New book, published in February 2013 by Academic Studies Press, by Aubrey L. Glazer:

Whether 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.

Publisher’s site, Amazon

Bringing to light a hidden chapter in the history of modern Judaism, Shamanic Trance in Modern Kabbalah explores the shamanic dimensions of Jewish mysticism. Jonathan Garb integrates methods and models from the social sciences, comparative religion, and Jewish studies to offer a fresh view of the early modern kabbalists and their social and psychological contexts.

Through close readings of numerous texts—some translated here for the first time—Garb draws a more complete picture of the kabbalists than previous depictions, revealing them to be as concerned with deeper states of consciousness as they were with study and ritual. Garb discovers that they developed physical and mental methods to induce trance states, visions of heavenly mountains, and transformations into animals or bodies of light. To gain a deeper understanding of the kabbalists’ shamanic practices, Garb compares their experiences with those of mystics from other traditions as well as with those recorded by psychologists such as Milton Erickson and Carl Jung. Finally, Garb examines the kabbalists’ relations with the wider Jewish community, uncovering the role of kabbalistic shamanism in the renewal of Jewish tradition as it contended with modernity.

Publisher’s site: University Of Chicago Press

Amazon, Kindle

Noam Zadoff (editor), Gershom Scholem and Joseph Weiss, A Correspondence 1948-1964, Jerusalem : Carmel , 2012

The correspondence between the Hassidism scholar Joseph Weiss (1918-1969) and his teacher Gershom Scholem (1897-1982) touches upon many different subjects. It describes different aspects of the academic life in Israel , England and the USA , and it tells an important chapter in the historiography of the Hassidic movement, in which Weiss played a central role. This book describes the friendship between a teacher and its student and it reveals the complex relationship between them throughout three decades. In a memorial lecture to Weiss held in 1970, one year after his death, Scholem said: “I considered him in many ways the closest of my pupils, and the dialogue between us, a dialogue in the true sense of a term so much abused nowadays, went on for nearly thirty years”. The letters brought in this volume are this dialogue and they reflect a relationship based on friendship and mutual respect between two of the most prominent Jewish intellectuals on the 20th century.

From an announcement on the Ha-Safran email list

I found in Tablet Magazine a note about Peter Cole dropping “a new anthology of poetry in translation today, The Poetry of Kabbalah: Mystical Verse from the Jewish Tradition.” Here is the official description from the appropriate page of Yale University Press:

This groundbreaking collection presents for the first time in English a substantial body of poetry that emerges directly from the sublime and often startling world of Jewish mysticism. Taking up Gershom Scholem’s call to plumb the “tremendous poetic potential” concealed in the Kabbalistic tradition, Peter Cole provides dazzling renderings of work composed on three continents over a period of some fifteen hundred years.

In addition to the translations and the texts in their original languages, Cole supplies a lively and insightful introduction, along with accessible commentaries to the poems. Aminadav Dykman adds an elegant afterword that places the work in the context of world literature. As a whole, the collection brings readers into the fascinating force field of Kabbalistic verse, where the building blocks of both language and existence itself are unveiled.

And some related links:

• Interview with Peter Cole in the Paris Review.
• Author’s reading in Marin County, CA
• Event at Duke University, with really big picture
• Author’s page at Blue Flower Arts

MacWorld posted a description of the application for the iPad, iPod touch, & iPhone that contains Adolph Franck‘s “The Kabbalah or the Religious Philosophy of the Hebrews” from 1926. The three paragraphs don’t say anything about the features of the free application. Instead they asking for reviews in exchange for a chance to win a $50 card to iTunes. The page  contains three screenshots though. The full text of the book has been available online already at sacred-texts.org.

Pinchas Giller‘s third book titled Shalom Shar’abi and the Kabbalists of Beit El came out two years ago as I wrote about it at the time. Today I found that abstracts of each of the nine chapters have been posted on the Oxford scholarship site. You can purchase access to the full text version as well. But for now here are the abstracts:

1. Shar’abi and Beit El
This chapter introduces the spiritual progenitor of the Beit El School, Shalom Shar’abi and presents the highlights of his picaresque career. Shar’abi did not found Beit El, which predated his arrival by some years, but he galvanized the school to the extent that its members considered his interpretation of Kabbalah to be the only acceptable one. This position was adopted more widely in the kabbalistic world and even beyond it, so that many prominent Talmudists of the 19th century also accepted Shar’abi’s hegemony. In the contemporary period, there has been an upsurge of interest in Beit El kabbalah and it is widely recognized as a dominant and authoritative school of Kabbalah.

2. Kavvanah and Kavvanot
The kabbalistic practice of prayer intentions, or kavvanot, derives from the general theological problem of proper intention in observing the laws of Judaism. The experience of kavvanot practice is otherwise hard to quantify and has been the subject of much discussion by scholars. With regards to ethics and the other devotional aspects of religious life, the Beit El kabbalists were largely dependant on earlier sources and produced little of their own. For the Beit El kabbalists, linguistic mysteries served the same purpose as symbolism and mythos in earlier kabbalistic systems. Nonetheless, they retained the traditions of erotic union with the Shekhinah and other hallmarks of classical Kabbalah. The contemporary scholar J. Garb as argued that these processes are techniques to harness sacred power, although the Beit El practice developed past the models presented in Garb’s typologies.

3. The Names of God in the Beit El Kavvanot
Shar’abi’s principal innovation in the development of his prayer intentions was to utilize a particular composition in the Lurianic canon, the “Gate of Names” which recast the entire kabbalistic mythos in terms of the development of sacred names. The actual texts of the Beit El kavvanot consist of sacred names of God to be meditated upon as the adherent’s lips recite the prayer service. The traditions that underlie these sacred names are very ancient and in some respects predate the development of classical Kabbalah. The sacred names encompass a number of traditions: numerical coefficients, rewriting, substitution, and other linguistic strategies. Names are thought to represent aspects of the sefirotic mythos. Ultimately, the effect of the name traditions is to engender a kind of obscurantism, in which the technical construction and contemplation of the names overwhelms any other possibilities for noetic experience.

4. Kabbalists in the Community
The Beit El circles, from their inception to the present, have seen themselves as practicing the most essential and avant-garde form of Judaism. To this end, the Beit El tradition developed specific models of behavior for its adepts. The contemporary Jerusalem kabbalist Ya’akov Moshe Hillel has presented a revamped set of rules for the aspiring acolyte. There is an inherent tension in the role of the kabbalist in the community, as Beit El acolytes are drawn from an economic and social cross section of the Israeli religious community. In urban areas, the kabbalists live as mendicant pietists supported by the largesse of the public. Hillel also is compelled to resolve the role of the Yeshivah in the milieu of ultra-orthodox Jerusalem, particularly the relationship to Talmud study, which is an article of power in the economic life of that community. Insofar as the kavvanot practice of Beit El is the apex of prayer, the kabbalists also have an ambivalent relationship to exoteric prayer.

5. Beit El Practice
Beit El thought and practice eschews “classical” Jewish mysticism in favor of a worldview entirely based on Lurianic Kabbalah. In some cases, Beit El kabbalists are at a loss when non-Lurianic practices do enter their culture. One exception to this rule is the ongoing reference to the vicissitudes of the Shekhinah. Otherwise, Beit El is distinguished by their specific doctrines attached cycles of time, such as the atonement cycle. The Beit El kabbalists practiced flagellation and other mortifications, assuming a special responsibility for the fate of the people Israel. These rites of self-mortification reflect an ancient pietistic suspicion of the efficacy of Halakhah. Another time-based practice was the observance of the Sabbatical year, which was the object of much controversy in Beit El, and the counting of the Omer. The Beit El kabbalist are notable for their practice wearing double sets of phylacteries as an act of piety, and practice the rite of ascent through the four worlds of existence during their morning prayers.

6. Shar’abi’s School
The Beit El “school” consists of a particular lineage of sages, drawn from the Jews of the Orient, from Jerusalem to Aleppo and thence to Baghdad, with contributions from the “sages of Tunis.” Acolytes of Shar’abi’s teachings also dominated Sephardic chief rabbinate of Jerusalem for much of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Shar’abi’s immediate heirs assumed the initial leadership of the circle and also produced a substantial number of books. Among the Beit El kabbalists, the sages of Aleppo have great authority and credibility and are considered to have preserved the most authentic version of Shar’abi’s kavvanot. One of these, Hayyim Shaul Dweck, moved to Jerusalem and precipitated a split in the community, moving part of the community in the Bukharian quarter of Jerusalem’s New City. Dweck also began to publish Shar’abi’s kavvanot. The third center of Beit El activity was Baghdad, which was dominated by the personality of R. Yosef Hayyim, the Ben Ish Hai. The Beit El school included many European kabbalists, as well, so that it may be seen as an early cross-over institution.

7. The Literary Tradition of Beit El
The Beit El kabbalists root their practice in Shar’abi’s theoretical writings, which are uneven and call for much interpretation. Shar’abi produced a number of mystical prayers and also formalized penitential rituals of self-mortification. Much of the literary activity of the Beit El kabbalists is devoted to resolving the desiderata and discrepancies remaining in Shar’abi’s writings, The most widely known evidence of Shar’abi’s activity is “his” prayer book, the Siddur ha-RaShaSh, which was compiled posthumously by many hands. As a result of these factors, there are many versions and editions of the prayer book. In order to reinforce Shar’abi’s authority and spiritual hegemony, the Beit El kabbalists continued the Lurianic limitations of the kabbalistic canon.

8. The Kavvanot in Hasidism
Beit El is cited in the earliest records of the Hasidic movement, although the kabbalists were culturally and geographically disparate. The founder of Hasidism, the Ba’al Shem Shem Tov, moved among groups of pietists that the earliest manuscript prayer books, which in turn formed the basis of the “Nusakh AR”I,” the order of prayers in the Lurianic style. Of these, the edition by Avraham Shimshon Rashkov was most influential. Menachem Kallus as demonstrated that the Ba’al Shem Tov was an avid practitioner of kavvanot. Nonetheless, in subsequent generations the leaders of Hasidism moved to ban the practice. Nonetheless, they devised an order of prayers that they called “Lurianic,” which has become normative today.

9. Conclusions: Mysticism, Metaphysics, and the Limitations of Beit El Kabbalah
This book is a combination of a historical survey of a kabbalistic school and a study of a “lived tradition” that is, a living community of Kabbalists. Beit El has maintained a direct historical link to earlier schools going back to the Safed revival. It is assumed that Kabbalah is Jewish mysticism and that, as “mysticism,” it shares common properties with other mystical traditions in the religions of the world. There seems to be little of the mystical experience in Beit El Kabbalah. The metaphysical object of the practice is clear, however. Beit El kabbalah is obviously an authentic form of Jewish esotericism. Boaz Huss of Ben Gurion University has addressed these reasons with a bracing clarity in recent years. The terms of the “study of mysticism” originated in Christology and have often retained an appropriationist dimension. These anxieties have blinded scholars to certain new developments in the history of Kabbalah. Beit El kabbalah may serves as a wedge to distinguish Kabbalah from “mysticism.”

Littman, aka The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, published a book in 1995 by Zevi Hirsch Eichenstein (1763–1831): “Turn Aside from Evil and Do Good  An Introduction and a Way to the Tree of Life.” Here is he beginning of the description from the publisher’s page:

He wrote it with the intention of providing a guide to would-be hasidic kabbalists on how to live a holy life. Eichenstein was unusual in the hasidic world in that as well as being a kabbalist he was a competent talmudist and was also acquainted both with the science of his day and with medieval Jewish philosophy. His views differ from those of other hasidic masters, principally in the importance he attributes to studying the kabbalah, which he considers an important antidote to unbelief, and in his more positive attitude to the enjoyment of sexual activity and to business activity; he is concerned to show how both can be integrated in a holy life.

This lively translation by Louis Jacobs of the second edition (1850), which includes the notes of R. Zevi Elimelekh of Dynow, gives the reader an insight into a highly unconventional hasidic master and the basic ideas of Lurianic kabbalah as he perceived them. Through hundreds of scholarly annotations, printed at the foot of each page for ease of reference, Louis Jacobs helps the reader to understand the kabbalistic ideas and imagery and other opaque terms, and clarifies the sources to which the author alludes.

The book @ Amazon.com

Too Much of Nothing by Michael S. Moore is a ghost story written from the perspective of the ghost. He died in a car accident several years before the time of the writing. We slowly learn about his life, likes and dislikes and eventually about the circumstances of his death.

The book contains numerous  musing about the Zohar. This passages are short but are integral part of the book.  If you don’t expect in-depth treatment providing new,  original insights you will not be disappointed with this aspect of the book. I was not. Most of the six major parts open with a discourse about how Kabbalah looks upon the soul of people. The ghost used to take classes in preparation for his bar-mitzvah with an esoterically inclined rabbi. He learned from the teacher about the Zohar and the three levels of the souls. Here is a short quote from page 6:

He [the rabbi] was obsessed with the Zohar’s three levels of the soul—nefesh, ruach, and neshamah—which he believed corresponded to measurable wavelengths, or levels of consciousness, in the brain. The Zohar says the neshamah belongs to God and goes to God when the body fails. The ruach is a kind of umbilical cord or conductor for the breath of life. And the nefesh is the human shape or spirit that wanders the world after death. Rabbi Gelanter thought these levels of the soul ruled certain functions of the mind. (Nefesh felt the pleasure and pain, ruach chose between good and evil, neshamah engaged in philosophy and Torah study, and so on.) The point of making these distinctions was to understand what the self consisted of, and nefesh was just the tip of an island that plunged for miles into the sea.

Having this in the back of the mind of a ghost as he tells his life story makes the whole book a twisted existential drama. As the story progresses so does his understanding of the above concepts gets more and more nuanced in particular how it relates to his own existence as a non-material entity. This was the most interesting part of the book for me. The plot itself wasn’t too original, but the perspective and commentary around it made it worth reading. That and the description of the teenage life in Los Angeles, which made me feel that I grew up I an alternative reality of it.

Nevertheless I don’t really know who to recommend the book. Kabbalah enthusiast may find too little in their area of interest in the book, ghost story aficionados may fin the story too similar to other books in the genre, teenagers of the 1980′s may not find enough of their own youth in it. For me, as a combination of these it was a fun read.

P.s. As you can read on the author’s site the title comes from a Bob Dylan song.

P.p.s. A slightly different version of this entry is on my personal blog.

The book @ Amazon.com.

Here is a quote introducing an interview with Yedida Cohen from last week on the Israel National Radio:

Why did G-d create the world? What is our purpose in life? Why does evil exist? What should we be doing with our lives? Tamar interviews Yedida Cohen, author of the book, “A Tapestry of the Soul ” – In essence, this book is a study guide to the “Introduction to the Zohar” by Rabbi Yehudah Lev Ashlag. It is for those who want to learn directly from Rabbi Ashlag himself, without any intermediary or subjective additions by another author. It is meant to be used as a tool to explore who we are, what are our souls’ deepest desires are and how we can understand what we are here in this life for.

The full title of the book is:

A Tapestry for the Soul
The Introduction to the Zohar by Rabbi Yehudah Lev Ashlag
Explained using excerpts collated from his other writings including suggestions for inner work.
Compiled by Yedidah Cohen

It was published by Nehora Press in April. The publisher’s blog has a new entry each month. On the website proper site you will find lesson one of the book, a few blurbs, the table of contents and the synopsis. The latter is a really an extended version of the table of contents with a paragraph long summary of each of the 18 lessons. They are:

• Questions on the nature of God
• Inquiries into the nature of creation
• The ultimate aim and purpose of creation
• The substance of creation; the essence of the souls; affinity and difference of form
• The nature of evil; the different routes that body and soul travel; the purpose of the mitzvot in the healing of the will to receive for oneself alone; the means by which the higher levels of the soul are drawn to the person
• The states in which the souls exist simultaneously; free will; the nature and purpose of suffering
• The true nature of the body and its purpose; the end of suffering; where am I acting from?
• The essence of the soul; how desire begets needs and needs give birth to thoughts as to how to satisfy those needs; the differences between people
• The language of the branches; the revival of the dead; the true goal and fulfillment of the will to receive
• The work of our lives; further concerning the framework of uncleanness
• The purpose of the higher worlds; the final state of the souls; the development of the wills to receive
• The perception of the person who splits the shell of the will to receive for oneself alone
• The relationship of the soul with the higher worlds; the mitzvot
• The lights of the Sephirot, the vessels and the worlds; the ascension of the soul through the worlds
• The ascension of the soul (continued)
• The holographic nature of reality and its relationship to Torah; the nature of the book of the Zohar and its authorship
• The revelation of the Kabbalah in our generation and the nature of our generation compared to previous generations
• The innermost aspect of the Torah and its relationship to Israel and the world

In April Academic Studies Press published Zvi Mark‘s “The Scroll of Secrets: The Hidden Messianic Vision of R. Nachman of Breslav“. You can read reviews/blurbs on the Publisher’s site.  The announcing email included information about the book and its author and the table of contents too.

Description:

Concealed for two centuries and known only to a select individual in
each generation, the Scroll of Secrets is the hidden Messianic vision
of R. Nachman of Bratslav. Despite being written in an encoded
language, with acronyms and abbreviations, after a clarification and
cautious reconstruction of what can be decoded, the reader is
presented with an exalted Messianic vision. The book marks a turning
point in our knowledge of R. Nachman’s spiritual world, and initiates
a renewed discussion of an intriguing Hasidism that excites scholars
and broad circles within the Jewish and Israeli publics.  The reader
is presented with a sublime and enticing vision of the eschatological
End of Days that contains song and prayer, Torah, melodies and
longings, and love and compassion for every man.

About the Author:

Dr. Zvi Mark is a Senior Lecturer at Bar-Ilan University and a
Research Fellow of Shalom  Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. His
previous publications include Mysticism and Madness; The Religious
Thought of Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav (Continuum, London and New York,
2009) and numerous articles examining the esoterica of Bratslav Hasidism.

Table of Contents:

Introduction by Shaul Magid.
Translator’s Introduction.
Foreword.
Section 1
The Scroll of Secrets.
Opening Scroll.

Section 2
Deciphering the Tepliker Manuscript.

Section 3
Chapter One – The Messiah as a Breslavian Tzadik: Made in the Image of R. Nachman.
Chapter Two – The Messiah as Baby and Child in the Scroll.
Chapter Three – The Nature of the World in Messianic Times.
Chapter Four – The Temple.
Chapter Five – King Solomon and the Scroll’s Messiah.
Chapter Six – Is There a Secret Belief that R. Nachman Never Died or Will Return from the Dead?
Chapter Seven – The Scroll in Light of the Other Secret Writings of R. Nachman.
Chapter Eight – The Scroll as Esoterica: Social and Spiritual Aspects of the Sanctified Secret.
Chapter Nine – The Messianic Revolution and the Echoes of the Scrolls among the Breslav Chasidim Today.
Chapter Ten – Epilogue.

Appendix One.
Appendix Two: Further Testimony on the Scroll and its Transmission.
Appendix Three: The Manuscripts.
Appendix Four: R. Avraham Chazan on the Scroll of Secrets: The  Sichot Me’anash Manuscript.
Appendix Five: The Return of the Baal Shem Tov as the Messiah.
Appendix Six: Where is the Golden Tree?
Bibliography.
Index.