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116 SHOFAR Summer 1998 Vol. 16, No.4 morally virtuous and never described as wise (III:22), implying that his error is simply intellectual (III:23). In support of her moral interpretation, Dobbs-Weinstein refers us to Maimonides' interpretation ofthe "sin" ofthe nobles in Exodus 24:11 (Guide 1:5, cf. also II: 19 for a different interpretation that the author does not mention) as "unruly desire for knowledge" (p. 142), which she takes in turn to be a moral failing. But in that passage Maimonides' point may simply be the need for moderation and pedagogical order or restraint rather than the limitations of the intellect per se. And when Maimonides does discuss the dangers of aspiring to know that which lies beyond the power ofthe intellect (Guide 1:31-34), the fault is intellectual perplexity rather than the moral failing of pride or intellectual hubris. Here, I fear, Dobbs-Weinstein reads too much Aquinas into Maimonides. On the other hand, when she discusses Aquinas' interpretation of the figure of Satan, she commits the opposite error, forcing too much Maimonidean naturalism onto Aquinas' "literal" exegesis, thereby ignoring Aquina's' brilliant interpretation ofBehemoth and Leviathan (Job 40-41) as Satan (see, however, her n. 629). In his interpretation of those images, fully consistent with his original conception of a literal commentary, Aquinas succeeds both in solving the classical problem ofJob exegesis-what happens to Satan after the first two chapters?-and in reintroducing (contra Maimonides) a mythic dimension to the philosophical tradition of scriptural exegesis. Although Dobbs-Weinstein shows us, then, how much Maimonides and Aquinas sometimes have in common, for some readers her Maimonides may be too Thomistic and her Aquinas too Maimonidean. Josef Stern Department of Philosophy University of Chicago The Essential Kabbalah: the Heart of Jewish Mysticism, by Daniel C. Matt. San Francisco: Harper, 1996. 221 pp. $12.00 (p). To propose to publish an "Essential" Kabbalah-or Plotinus, or Aquinas-would seem an unflattering project to the subject being distilled. It seems to presume that there is much chaff that may be blown away, leaving the grain of the subject, the essence, for public consumption. It supposes the impatience ofthe question ofthe fabled interlocutor ofRabbis Shammai and Hillel, "Teach it all to me while I'm standing on one foot; do it quickly." But in our day ofsound bites, such distillings of literary and spiritual treasures are needful. This offering of the essence of Kabbalah, prepared by Daniel Matt, fulfills a need. He has previously offered a similar sampling of The Zohar (Paulist Press, 1983), Book Reviews 117 the principal text of Kabbalah, and an edition of David be.n Yehudah he-Hasid's Book ofMirrors (Scholars Press, 1982). It is impossible to write of this without using some of the arcane terminology of Kabbalah. The "Ten Sefrrot" that proceed from "Ein Sof' are reminiscent of neoplatonism's doctrine of emanation. These Ten Sefrrot (from the Hebrew root 'l?V = to count) are the aspects of God's personality revealed to the world in stages of emanation. While it may not be clear to the one unschooled in Kabbalah that these Sefirot are obvious, by a willing suspension of argument, in favor ofsimply listening so as to understand what is not familiar, one can at least sense how these ten may suggest links between things understood and that which is beyond our understanding. These ten stages of the process between the infinite and the finite are presented in this "Essential Kabbalah" both in diagram and verbal outline. A halfcentury ago Abraham Heschel wrote: "The universe, exposed to the violence of our analytical mind, is being broken apart. It is split into the known and unknown, into the seen and unseen. In mystic contemplation all things are seen as one." I have found a growing interest in "cosmology" among older physicist friends of mine, who previously were not particularly religious. This interest in cosmology among thoughtful people whose prior interest was limited to the palpable, or to the effects of physical entities, may be stirred by the kabbalist intuitions regarding the "beyond." Here might be found clues that grab the imagination, intimating links between the seen and the...

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