The Mystical Element in Judaism

The Mystical Element in Judaism

"The Mystical Element in Judaism," is Abraham Joshua Heschelâ€™s alternative to Gershom Scholemâ€™s thesis of Kabbalah as significantly a gnostic phenomenon. Scholemâ€™s "Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism" was published in New York in 1941; Heschelâ€™s essay was completed four years later, albeit published in 1949. Heschel finished his essay at the age of 38. Scholem delivered the lecture behind his essay in 1938 at the age of 41. In 1944, Heschel reviewed Scholemâ€™s book in "The Journal of Religion" and then wrote in "Al Ruach HaQodesh Bimei Beinayim," that "they still have not evaluated properly the place of mystical experience in Jewish life." In the first week of 1945, Heschel lectured at YIVO in Yiddish on "The East European Era in Jewish History" which became the basis of "The Earth Is the Lordâ€™s", finished in 1948. His discussion of Kabbalah there, minus the quotations, is from "The Mystical Element in Judaism." Thus already in 1944 Heschel was involved in revising Scholemâ€™s thesis as attested to by his essays on medieval religious experience and "The Mystical Element in Judaism," all composed in the 1940â€™s.

Recent research has vindicated Heschelâ€™s focus on the dynamics of the religious life and on the foundations of Kabbalistic thought in classical Jewish thinking. The change that Heschel initiated in assessing Kabbalahâ€™s intellectual roots is part of a trend in recent scholarship highlighting continuities over discontinuities. The perception of discontinuities in historical research is frequently due to the lack of data. As data grows so grows the perception of continuities. In Heschelâ€™s case, however, it was not so much the discovery of new data as the reconceptualizing of old data that made him the trendsetter in disclosing the links between the Biblical and the Rabbinic, the Rabbinic and the Kabbalistic, the Kabbalistic and the Hasidic.

See also - Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism, and Talmudic Tradition by Gershom G. Scholem (Paperback) - http://amzn.to/1c67KbP
Country USA
Manufacturer Varda Books
Binding Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate 2013-12-25
Format Kindle eBook

Country	USA
Manufacturer	Varda Books
Binding	Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate	2013-12-25
Format	Kindle eBook

The Mystical Element in Judaism

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