Sexuality, Sociality, and Cosmology in Medieval Literary Texts

The Idra Zuta is the last teaching of R. Shimon ben Yochai, in which he edifies the inner workings of the Godhead existent beyond and behind the sefirotic system. Pinchas Giller articulates the relative gravity of the partzufim schematic, in which "the mythos of the anthropos " supplants the sefirotic conceptualization: "According to the latter view, the parzufim are structures that exist in some actuality, while the sefirot are metaphysical principles that underlie the function of the parzufim ." In bold anthropomorphic language, the parzufim map the 1 Godhead as a dynamic, relational, and embodied family. The uppermost parzufim that man can apprehend are Abba and Imma , from whose union the lower parzufim are borne. Abba and Imma are the primordial Masculine and Feminine, the prototypal designs and distinctions of gender, and the supernal Mother and Father. Yet, the Imma figure here functions quite differently than 1 Pinchas Giller, Reading the Zohar: The Sacred

Medieval Feminist Forum, 2015

Bibliography on the theme of "Medieval Representation of Sexual Dissidence."

CCAR , 2007

Fall 2007 1 MARLA SEGOL, Ph.D., teaches Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University at Buffalo . Her research interests in kabbalah include manuscript diagrams and gender. The popular entertainer Madonna claims to be a practitioner of Jewish mysticism, while books on Jewish mysticism line the shelves in commercial bookstores. Due to its current popularization, the past few years have seen the emergence of some new and exciting scholarly work on contemporary Kabbalah. 1 Scholars have made important contributions toward understanding contemporary, New Age Kabbalah and its emergence within a post-modern context. Jews and non-Jews are now studying Kabbalah in private groups, outside religious institutions, and in such a fashion that both men and women now have access to this previously privileged knowledge tradition. With the exception of women's participation, this is in some ways a fairly traditional way to engage kabbalistic tradition, outside institutional life. This study will focus on trends in Kabbalah-education events, in general, and on those directed toward women, in particular, in North American synagogues and Jewish community centers. To the best of my knowledge there are no studies on this topic specifically because it is a recent phenomenon. 2 There are three aspects of women's institutional Kabbalah-education programming that are new, noteworthy, and relevant to this discussion. First is its occurrence in the synagogue rather than in the traditional chavurah setting. 3 Second is the fact that Kabbalah-education programs are not only offered to women, but actually designed for women, either intentionally or by default because women attend adult education courses in greater numbers. A third, and extremely important aspect, is the crafting of these programs in response to perceived

Medieval Feminist Forum, 2013

Medieval Feminist Forum, 2015

This collection of fresh and compelling essays presents innovative scholarship linking the study of Anglo-Saxon England with key themes in contemporary critical theory. Chapter titles use key terminology familiar to those who work in critical theory; thus

This essay investigates the use made of garden hermeneutics in the writing of medieval holy women.

This essay brings a fresh approach to the early kabbalistic work, the Sefer Bahir (the Book of Clarity, tenth to twelfth century, Hebrew). It does a close reading of its imagery, focusing on water, to illuminate its contested provenance and to challenge prevailing conceptions of its function. Most scholars agree that the work was composed in two layers (tenth and twelfth centuries), which together articulate the sefirotic cosmos at the heart of kabbalah. Close study reveals significant differences in the two layers, as the first is set in a dry and rocky landscape with water supplied by springs and cisterns, and the second in a lush and stormy place with a sophisticated plumbing system. Composed in different milieus, they articulate different cosmologies to cultivate different experiences: the first confounds taxonomic categories to cultivate an affect of mystical unity, while the second creates categories for an orderly cosmological system.

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality, 2019

Essays on Women in Esotericism, 2022

Algiers and Jerusalem) was "a physician, thinker, and natural healer, 1 and a pioneer of kabbalistic dreamwork. She is best known for her "Waking Dream" technique, teaching it in her garden in Jerusalem in the last decades of the twentieth century. The technique is based in her 'Kabbalah of Light' which draws from kabbalistic and psychoanalytic discourses and methodologies, consistent