Circle in the Square: Studies in the Use of Gender in Kabbalistic Symbolism

by Elliot R. Wolfson

This book deals with aspects of the gender imaging of God in a variety of medieval kabbalistic sources. It provides the key to understanding the phenomenological structures of mystical experience as well as the thematic correlation of esotericism and eroticism that is central to the kabbalah. The author examines the role of gender utilizing current feminist studies and cultural anthropology. He explores the themes of the feminization of the Torah, the correlation of circumcision and vision of God, the phallocentric understanding of divine creation as a process of inscription mythologized as an act of sexual self-gratification, and the phenomenon of gender-crossing in kabbalistic myth and ritual. Collectively, the studies explore in great depth the androcentric phallocentrism that is characteristic of medieval Jewish mysticism.

288 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 1995

Reviews

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[Mariam Rawwas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wolfson convincingly demonstrates the androcentric limitations of Kabbalism's mobilization of gender imagery, especially in that it reifies the association between passivity and femininity on the one hand, and activity and masculinity on the other. The "feminine" becomes subordinated to the moment of passivity as a necessary component of the masculine's path to self-actualization through androgyny which allows an opening and receptivity to the teachings of esotericism. This "auto-eroticism" of the masculine God is matched by that of the male worshipper, but Wolfson argues that this could be subversively read through masculine homoeroticism, and that the feminine must be allowed to exist in its own right.