RT Article
T1 Jewish Medieval Traditions concerning the Origins of the Kabbalah
JF The Jewish quarterly review
VO 106
IS 1
SP 21
OP 41
A1 Yisraeli, Oded
LA English
PB Penn Press
YR 2016
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1802098070
AB The questions where the Kabbalah came from, how it appears, and under what circumstances, bothered the scholars of the Kabbalah, but no less the Kabbalists themselves in the Middle Ages. This article is concentrated on identifying and signifying three types of traditions in thirteenth-century Kabbalah, each of which reflects a unique stance concerning this topic. The first stance attributes the emergence of the Kabbalah to mystical revelation of Elijah to the ancestors of the first Kabbalistic circles in Provence. Another sees the Kabbalistic truths as part of the Torah of Moses and therefore as a national heritage. A third tradition, however, attributes the Kabbalah to Adam, the first person and the ancestor of mankind at whole. The article points out the self-consciousness behind each myth, the differences between them, and the hidden discourse between these traditions regarding the notion of the Kabbalah as universal wisdom and its cultural context in general.
K1 Astral Magic
K1 Zohar
K1 Elijah's Revelation
K1 Jewish Thought
K1 Middle Ages
K1 Kabbalah
DO 10.1353/jqr.2016.0002