Description

Are mysticism and morality compatible or at odds with one another? If mystical experience embraces a form of non-dual consciousness, then in such a state of mind, the regulative dichotomy so basic to ethical discretion would seemingly be transcended and the very foundation for ethical decisions undermined. Venturing Beyond - Law and Morality in Kabbalistic Mysticism is an investigation of the relationship of the mystical and moral as it is expressed in the particular tradition of Jewish mysticism known as the Kabbalah. The particular themes discussed include the denigration of the non-Jew as the ontic other in kabbalistic anthropology and the eschatological crossing of that boundary anticipated in the instituition of religious conversion; the overcoming of the distinction between good and evil in the mystical experience of the underlying unity of all things; divine suffering and the ideal of spiritual poverty as the foundation for transmoral ethics and hypernomian lawfulness.

Features

• Challenges popular conceptions of the Kabbalah as a kind of New Age ecumenicism
• Makes an impact on a number of fields as it moves between kabbalistic, rabbinic, literary, and philosophical works
• Provides a clear explanation of complex phenomena

Reviews

"Over the past two decades Elliot Wolfson has offered some of the most in-depth and iconoclastic readings of Kabbalah of any working scholar. ...We need to navigate between the extremes of pious apologetic and moral dogmatism." --Journal of Religion

Product Details

400 pages; ISBN13: 978-0-19-927779-7ISBN10: 0-19-927779-6

About the Author(s)