PREFACE

The mystical movement in Judaism is among the oldest subjects in the study of religion. It has been viewed from the most diverse perspectives for more than 400 years, and all the shifts of the ages are reflected in the extraordinarily varied evaluations and descriptions it has received. It has been met with every possible emotion, ranging from every nuance of recognition and delight to the most bitter, even contemptuous, rejection. The passion of these positions—especially on the part of Jewish critics of this movement—proves how often this was not a matter of researching deep-seated scientific facts, but rather a matter of polemics and a confrontation with a historical power still active in the present. Indeed, the abundance of works dedicated specifically to the Kabbalah The primary system of Jewish esoteric mysticism. stands in no proportion to the depth of insight that might reasonably be expected from such long and steady engagement with these phenomena.

The almost unanimous rejection expressed by the classic representatives of Jewish scholarship in their statements on the Kabbalah and its branches—a rejection that, in the case of Heinrich Grätz 1817–1891; a foundational historian of Judaism known for his rationalist bias against mysticism., the most famous historian of the Jewish people, intensified into fanatical blindness—represents less the scientific judgment of a generation of rationalists than a naturally one-sided struggle against a power still perceived as present. Scholarship did not encounter this power with the love of understanding or on its own level, but rather in the armor of an opponent and on the level of a great historical conflict. To us of the later generations, the polemical weapons of this scholarship all too often appear dull. Only the general transformation of the 19th century...