Description
Book SynopsisWhether extroversive, introversive or some further hybrid, the process of the soul touching the fullness of its divine origins is itself undergoing transformation in the contemporary twenty-first century cultural matrices of Israel. Touching but not touching, or Touching God, what the mystics call mati v’lo mati, occurs throughout mystical poetics surrounding the unitive experience otherwise known as devekut. Rather than sketch out theological datum of the poetry at hand, this study seeks to explore the reality of devotional experience behind the poetic record and its correlations with contemporary Hasidic literature being written in Israel.
From this collection of annotated translations, poetry returns to its conversation with pathways in thinking throughout Continental philosophy, revealing lost pathways of a vibrant Judaism. Selections include the devotional poetry of: Schulamith Hava HaLevi; Haya Esther; Haviva Pedaya; Zelda Schneerson Mishkovsky; Yonadav Kaplun; Haya Esther; Tamar Elad-Appelbaum; Agi Mishol; Admiel Kosman; and Binyamin Shevili.
Trade Review“Aubrey Glazer is a relentless spiritual seeker whose scholarship conveys a deep search for concealed links, surprising facts, unconventional interpretations and new perspectives, awake at all time for traces of the divine. In this book he explores contemporary Israeli culture, mostly poetry, reading into the Israeli experience as a poetic spiritual text.”—Dr. Melila Hellner-Eshed, Shalom Hartman Institute|"In an original post-modern voice, Aubrey Glazer captures the mystical yearnings that pulse within contemporary Israeli poetry. Glazer reveals the longing for devekut and intimate transcendence that shines through and reimagines this new lyric landscape, both absorbing and re-visioning the older mystical tradition." —Eitan Fishbane, The Jewish Theological Seminary|"A fascinating exploration of the intersection of Jewish mysticism and contemporary Israeli poetry. In reading this challenging book, one is compelled to question the familiar distinctions between religious and secular, traditional and radical, ethereal and earthly. Highly original, erudite, and provocative."—Daniel C. Matt author of the multi-volume annotated translation of the Zohar (The Zohar: Pritzker Edition)
