The Many Faces of Kabbalah

THE MANY FACES OF KABBALAH Elliot K. Ginsburg University ofMichigan A review of Kabbalah: New Perspectives. By Moshe Idel, Yale University Press: New Haven, 1988. [Hebrewedition: :lP'I0~' .0'''''"o'I!l:J'n :n':Jp , "mn ,0''''''''] I. INTRODUCTION Along with such scholars as Yehuda Liebes and Elliot Wolfson, Professor Moshe Idel of the Hebrew University has helped reconfigure the field of Jewish mysticism. Indeed, a person who returned to the scholarly study of kabbalah after a twenty year hiatus would barely recognize the field. Where once Gershom Scholem loomed magisterially over the terrain, the reader now confronts a profusion of skilled authors and a growing corpus of published primary and secondary sources. Enriching (some would say, complicating) matters further, is the fluid nature of the field. Over recent years a debate has been taking shape over the nature of Jewish mysticism, the sources worthy of careful study, the respective merits of historical versus phenomenological inquiry and, digging even deeper, the very nature of Judaism. No single work has been more central to that debate-has been richer, more provocative, or more hotly contested-than ldeI's Kabbalah,! 1Critical reviews have been writlcn by the likes ofJoseph Dan, Isaiah Tishby zOl, Rivka Schatz z"l, andC ':""" O'm m"'D-Robert Alter. (The first three seem to have been motivated, at least in pan, by unfortunate ad hominem concerns.) Glowing reviews have been written by Arthur Green and Moshe Halbenal, while Elliot Wolfson, Ronald Kiener, Lawrence Fine, Yehuda Liebes, Bernard McGind, and llamar Grucnwald (10 name but a few) have all made a stirring case that the book is a landmark swdy. Perhaps the most significant analysis of Idel's work has been Hava Tirosh·Rothschild's essay in AJS Review 16 (1991) pp. 1-2, which contains a fine summary of the book's arguments, while underscoring its methodological shortcomings and inconsistencies. Tirosh-Rothsehild, e.g., critiques Idel's eclectic, pragmatic approach-his tendency 10 employ a potpourri of methods rather than articulate a theoretical stance, his penchant for offering working hypotheses rather than well·articulated proofs, his failure 10 situate or position himself intellectually (e.g., as a Romanian-born Zionist intellectual, drawn-like so many of his compalriots-IO French thought). Perhaps because she focuses on structural concerns, TiroshRothschild soft-pedals some of the episodic contributions of Idel's book-those singular, stunning moments where a world is revealed in a grain of sand. I hope to show why this book matters-even with its flaws-and to focus attention on several methodological issues that have not received adequate serutiny, e.g., Idcl's tendency to blur the distinction between symbol and metaphor. Finally, I offer some reflections on the recent Hebrew edition orIdel's book. Hebrew Studies 36 (1995) 112 Review Essays Kabbalah: New Perspectives is quite simply the most important and ambitious study of Jewish mysticism to emerge in recent decades. It is a rival to Scholem's Major Trends in importance, scope, and intellectual daring even as it falls short of Major Trends' expressive power and depth of analysis. Still, Iders book meets Kafka's measure for a book of genuine worth: it serves as an axe to cleave open the frozen sea. Kabbalah: New Perspectives gives us a new way to assimilate, order, and grapple with Jewish mysticism; it renders fluid that which had seemed solid; it gives us a new way to "see:' It is, almost by design, an uneven book: interleaving longish chapters with capsule discussions, juxtaposing arguments that are lavishly illustrated and virtually incontrovertable (the existence of unio mystica as a key motif in Jewish mysticism) with speculations (concerning the existence of a rabbinic theosophy, for example2) that are rather thinly supported, more possible than probable.3 In virtually all instances, however , it rewards close reading. It is studded with fascinating primary texts, startling and often convincing juxtapositions (the fruit of Idel's unrivaled mastery of the most arcane reaches of the literature), provocative hypotheses , methodological asides, and deep insights into mystical interpretation and practice. Each page offers something worth pondering. Kabbalah: New Perspectives is a work of grand synthesis, based on tens of tightly focused studies published in...