Cultic and Further Orders: Semiotics of a Kabbalistic Culture

Erscheinungsjahr 2022
ISBN: 978-90-04-49897-6
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 71, 232 Seiten, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 531 g

Reihe: Studies in Jewish History and Culture

This book starts from the assumption that semiotics of culture and social-anthropological studies can offer useful tools to understand large segments and lasting aspects of the kabbalistic tradition. It attempts to study from this perspective the Sephardi Kabbalah, by examining 16th-century emblematic commentaries that collect, rearrange and carry on the earlier kabbalistic interpretation of the rabbinic ritual system. In this unusual light, much kabbalistic culture appears as an ongoing semiotic intensification of deep structures governing the discourse and practice of the Jews – so that, for instance, institutional cultic orders are integrated by other forms of order in imagination, thought, writing and experience.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Mottolese, Maurizio

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Jüdische Studien Jüdische Studien Jüdische Studien: Leben & Praxis, Soziale Aspekte
• Geisteswissenschaften Jüdische Studien Jüdische Studien Jüdische Spiritualität & Mystik (Kabbala, Chassidismus)

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1 The Disclosure of Sense and Order

Rhetoric and Hermeneutic Modes of Kabbalistic Semiotics

1 Rhetorical Patterns. The Quest for an Organization of Knowledge

1.1 Collecting and Rearranging Stances in two 16th-Century Kabbalistic Commentaries

1.2 A Kabbalistic Cultural Subset and Its Strategies for Cultural Memory

1.3 Some Emblematic Discussions on Morning Rituals

2 Hermeneutic Perspectives. Proliferation and Articulation of Meanings

2.1 Unfolding Layers of Meaning and Reality

2.2 Constructing Patterns of Order

2.3 Binary Oppositions and Vertical Connections

2 The Imagery of Cosmic and Human Orders

Semantic Dimensions of Kabbalistic Semiotics

1 Cosmological Assumptions. Establishment and Maintenance of Orders

1.1 A Mixture of Imaginative Patterns of Different Origin

1.2 Forms of Mediation and Supernal Structures

1.3 Anthropomorphic Orders and Ritual Orders

1.4 The Impact of Human Action on the Cosmic Architectonics

2 Lexical and Narrative Semantics. Reviving Cosmic Orders through Ritual Orders

2.1 Mythical Accounts on the Restoring Power of Human Action

2.2 The Use of s-d-r and the Related Narrative Elaboration

3 The Focus on Ritual Sequences

Syntactic Aspects of Kabbalistic Semiotics

1 Dwelling on the Formal Structures of Cultic Life

1.1 The Engagement of all Ritual Dimensions, and the Triadic Pattern Thought-Speech-Act

1.2 The Attention to all Ritual Items, Including Formal Units and Sequences

2 Re-Organizing the Ritual Syntax

2.1 Narrow Sequels

2.2 Broader Structures

2.3 Temporal Patterns

3 Generating Mythical and Mystical Accounts from Ritual Syntax

3.1 The Disclosure of Deep Syntactic Orders

3.2 The Elaboration of Dense Narrative Sequences and Ascending Experiential Routes

4 The Construction of a Liturgical-Mystical Discipline

Pragmatic Effects of Kabbalistic Semiotics

1 Remolding, Extending and Intensifying Institutional Halakhic Orders

1.1 Conservative Reinforcement through Renewal

1.2 Variation and Change in Social Pragmatics

1.3 The Production of Directional Mystical Techniques

2 Shaping Kabbalistically-Oriented Community Conduct and Experience

2.1 Elements of Distinction and Cohesion

2.2 Towards a Communal Mystical Discipline?

2.3 Hypotheses on Psychosocial Effects

2.4 Reflections on Socio-Cultural Functions

Final Remarks

Kabbalistic Orders from the Perspective of Cultural Semiotics

1 The Search for Methodologies Moving between Structure and History

2 On Semiotics of Culture and Its Fecundity for Kabbalah Studies

3 On Ordering and Disordering Vectors in Kabbalistic Literature

Bibliography

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Maurizio Mottolese earned a Ph.D. both at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2003) and at the Sapienza University of Rome (2014). He has published monographs and articles on rabbinic and kabbalistic traditions, including Bodily Rituals in Jewish Mysticism (Los Angeles, 2016).