Urim Publications just published Tzror HaMor Torah Commentary, a classic commentary from the late 15th century by Rabbi Avraham Saba, including many interpretations derived from the Zohar.

Here is the official description from the publisher:

Rabbi Avraham Sabba was born in Castile in 1440 and spent the first 50 years of his life in parts of Spain where Jews lived in prosperity and security. He wrote many books, among them the Torah commentary Tzror HaMor. His genius is evident from the manner in which he selects hundreds of quotations from the Zohar, the most famous mystical text, in which he demonstrates that the author of the Zohar is capable of being understood by the average Jew, (as opposed to scholars) and that the Zohar is helpful in understanding many difficult passages in the Torah.

He was forced into exile to Portugal in 1492, and to North Africa in 1497 after not only being persecuted and seeing many members of his family die for kiddush hashem, but he had to rewrite this commentary completely from memory, as in Fez, Morocco he had no library at his disposal. He died on board a ship on the way to Italy and was buried in Verona in 1510

The translator, Eliyahu Munk, was born in Frankfurt on Main, where he received his education at the Samson Rafael Hirsch Realschule, and the Yeshiva of the late Rabbi Joseph Breuer, of blessed memory. He continued his education at the Yeshiva in Gateshead, England. He served in Jewish education (primarily as a teacher) for almost 30 years in Toronto, Canada.

Hardcover, 5 volume boxed set
$195.00 US
ISBN 978-965-524-013-9

The (New York) Jewish Week had a book review on “The Sistine Secrets: Michelangelo’s Forbidden Messages in the Heart of the Vatican,” written by Rabbi Benjamin Blech and Roy Doliner, a docent and guide at the Vatican. Here are some excerpts that caught my attention

The book claims that there was Jewish influence in Michelangelo’s painting, particularly from the Kabbalah or mystical aspect of Judaism. …The authors also point out that a little-noticed aspect of the Sistine Chapel is that Stars of David — then called Seals of Solomon — adorn the floor of the chapel. In addition, they noted that the Sistine Chapel is built to the exact dimensions of the original Temple in Jerusalem — including the Holy of Holies that only the high priests were allowed to enter on Yom Kippur.

And the preface partially reads,

Driven by the truths he had come to recognize during his years of study in private nontraditional schooling in Florence, truths rooted in his involvement with Judaic texts as well as Kabbalistic training that conflicted with approved Christian doctrine, Michelangelo needed to find a way to let viewers discern what he truly believed. He could not allow the Church to forever silence his soul. And what the Church would not permit him to communicate openly, he ingeniously found a way to convey to those diligent enough to learn his secret language.

I learned about Rabbi Yaacov Haber’s (and Rabbi David Sedley) new book titled Sefiros from an entry of Yitzchok Adlerstein’s Cross Currents blog. The post dismisses most books in English about Kabbalah, but praises this one. Then goes on to argue with or more specifically elucidate whether sefiros are “not descriptions of G-d Himself, but are themselves part of His creation.” The 20 comments are also informative.

The book itself was published by and available from TorahLab. It is “a practical 49 day guide to spiritual refinement through counting the Omer.” Three sample pages can be downloaded from the publisher’s site, to get a sense of its content. 

Eliahu Klein’s “A Mystical Haggadah: Passover Meditations, Teaching, and Tales” was published just in time for this year’s Passover. Here is the book description that appears on every site that lists it:

In a generation that has seen an explosion in popularity of books about mystical and meditative traditions, very little has been published about the rich and fascinating mystical traditions of the Jewish holy days. Passover, the first religious holiday of the Jewish people, particularly rewards a re-viewing from a mystical perspective. A Mystical Haggadah takes readers through the Passover ritual with Kabbalistic meditations and affirmations in a friendly, accessible format. This Haggadah also includes many Hassidic teachings and stories that have never been presented to the English reading audience. The book is especially valuable for its transliterations of all the major prayers and rituals, and is refreshing in its creative and spiritually-based adaptation and translation of the primary Haggadah text.

Klein’s three previous books are already on this site, so I am happy to add this latest one.

• Meetings With Remarkable Souls: Legends of the Baal Shem Tov
• Kabbalah of Creation: The Mysticism of Isaac Luria, Founder of Modern Kabbalah
• Kabbalah of Creation: Isaac Luria’s Earlier Mysticism

Rabbi Jonathan M. Case self-published a book titled, Journey to the Soul: Kabbalah’s Pathway for Your Present and Future through Outskirts Press. The publisher put up a webpage through which the book can be ordered and even issued a press release. The author has a blog and a website  and the book is available even at Amazon.com. One the blog he gives weekly drashot. On the website meditations are posted and a few nice images. One would think that through all these channels I could get a fuller picture what the book is about. But at every one of these places only these few lines I repeated. So I repeat them here too. Maybe it is helpful enough for some. I feel that I only got a vague teaser. That means nothing though about the quality of the book.

A hunger grips the world. It yearns to be filled by the answer to the ultimate question: Why am I alive? The voice is incessant. If it is ignored there will be consequences.

Sometimes climaxing as a “mid-life crisis” which can have dramatic implications; other times surfacing as an “existential crisis” at any age, this unspoken and unanswered question can form the core of wrenching sadness, deep angst and some awful choices. There is an answer. Through sources that span millennia and using examples from real lives, here is a richly woven tapestry using stories, lore, aphorisms and the mystic tradition of Kabbalah. Here are the answers you have been seeking.

Come, drink deeply and walk into life…

The Ranger (from Texas) had an interview with James Dunn, the author of a new book titled Window of the Soul: The Kabbalah of Rabbi Isaac Luria. “Author” may not be the most correct term in this case, because most of the book are direct translations from the Hebrew, written by Luria and translated by Nathan Snyder. The interview is using only a few lines from what the author had to say and mostly repeating pop trivia about Kabbalah. The book is more. According to the publisher’s webpage it is “the first and only comprehensive selection of Isaac Luria’s.” “Comprehensive selection” is an interesting concept. In my book something is either comprehensive or a selection. I guess what they refer to is, that each major concept or section of Luria’s writing was covered in this book. According to the Amazon.com reviews because it is a direct translation it would need a lot of footnotes to make it decipherable to the modern people. Once I get my hands on a copy I will tell you my personal opinion. (A final note: The listing currently is incorrect on Amazon, because the foreword was written by Rabbi Ernesto Yattah, and not by Chayyim Vital.)

A few weeks ago Jay Michaelson wrote a double book review for Forward on two Mussar related books: Everyday Holiness: The Jewish Spiritual Path of Mussar by Alan Morinis and A Responsible Life: The Spiritual Path of Mussar by Ira Stone. Michaelson summarizes Mussar as “the moralistic movement within Eastern European Judaism … focuses on rectifying the middot, or character traits, from within. The general contours of Mussar practice are straightforward: introspection and self-accounting.” The reviewer clearly refers Morinis’ more accessible book with its attention to the individual. While holding Stone accountable for not offering enough advice how to find the community that is needed to cultivate the technologies Mussar developed for self-betterment. The answer to the question in the title of the review and this post is no, because “it may be not spiritual enough for spiritual aficionados.”

I just read a review of Lamentations of Youth in the New York Sun. . The subtitle of the work tells you whay I am mentioning this book on this blog, it contains “The Diaries of Gershom Scholem, 1913-1919“. These yeas cover the period of ages between 16 and 22. The reviewer laments that the editor, Anthony David Skinner, edited out too much in his focus to show Scholem’s personal life. Nevertheless we still learn from this very private diaries how he felt about his father, the Zionist movement, women, friends (including his closest with Walter Benjamin), anti-Semitism, art, mathematics, Kabbalah … The review touches upon lots of his topics, but only reading the whole book could give a full picture of the young budding mind and body.

The Oxford University Press just published Pinchas Giller’s third book titled Shalom Shar’abi and the Kabbalists of Beit El. Giller  is a popular professor at the American Jewish University (formerly University of Judaism). (I base my assumption on his popularity at the ratings and comments on his Rate My Professor page. ) Here is the book’s description from the publisher,

The Jerusalem kabbalists of the Beit El Yeshivah are the most influential school of kabbalah in modernity. The school is associated with the writings and personality of a charismatic eighteenth-century Yemenite Rabbi, Shalom Shar’abi, considered by his acolytes to be divinely inspired by the prophet Elijah. Shar’abi initiated what is still the most active school of mysticism in contemporary Middle Eastern Jewry. Today, this meditative tradition is rising in popularity not only in Jerusalem, but throughout the Jewish World.

Pinchas Giller examines the characteristic mystical practices of the Beit El School. The dominant practice is that of ritual prayer with mystical “intentions,” or kavvanot . The kavvanot themselves are the product of thousands of years of development and incorporate many traditions and bodies of lore. Giller examines the archaeology of the kavvanot literature, the principle aspect of which is the meditation on God’s sacred names while reciting prayers, the development of particular rituals, and the innovative mystical and devotional practices of the Beit El kabbalists.

Cherub Press  just published its 22nd volume in their “Sources and Studies in the Literature of Jewish Mysticism” series titled, “Lurianic Kabbalah: Collected Studies by Gershom Scholem, edited by Daniel Abrams” (440 pages, ISBN 1-933379-09-X). Unfortunately (for the purposes of this site/blog) it is all Hebrew. Below is the official blurb.

This volume celebrates the groundbreaking work of Gershom Scholem on Kabbalistic literary and mystical activity from the end of the fifteenth century, just prior to the Expulsion from Spain and until the rise of Sabbateanism. At the heart of this collection are all of Gershom Scholem’s detailed studies on R. Isaac Luria, his teachers, students and the works that emerged from Safed, including numerous texts which he introduced and explained. All sixteen studies are reproduced here, re-typeset, along with a Hebrew translation of the chapter on Isaac Luria and his School, from his Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism - all updated with Scholem’s post-publication hand notes from his personal library and annotated with full bibliographic references, manuscript identifications and followed by a complete bibliography in all languages of all studies about Kabbalah from the periods treated in this volume. The volume is introduced with a typology of the various methods and scholarship that emerged from Scholem’s foundational work. This volume is an essential research tool for the serious study of Jewish mysticism.