Bodily Rituals In Jewish Mysticism

Bodily Rituals in Jewish Mysticism: The Intensification of Cultic Hand Gestures by Medieval Kabbalists, by Maurizio Mottolese (Sources and Studies in the Literature of Jewish Mysticism 47), 360 pages, in ENGLISH, ISBN 1-933379-58-6). The kabbalistic concern with halakhic precepts, practices and customs has received greater attention in recent scholarship. The present book contributes to this turn with an inquiry into the integration of law and mysticism, rites and myths, experience and speculations in major segments of the Jewish lore. It also calls for an extensive adoption of tools and grids that are currently employed in religious studies, under the impact of the research on ritual forms, language and meaning in anthropology and semiotics. The focus of the inquiry is the effort of thirteenth- and fourteenth century kabbalistic circles to re-signify and revive some daily cultic manual gestures, such as the washing of the hands, the wearing of the phylacteries, and the upraising of the palms. In fact, their mystical commentaries remolded in detail the whole interplay of verbal and nonverbal acts—or, linguistic sides, bodily aspects and inner dimensions—characterizing the traditional liturgical life.

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