Front Matter (PDF) - Stanford University Press
Front Matter (PDF) - Stanford University Press
Front Matter (PDF) - Stanford University Press
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generally viewed through the Lurianic prism. Only as Enlightenment ideas<br />
was<br />
to spread in the early twentieth century, partly through the arrival of<br />
began<br />
Jews in the Colonial era, did the authority of the Zohar come into<br />
European<br />
question.<br />
writings of Scholem, Tishby, and the scholars following in their wake<br />
The<br />
done much to make the Zohar intelligible to moderns and to renew<br />
have<br />
in its study. Tishby's Wisdom of the Zohar, translatingselected passages<br />
interest<br />
Aramaic into Hebrew, was a highly successful attempt to make the Zohar<br />
from<br />
accessible to an educated Israeli readership. The interest aroused among<br />
more<br />
of religion by Scholem's highly readable and insightful essays, espe-<br />
scholars<br />
those ®rst presented at the Eranos conferences, served to kindle great<br />
cially<br />
in Kabbalah within the broader scholarly community. This interest is<br />
interest<br />
today thanks to the profound and sometimes provocative studies of<br />
maintained<br />
Liebes and Elliot Wolfson. The important writings of Moshe Idel<br />
Yehuda<br />
to bringKabbalah to the attention of the scholarly and intellectual<br />
continue<br />
The availability of English and other translations, including the selec-<br />
world.<br />
in Tishby and anthologies by both Scholem and Matt, have also served<br />
tions<br />
Zohar well in creatingreaderships outside of Israel. In more recent dec-<br />
the<br />
this intellectual interest in Kabbalah has spread to wider circles, including<br />
ades,<br />
who are concerned with questions of symbolism, philosophy of lan-<br />
many<br />
and related issues.<br />
guage,<br />
the same time, two other seemingly unrelated phenomena have come<br />
At<br />
to greatly increase the interest in Zohar studies at the turn of the<br />
together<br />
century. One is the broad interest throughout the Western world<br />
twenty-®rst<br />
works of mysticism and ``spirituality.'' Our age has seen a great turn toward<br />
in<br />
of wisdom neglected by two centuries of modernity, partly in hope of<br />
sources<br />
them a truth that will serve as a source of guidance for the dif®cult<br />
®ndingin<br />
complex times in which we live. Recently, an interest in the Zohar and<br />
and<br />
has emerged as part of this trend. As is true of all the other wisdoms<br />
Kabbalah<br />
in the course of this broad cultural phenomenon, the interest in<br />
examined<br />
includes both serious and trivial or ``faddist'' elements. This revival of<br />
Kabbalah<br />
is a complicated phenomenon within itself, containingexpressions of<br />
Kabbalah<br />
hunger for religious experience and personal growth, alongside the<br />
great<br />
quest for wisdom.<br />
broader<br />
interest has come to be combined with a very different renewal of<br />
This<br />
primarily in Israel, after the 1967 and 1973 wars. It is manifest in the<br />
Kabbalah,<br />
of kabbalistic yeshivot or academies, the publication of many new<br />
growth<br />
of kabbalistic works, and a campaign of public outreach intended to<br />
editions<br />
the teachings of Kabbalah more broadly. This new emphasis on Kabbalah<br />
spread<br />
is partly due to the reassertion of pride in the Sephardic and Mizraḥi<br />
where Kabbalah has an important place. It is also in part related to<br />
heritage,<br />
dif®cult and tryingtimes through which Israel has lived, resultingin both a<br />
the<br />
Introduction<br />
lxxvi<br />
resurgence of messianism and a turn to ``practical Kabbalah''Ða long-standing