Idel Moshe. Ascensions on High in Jewish Mysticism: Pillars, Lines, Ladders

Central European University Press, 2005. — 265 p.Book DescriptionSeries: Pasts Incorporated | Publication Date: September 30, 2005
Ascensions on high took many forms in Jewish mysticism and they permeated most of its history from its inception until Hasidism. The book surveys the various categories, with an emphasis on the architectural images of the ascent, like the resort to images of pillars, lines, and ladders. After surveying the variety of scholarly approaches to religion, the author also offers what he proposes as an eclectic approach, and a perspectivist one. The latter recommends to examine religious phenomena from a variety of perspectives. The author investigates the specific issue of the pillar in Jewish mysticism by comparing it to the archaic resort to pillars recurring in rural societies. Given the fact that the ascent of the soul and pillars constituted the concerns of two main Romanian scholars of religion, Ioan P. Culianu and Mircea Eliade, Idel resorts to their views, and in the Concluding Remarks analyzes the emergence of Eliade's vision of Judaism on the basis of neglected sources.Studying Religion.
Eight Approaches to Religion
Perspectivism: An Additional Approach
Kabbalah as Symbolic Theology according to Modern Scholarship
Notes
On Diverse Forms of Living Ascent on High in Jewish
SourcesHeikhalot Literature: Precedents and Offshoots
Nousanodia: The Neoaristotelian Spiritualization of the Ascent
Neoplatonic Cases of Psychanodia
As If and Imaginary Ascents
Ascension and Angelization
Astral Psychanodia in Jewish Sources
Concluding Remarks
On Cosmic Pillars in Jewish Sources.
The Pillar in the Work of Mircea Eliade and Ioan P. Culianu
The Cosmic Pillar in Rabbinic Texts.
The Pillar in the Book of Bahir
The Pillar in Early Kabbalah
The Pillar and Enoch-Metatron in Ashkenazi Esotericism
The Zohar and the Luminous Pillar
The Human Righteous as a Pillar in the Zohar
Notes
The Eschatological Pillar of the Souls in Zoharic Literature
The Pillar and the Two Paradises...
The Eschatological Inter-Paradisiacal Pillar
The Pillar in the Pseudo-Midrash Seder Gan `Eden and Its Zoharic Parallels
Worship of the Pillar
The Pillar as a Vehicle
The Pillar as Conductor to the Divine Realm
The Pillar and the Judgment
Contemplating a Supernal Secret
Later Repercussions of the Zoharic Stances
Pillar, Performance and the Righteous
The Timing of Posthumous Psychanodia.
The Manichean Pillar of Light and Glory
Symbolic Interpretations of Zoharic Paradisiacal Architecture
Concluding Remarks
Psychanodia and Metamorphoses of Pillars
in Eighteenth-Century Hasidism
The Besht and the Epistle of the Ascent of the Soul
The Besht as an Iatromant
On Shamanism in the Carpathian Mountains
The Besht and the Eschatological Pillar
The Tzaddiq as the Present Pillar in Hasidism
Hasidic Semantics
Some Methodological Issues Related to the Besht’s Epistle
Notes
The Neoplatonic Path for Dead Souls: Medieval
Philosophy, Kabbalah and Renaissance
The Universal Soul and Median Line in Arabic Texts
The Median Line in Kabbalah
Al-Batalyawsi,Yohanan Alemanno and Pico della Mirandola
The Ladder, Natura and Aurea Catena
Some Conclusions
Notes
Concluding Remarks
Pillars, Paradises and Gestalt-Coherence
Pillars and Some Semantic Observations
Between Literature and Experience
On the Pillar and Mircea Eliade’s Views on Judaism
Organism, Organization and the Spectrum between Them
Time, Ritual, Technique
Name Index
Subject Index