The Messianic Idea in Judaism And Other Essays on Jewish Spirituality

by SCHOLEM, GERSHOM

• ISBN13: 9780805210439
• ISBN10: 0805210431
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1995-05-10
• Publisher: Schocken

Summary

Gershom Scholem earned international renown as a brilliant interpreter of esoteric religious texts as well as a trenchant contributor to many of the central intellectual debates of his day. At a time when apocalyptic impulses are intensifying with the approach of a millennial moment in the Christian calendar, we can only welcome Scholem's soberly presented and scrupulously researched account of their Jewish counterpart.

Author Biography

Gershom Scholem was a professor of Jewish mysticism at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem until his death in 1982. Among his most important works are Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, The Messianic Idea in Judaism, On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism, On the Mystical Shape of the Godhead, and editor of Zohar, the Book of Splendor: Basic Readings from the Kabbalah.

Table of Contents

Foreword
Preface
Toward an Understanding of the Messianic Idea in Judaism	p. 1
The Messianic Idea in Kabbalism	p. 37
The Crisis of Tradition in Jewish Messianism	p. 49
Redemption Through Sin	p. 78
The Crypto-Jewish Sect of the Donmeh (Sabbatians) in Turkey	p. 142
A Sabbatian Will from New York	p. 167
The Neutralization of the Messianic Element in Early Hasidism	p. 176
Devekut, or Communion with God	p. 203
Martin Buber's Interpretation of Hasidism	p. 228
The Tradition of the Thirty-Six Hidden Just Men	p. 251
The Star of David: History of a Symbol	p. 257
Revelation and Tradition as Religious Categories in Judaism	p. 282
The Science of Judaism - Then and Now	p. 304
At the Completion of Buber's Translation of the Bible	p. 314
On the 1930 Edition of Rosenzweig's Star of Redemption	p. 320
The Politics of Mysticism: Isaac Breuer's New Kuzari	p. 325
The Golem of Prague and the Golem of Rehovot	p. 335
Notes	p. 341
Sources and Acknowledgments	p. 365
Index	p. 367
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