Description: Provides an introduction to the world of the Kabbalah, focusing on both the Kabbalist as a person and the major teachings of the Kabbalah.
Brief description: Ora Wiskind-Elper teaches at Michlalah Jerusalem College and at Matan-Women's Institute for Torah Studies.
Review Quotes:
"An Introduction to the Kabbalah is a lucid, scintillating guide to the esoteric teachings of Judaism. The book is very readable without sacrificing scholarly sophistication." - Daniel Matt, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley; Author of The Essential Kabbalah and God and the Big Bang
"This is an important work. It provides an overview of the world of Jewish mysticism with particular attention to the issues that are philosophically generated within that tradition. It examines these issues in a phenomenological way, free of the historiographical approach practiced by many students of Gershom Scholem. The book addresses a number of significant aspects of Jewish mysticism in light of their relationship to general Jewish thought, not in the light of other traditions. It also provides the newcomer to the field with important sources from across the historical continuum of the Kabbalah." - Pinchas Giller, Washington University