My close friend Sharon Koren’s book, Forsaken: The Menstruant in Medieval Jewish Mysticism, has been released.

This book addresses a central question in the study of Jewish mysticism in the medieval and early modern periods: why are there no known female mystics in medieval Judaism, unlike contemporaneous movements in Christianity and Islam? Koren demonstrates that the male rejection of female mystical aspirations is based in deeply rooted attitudes toward corporeality and ritual purity. In particular, medieval Jewish male mystics increasingly emphasized that the changing states of the female body between ritual purity and impurity disqualified women from the quest for mystical connection with God.

Offering a provocative look at premodern rabbinical views of the female body and their ramifications for women’s spiritual development, Koren compares Jewish views with medieval Christian and Muslim views of both female menstruation and the possibility of female mystical experience.

Ynet has an article (Hebrew) about Roni Weinstein’s new book, Shavru et ha-Keilim (“They Broke the Vessels”). Weinstein’s book is subtitled “The Kabbalah and Jewish Modernity.” In this book Weinstein claims that modern religious Judaism cannot be understand without reference to the Kabbalah. He is quoted as saying:

The Kabbalah is like a bomb that was dropped hundreds of years ago, but its aftershocks just keep expanding with the passing of the years.

Kabbalah emphasized the eternity of the moment.

According to Weinstein, [the Kabbalistic belief that man's actions have an immediate affect on God] created a new idea-that every single moment of a person’s life is unique (חד-פעמי): Every mitzvah that you perform has its uniqueness, such that if you don’t pray mincha as you should-you missed the moment. The meaning of this is a life of urgency, since a person can never do enough, a feeling of sin and guilt accompanies him wherever he turns.

The table of contents can be found here, and the first chapter can be found here.

Sharon Flatto’s The Kabbalistic Culture of Eighteenth-century Prague: Ezekiel Landau And His Contemporaries has just been published.

From the promo:

Sharon Flatto’s comprehensive study offers the first systematic overview of the eighteenth-century Jewish community of Prague and the first critical account of the life and thought of its pre-eminent rabbinic authority, Ezekiel Landau. Her detailed analysis, firmly rooted in the historical and cultural context of the period, challenges the conventional portrayal of Landau as a staunch opponent of esoteric practices and reveals the centrality of kabbalistic thought in this key central European cit

As I will show, the Rebbe did believe—and encouraged his followers to believe—that he was the messiah, destined to reveal himself to the people Israel and redeem the world. In fact, he could hardly have thought otherwise: This perception was an inevitable result of the messianic theology the Rebbe inherited from his predecessors, a theology whose internal logic was reflected in his teachings and which guided both his decisions and actions.

Professor Moshe Idel
“Devequt in the Thought of Rabbi Israel Ba‘al Shem Tov”

Moderation and Response by
Dr. Eitan Fishbane, JTS

Tuesday, November 10, 2009 @ 12:30 pm
Mendelson Convocation Center
light refreshments will be served