From Philosophy to Mysticism: How Neoplatonism Influenced Early Kabbalah

Did Neoplatonism influence Kabbalah? Exploring the reception of Neoplatonism in Early Kabbalah via three themes: Negative Theology, Unio Mystica and Emanationism. 00:00 Three Themes from Neoplatonism to Kabbalah 00:37 Collab shout out 01:01 What is Emanationism & the Theory of the Forms? 05:12 What is Unio Mystica? 05:56 What is Negative Theology? 06:45 Disclaimers: Pitfalls of Comparison 08:09 The Jewish Neoplatonists 12:44 Mystical Union in Early Kabbalah 17:02 Philo tho… 21:19 Negative Theology in Early Kabbalah 28:29 The Tension 33:43 An Esoteric En Sof 36:51 Sefirot & Emanation in Early Kabbalah 45:36 Exogenous vs Endogenous 47:22 A Human Question 52:10 Summary 53:28 Shout out and Thank you Sources and Further Reading • Adam Afterman, “And They Shall Be One Flesh,” On the Language of Mystical Union in Judaism, BRILL (2016), pp. 25-7, 79-101, 130-50 • Daniel Matt, “Ayin: The Concept of Nothingness in Mystical Judaism,” in The Problem of Pure Consciousness: Mysticism and Philosophy by Robert Forman (ed.), New York, 1990, pp. 121-159 • Gershom Scholem, Kabbalah (Jerusalem, 1974), p. 88 • Gershom Scholem, Origins of the Kabbalah, 1950, pp. 265-71, 431-45 • Moshe Idel, “Jewish Kabbalah and Platonism in the Middle Ages and Renaissance” in Lenn Goodman, Neoplatonism and Jewish Thought, State University of New York Press, 1992, pp. 325-27, 338-340 • Moshe Idel, Metamorphoses of a Platonic Theme in Jewish Mysticism, pp. 67-8 • Moshe Idel, Absorbing Perfections: Kabbalah and Interpretation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), pp. 239–49 • Moshe Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives, 1988, pp. 31-2 • Sarah Pessin, “Jewish Neoplatonism: Being above Being and Divine Emanation in Solomon Ibn Gabirol and Isaac Israeli” The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Jewish Philosophy, edited by Daniel H. Frank and Oliver Leaman, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003, pp. 91–110 • Raphael Jospe, "Chapter Three. Jewish Neoplatonism: Isaac Israeli and Solomon ibn Gabirol". Jewish Philosophy in the Middle Ages, Boston, USA: Academic Studies Press, 2009, pp. 79-131 Join us: https://discord.gg/EQtjK2FWsm

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