scholarly journals The Participation of God and the Torah in Early Kabbalah

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 471
Author(s):  
Adam Afterman ◽  
Ayal Hayut-man

All Abrahamic religions have developed hypostatic and semi-divine perceptions of scripture. This article presents an integrated picture of a rich tradition developed in early kabbalah (twelfth–thirteenth century) that viewed the Torah as participating and identifying with the Godhead. Such presentation could serve scholars of religion as a valuable tool for future comparisons between the various perceptions of scripture and divine revelation. The participation of God and Torah can be divided into several axes: the identification of Torah with the Sefirot, the divine gradations or emanations according to kabbalah; Torah as the name of God; Torah as the icon and body of God; and the commandments as the substance of the Godhead. The article concludes by examining the mystical implications of this participation, particularly the notion of interpretation as eros in its broad sense, both as the “penetration” of a female Torah and as taking part in the creation of the world and of God, and the notion of unification with Torah and, through it, with the Godhead.

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marzieh Yahyapour ◽  
Janolah Karimi-Motahhar

The influence of ideas of Eastern mysticism is manifested in Ivan Bunin’s understanding of the artistic path as spiritual ascent. This article analyses Bunin’s short stories The Death of the Prophet and The Stone based on the combination of times and spaces. The artistic specificity of these stories is determined by the presence of Biblical and Quranic motifs, as well as Saadi’s philosophical and parable texts. The article contains surahs of the Quran and fragments of Saadi’s poems, which make it possible to clarify the figurative genesis of Bunin’s stories characterised by a high artistic simplicity, brevity, and philosophical depth. The eastern imagery of the stories receives lyrical development in the poems Abraham, Law, Muhammad and Safiya, and others. It is noted that in The Death of the Prophet, the writer creates a typical image of a sage following the mystical path of spiritual improvement. Qur’anic influence is confirmed by the use of Bismillah in The Death of the Prophet and in the poem Law, i. e. the testimony that reveals 113 surahs of the Quran: In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful. The authors pay special attention to the presence in The Death of the Prophet of Shahadatain, the formula of conversion to Islam containing the confession of the testimonies of Islam. Depicting the “other” eastern world, Bunin focuses on cultural, moral, and historical issues. In the work of the writer, emphasis is placed on the unity of the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In Bunin’s orientalism, the distant world is portrayed as spiritualised and light. It is concluded that for the writer, the main thing is to “survey the Beauty of the World”, to see the “combination of the beautiful and the eternal”, to know what the “truth” is, and, finally, to complete the mystical path.


Author(s):  
Roberto D. Hernández

This article addresses the meaning and significance of the “world revolution of 1968,” as well as the historiography of 1968. I critically interrogate how the production of a narrative about 1968 and the creation of ethnic studies, despite its world-historic significance, has tended to perpetuate a limiting, essentialized and static notion of “the student” as the primary actor and an inherent agent of change. Although students did play an enormous role in the events leading up to, through, and after 1968 in various parts of the world—and I in no way wish to diminish this fact—this article nonetheless argues that the now hegemonic narrative of a student-led revolt has also had a number of negative consequences, two of which will be the focus here. One problem is that the generation-driven models that situate 1968 as a revolt of the young students versus a presumably older generation, embodied by both their parents and the dominant institutions of the time, are in effect a sociosymbolic reproduction of modernity/coloniality’s logic or driving impulse and obsession with newness. Hence an a priori valuation is assigned to the new, embodied in this case by the student, at the expense of the presumably outmoded old. Secondly, this apparent essentializing of “the student” has entrapped ethnic studies scholars, and many of the period’s activists (some of whom had been students themselves), into said logic, thereby risking the foreclosure of a politics beyond (re)enchantment or even obsession with newness yet again.


2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 206-210
Author(s):  
Ra`no Ergashova ◽  
◽  
Nilufar Yuldosheva

The creation, regulation, lexical and grammatical research and interpretation of the system of terms in the field of aviation in the world linguistics terminology system are one of the specific directions of terminology. Research on specific features is an important factor in ensuring the development of the industry. This article discusses morphological structure of aviation terms. The purpose of the article is to analyze the role of aviation terms in the morphology of the Uzbek language and its definition.


2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 156-160
Author(s):  
Khurshida Salimovna Safarova ◽  
Shakhnoza Islomovna Vosiyeva

Every great fiction book is a book that portrays the uniqueness of the universe and man, the difficulty of breaking that bond, or the weakening of its bond and the increase in human. The creation of such a book is beyond the reach of all creators, and not all works can illuminate the cultural, spiritual and moral status of any nation in the world by unraveling the underlying foundations of humanity. With the birth of Hoja Ahmad Yassawi's “Devoni Hikmat”, the Turkic nations were recognized as a nation with its own book of teaching, literally, the encyclopedia of enlightenment, truth and spirituality.


1991 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-89
Author(s):  
Ross Woodman

As members of the New York School of painters, Barnett Newman and Mark Rothko announced not only the passing away of an entire creation but also the bringing forth of a new one. Though unaware that they were living and painting in the City of the Covenant whose light would one day rise from darkness and decay to envelop the world even as their painting of light consciously arose from the void of a blank canvas, Newman’s and Rothko’s work may nevertheless be best understood as a powerful first evidence of what Bahá’u’lláh called “the rising Orb of Divine Revelation, from behind the veil of concealment.” Their work may yet find its true spiritual location in the spiritual city founded by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá on his visit to New York in 1912.


GEOgraphia ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 10 (19) ◽  
pp. 103
Author(s):  
Alexandre Domingues Ribas ◽  
Antonio Carlos Vitte

Resumo: Há um relativo depauperamento no tocante ao nosso conhecimento a respeito da relação entre a filosofia kantiana e a constituição da geografia moderna e, conseqüentemente, científica. Esta relação, quando abordada, o é - vezes sem conta - de modo oblíquo ou tangencial, isto é, ela resta quase que exclusivamente confinada ao ato de noticiar que Kant ofereceu, por aproximadamente quatro décadas, cursos de Geografia Física em Königsberg, ou que ele foi o primeiro filósofo a inserir esta disciplina na Universidade, antes mesmo da criação da cátedra de Geografia em Berlim, em 1820, por Karl Ritter. Não ultrapassar a pueril divulgação deste ato em si mesma só nos faz jogar uma cortina sobre a ausência de um discernimento maior acerca do tributo de Kant àfundamentação epistêmica da geografia moderna e científica. Abrir umafrincha nesta cortina denota, necessariamente, elucidar o papel e o lugardo “Curso de Geografia Física” no corpus da filosofia transcendental kantiana. Assim sendo, partimos da conjectura de que a “Geografia Física” continuamente se mostrou, a Kant, como um conhecimento portador de um desmedido sentido filosófico, já que ela lhe denotava a própria possibilidade de empiricização de sua filosofia. Logo, a Geografia Física seria, para Kant, o embasamento empírico de suas reflexões filosóficas, pois ela lhe comunicava a empiricidade da invenção do mundo; ela lhe outorgava a construção metafísica da “superfície da Terra”. Destarte, da mesma maneira que a Geografia, em sua superfície geral, conferiu uma espécie de atributo científico à validação do empírico da Modernidade (desde os idos do século XVI), a Geografia Física apresentou-se como o sustentáculo empírico da reflexão filosófica kantiana acerca da “metafísica da natureza” e da “metafísica do mundo”.THE COURSE OF PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF IMMANUEL KANT(1724-1804): CONTRIBUTION FOR THE GEOGRAPHICALSCIENCE HISTORY AND EPISTEMOLOGYAbstract: There is a relative weakness about our knowledge concerningKant philosophy and the constitution of modern geography and,consequently, scientific geography. That relation, whenever studied,happens – several times – in an oblique or tangential way, what means thatit lies almost exclusively confined in the act of notifying that Kant offered,for approximately four decades, “Physical Geography” courses inKonigsberg, or that he was the first philosopher teaching the subject at anyCollege, even before the creation of Geography chair in Berlin, in 1820, byKarl Ritter. Not overcoming the early spread of that act itself only made usthrow a curtain over the absence of a major understanding about Kant’stribute to epistemic justification of modern and scientific geography. Toopen a breach in this curtain indicates, necessarily, to lighten the role andplace of Physical Geography Course inside Kantian transcendentalphilosophy. So, we began from the conjecture that Physical Geography hasalways shown, by Kant, as a knowledge carrier of an unmeasuredphilosophic sense, once it showed the possibility of empiricization of hisphilosophy. Therefore, a Physical Geography would be, for Kant, theempirics basis of his philosophic thoughts, because it communicates theempiria of the world invention; it has made him to build metaphysically the“Earth’s surface”. In the same way, Geography, in its general surface, hasgiven a particular tribute to the empiric validation of Modernity (since the16th century), Physical Geography introduced itself as an empiric basis toKantian philosophical reflection about “nature’s metaphysics” and the“world metaphysics” as well.Keywords: History and Epistemology of Geography, Physical Geography,Cosmology, Kantian Transcendental Philosophy, Nature.


Author(s):  
Alison More

The first chapter focuses on the wider spiritual context from which penitential movements developed. The rich and vibrant spiritual climate of the early thirteenth century saw the emergence of a number of new expressions of religious life. These new forms of devotion were predominantly characterized by a desire to live according to the gospel while remaining in the world. Throughout Europe, groups of laywomen ran alms houses, cared for lepers and practised other forms of active charity. From the middle of the thirteenth century onwards, the fact that these women did not fit traditional categories was seen as increasingly controversial. Consequently, those responsible for the spiritual care of such groups encouraged them to adopt many external signs of religious life such as a recognized habit, a rule, and even some degree of enclosure.


Author(s):  
Sabyasachi Bhattacharya

The archives are generally sites where historians conduct research into our past. Seldom are they objects of research. Sabyasachi Bhattacharya traces the path that led to the creation of a central archive in India, from the setting up of the Imperial Record Department, the precursor of the National Archives of India, and the Indian Historical Records Commission, to the framing of archival policies and the change in those policies over the years. In the last two decades of colonial rule in India, there were anticipations of freedom in many areas of the public sphere. These were felt in the domain of archiving as well, chiefly in the form of reversal of earlier policies. From this perspective, Bhattacharya explores the relation between knowledge and power and discusses how the World Wars and the decline of Britain, among other factors, effected a transition from a Eurocentric and disparaging approach to India towards a more liberal and less ethnocentric one.


Author(s):  
Joseph Pate ◽  
Brian Kumm

Through this chapter the crafting of compilations is explored as an act, art, and expression of music making, illuminating the listeners’ and compilers’ positions as cocreators of meaning, function, and purpose. Music becomes repositioned and repurposed as found or sound objects that pass through Gaston Bachelard’s triptych of resonance, repercussion, and reverberations, a process of music speaking to so as to speak for individuals’ deeply personal and significantly meaningful experiences. The chapter addresses the question, “What motivates someone to partake in this personally meaningful, vulnerable, and artistic endeavor?” Using Josef Pieper’s conceptions of leisure as celebration, an orientation toward the wonderful, and an act of affirmation, the chapter concludes that the creation and crafting of compilations (e.g., mix tape) affords poetic spaces for connection, enchantment, felt-aliveness, or what Max van Manen called an “incantative, evocative speaking, a primal telling, [whose] aim [is] to involve the voice in an original singing of the world.”


Author(s):  
Farhad Khosrokhavar

The creation of the Islamic State in Iraq and Sham (ISIS) changed the nature of jihadism worldwide. For a few years (2014–2017) it exemplified the destructive capacity of jihadism and created a new utopia aimed at restoring the past greatness and glory of the former caliphate. It also attracted tens of thousands of young wannabe combatants of faith (mujahids, those who make jihad) toward Syria and Iraq from more than 100 countries. Its utopia was dual: not only re-creating the caliphate that would spread Islam all over the world but also creating a cohesive, imagined community (the neo-umma) that would restore patriarchal family and put an end to the crisis of modern society through an inflexible interpretation of shari‘a (Islamic laws and commandments). To achieve these goals, ISIS diversified its approach. It focused, in the West, on the rancor of the Muslim migrants’ sons and daughters, on exoticism, and on an imaginary dream world and, in the Middle East, on tribes and the Sunni/Shi‘a divide, particularly in the Iraqi and Syrian societies.


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