14 research outputs found
Active/Passive, âDiminishedâ/âBeautifulâ, âLightâ from Above and Below: Rereading Shekhinahâs Sexual Desire in Zohar al Shir ha-Shirim (Song of Songs)
In Zohar al Shir ha-Shirim, the Zoharâs reading of Song of Songs, Shekhinah, echoing themes associated with the Shulamite of the biblical text, consistently initiates cosmic union. Sexual desire in the zoharic texts is a form of capital necessary to facilitate sefirotic intercourse, although scholarly readings of the zoharic corpus often identify Shekhinah as a passive receptacle. This, however, is only true if the endemic contradictions within the texts are glossed over. In Song of Songs, the Shulamiteâs sexual âinitiativeâ is core. This was not lost on the author(s) of Zohar al Shir ha-Shirim, who, in struggling to explain Shekhinahâs sefirotic role in line with the erotics of Song of Songs, inescapably echoed the âdepatriarchalizingâ themes of the biblical text. As this article demonstrates, in Zohar al Shir ha-Shirim, Shekhinah is active and repeatedly encourages and frustrates cosmic sexual intercourse. Zohar al Shir ha-Shirim shows that it is possible to reread Shekhinahâs role beyond the androcentrism of the authors as well as scholarly assumptions about her passivity
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The Legacy of Hans Jonas: Judaism and the Phenomenon of Life
Hans Jonas (1903-1993) was one of the most creative and original Jewish thinkers of the 20th century. This volume offers a restropective of Jonas' life and works by bringing together historians of modern Germany, Judaica scholars, philosophers, bioethicists, and enviornmentalists to reflect on the meaning of his legacy today. From a historian of religions, who wrote path-breaking monograph on Gnosticism, Jonas turned to philosophy of nature, extending his existential philosophy and phenomenological analysis to include all forms of life. Unique among twentieth-century Jewish philosophers, Jonas argued for the possibility of a genuinely symbiotic relationship between humanity and nature, which he believed had been suppressed by modern tehcnology. Jonas spoke against the human domination of nature on the basis of Jewish sources, espeically the Bible and Lurianic kabbalah, and he was among the first to define the ethical challenges that modern technology poses to humanity