Rabbinization and the Making of Early Jewish Mysticism

Hekhalot literature testifies to the heterogeneous nature of Jewish religious practice and authority at and across the boundaries of rabbinic Judaism. Yet, Hekhalot and rabbinic literatures do not reflect clear-cut social, cultural, and institutional divisions within Jewish society, nor are they complementary facets of a single, coherent religious system. Both of these options oversimplify the complex relationship between these rapidly evolving sites of Jewish literary culture. Rather, Hekhalot literature and the social groups that produced it were subject to the same institutional, technological, linguistic, and demographic transformations that reshaped Jewish society and culture more broadly toward the end of Late Antiquity (500–800 C.E.). The relationship between Hekhalot and rabbinic literatures can thus shed light on the dialectical process by which rabbinic authority was gradually extended into new areas of Jewish life, while itself being transformed in the process.