Description

The importance of Lurianic Kabbalah to the context of early modern Jewish religiosity has been recognized almost unanimously. However, only in recent years scholars acknowledge its highly embodied nature, the specific historical community which lies at the heart of its religious interest, i.e. the Lurianic fellowship. The present presentation will discuss some of the radical notions of identity within the community developed in the writings of Lurianic Kabbalah. Based on its highly complex anthropological theory, and especially its theories of soul transmigration and soul interrelations, Lurianic Kabbalah sees individual action and identity as highly dependent upon the spiritual “soul community” with its own dynamics, hierarchies and power relations. I will focus on the tension between the hidden spiritual network and the visible social one, the former conceived as the hermeneutical key for the latter, and on its implications to the self understanding of the members of the fellowships. In the center of the analysis will be Hayyim Vital’s autobiographical account of the fellowships’ spiritual and actual dynamics.

This presentation is for the following text(s):

  • Sefer ha-Hezyonot (Book of Visions, 1570s)

Event Website

http://wesscholar.wesleyan.edu/emw/emw2010/

Start Date

17-8-2010 1:00 PM

Location

Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT

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Aug 17th, 1:00 PM

A Spiritual Community in the Social world: Lurianic Notions of Identity and Inter-subjectivity within the Community

Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT

The importance of Lurianic Kabbalah to the context of early modern Jewish religiosity has been recognized almost unanimously. However, only in recent years scholars acknowledge its highly embodied nature, the specific historical community which lies at the heart of its religious interest, i.e. the Lurianic fellowship. The present presentation will discuss some of the radical notions of identity within the community developed in the writings of Lurianic Kabbalah. Based on its highly complex anthropological theory, and especially its theories of soul transmigration and soul interrelations, Lurianic Kabbalah sees individual action and identity as highly dependent upon the spiritual “soul community” with its own dynamics, hierarchies and power relations. I will focus on the tension between the hidden spiritual network and the visible social one, the former conceived as the hermeneutical key for the latter, and on its implications to the self understanding of the members of the fellowships. In the center of the analysis will be Hayyim Vital’s autobiographical account of the fellowships’ spiritual and actual dynamics.

This presentation is for the following text(s):

  • Sefer ha-Hezyonot (Book of Visions, 1570s)

https://research.library.fordham.edu/emw/emw2010/emw2010/13