of the few places where Scholem felt he could use his native German language -- and introduce to Jewish thought to a part of the intellectual elite of a continent from which Jews had been nearly obliterated.
I have often recommended "Symbolism" as an introductory book; it has the great advantage of being about half the length of Scholem's "Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism" (1941, 1946, 1954; Schocken Paperback 1961; with Foreword by Robert Alter, 1995), and considerably more inviting, as well as significantly shorter, than the encyclopedia articles collected in "Kabbalah" (1974; Meridian paperback, 1978).
Another collection, longer, but addressed to non-specialists, is Scholem's collection of popular and "occasional" pieces, "The Messianic Idea in Judaism, and Other Essays on Jewish Spirituality," 1971; with Foreword by Arthur Hertzberg, 1995, contains some partly duplicate material, such as another, more popular, study of the Golem; but is none the less worth trying by a relative beginner.
Gershom Scholem's "On the Mystical Shape of the Godhead" ("Von der mystischen Gestalt der Gottheit," 1962; English translation, Schocken, with Foreword by Joseph Dan, 1991) is a set of six complex and elaborately documented essays, tracing specific themes in Jewish mystical thought. These were also Eranos lectures, and, in effect, build on the foundation established by "Symbolism."
Despite being well-translated, the "Mystical Shape" lectures together make up one of his more difficult works (in English), perhaps surpassed only by his long "Origins of the Kabbalah" (Princeton, 1991), with its densely-argued readings of some notoriously obscure and corrupt medieval texts. In this case, the difficulties are presented mainly by the long histories of the ideas he investigates, and their many variations and transformations.
For this reason, the English-language subtitle of "Basic Concepts in the Kabbalah" is accurate, but, as some reviewers have complained, misleading. "Basic" is often used in English book titles to indicate "simple, or elementary." The German "Studien zu Grundbegriffen" in the original subtitle (1962) might instead have been translated as "Investigations towards Fundamental Principles," or something equally, or even more, polysyllabic and intimidating.
Certainly, the six essays which made up the contents of "Mystical Shape" are substantially denser, and more elaborately documented -- and often richer in content -- than "Symbolism," but it should be possible to read all eleven as a set.
In fact, revised versions of both "Symbolism" and "Mystical Shape" were published in one volume in Hebrew, in 1976, as Joseph Dan pointed out in his useful Foreword to the English translation by Joachim Neugroschel. (The 1991 English text of "Mystical Shape" was revised by Jonathan Chipman to incorporate Scholem's emendations.) When the essays are read in order of publication, they take a reader from truly elementary (which is not to say easy or self-evident) aspects of Jewish mysticism to some of its most complex and wide-ranging developments.
However, it might be wise to try "Symbolism" and "Major Trends," or "Kabbalah," *before* attempting "Mystical Shape" -- since I don't know how to "un-read" a book, I can't tell you how helpful "Symbolism" would be as the sole introduction to "Mystical Shape.
43 of 48 people found the following review helpful.
kabbalah
By catherine guelph
I learned a great deal from Herr Doktor Gershom Scholem (1897-1982) through his text, "On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism". Dr Bernard McGinn, Divinity School, University of Chicago, wrote in the introduction, "I believe that all students of mysticism should read Scholem, not only for his profound insights into the Jewish mystical tradition, but also to deepen their understanding of the dynamics of other mysticisms -- Christian, Islamic, and even those further afield." Professor Scholem presents an historical perspective with the full knowledge that there are other approaches. "From an historical point of view", he writes, "the sum of religious phenomena known as mysticism consists in the attempts of mystics to communicate their experiences to others." Within this context, this text explores broad sweeping topics in each chapter -- topics that deservedly have receieved attention by intelligent scholars for centuries. In the first chapter, "Religious Authority and Mysticism" Herr Doktor Scholem presents a thesis fundamental to his research, "there is no mysticism as such, but only the mysticism of particular religious systems, Christian, Islamic and Jewish mysticism, and so on". The mystic working within a religious system is, according to Scholem, at the same time both conservative and revolutionary. "Conservative" because the mystic tries to preserve the sources of traditional authority, and "revolutionary" because the mystic also may subsititue his own opinion for that prescribed by authority. In the second chapter, titled, "The Meaning of the TORAH in Jewish Mysticism", Scholem explains the dynamic relationship between the TORAH and the mystic. Scholem presents three fundamental principles on which the Kabbaslistic conceptions of the nature of the TORAH are based: (1) YWVH; (2) TORAH as oganism; (3) Infinite meaning of the divine word. As an example of the third, in addition to the the concept of written and oral TORAHs, the author of the "ZOHAR" speculates four levels of meaning: (1) literal (2) hermeneutic (3) allegorical and (4) mystical. The history of Judaism, Scholem explains in the third chapter, is a tension between the purity of the reality of GOD. The dynamic involved is clearly presented in the realization that the price of GOD's purity is the loss of her living reality. Scholem offers that the Book Bahir, a cornerstone of 12th century Kabbalistic thought, introduces myth into Judaism. Remarkably, it contends evil as an attribute of GOD. In a similar vein, the commentary on the Sefer Yetzirah by Judah ben Barzilai introduced speculative thinking to Jewish theosophy. The fourth chapter, "Tradition and New Creation in the Ritual of the Kabbalists" presents a solution to a problem faced by each new generation. Namely, how are the traditions passed on in a vital and meaningful medium. The Mishnal codified Jewish religious law and ritual for an agrarian community had survived for centuries. As the agrarian society diminished, the TORAH became obsolete and the natural rituals became less meaningful, historical rituals. The Spanish Kabbalists found a new ritual to express the old traditions. Scholem writes, "The rejuvenation of religion repeatedly finds its expression in a return to ancient images and symbols, even when these are 'spiritualized' and transformed into speculative constructions." R. Yanassan Gershom has already succinctly summarised the fifth chapter which deals with the concept of the Golem. I will take the liberty to direct you to his comments. If you are interested in historical issues of the Kabbalah, this is essential reading for you.
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