Kabbalah And Eros

by Moshe Idel

• ISBN13: 9780300108323
• ISBN10: 030010832X
• Format: Trade Book
• Copyright: 2005-08-22
• Publisher: Yale University Press

Summary

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.

Author Biography

MOSHE IDEL is Max Cooper Professor of Jewish Thought, Hebrew University, and senior researcher at the Shalom Hartman Institute, Jerusalem. He is the author of Absorbing Perfections (winner of the Koret Prize for Jewish Thought), Kabbalah, and Messianic Mystics, all published by Yale University Press.

Table of Contents

Introduction	1	(15)
Kabbalah and Some Prekabbalistic Attitudes toward Eros	16	(37)
Du-Partzufin: Interpretations of Androgyneity in Jewish Mysticism	53	(51)
God's Wife and Concubine: Paths of National Myth	104	(49)
Contemplating a Female: From Platonic Eros to Jewish Mysticism	153	(26)
Cosmoeroticism in Jewish Mysticism	179	(23)
Concluding Remarks	202	(45)
Appendix: On the Theurgical Role of the Woman in Sexuality	247	(4)
Notes	251	(72)
Bibliography	323	(22)
Index	345