Two Kabbalistic Historical Approaches: Between Safed and Byzantium

THERE ARE FEW SERIOUS SCHOLARS who would claim that East European Hasidism as a mystical movement is replete with conceptual innovations. Indeed, there are many who would argue that there is very little new in Hasidism as mysticism that cannot be traced to its kabbalistic sources. 1 Nevertheless, while accepting this perspective in the main, there are also scholars who have suggested the existence of some topics that represent substantial Hasidic innovations. This is, for example, the case for two leading scholars of early Hasidism, Joseph Weiss and Rivka Schatz-Uffenheimer, who saw quietism to be at once an important component of Hasidism and a novel addition to Jewish mysticism. 2 Gershom Scholem, who repeatedly spoke about the conservative nature of Hasidism, nonetheless identified three main conceptual innovations in the writings of early Hasidic masters. The best known among those alleged innovations consists in a new evaluation of the value of devekut (attachment, cleaving) as a neutralization or liquidation of a ''true'' messianism in favor of a more individualized form of redemption. The second innovation relates to the unprecedented theory and practice of the tsadik as a 1. See, e.g., Buber's approach that envisioned Hasidism as a mode of life and not a new teaching in Martin Buber, Origin and Meaning of Hasidism, ed. and trans. M. Friedman (New York, 1966), 24-29, esp. 25: ''The Baal-Shem did not have new theological concepts to impart to him [to the Great Magid] but a living connection with this world and the world above.'' On 36-37, he speaks, in a manner closer to other statements of Scholem's, about a new mode of life that is characteristic of Hasidism.

Index with internal links 1. Overviews & Pre-Lurianic (Safed, Joseph Karo, Moses Cordovero, Elijah de Vidas) 2. Lurianic Kabbalah: A Bibliography (from Hayyim Vital to Yehuda Ashlag) 3. Other Items of Interest Section 2 of "Notes on the Study of Later Kabbalah in English" comprises a bibliography to my paper "Which Lurianic Kabbalah?" which is available at Academia.edu.

This essay is supplemented by “Notes on the Study of Later Kabbalah in English,” which contains a bibliography covering Lurianic kabbalah. "Which Lurianic Kabbalah?" should be considered a work in progress and a call for more in-depth research.

I On one sabbath day in 1585, the rabbi of Modena, Barukh Abraham da Spoleto, startled his congregation.1 He delivered a sermon on the subject of metempsychosis (gilgul) in which he argued that sinful souls migrate after death into the bodies of animals, acquire these bodies until the time of the animal's death, and then depart.2 The news of the unusual sermon quickly reached Abraham ben Hananiyah Yagel, the notable Jewish physician and scholar,^ who felt obliged to challenge the legitimacy of the rabbi's argument, despite Spoleto's stature as a legal scholar.4

Frankfurter Judaistische Beiträge Frankfurt, 2019

Jewish Quarterly Review, 2019

In one of his letters sent from Safed to Poland, R. Shlomo Shlomel Meinstral of Dresnitz reports the rather exceptional penitential exercises of Avraham ben Eliezer ha-Levi Berukhim (1515–93). Even though this particular epistle has not become part of the hagiographical accounts compiled in Shivhei ha-Ari, it nevertheless had a lasting impact on Jewish communities over the last four centuries. The present paper focuses on the narrative structure of the passages dealing with the life and activities of Avraham ha-Levi in the manuscript version of Shlomel’s epistle, its alterations and adaptations in early modern kabbalistic and pietistic books, and the recurrence of the very same themes and motifs in later historiographical and literary works. It illustrates the impact of the legends and exempla constructed in hagiography, showing how the predominant laudatory and edifying character of the stories fully unfold their prescriptive potential in their later usage. In doing so, the paper demonstrates how the hagiographical materials ultimately shaped Jewish rituals and practices in the early modern period and the modern era.

Canonization and Alterity, De Gruyter, 2020

This paper deals with the representation of David as a "feminized Messiah" appearing in the image of the Shekhinah in Kabbalistic literature, and with the connections between femininity and heresy in Jewish messianic movements. In the course of this analysis, I focus on the development of the concept of David as "fourth leg of the Divine Chariot,” from the origins of Kabbalah (the Bahir, R. Asher Ben David, R. Jacob Bar-Sheshet) to Castille and beyond, in the Zohar and the Theosophical-Theurgical Kabbalah in 13th–14th Century (in texts written on the Iberian Peninsula), up to the portrayal of David as the Shekhinah in Lurianic Kabbalah and Sabbateanism. I claim that in the cases of David and Shabbatai Zevi, heresy indeed accompanies femininity. If the present order and its law are typically gendered as masculine, the threatening, disruptive forces that attempt to bring forth redemption are identified as feminine.