The Three Temples
On the Emergence of Jewish Mysticism in Late Antiquity
Rachel Elior
translated from Hebrew by David Louvish

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Rachel Elior demonstrates convincingly how the Jewish mystical tradition crystallized in its early stages. She attributes its origins to priests prevented by circumstance from serving in the Temple: replacing the earthly Temple liturgically and ritually with a heavenly Merkavah and heavenly sanctuaries known as Heikhalot, they created a mystical world in which ministering angels replaced Temple priests, thereby giving Judaism a new spiritual focus.

AUTHOR INFORMATION

Rachel Elior is John and Golda Cohen Professor of Jewish Philosophy and Jewish Mystical Thought at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and has been a research fellow and visiting professor at University College London, the University of Amsterdam, Oberlin College, the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, Case Western University, Yeshiva University, Tokyo University, and Princeton University. The recipients of many awards, she is the author of numerous works on Jewish mysticism and hasidism, including The Paradoxical Ascent to God: The Kabbalistic Theosophy of Habad Hasidism (1992), The Mystical Origins of Hasidism (2006), and Jewish Mysticism: The Infinite Expression of Freedom (forthcoming 2007).

Professor Elior was awarded the 2006 Gershom Scholem Prize for the Study of Kabbalah and Jewish Mysticism by the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities.

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Author Information - Contents - Publication Details - Reviews