INTRODUCTION
A FEW BIOGRAPHICAL POINTERS
PART I: PHILOSOPHY AND KABBALAH
KABBALAH AND PROGRESS
THEOLOGY AND THE DISCOVERY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS
THE UNIVERSAL RELATIONSHIP
CONDITIONED PROGRESS
HISTORY AND TRUTH
“PANTHEISM: THE GREAT ERROR OF OUR AGE”
MODERATE IDEALISM: A TENDENCY TOWARD UNION
DISTINCTIONS PRESERVED
The Philosophical Context
Spinoza’s Error: Downwards Union
Christianity’s error: Upwards Union
The Metaphysical Flaws of Christian Morality
The Historical Jesus
RECONCILIATION: IMMANENTIST MONOTHEISM
The Triumph of the Occident and Thoughts on Difference
Plurality within Unity
HIDDEN ANTHROPOMORPHISM: FEUERBACH’S REASONS
FROM LAMENTATIONS OF EXILE TO A SENSE OF MISSION
PHILOLOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY
Hebrew: A Perfect Language?
Hebrew: A Dead Language? The Possibility of Modern Hebraic Poetry
Vico and the Zohar
THE INEVITABLE CHOICES OF NINETEENTH-CENTURY
BIBLICAL COMMENTARY
An Eloquent Incipit
Condemnation from the Oriental Rabbis
Israel Moshe Hazan: Fundamentalism and Moderation
“As though hanging in air”
The Omissions of Em La-Miqra: The Conjunction of Kabbalah
and Modernity
The Positive Hermeneutics
Comparitivism
Concordism and Tradition
Erudition and Philosophy
THE NOTES ON THE ZOHAR
PART II: TRADITION, ORALITY, AND TEXT
ISSUES IN PLAY
TRADITION AND TEXT: BETWEEN ENLIGHTENMENT AND ROMANTICISM
TRADITION AND TEXTS FOR A SCIENCE OF JUDAISM
IN DEFENSE OF TRADITION
Definitions
THE WRITTEN AND THE SPOKEN WORD
POLEMICAL CONTEXT
Tradition versus Subjectivity
Criticism of Modernity and a New Apologia
The Danger of Individualism
Jewish Reformers and Traditionalists
Defense of Kabbalah
Polemic in Italian Judaism: S. D. Luzzatto’s Dialogues on the Kabbalah
The Inadequacy of Literal Interpretation
Kabbalah and Philology
Reason and Divine Tradition
Science, Method, and Transmission
Religion in the Feminine Declension
PART III: STYLE AS WITNESS
The Orient, “To Orient Oneself”
Solitude: “I live in the Boeotia of Judaism”
The Need to Speak
The Imaginary Library
From Orient to Occident
NOTES
INDEX