Concealment and Revelation: Esotericism in Jewish Thought and its Philosophical Implications

215 Pages·2007·0.56 MB·English

by  Moshe Halbertal

Concealment and Revelation
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Concealment and Revelation
esotericism in jewish thought and its
philosophical implications
Moshe Halbertal
Translated by Jackie Feldman
princeton university press
princeton and oxford
Copyright © 2007 by Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton,
New Jersey 08540
In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 3 Market Place,
Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1SY
All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Halbertal, Moshe.
[Seter ve-gilui. English]
Concealment and revelation: esotericism in Jewish thought and its philosophical
implications / Moshe Halbertal; translated by Jackie Feldman.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-691-12571-8 (hardcover: alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-691-12571-6 (hardcover: alk. paper)
1. Mysticism—Judaism. 2. Cabala—History. 3. Judaism—History—Medieval and early
modern period, 425-1789. I. Title.
BM526.H34513 2007
296.7'12—dc22 2007001212
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available
This book has been composed in Sabon
Printed on acid-free paper. ∞
pup.princeton.edu
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For my daughters Nomi, Racheli and Shira
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
A Note on Editions Used xi
Introduction 1
Chapter1
The Paradox of Esotericism: “And Not on the
Chariot Alone” 8
Chapter2
The Hidden and the Sublime: Vision and Restriction in the
Bible and in Talmudic Literature 13
Chapter3
The Ethics of Gazing: The Attitude of Early Jewish
Mysticism Toward Seeing the Chariot 18
Chapter4
Concealment and Power: Magic and Esotericism in the
Hekhalot Literature 28
Chapter5
Esotericism and Commentary: Ibn Ezra and the
Exegetical Layer 34
Chapter6
Concealment and Heresy: Astrology and the Secret
of the Torah 44
Chapter7
Double Language and the Divided Public in
Guide of the Perplexed 49
Chapter8
The Breaching of the Limits of the Esoteric: Concealment
and Disclosure in Maimonidean Esotericism 60
Chapter9
From Transmission to Writing: Hinting, Leaking,
and Orthodoxy in Early Kabbalah 69
viii • Contents
Chapter10
Open Knowledge and Closed Knowledge: The Kabbalists of
Gerona—Rabbi Azriel and Rabbi Ya’akov bar Sheshet 77
Chapter11
Tradition, Closed Knowledge, and the Esoteric: Secrecy
and Hinting in Nahmanides’ Kabbalah 83
Chapter12
From Tradition to Literature: Shem Tov Ibn Gaon
and the Critique of Kabbalistic Literature 93
Chapter13
“The Widening of the Apertures of the Showpiece”:
Shmuel Ibn Tibon and the End of the Era of Esotericism 105
Chapter14
Esotericism, Sermons, and Curricula: Ya’akov Anatoli
and the Dissemination of the Secret 114
Chapter15
The Ambivalence of Secrecy: The Dispute over
Philosophy in the Early Fourteenth Century 120
Chapter16
Esotericism, Discontent, and Co-Existence 135
Chapter17
Taxonomy and Paradoxes of Esotericism:
Conceptual Conclusion 142
Notes 169
Index 191
Acknowledgments
This bookwas written with the generous support of the Shalom Hartman
Institute in Jerusalem and the Institute for Advanced Studies at the He-
brew University. The community of scholars at the Hartman Institute has
been an ongoing source of intellectual inspiration and companionship,
and I wish to thank David and Donniel Hartman, the directors of the in-
stitute, for their support. The last section of the book was written at
NYU School of Law, and a draft of it was presented at the Colloquium in
Legal, Political and Social Philosophy at NYU. I have learned a great deal
from the attentive and insightful comments I received from my colleagues
Thomas Nagel and Ronald Dworkin, and the other participants at the
Colloquium.
I owe gratitude to my friends Yonathan Garb, Melila Helner, Stephen
Holmes, Moshe Idel, Mattias Kumm, Yair Lorberbaum, Menachem
Lorberbaum, Adi Ofir, Elchanan Reiner, Guy Stroumsa and the late Israel
Ta-Shma, who read parts of the manuscripts and shared with me their
most valuable comments. I wish to thank Fred Appel my editor at Prince-
ton Press for his wise and encouraging advice and support, Nathan Carr
of the Princeton Press for his dedicated treatment of the production
process, and the copy editor Eric Schramm for his patient reading and
valuable comments.