Concealment and Revelation: Esotericism in Jewish Thought and its Philosophical Implications

Moshe Halbertal

Published by Princeton University Press 2008

Concealment and Revelation

Esotericism in Jewish Thought and its Philosophical Implications

Moshe Halbertal
Translated by: Jackie Feldman

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400827961

Overview
Contents

About this book

During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, great new trends of Jewish thought emerged whose widely varied representatives--Kabbalists, philosophers, and astrologers--each claimed that their particular understanding revealed the actual secret of the Torah. They presented their own readings in a coded fashion that has come to be regarded by many as the very essence of esotericism. Concealment and Revelation takes us on a fascinating journey to the depths of the esoteric imagination. Carefully tracing the rise of esotericism and its function in medieval Jewish thought, Moshe Halbertal's richly detailed historical and cultural analysis gradually builds conceptual-philosophical force to culminate in a masterful phenomenological taxonomy of esotericism and its paradoxes.

Among the questions addressed: What are the internal justifications that esoteric traditions provide for their own existence, especially in the Jewish world, in which the spread of knowledge was of great importance? How do esoteric teachings coexist with the revealed tradition, and what is the relationship between the various esoteric teachings that compete with that revealed tradition?

Halbertal concludes that, through the medium of the concealed, Jewish thinkers integrated into the heart of the Jewish tradition diverse cultural influences such as Aristotelianism, Neoplatonism, and Hermeticisims. And the creation of an added concealed layer, unregulated and open-ended, became the source of the most daring and radical interpretations of the tradition.

Author / Editor information

Moshe Halbertal is professor of philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, a fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute, and the Gruss Professor at New York University Law School. He is the author of People of the Book and the coauthor (with Avishai Margalit) of Idolatry.

Reviews

"Moshe Halbertal's book will be a revelation to anyone interested in religious, philosophical, psychological, or political concealment. It has wide implications for the political craving for transparency, and dazzling insights into depth psychology (such as Freud's) and esoteric tendencies in philosophy (such as Wittgenstein's). The book manifests not only immense learning and virtuosity in reading Jewish texts but also genuine wisdom."—Avishai Margalit, Institute for Advanced Study

Halbertal's book outlines a challenging theory in the intellectual history of Jewish creativity. He does not rely on new material but offers a superb interpretation of available material. This book undoubtedly represents a major contribution to the discourse on the character and the varieties of ancient and medieval Jewish thought.---Dov Schwartz, Journal of Religion

"This book's taxonomy of esoteric knowledge and attempt to establish its importance both as a thing in itself and as an object of study are absolutely fascinating and indeed captivating. The book made an important aspect of medieval Jewish intellectual and spiritual life much less forbidding to me than it had been before, and it should make similar bodies of esoteric knowledge and esoteric movements—like late antique gnosticism and late medieval Christian mysticism—more approachable also."—William Chester Jordan, Princeton University

"Original, consistently interesting, and thought-provoking. This book exhibits the author's knack for synthesizing complicated technical material with clarity and verve, and making it accessible to both scholars in adjacent fields and to general readers."—Bernard Septimus, Harvard University

"This is the most conceptually penetrating book that I can imagine on concealment and revelation in premodern Jewish thought. An original foray into a subject that has not been well developed, it has the makings of a classic. In particular, the essay on esotericism is rich and substantial. There can be no question of the book's brilliance."—Noah Feldman, author of Divided by God

This concise and brilliant book . . . provides great insight into individual thinkers like Ibn Ezra, whose astrological beliefs are frequently overlooked by his readers, and Rambam, whose explicit esotericism has perplexed readers for centuries. . . . A translation of the 2001 Hebrew edition, this very scholarly yet highly readable work will be recognized as a masterful work for many years to come.

Halbertal explains complex issues clearly and gracefully, moving smoothly from dense kabbalistic passages to abstruse texts on medieval philosophy in a way that allows the unspecialized reader to follow his train of thought without plumbing the depths of each theological system to which he refers.

"Halbertal's virtuosic exploration of a major dimension of medieval Jewish thought opens new vistas in Jewish philosophy and mysticism."—Moshe Idel, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	ix
A Note on Editions Used Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	xi
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Chapter 1. The Paradox of Esotericism: “And Not on the Chariot Alone” Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	8
Chapter 2. The Hidden and the Sublime: Vision and Restriction in the Bible and in Talmudic Literature Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	13
Chapter 3. The Ethics of Gazing: The Attitude of Early Jewish Mysticism Toward Seeing the Chariot Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	18
Chapter 4. Concealment and Power: Magic and Esotericism in the Hekhalot Literature Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	28
Chapter 5. Esotericism and Commentary: Ibn Ezra and the Exegetical Layer Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	34
Chapter 6. Concealment and Heresy: Astrology and the Secret of the Torah Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	44
Chapter 7. Double Language and the Divided Public in Guide of the Perplexed Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	49
Chapter 8. The Breaching of the Limits of the Esoteric: Concealment and Disclosure in Maimonidean Esotericism Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	60
Chapter 9. From Transmission to Writing: Hinting, Leaking, and Orthodoxy in Early Kabbalah Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	69
Chapter 10. Open Knowledge and Closed Knowledge: The Kabbalists of Gerona—Rabbi Azriel and Rabbi Ya’akov bar Sheshet Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	77
Chapter 11. Tradition, Closed Knowledge, and the Esoteric: Secrecy and Hinting in Nahmanides’ Kabbalah Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	83
Chapter 12. From Tradition to Literature: Shem Tov Ibn Gaon and the Critique of Kabbalistic Literature Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	93
Chapter 13. “The Widening of the Apertures of the Showpiece”: Shmuel Ibn Tibon and the End of the Era of Esotericism Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	105
Chapter 14. Esotericism, Sermons, and Curricula: Ya’akov Anatoli and the Dissemination of the Secret Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	114
Chapter 15. The Ambivalence of Secrecy: The Dispute over Philosophy in the Early Fourteenth Century Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	120
Chapter 16. Esotericism, Discontent, and Co-Existence Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	135
Chapter 17. Taxonomy and Paradoxes of Esotericism: Conceptual Conclusion Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	142
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	169
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	191

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