Absorbing Perfections

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Absorbing Perfections

Author : Moshe Idel
Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 0300135076
Total Pages : 686 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (1 download)

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Book Synopsis Absorbing Perfections by : Moshe Idel

Download or read book Absorbing Perfections written by Moshe Idel and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2008-10-01 with total page 686 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Temporary Perfections

Author : Gianrico Carofiglio
Publisher : Bitter Lemon Press
ISBN 13 : 1904738842
Total Pages : 290 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (47 download)

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Book Synopsis Temporary Perfections by : Gianrico Carofiglio

Download or read book Temporary Perfections written by Gianrico Carofiglio and published by Bitter Lemon Press. This book was released on 2011-09-15 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The fourth Guerrieri in the series. An investigation into the disappearance of a poor little rich girl in Southern Italy.

Kabbalah and Eros

Author : Moshe Idel
Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 030010832X
Total Pages : 381 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (1 download)

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Book Synopsis Kabbalah and Eros by : Moshe Idel

Download or read book Kabbalah and Eros written by Moshe Idel and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2005-01-01 with total page 381 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, the world's foremost scholar of Kabbalah explores the understanding of erotic love in Jewish mystical thought. Encompassing Jewish mystical literatures from those of late antiquity to works of Polish Hasidism, Moshe Idel highlights the diversity of Kabbalistic views on eros and distinguishes between the major forms of eroticism. The author traces the main developments of a religious formula that reflects the union between a masculine divine attribute and a feminine divine attribute, and he asks why such an "erotic formula" was incorporated into the Jewish prayer book. Idel shows how Kabbalistic literature was influenced not only by rabbinic literature but also by Greek thought that helped introduce a wider understanding of eros. Addressing topics ranging from cosmic eros and androgyneity to the affinity between C. J. Jung and Kabbalah to feminist thought, Idel's deeply learned study will be of consuming interest to scholars of religion, Judaism, and feminism.

Ascensions on High in Jewish Mysticism

Author : Moshe Idel
Publisher : Central European University Press
ISBN 13 : 6155053782
Total Pages : 260 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (55 download)

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Book Synopsis Ascensions on High in Jewish Mysticism by : Moshe Idel

Download or read book Ascensions on High in Jewish Mysticism written by Moshe Idel and published by Central European University Press. This book was released on 2005-02-15 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ascensions on high took many forms in Jewish mysticism and they permeated most of its history from its inception until Hasidism. The book surveys the various categories, with an emphasis on the architectural images of the ascent, like the resort to images of pillars, lines, and ladders. After surveying the variety of scholarly approaches to religion, the author also offers what he proposes as an eclectic approach, and a perspectivist one. The latter recommends to examine religious phenomena from a variety of perspectives. The author investigates the specific issue of the pillar in Jewish mysticism by comparing it to the archaic resort to pillars recurring in rural societies. Given the fact that the ascent of the soul and pillars constituted the concerns of two main Romanian scholars of religion, Ioan P. Culianu and Mircea Eliade, Idel resorts to their views, and in the Concluding Remarks analyzes the emergence of Eliade's vision of Judaism on the basis of neglected sources.

The Jewish Body

Author : Maria Diemling
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9004167188
Total Pages : 501 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (41 download)

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Book Synopsis The Jewish Body by : Maria Diemling

Download or read book The Jewish Body written by Maria Diemling and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2009 with total page 501 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume explores perceptions of the "Jewish body" in variety of early modern Jewish sources. It discusses, among other topics, ideas of the ideal body in normative sources, the influence of Kabbalistic ideas on Jewish-Christian discourse and the link between melancholy and exile.

Connecting Histories

Author : David B. Ruderman
Publisher : University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN 13 : 0812296036
Total Pages : 328 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (122 download)

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Book Synopsis Connecting Histories by : David B. Ruderman

Download or read book Connecting Histories written by David B. Ruderman and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2019-03-07 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Whether forced by governmental decree, driven by persecution and economic distress, or seeking financial opportunity, the Jews of early modern Europe were extraordinarily mobile, experiencing both displacement and integration into new cultural, legal, and political settings. This, in turn, led to unprecedented modes of social mixing for Jews, especially for those living in urban areas, who frequently encountered Jews from different ethnic backgrounds and cultural orientations. Additionally, Jews formed social, economic, and intellectual bonds with mixed populations of Christians. While not necessarily effacing Jewish loyalties to local places, authorities, and customs, these connections and exposures to novel cultural settings created new allegiances as well as new challenges, resulting in constructive relations in some cases and provoking strife and controversy in others. The essays collected by Francesca Bregoli and David B. Ruderman in Connecting Histories show that while it is not possible to speak of a single, cohesive transregional Jewish culture in the early modern period, Jews experienced pockets of supra-local connections between West and East—for example, between Italy and Poland, Poland and the Holy Land, and western and eastern Ashkenaz—as well as increased exchanges between high and low culture. Special attention is devoted to the impact of the printing press and the strategies of representation and self-representation through which Jews forged connections in a world where their status as a tolerated minority was ambiguous and in constant need of renegotiation. Exploring the ways in which early modern Jews related to Jews from different backgrounds and to the non-Jews around them, Connecting Histories emphasizes not only the challenging nature and impact of these encounters but also the ambivalence experienced by Jews as they met their others. Contributors: Michela Andreatta, Francesca Bregoli, Joseph Davis, Jesús de Prado Plumed, Andrea Gondos, Rachel L. Greenblatt, Gershon David Hundert, Fabrizio Lelli, Moshe Idel, Debra Kaplan, Lucia Raspe, David B. Ruderman, Pavel Sládek, Claude B. Stuczynski, Rebekka Voß.

Polemical Encounters

Author : Olav Hammer
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9047431510
Total Pages : 348 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (474 download)

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Book Synopsis Polemical Encounters by : Olav Hammer

Download or read book Polemical Encounters written by Olav Hammer and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2007-09-30 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In its historical development from late antiquity to the present, western esotericism has repeatedly been the issue of polemical discourse. This volume engages the polemical structures that underlie both the identities within and the controversy about esoteric currents in European history. From Jewish and Christian kabbalah through heretical discourse and interconfessional polemics in early modernity to the legitimization of esoteric identity in modern culture, the 12 chapters, accompanied by an editors’ introduction, provide a cornucopia of relevant cases that are interpreted in a framework of polemical discourse and ‘Othering’. This volume sheds new light on the ultimately polemical structure of western esotericism and thus opens new vistas for further research into esoteric discourse.

Abraham Abulafia’s Esotericism

Author : Moshe Idel
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN 13 : 311059997X
Total Pages : 448 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (15 download)

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Book Synopsis Abraham Abulafia’s Esotericism by : Moshe Idel

Download or read book Abraham Abulafia’s Esotericism written by Moshe Idel and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2020-10-12 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The series Studies and Texts in Scepticism contains monographs, translations, and collected essays exploring scepticism in its dual manifestation as a purely philosophical tradition and as a set of sceptical strategies, concepts, and attitudes in the cultural field - especially in religions, perhaps most notably in Judaism. In such cultural contexts scepticism manifests as a critical attitude towards different dimensions and systems of secular or revealed knowledge and towards religious and political authorities. It is not merely an intellectual or theoretical worldview, but a critical form of life that expresses itself in such diverse phenomena as religion, literature, and society. Further book series of the Maimonides Centre for Advanced Studies are Jewish Thought, Philosophy, and Religion and the Yearbook of the Maimonides Centre for Advances Studies.

A New Philosophy of Modernity and Sovereignty

Author : Przemyslaw Tacik
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1350201286
Total Pages : 233 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (52 download)

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Book Synopsis A New Philosophy of Modernity and Sovereignty by : Przemyslaw Tacik

Download or read book A New Philosophy of Modernity and Sovereignty written by Przemyslaw Tacik and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-07-29 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tackling important philosophical questions on modernity – what it is, where it begins and when it ends – Przemyslaw Tacik challenges the idea that modernity marks a particular epoch, and historicises its conception to offer a radical critique of it. His deconstruction-informed critique collects and assesses reflections on modernity from major philosophers including Hegel, Heidegger, Lacan, Arendt, Agamben, and Žižek. This analysis progresses a new understanding of modernity intrinsically connected to the growth of sovereignty as an organising principle of contemporary life. He argues that it is the idea of 'modernity', as a taken-for-granted era, which is positioned as the essential condition for making linear history possible, when it should instead be history, in and of itself, which dictates the existence of a particular period. Using Hegel's notion of 'spirit' to trace the importance of sovereignty to the conception of the modern epoch within German idealism, Tacik traces Hegel's influence on Heidegger through reference to the 'star' in his late philosophy which represents the hope of overcoming the metaphysical poverty of modernity. This line of thought reveals the necessity of a paradigm shift in our understanding of modernity that speaks to contemporary continental philosophy, theories of modernity, political theory, and critical re-assessments of Marxism.

Representation in Religion

Author : Jan Assmann
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9004379126
Total Pages : 384 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (43 download)

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Book Synopsis Representation in Religion by : Jan Assmann

Download or read book Representation in Religion written by Jan Assmann and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2018-08-14 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The role of representation in religion is complex. While often perceived as essential, it is also associated in many traditions with the liability of idolatry and provokes iconoclasm. The essays in this volume examine the nuances of representation in religion and the debate concerning its place across a variety of traditions from the three Abrahamic faiths, to those of antiquity and the East. This volume consists of presentations made at an international conference held in honor of Moshe Barasch, art historian and cultural critic, who has done much to elucidate the light which representation and religion shed on each other. It pays tribute to Barasch by expanding the base of understanding and insight he has erected. It should be of interest to students of religion and of art history.

Absent Mother God of the West

Author : Neela Bhattacharya Saxena
Publisher : Lexington Books
ISBN 13 : 1498508065
Total Pages : 209 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (985 download)

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Book Synopsis Absent Mother God of the West by : Neela Bhattacharya Saxena

Download or read book Absent Mother God of the West written by Neela Bhattacharya Saxena and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2015-12-15 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book about the missing Divine Feminine in Christianity and Judaism chronicles a personal as well as an academic quest of an Indian woman who grew up with Kali and myriad other goddesses. It is born out of a women's studies course created and taught by the author called The Goddess in World Religions. The book examines how the Divine Feminine was erased from the western consciousness and how it led to an exclusive spiritually patriarchal monotheism with serious consequences for both women’s and men’s psychological and spiritual identity. While colonial, proselytizing and patriarchal ways have denied the divinity inherent in the female of the species, a recent upsurge of body-centric practices like Yoga and innumerable books about old and new goddesses reveal a deep seated mother hunger in the western consciousness. Written from a practicing Hindu/Buddhist perspective, this book looks at the curious phenomenon called the Black Madonna that appears in Europe and also examines mystical figures like Shekhinah in Jewish mysticism. People interested in symbols of the goddess, feminist theologians, and scholars interested in the absence of goddesses in monotheisms may find this book’s perspective and insights provocative.

The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Secrecy

Author : Hugh B. Urban
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1000556182
Total Pages : 621 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (5 download)

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Book Synopsis The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Secrecy by : Hugh B. Urban

Download or read book The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Secrecy written by Hugh B. Urban and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2022-03-29 with total page 621 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Secrecy is a central and integral component of all religious traditions. Not limited simply to religious groups that engage in clandestine activities such as hidden rites of initiation or terrorism, secrecy is inherent in the very fabric of religion itself. Its importance has perhaps never been more acutely relevant than in our own historical moment. In the wake of 9/11 and other acts of religious violence, we see the rise of invasive national security states that target religious minorities and pose profound challenges to the ideals of privacy and religious freedom, accompanied by the resistance by many communities to such efforts. As such, questions of secrecy, privacy, surveillance, and security are among the most central and contested issues of twenty-first century religious life. The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Secrecy is the definitive reference source for the key topics, problems, and debates in this crucial field and is the first collection of its kind. Comprising twenty-nine chapters by a team of international contributors, the Handbook is divided into five parts: Configurations of Religious Secrecy: Conceptual and Comparative Frameworks Secrecy as Religious Practice Secrecy and the Politics of the Present Secrecy and Social Resistance Secrecy, Terrorism, and Surveillance. This cutting-edge volume discusses secrecy in relation to major categories of religious experience and individual religious practices while also examining the transformations of secrecy in the modern period, including the rise of fraternal orders, the ongoing wars on terror, the rise of far-right white supremacist groups, increasing concerns over religious freedom and privacy, the role of the internet in the spread and surveillance of such groups, and the resistance to surveillance by many indigenous and diasporic communities. The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Secrecy is essential reading for students and researchers in religious studies, comparative religion, new religious movements, and religion and politics. It will be equally central to debates in the related disciplines of sociology, anthropology, political science, security studies and cultural studies.

Encyclopedia of Modern Jewish Culture

Author : Glenda Abramson
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1134428642
Total Pages : 128 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (344 download)

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Book Synopsis Encyclopedia of Modern Jewish Culture by : Glenda Abramson

Download or read book Encyclopedia of Modern Jewish Culture written by Glenda Abramson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2004-03-01 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Encyclopedia of Modern Jewish Culture is an extensively updated revision of the very successful Companion to Jewish Culture published in 1989 and has now been updated throughout. Experts from all over the world contribute entries ranging from 200 to 1000 words broadly, covering the humanities, arts, social sciences, sport and popular culture, and 5000-word essays contextualize the shorter entries, and provide overviews to aspects of culture in the Jewish world. Ideal for student and general readers, the articles and biographies have been written by scholars and academics, musicians, artists and writers, and the book now contains up-to-date bibliographies, suggestions for further reading, comprehensive cross referencing, and a full index. This is a resource, no student of Jewish history will want to go without.

Hasidic Commentary on the Torah

Author : Ora Wiskind–Elper
Publisher : Liverpool University Press
ISBN 13 : 1786949660
Total Pages : 233 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (869 download)

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Book Synopsis Hasidic Commentary on the Torah by : Ora Wiskind–Elper

Download or read book Hasidic Commentary on the Torah written by Ora Wiskind–Elper and published by Liverpool University Press. This book was released on 2018-03-13 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hasidism, a movement of religious awakening and social reform, originated in the mid-eighteenth century. After two and a half centuries of crisis, upheaval, and renewal, it remains a vibrant way of life and a compelling aspect of Jewish experience. This book explores the profound intellectual and religious issues that the hasidic masters raised in their Torah commentary, and brings to the fore the living qualities of their sermons.

Thick and Dazzling Darkness

Author : Peter O'Leary
Publisher : Columbia University Press
ISBN 13 : 0231545975
Total Pages : 280 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (315 download)

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Book Synopsis Thick and Dazzling Darkness by : Peter O'Leary

Download or read book Thick and Dazzling Darkness written by Peter O'Leary and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2017-11-21 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How do poets use language to render the transcendent, often dizzyingly inexpressible nature of the divine? In an age of secularism, does spirituality have a place in modern American poetry? In Thick and Dazzling Darkness, Peter O’Leary reads a diverse set of writers to argue for the existence and importance of religious poetry in twentieth- and twenty-first-century American literature. He traces a poetic genealogy that begins with Whitman and Dickinson and continues in the work of contemporary writers to illuminate an often obscured but still central spiritual impulse that has shaped the production and imagination of American poetry. O’Leary presents close and comprehensive readings of the modernist, late-modernist, and postmodern poets Robinson Jeffers, Frank Samperi, and Robert Duncan, as well as the contemporary poets Joseph Donahue, Geoffrey Hill, Fanny Howe, Nathaniel Mackey, Pam Rehm, and Lissa Wolsak. Examining how these poets drew on a variety of traditions, including Catholicism, Gnosticism, the Kabbalah, and mysticism, the book considers how modern and contemporary poets have articulated the spiritual in their work. O’Leary also argues that an anxiety of misunderstanding exists in the study and writing of poetry between secular and religious impulses and that the religious nature of poets’ works is too often marginalized or misunderstood. Examining the works of a specific poet in each chapter, O’Leary reveals their complexity and offers a defense of the value and meaning of religious poetry against the grain of a secular society.

Speaking Infinities

Author : Ariel Evan Mayse
Publisher : University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN 13 : 0812297059
Total Pages : 360 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (122 download)

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Book Synopsis Speaking Infinities by : Ariel Evan Mayse

Download or read book Speaking Infinities written by Ariel Evan Mayse and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2020-05-08 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A study of the life and work of 'the Maggid"—a major figure in the mystical thought of early Hasidism Enshrined in Jewish memory simply as "the Maggid" (preacher), Rabbi Dov Ber Friedman of Mezritsh (1704-1772) played a critical role in the formation of Hasidism, the movement of mystical renewal that became one of the most important and successful forces in modern Jewish life. In Speaking Infinities, Ariel Evan Mayse turns to the homilies of the Maggid to explore the place of words in mystical experience. He argues that the Maggid's theory of language is the key to unpacking his abstract mystical theology as well as his teachings on the devotional life and religious practice. Mayse shows how Dov Ber's vision of language emerges from his encounters with Ba'al Shem Tov (the BeSHT), the founder of Hasidic Judaism, whose teaching put forward a vision of radical divine immanence. Taking the BeSHT's notion of God's immanence as a kind of linguistic vitality echoing in the cosmos, Dov Ber developed a theory of language in which all human tongues, even in their mundane forms, have the potential to become sacred when returned to their divine source. Analyzing homilies and theological meditations on language, Mayse demonstrates that Dov Ber was an innovative thinker and contends that, in many respects, it was Dov Ber, rather than the BeSHT, who was the true founder of Hasidism as it took root, and the foremost shaper of its early theology. Speaking Infinities offers an exploration of this introspective mystic's life, gleaned from scattered anecdotes, legends, and historical sources, distinguishing the historical personage from the figure that emerges from the composite array of textual and oral traditions that have shaped the memory of the Maggid and his legacy.

The Secret in Medieval Literature

Author : Albrecht Classen
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 1666917877
Total Pages : 295 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (669 download)

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Book Synopsis The Secret in Medieval Literature by : Albrecht Classen

Download or read book The Secret in Medieval Literature written by Albrecht Classen and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2022-11-15 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Secret in Medieval Literature explores the many secret agents, actions, creatures, and other beings influencing human existence. Medieval poets had a clear sense of the alternative dimension (the secret) and allowed it to enter quite frequently into their texts.