The Kabbalistic Tradition: An Anthology of Jewish Mysticism

by Alan Unterman (Editor)

A comprehensive survey of the Jewish mystical tradition

An indispensable guide to thousands of years of spiritual inquiry, The Kabbalistic Tradition features writings from a variety of literary forms-from the earliest biblical sources through twentieth-century studies-as well as practical information and practices for the modern reader. These selections concentrate on the three main areas of Kabbalistic creativity-the literature of Zohar, the Lurianic corpus, and the Chasidic mystical tradition. Alan Unterman's enlightening introduction examines the unique characteristics of the Kabbalah and places this volume in its proper historical and philosophical context.

Genres: Religion, Judaism, Philosophy, Mysticism, Jewish, Nonfiction, Judaica

432 pages, Paperback

First published January 27, 2008

Reviews

[Albert · Rating 4 out of 5]

A vast collection of annotated passages from the Zohar and other Kabbalistic texts. I enjoy the scholastic theology and historical tradition of the Kabbalists even when their mysticism is somewhat medieval. Shows how Judaism evolved and branched in the middle ages while remaining true to the Torah.

[J]

"Come and see what happened with a pious man who lived in a little village and had no books except for one tractate of the Talmud, Chagigah. All his life this pious man involved himself in the study of the tractate Chagigah. He lived for a long time and at the end of his life, just before he died, this tractate clothed itself in the form of a woman, and when he died, she walked ahead of him taking him to the Garden of Eden."

[Dale Rosenberg · Rating 3 out of 5]

A wide ranging anthology that includes the Zohar, the writings of Lurianic Kabbalism, and mystical Hassidic writings. Gives a great picture of the breadth of mystical thought in Judaism with minimal notes. All in English, but not for beginners as a certain level of knowledge is assumed.

[Paul Groos · Rating 2 out of 5]

I gave up on this book, some 70 pages before the end. A DNF. Why? I kept hoping to find more of the profound philosophical ideas the book opened with. However, it devolved into the finer details of interpretation of sentences from the bible, lists of prohibitions and advice on very minor points of life. It provides, frankly, ridiculous ideas, for instance going into detail about which animal a murderer will reincarnate into, depending on who he was and who he murdered (fyi: potentially a camel, a pig or a dog).
The underlying Kabbalist ideas (the tree of life, for instance) are not explained. This book is most definitely a very bad starter into the ideas of Kabbala, especially for the layman (which I am not quite, still I had to use Wikipedia to find the meaning of certain bits of terminology (the “shells”, “kelipot” for instance), because the author, frustratingly, does a very bad job explaining. The book consists of fragments of Kabbalistic texts, which are so brief that arguments are never fully developed. I suspect the author picked little curiosities over the more interesting, more sweeping ideas, because they would need longer fragments of text.
A disappointment, unfortunately.

[Joyce · Rating 5 out of 5]

many of the passages make a point of distinguishing kabbalistic study from plain old talmudic judaism, but as soon as the golem comes up it's right back into disputations about how it would fit into judaic law

[Violet · Rating 3 out of 5]

read for rels 3122: esoteric traditions. my professor was, at times, highly critical of unterman's selections, and so i think further research is required--but this was a decent introduction to kabbalah, all things considered.

[rodrigo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gives a good overview of the diverse topics within the kabbalah, very interesting and useful if you're into Jewish mysticism

[Greg Samsa · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great ressource on the Kabbalah with beautiful translations.