The Privileged Divine Feminine in Kabbalah / / Moshe Idel.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter DG Plus DeG Package 2019 Part 1
• VerfasserIn: Idel, Moshe,
• Place / Publishing House: Berlin ;, Boston : : De Gruyter, , [2018]; ©2019
• Year of Publication: 2018
• Language: English
• Series: Perspectives on Jewish Texts and Contexts , 10
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (IX, 251 p.)

This volume addresses the complex topic of the preeminent status of the divine feminine power, to be referred also as Female, within the theosophical structures of many important Kabbalists, Sabbatean believers, and Hasidic masters. This privileged status is part of a much broader vision of the Female as stemming from a very high root within the divine world, then She was emanated and constitutes the tenth, lower divine power, and even in this lower state She is sometime conceived of governing this world and as equal to the divine Male. Finally, She is conceived of as returning to Her original place in special moments, the days of Sabbath, the Jewish Holidays or in the eschatological era. Her special dignity is sometime related to Her being the telos of creation, and as the first entity that emerged in the divine thought, which has been later on generated. In some cases, an uroboric theosophy links the Female Malkhut, directly to the first divine power, Keter. The author points to the possible impact of some of the Kabbalistic discussions on conceptualizations of the feminine in the Renaissance period.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Preface -- Contents -- 1. Introduction – Theosophical Kabbalah: Complexity and Dynamism -- 2. Reification and the Ontological Status of Thought and Action in Early Kabbalah -- 3. The Gender Addition to “Action” -- 4. On the Elevated Status of the Divine Feminine in Theosophical Kabbalah -- 5. The Father, the Head, and the Daughter -- 6. Sefer Ma‘arekhet ha-’Elohut and its Reverberations -- 7. R. Moshe Cordovero and R. Shlomo ha-Levi Alqabetz -- 8. R. Isaac Luria Ashkenazi, His Kabbalist and Sabbatean Followers -- 9. R. Moshe Hayyim Luzzatto: 1707–1746 -- 10. The Privileged Female in Some Later Kabbalists in Ashkenaz -- 11. Some Hasidic Examples of the Three-Phases Gender Theory -- 12. Some Wider Terminological Considerations -- 13. Concluding Remarks -- Primary Sources -- Bibliography -- Name Index -- Subject Index