This new book by Silberman (The Hidden Scrolls, 1994) founders on the distinction it fails to keep between history and myth, description and celebration. Ever since Gershom Scholem initiated the academic study of Jewish mysticism, books on Kabbalah have divided up between the scholarly and the devotional. Silberman tries to unite the two in this popularly written social history of Jewish mystical ideas, from the fiery chariot the ancient prophet Ezekiel beheld in a vision, to the ultranationalism of modern Israeli Kabbalists, for whom the Arab world holds the place of evil in a harsh dualism inherited from the 16th-century mystic Isaac Luria. Taking Kabbalah loosely to subsume the whole of Jewish mysticism (and so endorsing Kabbalah’s own self-image), Silberman sketches correspondences between key Kabbalistic themes and the social conditions of the Jewish communities that espoused them. For example, he suggests that the famous crown-capped picture of the ten sefirot, or emanations from God, found in the Zohar, the premier text of Kabbalistic mysticism, opposes and undermines the imperialistic ideology of the 13th-century Castilian king, Alfonso X, under whose increasingly oppressive reign the Zohar was most likely composed. Although some of Silberman’s analogies are stimulating and evocative, they hardly qualify as social history. Sometimes his claims are grandiose (e.g., that Isaac Newton’s science, predicated as it is on unseen forces, owes a debt to Kabbalistic theory) or naively expressed: the story that Elijah the prophet served at Luria’s circumcision is, says Silberman, “surely mythmaking” (could there be any doubt?). In his zeal to ground mysticism in historical and social conditions, Silberman appears to adduce the Kabbalah itself as evidence, as though its teaching that earthly states mirror heavenly ones inversely confirmed its own source in the worldly exigencies of the Jewish people. Despite the occasional spark of connection, this epigonous work, so admittedly indebted to Scholem, adds little to what can be found more eloquently expressed in the master’s Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-399-14448-X
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.
A compendium of charts, time lines, lists and illustrations to accompany study of the Bible.
This visually appealing resource provides a wide array of illustrative and textually concise references, beginning with three sets of charts covering the Bible as a whole, the Old Testament and the New Testament. These charts cover such topics as biblical weights and measures, feasts and holidays and the 12 disciples. Most of the charts use a variety of illustrative techniques to convey lessons and provide visual interest. A worthwhile example is “How We Got the Bible,” which provides a time line of translation history, comparisons of canons among faiths and portraits of important figures in biblical translation, such as Jerome and John Wycliffe. The book then presents a section of maps, followed by diagrams to conceptualize such structures as Noah’s Ark and Solomon’s Temple. Finally, a section on Christianity, cults and other religions describes key aspects of history and doctrine for certain Christian sects and other faith traditions. Overall, the authors take a traditionalist, conservative approach. For instance, they list Moses as the author of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) without making mention of claims to the contrary. When comparing various Christian sects and world religions, the emphasis is on doctrine and orthodox theology. Some chapters, however, may not completely align with the needs of Catholic and Orthodox churches. But the authors’ leanings are muted enough and do not detract from the work’s usefulness. As a resource, it’s well organized, inviting and visually stimulating. Even the most seasoned reader will learn something while browsing.
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 978-1-5963-6022-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
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