CHAPTER 6 The Kabbalah in Nachman Krochmal’s Philosophy of History

Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents vii
3. Preface and Acknowledgments ix
4. INTRODUCTION Between Canon and Counterhistory 1
5. Part One COUNTERTRADITIONS WITHIN THE TRADITION
6. CHAPTER 1 The God with Breasts: El Shaddai in the Bible 13
7. CHAPTER 2 Korah in the Midrash: The Hairless Heretic as Hero 29
8. CHAPTER 3 Counterhistory and Jewish Polemics against Christianity: The Sefer Toldot Yeshu and the Sefer Zerubavel 44
9. CHAPTER 4 “The Torah Speaks the Language of Human Beings” Abraham Ibn Ezra’s Radical Interpretation of the Bible 59
10. CHAPTER 5 Between Melancholy and a Broken Heart: A Note on Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav’s Depression 74
11. Part Two AMBIVALENT MODERNITY
12. CHAPTER 6 The Kabbalah in Nachman Krochmal’s Philosophy of History 85
13. CHAPTER 7 Masochism and Philosemitism: The Strange Case of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch 97
14. CHAPTER 8 Historical Heresies and Modern Jewish Identity 114
15. CHAPTER 9 Shabbtai Zvi and the Seductions of Jewish Orientalism 129
16. Part three WEIMAR ANTINOMIANS
17. CHAPTER 10 Leo Strauss: The Philosopher as Weimar Jew 153
18. CHAPTER 11 Arendt in Jerusalem: Hannah Arendt on the Eichmann Trial 163
19. CHAPTER 12 Gershom Scholem’s “Ten Unhistorical Aphorisms on the Kabbalah” Translation and Commentary 178
20. Part Four HERETICAL POLITICS
21. CHAPTER 13 The Threat of Messianism: An Interview with Gershom Scholem (August 14, 1980) 207
22. CHAPTER 14 Mysticism and Politics in Modern Israel: The Messianic Ideology of Abraham Isaac Ha-Cohen Kook 212
23. CHAPTER 15 The End of Enlightenment? 222
24. EPILOGUE By the Waters of San Francisco: A Partial Autobiography 227
25. Notes 241