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.”

Rabbi Simcha Weinstein wrote a column on his blog (and crossposted on Algemeiner) After introdcuing and summarizing the movie and cracking a few jokes he goes on to the “Kabbalist teaching that while we sleep, our souls leave our bodies and ascend to their heavenly source in order to replenish energy.” He also noticed “Yusuf, a chemist who formulates the drugs needed to enter the dream world. According to the biblical story, Joseph (or Yusuf) was blessed with the ability to interpret dreams, a rare skill that was highly valued.” He ends the column with this advice:

Kabbalah considers our physical world an illusion, a temporary residence, and not true reality. So stop existing and start dreaming!

IMDB’s summary of the movie: In a world where technology exists to enter the human mind through dream invasion, a highly skilled thief is given a final chance at redemption which involves executing his toughest job till date, Inception.

Its trailer:

Z’ev ben Shimon Halevi, the British author fo many books on Kabbalah and the man behind the “Kabbalah Society” published his autobiography in April. Here is the description from his site:

In his autobiography, Halevi sets out his spiritual journey amid the drama of life, which he perceives as a process of development, indicating how his unfolding fate is part of a Providential scheme. This book traces the story of how an artist and poet became a writer about and a teacher of Kabbalah. Many of the illustrations are the author’s own work. So too are several of the diagrams, which are a modern interpretation of the Tradition. The Path of a Kabbalist is also a first-hand account of how Halevi’s books came into being and inspired many people and study groups worldwide.

A side note. When I was in London last December, the first time after more than a decade, I visited one my favorite bookstores, Watkins Books. Looking through their Kabbalah section I realized that Halevi is republishing his books under his own company name and design. I took a photo of the shelf dedicated to his works, with the uniform covers.

Sam (Simcha) Krause wrote a book by the title, “Hey Waiter…. There is a God in my soup! Learning Kabbalah through humor“. He explains the reason behind the book in this blog entry:

You might ask, “What’s a nice, serious subject like Kabbalah doing in a book like this?”  The answer lies in Kabbalah itself.  Laughter is an involuntary reflex that transcends reason and lifts us above our physical state, allowing for an unselfconscious connection with something beyond the self – God, for example.  A joyful person is open, available and willing to entertain concepts that don’t necessarily fit a logical paradigm.  So jokes can become vehicles through which we can contemplate the divine.

Arthur Kurzweil wrote a foreword combining personal accolades of the author and a Talmudic story. An excerpt of the book is also available. The book can be purchased at the site’s eStore starting mid August.

The 21st volume of  “Kabbalah: Journal for the Study of Jewish Mystical Texts” (384 pages, hardcover, ISBN 1-933379-15-4) came out in April. It is a Cherub Press publication that can be ordered at Atlas books. The table of contents of this volume:

Studies in English

• Daniel Abrams: The Virgin Mary as the Moon that Lacks the Sun – A Zoharic Polemic Against the Veneration of Mary
• Moshe Idel: Torah Hadashah – Messiah and the New Torah in Jewish Mysticism and Modern Scholarship
• Morris Faierstein: Two Radical Teachings in the Mei Ha-Shiloah and Their Sources

Studies in Hebrew

• Yehuda Liebes: The Pool, the Daughter and the Male in the Book Bahir
• Michael Schneider: The Angelomorophic Son of God, Yehoel and the Prince of Peace
• Ruth Kara-Ivanov Kaniel: Eve, the Gazelle and the Serpent: Narratives of Creation and Redemption, Myth and Gender
• Daniel Abrams: The Reception and Editing of Kabbalistic Works by Students of Jewish Esotericism in Ashkenaz After the Appearance of the Kabbalah (Collectanea of Early Works in a Leipzig Manuscript Copied in 1429)
• Shalom Sadik: Is ‘R. Abner’ R. Abner of Burgos?
• Maoz Kahana and Michael K. Silber: Deists, Sabbateans and Kabbalists in Prague: A Censored Sermon of R. Ezekiel Landau, 1770

Nina Amir wrote a short article in the San Francisco Examiner suggesting that because there is magic both in Harry Potter books and in Kabbalah the series may have more kabbalistic references. She was reminded of this seeing the first trailer for the first half of the last Harry Potter movie. See below.

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

Jay Michaelson wrote up in Forward a guide about the many books that are intended for novice students of the  Kabbalah as introductions to the topic: “Perplexed by the Guides? When It Comes to Kabbalah, Some Introductions Are More Illuminating Than Others“. His introduction explains the need for such a guide:

“the commercialization of Kabbalah has been concealment, too. Whereas the secrets of Jewish mysticism had previously been obscured by difficult Aramaic texts, they’re now obscured beneath piles of literary manure.”

After  a brief detour on what to avoid (anything by The Kabbalah Center and anything spelled Qabalah) he suggests that Edward Hoffman’s new anthology, “The Kabbalah Reader” may be the best, because it includes original texts. Other books approved and annotated by Michaelson in this article are:

• Daniel Matt: The Essential Kabbalah
• Rabbi Louis Jacobs (ed): Schocken Book of Jewish Mystical Testimonies
• Alan Unterman: The Kabbalistic Tradition
• David Meltzer: The Secret Garden
• Rabbi Arthur Green: A Guide to the Zohar
• Rabbi David Cooper: God is a Verb
• Rabbi Lawrence Kushner: Honey from the Rock
• Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz: The Thirteen Petalled Rose
• Byron L. Sherwin: Kabbalah: An Introduction to Jewish Mysticism
• David Ariel: Kabbalah: The Mystic Quest in Judaism
• Rabbi Arthur Kurzweil: Kabbalah for Dummies
• Arthur Goldwag: The Beliefnet Guide to Kabbalah
• Melila Hellner-Eshed: A River Flows from Eden

Today Iregistered the KabbalahBooks.co domain. For now it will simply point to this site (sefarim.net). If the hopes of the new .co TLD* will materialize I might rebrand the site and will run it under the clearer KabbalahBooks.co moniker.

TLD=Top-level domain, such as .us for the USA or .hu for Hungary
.co – it used to be the TLD for Colombia, but it was released to the world.

.co  has been hyped/hoped to be the new .com (of which we were running out of the good ones.) As you can read it on the corresponding wikipedia page the general public could start buying .co domains on July 20 after a month long landrush for the ones with potentially high commercial value. I was two days late, but still got what I wanted. We’ll see later whether it was a worthy investment.