R. Menachem Froman - "The Princess & I" (original) (raw)
Related papers
From the author of the award-winning book, Your Unique Self: The Radical Path to Personal Enlightenment, in which Marc Gafni presents his view of the emergence of the personal beyond the impersonal, self beyond ego, we bring you the extensive research and analysis underlying his perspectives. Radical Kabbalah provides material and analysis that will intrigue all readers interested in Kabbalah and the subject of enlightenment. Book 1: The Enlightenment Teaching of Unique Self, Nondual Humanism and the Wisdom of Solomon - The Great Teaching of Ethics and Eros from Mordechai Lainer of Izbica This "magisterial" academic volume lays the groundwork for key dimensions of the Unique Self teaching. Marc Gafni introduces in this work the enlightenment teaching of what he terms nondual humanism. Based on a deep re-reading of over a thousand Aramaic and Hebrew texts, Gafni first outlines the core teaching, and then traces the esoteric intellectual history of nondual humanism in five major matrices of the Kabbalah. In the vision of nondual humanism, the potential democratization of enlightenment opens up a genuine option in which every human being is called to live "as Source." Reviews of Radical Kabbalah “I read Dr. Gafni’s masterwork on Radical Kabbalah in its first draft almost seven years ago… The breadth, depth and the sheer importance of the work moved me. I immediately recognized it as a seminal work, identifying a critical lineage of enlightenment from the tradition of Kabbalah, which needed to be incorporated into the Integral model.” — Ken Wilber, Integral Philosopher and Author “It appears that the rumors of God’s death have been greatly exaggerated! There may be no better way to understand the Divine in the coming decades than what is expressed in this book, where ancient traditions are cast in a new light and brought into a new Century. You will be compelled to respect the unparalleled rigor and depth of scholarship while at the same time swooning from the beauty of the ideas. A work like this comes along once in a generation.” — Dr. Zachary Stein, Integral Scholar and Metrics Theorist, Harvard University “This work is a true masterpiece of the sort our people have not witnessed for many centuries, shaking us out of our stupor toward reclaiming life again, reclaiming our goddess heritage and teachings, and the bond with the ancient spark of Eros. Rabbi Gafni in his fine and original reading of Mordechai Lainer in a Lurianic act of exalted scholarship and love raises the spark of paganism and sets it in new evolved ethical context.” — Rabbi Gershon Winkler, author of ten books of Jewish teaching and scholarship “Marc Gafni has written a magisterial work. Like Gafni himself, it combines depth of intellect with integrity of heart and has much to teach us, both from a scholarly perspective and as a contemporary transmission of what Gafni calls Evolutionary Kabbalah.” — Sally Kempton, author of Meditation for the Love of It
Kabbalah as Literature: Theology, Narrative, and Lyric
Blackwell Companion to World Literature, 2019
In the study of Kabbalah, like other fields of Judaica before it, we stand at a remarkable turning point in our appreciation of the deeply integrated nature of mystical creativity and literary art. For while Kabbalah and philosophy have long been viewed as sister fields, balancing both commonalities and antinomies, we may now suggest that Kabbalah and Jewish literature are also intimately related, reflecting affinities in form and imagination-the one frequently revealing the depths and concerns of the other. What is more, as part of the broader project of these volumes, I shall suggest here that Kabbalah as a literary phenomenon (or family of literary forms) is both a vibrant and under-appreciated component of world literature. As with other global mystical discourses, kabbalistic creativity may be valuably approached as a mode of spiritual artistry, a textual evocation of the human yearning for the Divine. So considered, Jewish mystical literature is an aesthetics of theological reflection, the vibration of the numinous in the lyric imagination of humanity. Like Jalal al-Din Rumi (Rūmī; see Jalal al-Din Rumi's Poetic Presence and Past) in Muslim literature and San Juan de la Cruz in Christian letters, the Jewish mystic (perhaps most vividly in the Zohar) embodies the striking ways in which mystical and poetic creativity are so intertwined in the global humanistic experience. Viewed synchronically, we may distill the following literary morphology from the vast corpora of Jewish mysticism: (1) lyricism, poetry, and the devotional hymn-including mythopoesis and theological poetics; (2) narrative-including fictional storytelling, hagiography, and autobiography; and (3) the literary art of the homily-an aesthetics of hermeneutical and symbolic rhetoric. The third of these shall be discussed tangentially in A Companion to World Literature. Edited by Ken Seigneurie.
From the author of the award-winning book, Your Unique Self: The Radical Path to Personal Enlightenment, in which Marc Gafni presents his view of the emergence of the personal beyond the impersonal, self beyond ego, we bring you the extensive research and analysis underlying his perspectives. Radical Kabbalah provides material and analysis that will intrigue all readers interested in Kabbalah and the subject of enlightenment. Book 2: The Wisdom of Solomon as the Matrix of the Enlightenment Teaching of Nondual Acosmic Humanism and Unique Self In the second academic volume of this set, Gafni cracks an esoteric code deep within the Kabbalistic tradition that identifies "wisdom of Solomon" as being the source of the teaching of nondual humanism. He then shows that this teaching of the wisdom of Solomon, i.e. nondual humanism, did not originate with Mordechai Lainer of Izbica. Rather, it has deep roots in earlier Zoharic and Lurianic texts all of which received and transmitted the nondual humanism teaching of the wisdom of Solomon. Nevertheless, it remained to Mordechai Lainer of Izbica to fully explicate and evolve the radically empowering implication of this ancient teaching. In Book 2 Marc Gafni carefully and rigorously uncovers the hidden teachings of the wisdom of Solomon as they appear in encoded within Hasidic writings waiting to be discovered. Reviews of Radical Kabbalah “I read Dr. Gafni’s masterwork on Radical Kabbalah in its first draft almost seven years ago… The breadth, depth and the sheer importance of the work moved me. I immediately recognized it as a seminal work, identifying a critical lineage of enlightenment from the tradition of Kabbalah, which needed to be incorporated into the Integral model.” — Ken Wilber, Integral Philosopher and Author “It appears that the rumors of God’s death have been greatly exaggerated! There may be no better way to understand the Divine in the coming decades than what is expressed in this book, where ancient traditions are cast in a new light and brought into a new Century. You will be compelled to respect the unparalleled rigor and depth of scholarship while at the same time swooning from the beauty of the ideas. A work like this comes along once in a generation.” — Dr. Zachary Stein, Integral Scholar and Metrics Theorist, Harvard University “This work is a true masterpiece of the sort our people have not witnessed for many centuries, shaking us out of our stupor toward reclaiming life again, reclaiming our goddess heritage and teachings, and the bond with the ancient spark of Eros. Rabbi Gafni in his fine and original reading of Mordechai Lainer in a Lurianic act of exalted scholarship and love raises the spark of paganism and sets it in new evolved ethical context.” — Rabbi Gershon Winkler, author of ten books of Jewish teaching and scholarship “Marc Gafni has written a magisterial work. Like Gafni himself, it combines depth of intellect with integrity of heart and has much to teach us, both from a scholarly perspective and as a contemporary transmission of what Gafni calls Evolutionary Kabbalah.” — Sally Kempton, author of Meditation for the Love of It
Mystical Autobiography in Sixteenth-Century Kabbalah
Jewish Culture and Creativity: Essays in Honor of Professor Michael Fishbane on the Occasion of His Eightieth Birthday, 2023
I am grateful to offer this essay as a gift to my father on the occasion of his eightieth birthday, ארוכים לחיים .שיבדל As an article that delves into the ways in which some major kabbalists of times past sought to understand and write about the meaning of their lives-its spiritual purpose-I feel it is connected in a deep way with the loving, self-reflective, spiritually and ethically mindful ways in which my father has lived, and continues to live, his own life; one that has been filled with meaning, creativity, mentoring, spiritual practice, integrity, and above all, love. May he continue to be an extraordinary model to us all for many years to come. Critical Considerations The renaissance of kabbalistic creativity in sixteenth-century Z. efat saw a marked emphasis on the nature and meaning of personal identity and selfhood. From an extensive development of mystical ethics and the cultivation of ideal personhood to reflection on soul, body, and reincarnation, the kabbalistic masters of this time and place were particularly taken with the question of individual status and self-transformation. 1 Life-writing was also a major genre that was cultivated 1 The rise of concern with individual identity and the dialectic of interiority and exteriority has, among other things, been linked by some scholars to the legacy of hybrid converso identities.
Online digest 90 2 20121219 kabbalah
Each issue of the Rosicrucian Digest provides members and all interested readers with a compendium of materials regarding the ongoing flow of the Rosicrucian Timeline. The articles, historical excerpts, art, and literature included in this Digest span the ages, and are not only interesting in themselves, but also seek to provide a lasting reference shelf to stimulate continuing study of all of those factors which make up Rosicrucian history and thought. Therefore, we present classical background, historical development, and modern reflections on each of our subjects, using the many forms of primary sources, reflective commentaries, the arts, creative fiction, and poetry. This magazine is dedicated to all the women and men throughout the ages who have contributed to and perpetuated the wisdom of the Rosicrucian, Western esoteric, Tradition. May we ever be worthy of the light with which we have been entrusted. In this issue, we explore the tradition received from Kabbalah, from its ancient beginnings to its practical application in the present day.