Search results for ""Author Joseph Dan""

The main point delivered by this book is that Jews living in Germany during the Middle Ages developped a dynamic and variegated culture which should be recognized as a constituent of European and German medieval religiosity. The esoterics, mystics and pietists who produced works like those analyzed in this volume derived their inspiration from the traditional Jewish texts, but were also part of the world they lived in, despite the seclusions enforced by the religious prejudices of the time. The esoterical-mystical phenomena described were to a very large extent an original development in central-European Jewry, and constitute one of their most important contributions to Jewish culture as a whole. In some cases, a spiritual atmosphere reminiscent of early Protestant sects, which were to appear in the same regions three centuries later, can be discerned. Some of these texts influenced the Christian kabbalists of the sixteenth century, like Johannes Reuchlin and others. This is a major spiritual phenomenon which has been completely neglected until now, and it is hoped that this volume will contribute to a new appreciation of this aspect of European creativity in the Middle Ages.

Read more less

Interest in Jewish mysticism is, in our generation, widespread and growing. From Hebrew schools to Hollywood, people of all backgrounds and levels of knowledge are pursuing the subject. Books, magazines, journals, and classes are rapidly growing in number. One result of this burst of interest and popularization of Jewish mysticism is the problem of misinformation. The need for reliable source material has become crucial. This four-volume work by Professor Joseph Dan is a monumental event in the publishing history of English-language reference books on the subject of Jewish mystical thought and practice. Professor Dan's credentials are of the highest order. The recipient of the Israel Prize (considered to be Israel's highest honor), Joseph Dan is the Gershom Scholem Professor of Kabbalah at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and continues to be a visiting professor at some of the most prestigious institutions of higher learning in the world.

Read more less

Joseph Dan, the Gershom Scholem Professor of Kabbalah Emeritus at the Hebrew University and long-time Professor of Jewish Studies at the Freie Universität Berlin, is one of the most influential figures in the fields of Jewish mystical thought, homiletical and ethical literature, modern Messianism and Hasidism, and contemporary 'belles-lettres'. His studies of the diverse aspects of Jewish creativity, with close attention to the dialectics of religious-cultural continuity versus historical innovation, provide a comprehensive overview of the complex history of Jewish thought and its multiple creative faces. It is precisely for this reason, to honor Joseph Dan's multifaceted research, that his many colleagues, students, and friends, scattered among universities around the world, have decided to focus their contributions in this Festschrift on the continuing process of creation and re-creation in Jewish thought throughout the centuries. Contributors: Philip Alexander, Dan Ben-Amos, Peter Schäfer, Margarete Schlüter, Bernard McGinn, Klaus Herrmann, Herbert Davidson, Annelies Kuyt, Haym Soloveitchik, Eli Yassif, Gerold Necker, Marc Saperstein, Giuseppe Veltri, Aviezer Ravitzky, Avinoam Rosenak, Kimmy Caplan, Saverio Campanini, Eric Jacobson, Yair Zakovitch, Rachel Elior, David Weiss Halivni, Avigdor Shinan, Avraham Grossman, Giulio Busi, Moshe Hallamish, Chava Turniansky, Jacob Elbaum, Hagit Matras, Joseph Hacker, Raya Haran, Arnold J. Band, Hamutal Bar Yosef, Miri Kubovy, Naama ben Shahar.

Read more less

"Blessed and exalted is God, glorious in power. He is one, united in all His powers as the flame is united in its colors. The powers which emanate from his unicity are like the light of the eye which springs forth from the pupil." Sefer ha-lyyun Early Kabbalah, The edited and introduced by Joseph Dan texts translated by Ronald C. Kiener preface by Moshe Idel In the late twelfth century, at the height of the Middle Ages that saw the flowering of the mystical element in Christendom, the Rabbinic Judaism of southern Europe was transformed by the eruption of new, Gnostic attitudes and symbolism. This new movement, known as Kabbalah (literally the 'Tradition'), was characterized by the symbol of the ten sefirot. By means of the sefirotic imagery, virtually the whole of everyday life was linked to the cosmic dimension in a novel and highly original fashion that stressed the dynamic, evolutionary element of the Godhead and the synergistic relationship between the human will and the action of God on earth. During a century of creativity, a detailed system of symbols and concepts was created by the author of the Sefer ha-Bahir, the Kabbalists of Provence, the Iyyun circle, and the mystics of Provence and Castile that set the stage for the great Kabbalists of the Zohar generation. †

Read more less

Undoubtedly one of the most fascinating areas of Judaic research, Jewish manuscripts, has experienced a remarkable renaissance. What the field has largely lacked, however, is professional publications to bring together researchers who, albeit in different specialist areas (history, philosophy, Kabbalah, bibliography, art history, comparative manuscript studies, paleography and codicology), all deal variously with Hebrew manuscripts. This desideratum of Judaic scholarship appears all the more reasonable when we look at the situation of the classical philologies which have a long tradition of specialist publications devoted exclusively to the study of Latin and Greek manuscripts.The authors of the collected eight articles show the perspectives and the possibilities of such a discourse based on Jewish manuscripts within Judaic Studies; moreover numerous tie-ins with disciplines relating to general Medieval and early modern history and culture can be developed.

Read more less