Daniel C. MattCritiques

This was an okay book. It’s a selection from the very long book The Zohar which is a commentary on the Books of Moses. I decided not to try to acquire as much of the full multi-volume translation as I could, since for me that would verge on the pedantic, but it is nice to experience other cultures slightly, right. “YOU like that too? I only chose that because I thought you hated it! Shit! What do I do now?” Of course, sometimes people make choices, you know; but full-on flaming rejection is more than a simple “choice”, you know. A lot of Christians do have that attitude, you know—YOU like that too?…. What do I do now?—and not only in relation to Jews, but that conflict is certainly part of the Jewish story. It’s actually not even—You like that too? …. Shit….—limited to the religious sphere, both because of the unavoidable influence of religion on life, and the common though not inevitable negativity central to the human experience.

Anyway, I think that this is fine; it’s actually just as good, in itself, as a Christian commentary on these texts, if rather different, perforce…. It’s actually maybe better than some, since it’s very creative and story-sprinkled, not unlike what I write in reviews sometimes. I’ll even go out on a limb and say (even though the only other language I know is intermediate Spanish) that the English translation probably has some points over the Aramaic original, since the original was apparently written with many archaisms and historicisms and basically unnatural language to try to present it as the work of an earlier century—pedantic enough!—almost as if Rachel Held Evans had written one of her books in Latin, right…. The Middle Ages were actually quite mixed; there was creativity as well as pedantry, (actually there was sensuality as well as asceticism), but even the wise old men weren’t supposed to have too much agency or independence, so even in what would retroactively be a million years before industrialization, the wise old men weren’t supposed to be saying that there was something about God and Infinity that the dead old wise men hadn’t unpacked fully…. So it’s mixed, like everything, trying to wiggle out of that trap. But writing a Bible commentary as a story or series of stories is great, you know; much better than the bloodless Kantian crap that would come into fashion later on.

…. For a long time I didn’t really know what I thought; now, let me say: what a strange book, right.

Though, of course, it would be, for me. 😛

…. *Carly and the rabbis are deep in conversation*

Child Hermes: *taps* *whispers* If we sneak out now, they won’t notice that we’re leaving.

The story of the prophet Elijah’s transformation from fierce zealot to compassionate hero and cherished figure in Jewish tradition

Interesting, but I lost interest halfway through. Perhaps I'll pick this up again down the road.

This books provides a pretty good overview of Kabbalah. If you are a casual reader who may know little of this religious tradition, this may be the book for you. The introductory material is pretty good in laying out some background and history. The rest of the book presents selections from Kabbalistic texts. Overall, the language is pretty accessible. I think Judeo-Christian folks may find some connections here too. The text provides a nice sense of the spirituality of Kabbalah as well as its valuing of the pursuit of knowledge and truth. In the end, I am glad I read it as I learned a few new things.

I loved the introduction by Andrew Harvey.

Good introduction but skimpy

Matt's ideas will inform Bible studies for centuries to come, so they are well worth knowing. This is a beautifully written, modern introduction to a major if often unacknowledged, ingredient in the Western world view. Feminists (pro and con) should find it very useful. It looks like the Great Mother is back.

NO OF PAGES: 320 SUB CAT I: Kabbalah SUB CAT II: SUB CAT III: DESCRIPTION: Zohar - "the Book of Splendor, Radiance, Enlightenment" - has fascinated readers from its first appearance in thirteenth-century Spain until today. It is the major text of Kabbalah, the Jewish mystical tradition. To assure the acceptance of his work within the Jewish community, a Spanish scholar named Moses de Leon claimed that Zohar was an ancient work of the school of the famous Rabbi Shim'on son of Yohai. Is was not until our own century that critical scholarship demonstrated that the book's author was Moses de Leon himself. His mosaic of Scripture, Midrash, medieval homily, fiction, and fantasy presents what Professor Daniel Matt describes as "a challenge to the normal workings of consciousness [that] dares one to examine one's assumptions about tradition, God, and self."NOTES: Donated by David Daniels. SUBTITLE: The Book of Enlightenment

An excellent appetizer to the Kabbalah with great commentary by Matt.

This book is a cross between an academic look at the mysticism in Judaism with poetry, making it a contemplative work as well. As an outsider to the Jewish faith, I can still benefit from meditating on the poetic descriptions of aspects of the Divine and how one is to connect with God.

Before this, just about everything I knew about Kabbalah was garnered from the media attention around Madonna and Britney Spears and that center in LA. I knew it was "mystical Judaism" or something to
that effect. The introduction in this book really helped me understand some basics about Kabbalah, like the 10 sefirot, etc. I was reading it out loud to ALi John as we sat on the floor and he drew with my pastels and he commented, "It's like Rumi, but with physics!" I suppose this is a)inaccurate and b)an oversimplification but the two have a similer feeling, I have to admit. Something beautiful and mystical that touches you, stirs you.
When I purchased this book I was under the deeply mistaken impression that it was the entire Zohar or a condensed version. The Zohar, the most important text in Kabbalah, is really long and for many centuries was inaccessible. There's only one complete English translation, published in the 1930's. The editor, Daniel Chanan Matt, is working on a complete annotated edition of the Zohar (translated into English), a projected 12 volumes. There's 3 out so far; he seems to be putting out one a year. I'm awed by this undertaking. I want to read them all, but I feel this is like saying I'm going to read all of Remembrances of Things Past. (yeah right)
(Ahhh! Which totally reminds me of this great quote from Little Miss Sunshine, which is a really good film and you should go see it:
Dwayne: I wish I could just sleep until I was eighteen and skip all this crap-high school and everything-just skip it.
Frank: You know Marcel Proust?
Dwayne: He's the guy you teach.
Frank: Yeah. French writer. Total loser. Never had a real job. Unrequited love affairs. Gay. Spent 20 years writing a book almost no one reads. But he's also probably the greatest writer since Shakespeare. Anyway, he uh... he gets down to the end of his life, and he looks back and decides that all those years he suffered, Those were the best years of his life, 'cause they made him who he was. All those years he was happy? You know, total waste. Didn't learn a thing. So, if you sleep until you're 18... Ah, think of the suffering you're gonna miss. I mean high school? High school-those are your prime suffering years. You don't get better suffering than that. )

An excellent appetizer to the Kabbalah with great commentary by Matt.

NO OF PAGES: 221 SUB CAT I: Kabbalah SUB CAT II: SUB CAT III: DESCRIPTION: Kabbalah emerged as a distinct movement within Judaism in medieval Europe, and from the beginning it was both committed to traditional observance and profoundly radical. The kabbalists made the fantastic claim that their mystical teachings derived from the Garden of Eden. This suggests that Kabbalah conveys our original nature: the unbounded awareness of Adam and Eve, which we have lost as the inevitable consequence of tasting the fruit of knowledge. The kabbalist yearns to recover that primordial tradition, to regain cosmic consciousness, without renouncing the world. The Essential Kabbalah offers insightful accounts of the primary aspects of Jewish mysticism, including Ein Sof (the radical transcendence of God), the Sefirot (the ten divine attributes), and the Shekhinah (the feminine aspect of God). A crucial and momentous contribution to the normally esoteric world of Jewish mysticism, The Essential Kabbalah is a rich and vital resource for the contemporary spiritual seeker.NOTES: Donated by Craig Ferguson. SUBTITLE:

Cabala.

www.sup.org/zohar