Explores the influence of Kabbalah in shaping America’s religious identity In 1688, a leading Quaker thinker and activist in what is now New Jersey penned a letter to one of his closest disciples concerning Kabbalah, or what he called the mystical theology of the Jews. Around that same time, one of the leading Puritan ministers developed a messianic theology based in part on the mystical conversion of the Jews. This led to the actual conversion of a Jew in Boston a few decades later, an event that directly produced the first kabbalistic book conceived of and published in America. That book was read by an eventual president of Yale College, who went on to engage in a deep study of Kabbalah that would prod him to involve the likes of Benjamin Franklin, and to give a public oration at Yale in 1781 calling for an infusion of Kabbalah and Jewish thought into the Protestant colleges of America. Kabbalah and the Founding of America traces the influence of Kabbalah on early Christian Americans. It offers a new picture of Jewish-Christian intellectual exchange in pre-Revolutionary America, and illuminates how Kabbalah helped to shape early American religious sensibilities. The volume demonstrates that key figures, including the well-known Puritan ministers Cotton Mather and Increase Mather and Yale University President Ezra Stiles, developed theological ideas that were deeply influenced by Kabbalah. Some of them set out to create a more universal Kabbalah, developing their ideas during a crucial time of national myth building, laying down precedents for developing notions of American exceptionalism. This book illustrates how, through fascinating and often surprising events, this unlikely inter-religious influence helped shape the United States and American identity.

Kabbalah of Creation is a new translation of the early Kabbalah of Rabbi Isaac Luria, founder of the most influential Jewish mystical school of the last 400 years. Living in relative obscurity in Northern Galilee, Luria experienced a powerful epiphany that influenced his lyrical, influential text. Poetically and meditatively described, the range of subjects includes the revelation of the Godhead's light in the world and its relationship to every aspect of the human life cycle, including lovemaking, conception, gestation, birth, and maturation.

This volume brings together leading representatives of the recent debate about the persistence of kabbalah in the modern world. It breaks new ground for a better understanding of the role of kabbalah in modern religious, intellectual, and political discourse.

The Scandal of Kabbalah is the first book about the origins of a culture war that began in early modern Europe and continues to this day: the debate between kabbalists and their critics on the nature of Judaism and the meaning of religious tradition. From its medieval beginnings as an esoteric form of Jewish mysticism, Kabbalah spread throughout the early modern world and became a central feature of Jewish life. Scholars have long studied the revolutionary impact of Kabbalah, but, as Yaacob Dweck argues, they have misunderstood the character and timing of opposition to it. Drawing on a rang.

Sometime, somewhere, someone is searching for answers . . . . . . in a thirteenth-century castle . . . on a train to a concentration camp . . . in a New York city apartment Hidden within the binding of an ancient text that has been passed down through the ages lies the answer to one of the heart’s eternal questions. When the text falls into the hands of Rabbi Kalman Stern, he has no idea that his lonely life of intellectual pursuits is about to change once he opens the book. Soon afterward, he meets astronomer Isabel Benveniste, a woman of science who stirs his soul as no woman has for many years. But Kalman has much to learn before he can unlock his heart and let true love into his life. The key lies in the mysterious document he finds inside the Zohar, the master text of the Kabbalah.

These letters between two great German-speaking writers reflect the turmoil of 20th-century history. Celan and Sachs were united by their shared experience of persecution and exile.

Negative emotions have much to teach us about ourselves and our relationships with others and the world at large. In The Kabbalah of Envy, Rabbi Nilton Bonder draws on the wisdom of the Talmud, Hasidic tales, and Jewish mystical lore in presenting insights into the effects of envy, jealousy, hatred, and anger. He shows that whether we are on the giving or the receiving end of these unpleasant emotions, we can learn to transform them and live peacefully in the spirit of the biblical commandment "Love your neighbor as yourself." Among the topics discussed are: • the consequences of malicious gossip, slander, and insults • cultivating humility as the middle path between pride and lack of self- esteem • learning to rejoice in the happiness and success of others • knowing when it's better not to be nice • the proper way to correct or criticize others • living with ill-will and avoiding fights • forgiveness and reconciliation • turning your enemy into your best friend