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On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism
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
240 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1960
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1641 people want to read
About the author
Gershom Scholem
137 books185 followersGerhard Scholem, who, after his immigration from Germany to Israel, changed his name to Gershom Scholem (Hebrew: גרשם שלום), was a German-born Israeli philosopher and historian. He is widely regarded as the founder of the modern, academic study of Kabbalah, becoming the first Professor of Jewish Mysticism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His close friends included Walter Benjamin and Leo Strauss, and selected letters from his correspondence with those philosophers have been published.
Scholem is best known for his collection of lectures, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (1941) and for his biography Sabbatai Zevi, the Mystical Messiah (1973). His collected speeches and essays, published as On Kabbalah and its Symbolism (1965), helped to spread knowledge of Jewish mysticism among non-Jews.
Scholem is best known for his collection of lectures, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (1941) and for his biography Sabbatai Zevi, the Mystical Messiah (1973). His collected speeches and essays, published as On Kabbalah and its Symbolism (1965), helped to spread knowledge of Jewish mysticism among non-Jews.
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June 18, 2023
An Ancient Philosophy of Language
Although Jewish, Kabbalah isn't only about Jews. It isn't even only about religion. It's about language, in which Judaism and religion, along with everything else of interest and importance to human beings is expressed. One way to explain the human significance of Kabbalah is by analogy: Kabbalah is to language as number theory is to mathematics. It probes the hidden structures and relations among the basic components of language just as number theory does with the primitive components of mathematics.
Like numbers, the components of language, words and grammar, are always already established in a context when we encounter them. The context of language can be virtually any narrative so long as it is taken seriously by the community in which it is recounted(!). The immediate context of Kabbalah is the Torah, the first five books of the Hebrew and Christian Bible, and the source of a significant amount of Muslim scripture. It therefore has a claim to be the most seriously regarded narrative on the planet.
Kabbalah treats the Torah as a story, a story with divine import, but nonetheless a story. The vocabulary, and narrative trajectory, indeed each letter of this story, are taken as in need of interpretation in order to approach even a limited comprehension of the meaning of the whole. Kabbalah, therefore, however else it may function religiously, serves as a fundamental method of inquiry and a philosophy of the language which is required to mediate all other inquiry.
The objective of Kabbalah is expressed in theological terms: "To preserve the purity of the concept of God without loss of His living reality..." The substitution of the term 'language' for that of 'God' in Scholem's phrase does not harm the sense in the least. He goes on to make this point explicitly, "At the heart of the Kabbalah, we have the myth of the one God as a conjunction of all the primordial powers of being and a myth of the torah as an infinite symbol, in which all images and all names point to a process in which God communicates Himself." The term myth is not pejorative but simply an indication of a genre of story that carries spiritual meaning.
According to Scholem, who is the undisputed master-commentator on the Kabbalah in the 20th century, there are three cabalistic principles of the Torah. He discusses these at some length in On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism:
1. The Principle of God's Name: the Torah as a pre-existing entity which has been with God eternally and from which the cosmos emanates.
2. The Principle of the Torah as an Organism: each component of the Torah, no matter how apparently trivial is of crucial importance because it contains within it the entire Torah.
3. The Principle of the Infinite Meaning of the Divine Word: the positive aspect of what is typically termed negative theology, that is, that all statements touching on the divine as ultimate reality are incomplete.
Each of these principles is intriguing in its own right. Together they constitute a highly sophisticated mode of thinking, an epistemology of language itself.
The Principle of God's Name
The Kabbalah is expressed in religious language, which for some may be difficult to disentangle from dogmatic prejudices. However, Christianity and Judaism have essentially the same fundamental view about the character of the 'divine word'. As Scholem notes, "What [the Christian mystical theologian] Joachim of Floris meant by the ‘Eternal Gospel’ is essentially the same as what the Kabbalists meant by the torah de-‘atsiluth." This last term is 'the supreme state of revelation', that is, the Torah as pure symbol. In other words, the Torah as language not religious practice.
Language is the essential tool of human community and human imagination. But language exists outside the control of any individual. We are born into a language which is entirely independent of the members of of the community who speak it and yet language lives or dies with that community. Language is all-present but also all-absent. Like Terry Pratchett's marvellous Small Gods, a language has power proportionate to those who believe in it.
Despite its power, language doesn't exist anywhere definite. It constitutes our thoughts but has no substance in itself. It is eerily divine in the manner in which it dominates our lives even if we become inured to its effects. We cannot resist language. We can only submit to it. The Divine Name, HaShem, is consequently the ultimate symbol of language.
Modern Semiotics has shown that there can be no identifiable initial point of language or the speakers of language in evolutionary history. Just as the evolutionary transition of species cannot ever be identified in a single individual, so the point at which symbols begin to be interpreted could never be established in human history. Language in other words is eternal. As the matter is expressed in modern linguistic theory: Semiotics has no beginning. There is nothing before language. Like the universe, we may hypothesise it had a beginning but this can only be conjecture. Language appears to pre-exist the users of language.
This is the generalised meaning of Scholem's first principle: Language itself creates the cosmos, including ourselves. But it is so powerful that we dare not consider it directly. Like the sun, language is too energetic to observe. We are forced to discuss it obliquely through the stories that are told within it.
The Principle of the Torah as an Organism
Modern systems theory makes the distinction between a mere collection of objects and a system. A system is more than the sum of its parts. Its functionality as a whole cannot be deduced from its parts. It has what are typically called emergent properties. Some rather sophisticated systems demonstrate purpose, that is, they can adapt to changing environmental circumstances in order to continue pursuing an objective. An automobile is such a system. Not only does it carry me comfortably to work everyday, but it's windscreen wipers, brakes, and lights automatically activate depending on driving conditions.
But an automobile cannot function as a toaster. Still more sophisticated systems are able to behave not just purposely but with purposefulness. That is, they are able to choose among and change objectives based on experience. Purposefulness means that a system can adapt not just its tactics but its objectives. If it is conscious, it can want different things depending upon its experiences.
Purposefulness is a difficult state to maintain. Because purposefulness, demanding relentless self-awareness, takes effort. It easily deteriorates into an established purpose, becoming myopic and routinised as something in particular is done particularly well, and comfortably so. Perhaps the syndrome could be called Semiotic Entropy, an unwillingness to think about 'Why' as much as 'How'.
Modern corporate organisations can be characterised as purposeful systems. They frequently demonstrate semiotic entropy as habit, meaningless language and conventional responses to novel situations. Such loss of purposefulness is the most common cause of corporate failure.
The only way that any system can maintain purposefulness is through a particular relationship within itself. Each component of a purposeful system must itself be a system which 'contains' the larger system. This may appear as a contradiction but it is an everyday event. The modern corporation for example works, when it does, in precisely this way. Corporate officers, when they are empowered and act in the name of the corporation, are the corporation. They 'contain' the corporate system within them both legally and pragmatically. As a collective they are the carriers of purposefulness. If they are constrained, purpose is fixed and the corporate entity withers.
Language itself is a type of corporate institution. All of language both contains and is contained within each of those who use it. Language in this respect is the ultimate system of purposefulness. It adapts continuously to its environment, and through the initiatives of its users, who also contained within it, language continuously explores new purposes. It is the mutual containment of language and members of the language community that Kabbalah models this fundamental existential condition. Scholem emphasises this point as the source of Kabbalah's power, "The mystical idea that each individual soul has its own peculiar way of understanding the Torah..." This conception is not very different from that in the philosophy of the 17th century Gottfried Leibniz or the 20th century Wittgenstein.
The Principle of the Infinite Meaning of the Divine Word
By considering the smallest element of the Torah in the greatest possible phenomenological detail, Kabbalah allows the 'sweeping-in' of multiple perspectives. There is an almost Leibnitzian insistence that each interpreter of the Torah will have a unique understanding of its meaning, a meaning of peculiar import to themselves but also of indirect significance to all others. According to Scholem, "What constitutes the special mythical structure of the Cabalistic complex of symbols is the lack of restriction of the infinitely many aspects under which God can be known…"
In this, it's method anticipates the modern philosophy of communicative rationality in Juergen Habermas, the social theories of Hans Jonas, and the epistemological critiques of Charles Sanders Peirce and Karl-Otto Apel. Put theologically, "The great Name of God in His creative unfolding is Adam." Mankind as a user of language, in other words, is the necessary condition for the manifestation of the divine. Anything which restricts this manifestation is inhibiting creation.
As there is no beginning to interpretation within language, there is no determinate end. Interpretation proliferates interpretations. All interpretations are possible but none are definitive. There is an ideal which in theory incorporates all previous interpretations but the content of this ideal is unknown. It's existence however is attested by the presence of recognised errors in current or past interpretations, usually in the form of approximations which are no longer precise enough for the purposes being pursued.
This third principle therefore is complementary to and essential for the operation of the second principle. It is the mechanism through which language users influence the language system as a whole. By telling stories, language users modify the relations among both words and other users. They create new meanings which provoke new purposes.
In sum, Kabbalah is an exercise in reconciliation and of disconcertion. The first because it attempts to bridge the differences in expressed belief, not just among Jews but also among all those inquiring about the significance of life. The second because it relativises all language that touches on the divine, that is, on ultimate purpose. It both reconciles and disconcerts not through argument but through suggestion, one might say 'hypothesis', if that term didn't carry so much rationalistic baggage. Perhaps 'guess' would be a less emotive term.
This process of reconciliation and disconcertion is captured in Scholem's reference to the 16th century Kabbalist, Isaac Luria, "Luria’s new myth is concentrated in three great symbols, the tsimtsum, or self-limitation, of God, the Shevirah, or breaking of the vessels, and the tikkum, or harmonious correction and mending of the flaw which came into the world through the shevira"
This process goes on continuously in every particle of creation, and notably in every story, sentence, phrase, word, and letter of language. We cannot escape it. We can only observe ourselves in it with a certain degree of awe.
Although Jewish, Kabbalah isn't only about Jews. It isn't even only about religion. It's about language, in which Judaism and religion, along with everything else of interest and importance to human beings is expressed. One way to explain the human significance of Kabbalah is by analogy: Kabbalah is to language as number theory is to mathematics. It probes the hidden structures and relations among the basic components of language just as number theory does with the primitive components of mathematics.
Like numbers, the components of language, words and grammar, are always already established in a context when we encounter them. The context of language can be virtually any narrative so long as it is taken seriously by the community in which it is recounted(!). The immediate context of Kabbalah is the Torah, the first five books of the Hebrew and Christian Bible, and the source of a significant amount of Muslim scripture. It therefore has a claim to be the most seriously regarded narrative on the planet.
Kabbalah treats the Torah as a story, a story with divine import, but nonetheless a story. The vocabulary, and narrative trajectory, indeed each letter of this story, are taken as in need of interpretation in order to approach even a limited comprehension of the meaning of the whole. Kabbalah, therefore, however else it may function religiously, serves as a fundamental method of inquiry and a philosophy of the language which is required to mediate all other inquiry.
The objective of Kabbalah is expressed in theological terms: "To preserve the purity of the concept of God without loss of His living reality..." The substitution of the term 'language' for that of 'God' in Scholem's phrase does not harm the sense in the least. He goes on to make this point explicitly, "At the heart of the Kabbalah, we have the myth of the one God as a conjunction of all the primordial powers of being and a myth of the torah as an infinite symbol, in which all images and all names point to a process in which God communicates Himself." The term myth is not pejorative but simply an indication of a genre of story that carries spiritual meaning.
According to Scholem, who is the undisputed master-commentator on the Kabbalah in the 20th century, there are three cabalistic principles of the Torah. He discusses these at some length in On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism:
1. The Principle of God's Name: the Torah as a pre-existing entity which has been with God eternally and from which the cosmos emanates.
2. The Principle of the Torah as an Organism: each component of the Torah, no matter how apparently trivial is of crucial importance because it contains within it the entire Torah.
3. The Principle of the Infinite Meaning of the Divine Word: the positive aspect of what is typically termed negative theology, that is, that all statements touching on the divine as ultimate reality are incomplete.
Each of these principles is intriguing in its own right. Together they constitute a highly sophisticated mode of thinking, an epistemology of language itself.
The Principle of God's Name
The Kabbalah is expressed in religious language, which for some may be difficult to disentangle from dogmatic prejudices. However, Christianity and Judaism have essentially the same fundamental view about the character of the 'divine word'. As Scholem notes, "What [the Christian mystical theologian] Joachim of Floris meant by the ‘Eternal Gospel’ is essentially the same as what the Kabbalists meant by the torah de-‘atsiluth." This last term is 'the supreme state of revelation', that is, the Torah as pure symbol. In other words, the Torah as language not religious practice.
Language is the essential tool of human community and human imagination. But language exists outside the control of any individual. We are born into a language which is entirely independent of the members of of the community who speak it and yet language lives or dies with that community. Language is all-present but also all-absent. Like Terry Pratchett's marvellous Small Gods, a language has power proportionate to those who believe in it.
Despite its power, language doesn't exist anywhere definite. It constitutes our thoughts but has no substance in itself. It is eerily divine in the manner in which it dominates our lives even if we become inured to its effects. We cannot resist language. We can only submit to it. The Divine Name, HaShem, is consequently the ultimate symbol of language.
Modern Semiotics has shown that there can be no identifiable initial point of language or the speakers of language in evolutionary history. Just as the evolutionary transition of species cannot ever be identified in a single individual, so the point at which symbols begin to be interpreted could never be established in human history. Language in other words is eternal. As the matter is expressed in modern linguistic theory: Semiotics has no beginning. There is nothing before language. Like the universe, we may hypothesise it had a beginning but this can only be conjecture. Language appears to pre-exist the users of language.
This is the generalised meaning of Scholem's first principle: Language itself creates the cosmos, including ourselves. But it is so powerful that we dare not consider it directly. Like the sun, language is too energetic to observe. We are forced to discuss it obliquely through the stories that are told within it.
The Principle of the Torah as an Organism
Modern systems theory makes the distinction between a mere collection of objects and a system. A system is more than the sum of its parts. Its functionality as a whole cannot be deduced from its parts. It has what are typically called emergent properties. Some rather sophisticated systems demonstrate purpose, that is, they can adapt to changing environmental circumstances in order to continue pursuing an objective. An automobile is such a system. Not only does it carry me comfortably to work everyday, but it's windscreen wipers, brakes, and lights automatically activate depending on driving conditions.
But an automobile cannot function as a toaster. Still more sophisticated systems are able to behave not just purposely but with purposefulness. That is, they are able to choose among and change objectives based on experience. Purposefulness means that a system can adapt not just its tactics but its objectives. If it is conscious, it can want different things depending upon its experiences.
Purposefulness is a difficult state to maintain. Because purposefulness, demanding relentless self-awareness, takes effort. It easily deteriorates into an established purpose, becoming myopic and routinised as something in particular is done particularly well, and comfortably so. Perhaps the syndrome could be called Semiotic Entropy, an unwillingness to think about 'Why' as much as 'How'.
Modern corporate organisations can be characterised as purposeful systems. They frequently demonstrate semiotic entropy as habit, meaningless language and conventional responses to novel situations. Such loss of purposefulness is the most common cause of corporate failure.
The only way that any system can maintain purposefulness is through a particular relationship within itself. Each component of a purposeful system must itself be a system which 'contains' the larger system. This may appear as a contradiction but it is an everyday event. The modern corporation for example works, when it does, in precisely this way. Corporate officers, when they are empowered and act in the name of the corporation, are the corporation. They 'contain' the corporate system within them both legally and pragmatically. As a collective they are the carriers of purposefulness. If they are constrained, purpose is fixed and the corporate entity withers.
Language itself is a type of corporate institution. All of language both contains and is contained within each of those who use it. Language in this respect is the ultimate system of purposefulness. It adapts continuously to its environment, and through the initiatives of its users, who also contained within it, language continuously explores new purposes. It is the mutual containment of language and members of the language community that Kabbalah models this fundamental existential condition. Scholem emphasises this point as the source of Kabbalah's power, "The mystical idea that each individual soul has its own peculiar way of understanding the Torah..." This conception is not very different from that in the philosophy of the 17th century Gottfried Leibniz or the 20th century Wittgenstein.
The Principle of the Infinite Meaning of the Divine Word
By considering the smallest element of the Torah in the greatest possible phenomenological detail, Kabbalah allows the 'sweeping-in' of multiple perspectives. There is an almost Leibnitzian insistence that each interpreter of the Torah will have a unique understanding of its meaning, a meaning of peculiar import to themselves but also of indirect significance to all others. According to Scholem, "What constitutes the special mythical structure of the Cabalistic complex of symbols is the lack of restriction of the infinitely many aspects under which God can be known…"
In this, it's method anticipates the modern philosophy of communicative rationality in Juergen Habermas, the social theories of Hans Jonas, and the epistemological critiques of Charles Sanders Peirce and Karl-Otto Apel. Put theologically, "The great Name of God in His creative unfolding is Adam." Mankind as a user of language, in other words, is the necessary condition for the manifestation of the divine. Anything which restricts this manifestation is inhibiting creation.
As there is no beginning to interpretation within language, there is no determinate end. Interpretation proliferates interpretations. All interpretations are possible but none are definitive. There is an ideal which in theory incorporates all previous interpretations but the content of this ideal is unknown. It's existence however is attested by the presence of recognised errors in current or past interpretations, usually in the form of approximations which are no longer precise enough for the purposes being pursued.
This third principle therefore is complementary to and essential for the operation of the second principle. It is the mechanism through which language users influence the language system as a whole. By telling stories, language users modify the relations among both words and other users. They create new meanings which provoke new purposes.
In sum, Kabbalah is an exercise in reconciliation and of disconcertion. The first because it attempts to bridge the differences in expressed belief, not just among Jews but also among all those inquiring about the significance of life. The second because it relativises all language that touches on the divine, that is, on ultimate purpose. It both reconciles and disconcerts not through argument but through suggestion, one might say 'hypothesis', if that term didn't carry so much rationalistic baggage. Perhaps 'guess' would be a less emotive term.
This process of reconciliation and disconcertion is captured in Scholem's reference to the 16th century Kabbalist, Isaac Luria, "Luria’s new myth is concentrated in three great symbols, the tsimtsum, or self-limitation, of God, the Shevirah, or breaking of the vessels, and the tikkum, or harmonious correction and mending of the flaw which came into the world through the shevira"
This process goes on continuously in every particle of creation, and notably in every story, sentence, phrase, word, and letter of language. We cannot escape it. We can only observe ourselves in it with a certain degree of awe.
October 2, 2017
"On the Kabbalah and it Symbolism" would be of absolutely l no help to anyone wishing to practice Kabbalah. It is essentially a hostile work that explains the context in which Kabbalism emerged and analyzes the major Kabbalist doctrines in relation to Rabbinic Judaism.
Scholem begins by branding Kabbalism as mystic; that is to say founded on the teachings of a "man who has been favoured with an immediate and to him real, experience of the divine, of ultimate reality, or who at least strives to attain such an experience." (p.5) In the view of Scholem, all mystics have the intention of strengthening the religious tradition that they belong to but often seriously undermine it . As an example of a mystic, he cites St. Paul who lived and died considering himself to be a faithful Jew but founded a religion opposed to Judaism
Scholem's contention is that true Judaism does not accept the notion that God communicates to the believer through symbols. Rather God has revealed himself through the Torah. He can be understood through the process of studying the texts of the Torah and posing questions to a Rabbi.
Scholem is a rigorous defender of the Rabbinism and Talmudic study. He argues that Judaism is historical rather than mythic as the term would be used by Joseph Campbell or Mircea Eliade. By this Scholem means that Judaism is not based on a founding myth which the followers must constantly relive through ritual. The prime problem with the Kabbalists was that they attempt to add mythical and magical elements to Judaism.
At the root of the problem was a scheme of interpreting the Torah proposed by Moses de Leon having four levels:
-1- Peshat - the literal level
-2- Remez - the allegorical level
-3- Derasja - the Talmudic level
-4- Sod - the mystical level
Scholem notes that the Kabbalist framework is very similar to that of the Catholic Bede who presented a fourfold scheme of reading scripture: (1) historical, (2) allegorical, (3) tropological and (4)anagogical. Scholem could also have noted that the Kabbalist four level framework is similar to that of Lectio Divinio: (1) reading or lectio, (2) meditation or meditatio, (3) prayer or oratio; and (4) contemplation or (contemplatio). Lectio Divinio was developed in late antiquity by St. Augusitine, St. Benedict and St. Ambrose and then revitalized in the Middle Ages by St. Bernard. Scholem's case that the Kabbalists were aping Catholicism appears to have merit.
Scholem considers the Kabbalist practice of letter permutations to be magical. His conclusion is that Kabbalah represented a return to the primitive Judaism that existed prior to Rabbinic Judaism.
Although Scholem is convinced of the good faith of the medieval Kabbalists he can find little to say in their defense. He expresses the opinion that Maimonides(under the influence of the muslim philosopher Averroes had made Judaism too rational in an Aristotelian-Islamic manner. Thus some sort of opposing less rational movement was inevitable. He also notes states that the flowering of Kabbalism may have occurred in reaction to the trauma caused by the expulsion from Spain. Essentially, however, Scholem is very critical of Kabbalism and feels that it is in conflict with real or Rabbinic Judaism. What is clear is that Scholem has written a deeply researched book and presents his arguments in very forceful terms.
Scholem begins by branding Kabbalism as mystic; that is to say founded on the teachings of a "man who has been favoured with an immediate and to him real, experience of the divine, of ultimate reality, or who at least strives to attain such an experience." (p.5) In the view of Scholem, all mystics have the intention of strengthening the religious tradition that they belong to but often seriously undermine it . As an example of a mystic, he cites St. Paul who lived and died considering himself to be a faithful Jew but founded a religion opposed to Judaism
Scholem's contention is that true Judaism does not accept the notion that God communicates to the believer through symbols. Rather God has revealed himself through the Torah. He can be understood through the process of studying the texts of the Torah and posing questions to a Rabbi.
Scholem is a rigorous defender of the Rabbinism and Talmudic study. He argues that Judaism is historical rather than mythic as the term would be used by Joseph Campbell or Mircea Eliade. By this Scholem means that Judaism is not based on a founding myth which the followers must constantly relive through ritual. The prime problem with the Kabbalists was that they attempt to add mythical and magical elements to Judaism.
At the root of the problem was a scheme of interpreting the Torah proposed by Moses de Leon having four levels:
-1- Peshat - the literal level
-2- Remez - the allegorical level
-3- Derasja - the Talmudic level
-4- Sod - the mystical level
Scholem notes that the Kabbalist framework is very similar to that of the Catholic Bede who presented a fourfold scheme of reading scripture: (1) historical, (2) allegorical, (3) tropological and (4)anagogical. Scholem could also have noted that the Kabbalist four level framework is similar to that of Lectio Divinio: (1) reading or lectio, (2) meditation or meditatio, (3) prayer or oratio; and (4) contemplation or (contemplatio). Lectio Divinio was developed in late antiquity by St. Augusitine, St. Benedict and St. Ambrose and then revitalized in the Middle Ages by St. Bernard. Scholem's case that the Kabbalists were aping Catholicism appears to have merit.
Scholem considers the Kabbalist practice of letter permutations to be magical. His conclusion is that Kabbalah represented a return to the primitive Judaism that existed prior to Rabbinic Judaism.
Although Scholem is convinced of the good faith of the medieval Kabbalists he can find little to say in their defense. He expresses the opinion that Maimonides(under the influence of the muslim philosopher Averroes had made Judaism too rational in an Aristotelian-Islamic manner. Thus some sort of opposing less rational movement was inevitable. He also notes states that the flowering of Kabbalism may have occurred in reaction to the trauma caused by the expulsion from Spain. Essentially, however, Scholem is very critical of Kabbalism and feels that it is in conflict with real or Rabbinic Judaism. What is clear is that Scholem has written a deeply researched book and presents his arguments in very forceful terms.
March 5, 2017
Gershom Sholem work is admirable , he is able to introduce very complex concepts , in a clear and synthetic way. More over his rational analysis of such an esoteric topic gives a solid overview and interesting plot of view.
Recommended to anyone who is curious about mysticism as a whole and Jewish mysticism in particular.
His other book " major trends .." Would be a better first read on this topic though .
Recommended to anyone who is curious about mysticism as a whole and Jewish mysticism in particular.
His other book " major trends .." Would be a better first read on this topic though .
October 23, 2012
My first introduction to the Kabbalah was most likely in Jorge Luis Borges' fictions. Long before i learned of the importance of the great Argentine, he was just this writer of strange paradoxical tales that i happened to stumble across (in an issue of the Antioch Review, as I recall) while still only a teen. Then one of my college profs assigned Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism for a class. So, being somewhat familiar with Scholem, I picked this up used a few years ago, and it sat, partially read, on my bookshelf until now. A combination of a desire to reduce my unread bookshelf, together with a recent rereading of Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow (which makes frequent use of Kabbalistic imagery) inspired me to finally finish this.
My interest in Kabbalah is not religious. But I am fascinated by its symbolism and the uses to which it has been put in modern fiction and psychology. The way Kabbalah treats the written word (specifically, the Torah) as holy also opens up new ways in which a reader can relate to any text. Whether one is primarily interested in the subject or not, the great depth and breadth of Scholem's erudition and his mastery of the primary sources is an exemplar for anyone who wrestles with the meaning of the written word.
My interest in Kabbalah is not religious. But I am fascinated by its symbolism and the uses to which it has been put in modern fiction and psychology. The way Kabbalah treats the written word (specifically, the Torah) as holy also opens up new ways in which a reader can relate to any text. Whether one is primarily interested in the subject or not, the great depth and breadth of Scholem's erudition and his mastery of the primary sources is an exemplar for anyone who wrestles with the meaning of the written word.
April 18, 2016
It's a great book but too much for most people; however, I do recommend Chapter One: Religious Authority and Mysticism for any person serious about their faith and practice.
October 22, 2016
Quite simply a wonderful, thought-provoking read. Five essays on the history, symbols, myth and ritual of the Kabbalah. The kick-ass, mystical, Sephirotic medieval kind, not the bits-of-red-thread Madonna kind. You'll never look at the Western mystery tradition in quite the same way again.
October 24, 2020
Essential reading for anyone interested in Kabbalah and Jewish mysticism. As in so many of his books, Scholem writes with exhaustive scholarly authority and occasional lyric beauty to illuminate the history of foundational religious texts.
April 2, 2025
״מקור בראשית של הרע הוא יסוד באלוהות עצמה המתנגד לבריאה - יסוד זה שואף לעכב את השלמת תיקונה ועיצוב צורתה לא מפני שהוא רע, אלא דווקא מתוך רצונו שלא ימצא דבר מחוץ לאין סוף ״עצמו.
…
לפי הבעשט הצדיק הוא אינו אישיות מבודדת , תפקידו להילחם
ברע ולצאת למלחמה.
העומד באין שלא רוצה דבר עבור עצמו ואין לו דבר משל עצמו הופך לכלי קיבול,לאמצעי ולצינור שלתוכו זורם שפע האלוהות
הצדיק נפגש ברע בדרך נפילתו והוא משנה אותו על ידי שהוא קולט וחודר אותו בהתבוננותו
״הירידה ודאי והעליה ספק״
ממש לא רציתי שיסתיים
…
לפי הבעשט הצדיק הוא אינו אישיות מבודדת , תפקידו להילחם
ברע ולצאת למלחמה.
העומד באין שלא רוצה דבר עבור עצמו ואין לו דבר משל עצמו הופך לכלי קיבול,לאמצעי ולצינור שלתוכו זורם שפע האלוהות
הצדיק נפגש ברע בדרך נפילתו והוא משנה אותו על ידי שהוא קולט וחודר אותו בהתבוננותו
״הירידה ודאי והעליה ספק״
ממש לא רציתי שיסתיים
September 12, 2021
Libro interessantissimo in cui ogni pagina è pregna di significato.
July 7, 2017
I will need to re-read it, this was an eye opening introduction into the world of a Kabbalah mystic.
September 18, 2022
quite dense and inscrutable in places, one of those books that you curse and struggle against until it opens up for ten pages or so and those ten pages are really fascinating. some very intuitive yet mind bending concepts with amazing parallels to other religions and mystical thought. you definitely need a solid foundation in jewish history and theology to get the most out of this though, which i only sort of have. the received wisdom that this is a good book for beginners/people curious about jewish mysticism is absolutely wrong, or maybe it was true in the 1940s when people had higher standards. left more confused than when i started but with some interesting threads to pull on.
July 20, 2022
This is an astonishing book. Although densely packed with information, Scholem manages to make the book accessible to beginners while still (from what I can gather) advancing the field.
It really puts into perspective the modern trend of taking a very simple idea and expanding it to publish a 300-page book. The first chapter alone ("Religious authority and mysticism") spans 25 pages in my edition and is more insightful than most modern non-fiction.
It really puts into perspective the modern trend of taking a very simple idea and expanding it to publish a 300-page book. The first chapter alone ("Religious authority and mysticism") spans 25 pages in my edition and is more insightful than most modern non-fiction.
January 12, 2017
As a beginner, I thought the material was approachable, steeped in history without being too much, and well-researched. The writer's mannerisms--funny expressions and reactions read with almost an accent--were amusingly charming, if not a bit heavy-handed, but a good read overall. It could have used a little less repetition. And it's not an absolute beginner's introduction to the Kabbalah.
November 26, 2022
Livro muito bom para conhecer a história da Cabala Judaica. As referências, passagens/parábolas e contextualizações que o autor traz são bem ricas e profundas. O último capítulo, sobre o Golem, é legal para conhecer sobre o tema, mas é bastante arrastado.
January 18, 2008
Essential reading on the Kabbalah and Jewish mysticism.
August 1, 2023
B/B+
I enjoyed this a fair amount. I did find some parts to be a bit impenetrable and hard to understand; I didn’t really retain much from one or two of the chapters. There’s a lot of footnotes that didn’t seem to add much to the knowledge the book was attempting to impart as well.
But overall I enjoyed it, found it useful, and am glad I read it. The discussion of golems was especially edifying and interesting.
I enjoyed this a fair amount. I did find some parts to be a bit impenetrable and hard to understand; I didn’t really retain much from one or two of the chapters. There’s a lot of footnotes that didn’t seem to add much to the knowledge the book was attempting to impart as well.
But overall I enjoyed it, found it useful, and am glad I read it. The discussion of golems was especially edifying and interesting.
July 8, 2017
Gershom Scholem knows his subject, and he knows his readers (who quite likely DON'T know his subject). Defying the inscrutable, insufferable popular image of academic Kabbalah, Scholem rightly focuses on the human struggles between conservative established religion and revolutionary mysticism. An accessible and excellent introduction to a much abused field.
July 25, 2025
A clear and precise explication of Jewish mysticism which seeks to both tell us HOW and WHY Kabbalah is unique while also showing, with great generosity of spirit, that the ultimate goals of such spiritual praxis are found in Boheme and Julian of Norwich and many others.
June 4, 2021
Very interesting, but I don't have the time. Stopped at page 207 (187 is the start of the chapter).
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April 8, 2025Imposible entender los 5 primeros estudios sin tener una mínima idea de la materia.
El último ensayo, crema.
El último ensayo, crema.
May 18, 2025
Has been a v useful resource in my attempt to make sense of Benjamin. Cool!
March 4, 2020
Rilettura
April 16, 2017
Un clásico en su género, aunque sólo para aquellos verdaderamente interesados en esta temática. Especialmente recomendable es el capítulo sobre el desarrollo de la historia del Golem.
July 10, 2017
AAHHHHH so many words which I think I understood!
there are still alot of questions on my mind after reading this, and I feel like I will find the answers in scholem's other books
Mystics are weird, kabbalists, however, impact me more closely than some hindu ascetic, because I find thier influences from time to time when I interact with religious people, and it is always interesting.
there are still alot of questions on my mind after reading this, and I feel like I will find the answers in scholem's other books
Mystics are weird, kabbalists, however, impact me more closely than some hindu ascetic, because I find thier influences from time to time when I interact with religious people, and it is always interesting.
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