Description
Book SynopsisExplores the history and meanings of ilanot, diagrammatic representations of the Divine as a Porphyrian tree in Jewish mysticism and kabbalistic manuscripts.
Trade Review“A monumental achievement that will be valuable to scholars and general readers interested in Judaism, religion, and art history.”
—starred review Library Journal
“A superb accomplishment.”
—Richard Smoley Quest
“The Kabbalistic Tree is a carefully curated and richly interpreted visual resource.”
—Avinoam J. Stillman Jewish Review of Books
“A feast for the eyes and for the mind, The Kabbalistic Tree should be essential reading for all of us eager to imagine a Judaism for the future.”
—Micha Odenheimer Haaretz
“This beautifully produced work provides an unprecedented study of the pictorial representations of the ten sefirot, divine emanations, as imagined by the Kabbalists over the centuries. . . . This is a thoughtful, learned, and wise study.”
—S. T. Katz Choice
“The outcome of a decennial work by Yossi Chajes and his collaborators, this volume indeed constitutes the first collection and systematic study of a forgotten genre – the ilanot, or kabbalistic “trees” – and can therefore legitimately aspire to become a milestone of research in Jewish studies.”
—Maurizio Mottolese Jewish Matter
“Chajes’s book is bound to become a classic, not just because it is the first and most comprehensive survey of the history and development of kabbalistic trees but also because its attention to detail, both graphic and written, makes it an invaluable tool for further research and discoveries in this often neglected area of Jewish thought.”
—Mordechai Beck The Christian Century
“Chajes has made these trees of ink on parchment and paper sing out loud and clear, redeeming them from obscurity and thus simultaneously enriching the fields of the history of visual aesthetics and the history of Jewish culture.”
—Marc Michael Epstein,author of Skies of Parchment, Seas of Ink: Jewish Illuminated Manuscripts
“J. H. Chajes’s spectacular book offers a comprehensive and fascinating study of the diagrammatic visualization of Kabbalistic knowledge. Chajes’s meticulous study of the arboreal Kabbalistic diagrams is an outstanding contribution to the study of Kabbalah, early modern and modern Jewish history, and Jewish visual culture.”
—Boaz Huss,author of Mystifying Kabbalah: Academic Scholarship, National Theology, and New Age Spirituality
“Until this volume there has been no work that endeavours to provide scholars and laypeople with a broad overall and particular description of the ilanot in all of their varieties, twists, and turns. This enterprise is fascinating and truly illuminating, and no one to this day has touched even a fraction of what the book has to offer.”
—Richard I. Cohen,co-author of Samuel Hirszenberg, 1865–1908: A Polish Jewish Artist in Turmoil
“A tour de force! A brilliant analysis of an astonishing object. Dense with texts and drawings, these Kabbalistic scrolls finally receive the scholarly attention they so deserve. In his analysis of these cosmological visualizations, Chajes treats image and text as an inseparable totality. The result is a model for the analysis of ‘iconotexts.’ A richly illustrated work of great erudition and intellectual imagination and a fascinating read.”
—Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett,Chief Curator of the Core Exhibition at POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews
“Late in the Middle Ages—mysteriously, graphically, and in a strikingly abstract, yet concrete fashion—Kabbalistic trees began sprouting from Judaism’s alphabet-saturated ground. J. H. Chajes’s magnificent study takes us for the first time into the history of their emergence and burgeoning, where visual and verbal vectors align, and the ‘double-helix of Kabbalah’ is revealed. This is a path-breaking book, years in the making and thrilling to read.”
—Peter Cole,author of The Poetry of Kabbalah: Mystical Verse from the Jewish Tradition
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements
Abbreviations and Notes to the Reader
Introduction: A First History of a Forgotten Genre
1. The Emergence of the Kabbalistic Tree
2. Classical Ilanot
3. Visualizing Lurianic Kabbalah
4. Ilanot 2.0: The Emergence of the Lurianic Ilan
5. Luria Compounded
6. Ilan Amulets
7. The Printed Ilan
Conclusion
Appendix: Catalogue of the Gross Family Ilanot Collection
Collector’s Afterword, by William Gross
Notes
Bibliography
Index
