557) The Roaring Lion returns: A contemporary polemic against Jewish mysticism

The Roaring Lion by R. Leon of Modena

Note: This article examines Jewish mysticism and Kabbalah from a historical, psychological and analytical perspective. If you prefer not to read such treatments of mysticism, you may wish to skip this piece. 

Introduction

This article—based extensively on the research by Lippman Bodoff—examines the highly contested roots of Medieval Jewish mysticism. I started writing this article twice and then stopped. This was because I know that some of the ideas expressed in it will be challenging to some, particularly in an era where mysticism has become mainstream Judaism. For many (including myself from the early age of thirteen), mysticism, specifically in the incarnation of modern Chassidism, had been the portal through which we returned to Torah Judaism. 

Today, mystical ideology has overwhelmed the entire religious Jewish world, including enclaves that had opposed it just a generation or so ago. In fact, one of the reasons why I went back to this article was that I saw an outrageous mystical prediction concerning the correlation of a current event (on 23 Sivan), with the same date from antiquity, and its relevance to the final and imminent messianic redemption (once again). That’s not surprising in today’s environment, where these grand forecasts and hermeneutics are ubiquitous and even expected. What is surprising was that it emanated so organically from a group at the supposedly extreme opposite end of the mystical and messianic spectrum. This, together with the increasing use of psychedelics (or ‘Chassidelics’) within some contemporary mystical movements that purport to use them to “get closer to Hashem,” made me wonder how they can say—and do—almost anything in the name of ‘spirituality’ and escape with impunity. Yet try to quote something from Maimonides’ Guide, and see what happens! 

I decided that if these views and practices are constantly and glibly traded on the market floor of current Judaism, it's only fair to add other voices. I was also reminded of the words of R. Yaakov Sasportas, a determined opponent of the mystical, messianic Sabbatian movement that had engulfed Jewish life in the seventeenth century and even threatened physical violence against dissenting voices. Sasportas wrote: “I could not speak for my followers were few…and even they did not speak aloud but in secret.” Finally, when I noticed, astonishingly, that Bodoff’s book was endorsed by Norman Lamm, Elie Wiesel (who deeply and positively engaged with mysticism!), as well as Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, I sat down to write. 

Bodoff observes that there was certainly a form of mysticism during Talmudic times. This was known as Heichalot and Merkavah mysticism, which was more angelology and demonology than the sophisticated theosophical system it later became after the emergence of the Zohar in the thirteenth century. Later, Jewish mysticism became fully embedded within general Jewish piety and thought. According to Bodoff, mysticism functioned “as a defense mechanism in the face of continued persecution.” This persecution began with the First Crusade in 1096, where many Jews committed voluntary martyrdom to escape Christianity's apparent triumph in the world. Bodoff argues that this martyrdom and mystical evasion of the realities of Jewish existence was their mystical response to the persecution. Then Bodoff boldly asks whether this “defensive psychological and cultural response must be reevaluated to determine whether it now provides more of a threat to Judaism and Jewry in the modern world than the benefit that it once provided to a despairing people” (Bodoff 2003:1). 

Now the reader can understand why I was reluctant to write this article. What we have here is a contemporary anti-mystical polemic, the likes of which we have not seen for some time. 

A context of anti-mystical rabbinic writers

Rabbinic literature has not produced much anti-mystical writing. However, those that did write anti-mystical polemics were often significant figures. Talmudic rabbis like Eliezer ben Hyrcanus, Yishmael ben Elisha, and Yehudah haNasi, Rav and Shmuel appear in traditions that emphasise the dangers of attempting heavenly visions or anthropomorphic speculation about God. Even Bereishit Rabbah contains anti-mystical polemics (perhaps due to possible Philonic influences) [see: Kotzk Blog: 553) The forgotten legacy of Philo of Alexandria]. Later, Maimonides (1138-1204) strongly opposed mystical cosmologies that were becoming increasingly popular. The Zohar was published just 86 years after his passing. Later rabbis like Azariyah de’ Rossi (1511-1578) challenged mystical speculation and encouraged rational approaches in his Meor Einayim. Leon of Modena (1571-1648) composed his Ari Nohan (Roar of the Lion), which became a classical anti-Kabbalistic work (and this is why I chose the title of this article). Leon of Modena argued that the Zohar was a Medieval forgery. Yaakov Emden (1697-1776) also wrote polemics on the Zohar, questioning the antiquity of some of its compositions. 

The persecution premise

Heichalot and Merkavah mysticism (2^nd-6^th centuries)

Bodoff (2003:2) postulates that Jewish mysticism, as we understand it, arose about two thousand years ago following the catastrophe in the aftermath of the destruction of the Second Temple. It arose from the “attempt to maintain a belief in a transcendent God in the face of the traumas of religious and political catastrophe.” Mysticism offered a solution to the dichotomy of the belief in chosenness and the reality of suffering. An early form of Jewish mysticism was known as Heichalot and Merkavah literature, which emerged between the second and sixth centuries CE. Bodoff argues that this mysticism was seen as “rebellious” to the prevalent Talmudic ethos which emerged around the same time. Even its style was “in an un-talmudic fashion,” and its ideas “clash directly with the Talmud's prohibitions” (Bodoff 2003:3). 

This mysticism developed the notion that one human leader understands the “secret of the world,” and, under his guidance, any other human being—with the ‘authorised’ knowledge—could ascend to heaven and meet God face to face. It was not a vision from above, but an ascent by human initiative. God is described as anthropomorphic (i.e., with human attributes), and heaven is populated by angels and demons, as well as hypostases (i.e., concretisations, semi‑independent manifestations or emanations of the Divine—precursors to what was later to be refined as the Sefirot of the Zohar, after it first emerged in 1290). 

In fact, “[i]t probably contemplates a separate demiurgic power separate from the Supreme God” (Bodoff 2002:2).[1] It describes the descent into this world of the Sar haTorah (Prince of Torah), an angelic being that, on demand, can instantly confer Torah knowledge upon an individual. Bodoff maintains that all the mysticism that followed, including the thirteenth-century Zohar, sixteenth-century Lurianic Kabbalah (Arizal in Safed), and eighteenth-century Chassidism, still bear strong imprints of Heichalot and Merkavah mysticism (Bodoff 2003:3). These mystical systems, in their various articulations, increasingly came to function as defining and essential expressions of Judaism: 

“Historians recognize that Jewish mysticism became dominant in Jewish piety and religious thought from the end of the sixteenth century until the present day” (Bodoff 2003:3). 

Bodoff maintains that this extreme move towards mysticism is at variance with the general ethos of the Talmud, and understands it as developing from the pain of exilic persecutions and expulsions. In this view, mysticism seeks to offer ‘union’ with the Divine, “in order to escape living in history in the real world of unbearable reality and evil” (Bodoff 2003:4). 

Classical and Talmudic Judaism generally understood that a clear boundary existed between humans and God, who was to be imitated, not identified with (Ostow 1997:35). Bodoff, citing Joseph Dan, attributes the origins of Heichalot and Merkavah mysticism—which appears to be a distinct form of non-Talmudic mysticism—to the catastrophe of the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, and the Roman persecutions following the failure of the Bar Kochva revolts around 130 CE (Dan 1998:107). Bodoff stresses that there is a fundamental dissonance between this “rebellious” emergent mysticism and traditional Talmudic culture—and this “needs to be confronted” (Bodoff 2003:4). 

Zohar (13^th century)

A new, more structured form of mysticism—the Zohar—emerged around the thirteenth century, and soon took its place as the foundational work of popular Jewish mysticism. It, too, emphasised the notion of ascent and unity with the Divine, but it introduced the spiritual hierarchy of Sefirot over the previous angelic and demonic beings. It also democratised the concept of theurgy, which may be described as a form of ‘magic,’ or the ability to influence and even manipulate the Godhead through words and deeds. Through the ontological logic of the Sefirot, God was transformed from an unknowable entity to a knowable God, whose presence was immanent and traceable within the physical world—even in a world dominated by evil and persecution of God’s people. 

“It has been shown that mysticism is a response to historical trauma and catastrophe and to a pervasive and protracted unbearable reality; it reflects the desire to find relief and comfort through return to the parent memory and the parent figure” (Bodoff 2003:5). 

The First Crusade (1096)

Bodoff suggest that the shift from Heichalot and Merkavah mysticism to what we might call a proto-Zoharic mysticism began two hundred years earlier in 1096. During the First Crusade of 1096, Christian mobs passed through the Rhineland on the way to redeem Jerusalem from the Muslim ‘infidels.’ Jews were attacked and forcibly converted to Christianity—and the German Jewish response was a voluntary or active form of mass martyrdom “in which husbands and wives killed their children, each other and themselves to sanctify God's name” (Bodoff 2003:6). This represented a sharp break with the Talmudic requirement of passive martyrdom in such instances. 

It must be noted that there is some scholarly debate over how widespread these acts of active martyrdom were. Although a contested view, the historian Yitzchak Baer characterised the 1096 martyrdoms as a "mystical" reaction. Bodoff draws on Baer and explicitly argues that the Rhineland martyrdoms of 1096 produced a widespread, new form of active and self‑destructive martyrdom and links that development to the rise of a mystical impulse in Ashkenazic Judaism. In other words, their aim was for God to bring about the end of history and the final messianic redemption, as a result of their active and mystical martyrdom: 

“This element of ascent to God [through martyrdom] to escape the evils of life defines the essence of a new medieval ‘mystical’ impulse…The martyrs of 1096 daringly departed from the Talmud's martyrological formula” (Bodoff 2003:6). 

This mystical impulse to escape the world and its harsh realities was soon to become the cornerstone of future Judaism. According to Bodoff, it migrated from Germany to France and then to Zoharic Spain. 

Nachmanides (1194-1270)

This strong propensity for mystical martyrdom is reflected in the poetry of Nachmanides, a major Medieval Kabbalist, who in his Chorvot Yerushalayim, praises “martyrological fathers who kill their children!”  (Bodoff 2003:9, n.21). This indicates a wider, mystically inflected acceptance of active martyrdom. Nachmanides refused to acknowledge the reality of natural law, and he writes: 

“One cannot…profess the faith of Moses unless he believes that all of the phenomena to which we are subject are miracles every one, not caused by any natural law" (Nachmanides on Genesis 17:1, and 46:15). 

This means that “if there are only divine miracles on which to rely and no ‘laws’ supporting these disciplines, what is there to study?” (Bodoff 2003:21). Nachmanides used witchcraft and demonology as symbols of the miraculous element in the world under God's continuing governance (Ibid.). Nachmanides promoted a form escapism from physical reality: 

וְהָעוֹזְבִים כָּל עִנְיְנֵי הָעוֹלָם הַזֶּה וְאֵינָם מַשְׁגִּיחִים עָלָיו, כְּאִלּוּ אֵינָם בַּעֲלֵי גּוּף, וְכָל מַחְשַׁבְתָּם וְכַוָּנָתָם בְּבוֹרְאָם בִּלְבַד, כַּאֲשֶׁר הָיָה הָעִנְיָן בְּאֵלִיָּהוּ, בְּהִדָּבֵק נַפְשָׁם בַּשֵּׁם הַנִּכְבָּד יִחְיוּ לָעַד בְּגוּפָם וּבְנַפְשָׁם

“But those who abandon altogether the concerns of this world and pay no attention to it, acting as if they themselves were not creatures of physical being, and all their thoughts and intentions are directed only to their Creator, just as was the case with Elijah, [these people] on account of their soul cleaving to the Glorious Name will live forever in body and soul” (Nachmanides on Leviticus 18:4). 

These very words, like deveikut and yichud, were also used to describe the active martyrdom during the Crusades of 1096 (Bodoff 2003:21, n. 60). 

Criticism of Bodoff by Yehudah Gellman and Betzalel Naor

Bodoff, drawing on Joseph Dan, maintains that: 

“mysticism arose in Christianity and Islam within two centuries of their births, which suggests organic growth; in Judaism, it took more than fifteen centuries (from Sinai, around 1200 B.C.E., to the hekhalot literature of 200-500 C.E); and then it first arose outside of mainstream Judaism - which certainly suggests external causes” (Bodoff 2003:10). 

Professor Yehuda Gellman strongly criticises Bodoff and argues that the origins of ideas have no bearing on the truthfulness of those same ideas: 

“Even if Bodoff were correct about the historical roots of mysticism as a major force in Jewish life, to judge mysticism throughout the ages and in contemporary times based on its origin commits the ‘genetic’ fallacy. That fallacy exists whenever someone insists that the genesis of an idea determines its truth or falsity or its goodness or badness” (Gellman 2016).[2] 

Bodoff, however, insists that understanding these mystical origins from outside forces far beyond the norms of Talmudic Judaism means that we have the: 

“right and even a duty to consider whether at least some of these ascetic and mystical ideas and practices, having arisen as responses to historical trauma, may no longer be relevant, and may perhaps even be dangerous to Judaism today” (Bodoff 2003:12). 

Gellman argues that there is “insufficient historical basis for linking mysticism and Jewish martyrdom.” However, Bodoff offers multiple pages of scholarly sources in his footnotes and appendices dealing with the little-known matter of Jewish martyrdom of 1096. 

Gellman further disagrees with Bodoff on the issue of mysticism being an escape from reality. He maintains that a mystic can retreat into the world of mysticism and then readily return to the world of reality: 

“Jewish mystics have always appreciated the ‘ritzu’ and ‘shav,’ the ascent and descent, as the rhythm of the mystical life” (Gellman 2016).[3] 

Rabbi Betzalel Naor also offers his considered criticism of some of the issues raised by Bodoff and points out that even: 

“Rav Kook observed that there are those who engage in Jewish mysticism as an escape from reality. But Kabbalah needn’t be a rejection of everyday life and a retreat to the cave” (Naor 2015).[4] 

Perceived dangers of mysticism today

Bodoff maintains that contemporary allegiance to popular mysticism in Judaism today is hindering the advancement of Jews and the world and that some of these were already noted by R. Yosef Ber Soloveitchik (1983:30-82) and other scholars. These include ideas like: 

·         An ideology of myth and magic including belief in evil as an independent power—for some, like Luria, part of the Godhead itself.

·         A spiritual hubris [arrogance] based on an ideology that assumes a mystic's unique, reciprocal access to God and to religious truth by revelation and union.

·         A fragmented Divinity dependent on human acts of mystical ritual for the restoration of Divine harmony.

·         Disengagement from worldly affairs…a hostile and fearful isolation from all forms of non-Jewish cultural achievement (madda), including science, history and the humanities

·         Religious stringencies, a lock-step uniformity in practice, and dependence on religious leaders on all issues, from politics to dress codes.

·         An evident indifference not only to the non-Jewish world's activities, but to that world's opinion of Jews and Judaism.

·         [A]ttacks…against moderate religious elements in Judaism who might successfully question mysticism's claims to an exclusive access to an ancient secret truth…based on mysticism's esoteric claim to religious authority that is beyond the scope of reason.

·         Pessimism regarding the implacable [relentless] evil that it sees in the material world, impelling it to escape the material realm and unite with the divine world. (Bodoff 2003:13-14). 

Citing Pesach Schindler’s (1990) Hasidic Responses to the Holocaust in Light of Hasidic Thought, Bodoff notes a Chassidic stratum of thought and writes that: 

“the Holocaust…was essentially passive acceptance of this evil as God's will, a test of a mystic's faith, and an opportunity to experience communion with God (devequt)” (Bodoff 2003:13, n.36). 

Drawing on Gerald Blidstein (1997:49), Bodoff asks: 

“What shall Jewry do with the extremist vision of redemption in Lurianic kabbalah that, when Israel ‘mends’ the world, it does not mend the nations of the world nor bring them closer to holiness, ‘but rather extracts the holiness from them and thereby destroys their ability to exist…,’ so that this form of kabbalah, which is so prominent today in Jewish religious thought, rejects the idea that Israel serves to ‘elevate the rest of humanity’?” (Bodoff 2003:13, n.36). 

(Ongoing) Maimonidean Controversies

Attacks by the mystics against Jewish and particularly Maimonidean rationalism began soon after Maimonides’ passing in 1204, with the Maimonidean Controversies lasting about three hundred years, and arguably continues to this day. On the side of the mystics were many Tosafists, and rabbinic figures like Shlomo of Montpellier, Yona Gerondi and Meshulam Dapiera. Although Nachmanides officially placed himself as a mediator in this controversy, he may have added fuel to the fire by writing that Maimonides was not for scholarly Ashkenazi Jews of France and northern Spain, but for the wayward, freethinking Sefaradim of the southern lands. Nachmanides writes in a letter to the Tosafist rabbis of northern France: 

“May you, Sirs, be spared a pain such as ours; for the sons have strayed far from the father's table, and have contaminated themselves with the food and wine of the Gentiles; they mingled among the nations and learned their ways… Men…have been permitted to study Greek sciences, to learn the art of healing and the science of measurement, and all the other sciences and their application, so that they may earn their livelihood in the courts and palaces of the kings” (Letter from Nachmanides). 

Bodoff (2003:17) strikingly remarks that Nachmanides “could have stamped out the schism” and stopped the Maimonidean Controveries had he wanted to. But he did not, and “we are still struggling with this dispute, and writing about it, to this day.” 

The Bans of Barcelona

The rationalist writings of Maimonides were burned, sometimes with the cooperation of the Church. In 1305, the two bans of Barcelona—promulgated by R. Shlomo ben Abraham Adret (Rashba)—prohibited anyone under the age of twenty-five from studying “Greek” works of science and philosophy, as well as the use of allegory in Torah interpretations, thus maintaining tight control over the literal meaning of all Torah texts. According to Jose Faur (1997:41-62), the Jew on Jew persecution of rationalist Judaism in pre-expulsion Spain so undermined and unseated the Sefaradic rabbinic leadership that the community lost their will to resist forced conversions by the Church. With leadership in crisis and turmoil, pogroms and persecutions eventually led to the expulsion of practising Jews from Spain in 1492. 

Lurianic Kabbalah

During the sixteenth century, the Renaissance brought new ideas to the world and to Judaism. R. Moshe Isserles (Ramah), also known as the Maimonides of Poland, and Maharal of Prague, Ovadiah Seforno and Eliezer Ashkenazi were Renaissance thinkers. There were even some eclectic Renaissance Kabbalists, like Yochanan Alemanno and Avraham Yagel, who embraced philosophy and science together with the mystical teachings. Bodoff (2003:17) describes them as “moderate” rationalists. There was potential for other rabbis also to participate in this approach by adopting science and philosophy together with religion: 

“But this Jewish opening to the world quickly closed under the pressing and spreading influence of Lurianic kabbalah, as it rose to preeminence in Jewish piety and religious thought and imposed its own claim to exclusive truth about creation and the cosmos…They rejected science and philosophy, human reason and experience, as sources of truth, despite the warnings of Hazal [i.e., Talmudic rabbis] about the spiritual peril in the study of mystical secrets” (Bodoff 2033:17). 

Moshe Idel also bemoans the loss of the potential Renaissance rabbi: 

“The passing of these figures, together with the banishment of rationalistic trends in Amsterdam and Hamburg, caused a void…a void that was filled immediately afterwards by [mystical] Sabbatean frenzy” (Idel 1987:196). 

The irony of the mystical rebellion of Chassidism

According to Joseph Dan, the Chassidic rebellion was a breakaway from a religious system that, by the seventeenth century, was already a mystical movement in itself. It is well-documented that the Vilna Gaon, for example—who became the symbol of anti-Chassidism—was a great Kabbalist and astonishing messianist [see: (99+) Sabbatian influences on the Chassidic and Mitnagdic movements: An excursion into messianic Kabbalah and its disseminators in the aftermath of Shabbatai Tzvi (Doctoral Thesis): 

“Modern Hasidism could be regarded as a model example of a mystical movement creating a schism within an existing religious structure, establishing its own institutions, dress codes, particular prayer book and customs, and style of ritual performance, as well as a mystical structure of leadership. The only unusual element in this picture…is that the establishment from which [Hasidism] separated was (and still is) led by a leadership that is [also!] motivated by kabbalistic theology and symbolism” (Dan 1998:42). 

Chassidism staunchly opposed the Haskalah, or Enlightenment movement, although many Orthodox rabbis embraced elements of this new Renaissance, as well as some students of the Vilna Gaon (Etkes 1989, vol 2:147) [see: Kotzk Blog: 095) TALMUDIC COMMENTATORS WHO EMBRACED THE ENLIGHTENMENT:]. 

In the early twentieth century, Chassidism “helped cause the failure of the incipient Zionist movement of the hovevei tsiyyon, even though it had the support of some of the greatest Orthodox rabbis” (Bodoff 2003:19). While not often acknowledged, the sixth Rebbe of Chabad: 

“sponsored the idea of an open attack on the entire Zionist movement… [this led to] thousands of copies of letters signed by well-known rabbis, branding Zionism a Shabbetaean cult that aimed ‘to uproot the tenets of our faith’” (Greenbaum 1995:138).  [see: Kotzk Blog: 505) Michtav Oz Shel Torah: A 1923 Anti-Zionist Polemical Letter by R. Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson]. 

The question of idolatry

The rabbinic challenge that some aspects of Jewish mysticism may reflect aspects of idolatry goes back to the thirteenth century when the Zohar first appeared with its system of Sefirot.  This is not a vague allegation because even Nachmanides—who passed away about ten years before the Zohar first emerged—was aware of these nascent Sefirotic developments, and technically asserted that it is only considered idolatry when one prays directly to one of the ten Sefirot (Halbertal 1992:194-5). From its inception, the notion of God comprising ten mystical attributes has raised questions of its consistency with Divine unity. The Ribash (R. Yitzchak bar Sheshet Perfet,1326–1408) objected to the Kabbalistic practice of directing prayers through different Sefirot and compared them to the Christian idea of the Trinity (Tzavaat haRivash: 157). Rashbash (R. Shlomo ben Shimon Duran, c.1400-1467) and Abulafia (1240-1291) also remarked that Christians see God as three composites while the Kabbalists see God as ten. Of course, modern Chassidim defend the notion that they are not composites nor hypostases, but degrees of Tzimtuzm (spiritual—or Neoplatonic—contractions) and not part of the Godhead, rather reflecting the ‘space’ between the Infinite Light and creation [see: Kotzk Blog: 527) Neoplatonic echoes in Chassidic Mysticism]. However, as we have seen, the ten Sefirot may not always (or originally) have been understood through such narrow definitions. 

It is interesting to see that the respected modern Chassidic thinker, R. Adin Steinsaltz (1937-2020) maintains that there is so much evil in this world it is tangible. He describes the Kabbalistic notion of Kelipot (or Husks of evil) as spaces inhabited by destructive angels and evil spirits. He writes:

“The fact remains, however, that far from disappearing, the destructive angels are growing stronger and more powerful, as evil waxes in the world. Their ontological status is no longer clear, and far from being mere instruments of deterrence within the total system of existence, they appear to be independent beings acting in their own terms of reference, subjects of a sovereign realm of evil” (Steinsaltz, ‘Worlds, Angels, and Men’).[5] 

This postulates evil as an independent power, and it “invites the kind of despair that can find solace solely in an escapist, mystical ideology and way of life” (Bodoff 2003:22) [see: Kotzk Blog: 284) THE BAVLI ON ‘TWO POWERS IN HEAVEN’:]. 

Conclusion

What is it in mysticism that has always opposed Judaism’s interface with anything that slightly incorporates any non-mystical or rationalist approach to Torah Judaism? 

“Scholars should consider whether there is a consistent, centuries-old pattern here of mystical…Jews allying themselves against any perceived threat from more modern, tolerant and rationalist forms of Orthodoxy… [It may be] that this consistent opposition to Jewish rationalism derives from a jointly held theological idea: that, under the influence of kabbalistic mysticism and pietism…[they] long ago agreed that the evil of the material world is inherent and insurmountable…Hasidic Jews seek escape through devequt, union with the Divine…[they never] sought an active, creative and beneficent engagement with the world…as a divine gift to be perfected” (Bodoff 2003: 20). 

Bodoff sees the rise and flourishing of Jewish mysticism as a movement motivated by a psychological terror, a fear of what has consistently been presented as a tangible evil with active demonic forces. This, he sees as one of the greatest dangers of mysticism. He acknowledges that there is inevitably a place for mystical Jews but would like to see an equal and parallel movement of rationalism to develop side by side. He concludes by challenging his readers to question why mysticism has been so readily accepted—especially by non-Chassidim and even segments of the Modern Orthodox camp—as the only authentic face and voice of Judaism today. 

As mentioned, Leon of Modena compiled his classical anti-Kabbalistic work, Ari Nohem (Roar of the Lion) around the seventeenth century. It seems that four centuries later, the Roaring Lion returns in the writings of Lippman Bodoff.

 

Bibliography

Ben Sason (ed.), H.H., 1976, The Middle Ages, A History of the Jewish People, Harvard University Press, Cambridge.

Blidstein, G.J. 1997,  ‘Tikkun Olam’, in David Shatz, Edited by Chaim I. Waxman and Nathan J. Diament, Tikkun Olam: Social Responsibility in Jewish Thought and Law, Jason Aronson.

Bodoff, L., 2003, ‘Jewish Mysticism: Medieval Roots, Contemporary Dangers and Prospective Challenges’, The Edah Journal, no. 3, vol. 1, 2-32. Also in Lippman Bodoff, 2005, The Binding of Isaac, Religious Murders, & Kabbalah, Devora Publishing, New York.

Dan, J., 1998, Jewish Mysticism: Late Antiquity, Volume 1, Jason Aronson.

Etkes, E., 1989, ‘The Gaon of Vilna and the Haskalah: Image and Reality’, in BINAH: Studies in Jewish Thought, Edited by Joseph Dan, Praeger, New York.

Faur, J., 1997, ‘A Crisis of Categories: Kabbalah and the Rise of Apostasy in Spain’ in The Jews of Spain and the Expulsion of 1492, Edited by Moshe Lazar and Stephen Haliczer, Labyrinthos, Lancaster.

Greenbaum, M., 1995, The Jews of Lithuania: A history of a remarkable community 1316-1945, Gefen Publishing House, Jerusalem.

Halbertal, M. and Margalit, A., 1992,  Idolatry, Translated by Naomi Goldblum, Harvard University Press, Cambridge.

Idel, M., 1987, ‘Differing Conceptions of Kabbalah’, in Jewish Thought in the Seventeenth Century, Edited by Isadore Twersky and Bernard Septimus, Harvard University Press, Cambridge.

Schindler, P., 1990, Hasidic Responses to the Holocaust in Light of Hasidic Thought, Ketav, Hoboken.

Soloveitchik, J.B., 1983, Halakhic Man, Translated by Lawrence Kaplan, Jewish Publication Society, Philadelphia.

Ostow, M., 1997, Judaism and Psychoanalysis, Routledge.

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[1][See: Kotzk Blog: 074) THE NOTION THAT G-D HAS A 'BODY' - In Early and Modern Rabbinical Writings: and Kotzk Blog: 261) A WINDOW INTO PRE-ZOHARIC MYSTICAL LITERATURE:]. 

[2] Online source: https://library.yctorah.org/files/2016/09/Mysticism-Hasidism-And-Escapism-Continued-Discussion-of-Jewish-Mysticism-Medieval-Roots-Contemporary-Dangers-and-Prospective-Challenges.pdf. Retrieved 10 June 2026.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Online source: https://hakirah.org/Vol20Naor.pdf. Retrieved 12 June 2026.

[5] Online source: https://steinsaltz.org/essay/worldsangelsandmen/. Retrieved 12 June 2023).