Die Kabbala oder die geheimen Wege des Denkens - Einzelansicht

This advanced seminar provides an overview of the complex development history of kabbalistic teachings, and focuses on hermeneutical questions and methodological proceedings for the understanding of some of the major works of Jewish esoteric writings.

The word ”kabbalah” commonly refers to the whole of the esoteric doctrines of Judaism as well as Jewish mysticism as a whole.

This advanced seminar provides an overview of the extremly complex development history of these teachings, oral and written. After the work of Gershom Scholem, a turning point in scholarship, and the contributions of Moshe Idel and others, many manuscripts have been recently edited and made accessible, and many others are still awaiting publication and the attention of emergent scholars in this field of research. The historical overview will serve us here merely as an introduction to the methods of thinking and biblical exegesis we are usually not accustomed to, outlining the important impact these writings have had within the Jewish as well as the non-Jewish world from the medieval and Renaissance time period, to more contemporary thoughts in literature and philosophy.

The main focus of this advanced seminar is thus not primarily historical, but hermeneutical. Tailored for advanced students in theology (Jewish and non-Jewish) and philosophy, presuming the familiarity students have previously gained with key questions of biblical or philosophical hermeneutics, ideally of both, this seminar will centre around the tools necessary for understanding the kabbalistic texts from within. It will present methods of reading allowing a gradual access to the very content, i.e. to thoughts and the unusual forms in kabbalistic writings of proceeding with arguments. From the linguistic/conceptual landscape and methodological progress within the texts, we are to learn how to connect themes apparently scatered throughout various chapters of the same work, or how to recognize the logical flow as well as the, often misrecognized or underestimated, mind-openness and intellectual achievements of these esoteric undertakings.

Primary literature:  

text excerpts (from Abulafia, Cordovero, the Sefer Yetsira and its medieval commentaries from a recently discovered manuscript, the Zohar, and hassidic authors) will be handed out in class.

Many primary sources we will be using, are available on sefaria.org, with and without translation.

 Secondary literature, for initial orientation:

Geshom Scholem, Origins of the Kabbalah, (German: Ursprung und Anfänge der Kabbala, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 1962), Princeton University Press, 1987

--------------------, Das Buch Bahir, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt, 1970

Moshe Idel, Kabbalah - New Perspectives, Yale University Press, 1988

Arthur Green, A Guide to the Zohar, Stanford University Press, 2004

Charles Mopsik, Cabale et Cabalistes, Albin Michel, Paris, 2003

-----------------, Chemins de la Cabale, éditions de l’éclat, Paris-Tel Aviv, 2004

-----------------, Les grands textes de la cabale, Verdier, Paris 1993

completed bachelor studies in one of the related subjects.

Hausarbeit (written essay) 4.500-6.000 Wörter (words).

major works of kabbalistic literature, its hermeneutics and development history.