4 09, 2013

Mystics and prayers – part 2

By |2013-09-04T00:47:23-07:00September 4th, 2013|Thoughts|

                                                               By Israel Drazin   The following is the second part of my two-part description of mystical notions with an explanation of the prayer Lecha Dodi. In the first part, I described the mystical belief developed in Safed, Israel, in the sixteenth century, that envisioned God as comprising ten parts that were somehow detached [...]

3 09, 2013

More on “The Mysterious Origin of the Monthly Sanctification of the Moon Ceremony”

By |2013-09-03T03:58:29-07:00September 3rd, 2013|Thoughts|

                                            By Israel Drazin                 In my essay “The Mysterious Origin of the Monthly ‘Sanctification of the Moon,’” I showed that the practice is based on an ancient fear that the moon that had disappeared and is now seen as only a sliver, might disappear entirely. To forestall this disaster, those who recite this [...]

30 08, 2013

Who was the mystic Alkabetz?

By |2013-08-30T04:18:14-07:00August 30th, 2013|Thoughts|

By Israel Drazin                                                I mentioned Shlomo Halevi Alkabetz in my two-part article on the basic notion of mystics, the sephirot, and the Friday night hymn Lecha Dodi. I will now give some information about this mystic.   Alkabetz (c. 1500-1580) wrote several books but is best known as the author of the very popular [...]

30 08, 2013

Mystics and prayers

By |2013-08-30T04:13:34-07:00August 30th, 2013|Thoughts|

Mystics and prayers Part one By Israel Drazin The following two-part description of mystical notions and an explanation of the prayer Lecha Dodi is adapted from my book Maimonides: The Exceptional Mind.   The Sefirot The Zohar is one of the most important books of Jewish mysticism. Mystics claim that it was composed during the [...]

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