Kabbalah as a Science
The Little Shul
2015 South 4th St
Philadelphia, PA 19148
In the medieval and early modern periods, Kabbalah was understood as a kind of science, revealing the hidden workings of the divine in the cosmos. This talk will provide an overview of this perspective on the Jewish mystical tradition, and look closely at some fascinating sources in which kabbalists (and others) speak about their lore as a science.
Featuring
J. H. (Yossi) Chajes
University of Haifa
J. H. (Yossi) Chajes (Ph.D., Yale University 1999) is Sir Isaac Wolfson Professor of Jewish Thought at the University of Haifa. Chajes’s research focuses on the intersection of Kabbalah, magic, and science in Jewish cultural history. Chajes’s first book, Between Worlds: Dybbuks, Exorcists, and Early Modern Judaism (2003) was listed by the Wall Street Journal as among the top five books ever written on spirit possession, alongside Aldous Huxley’s The Devils of Loudun. Chajes’s foundational book, The Kabbalistic Tree, was published in November 2022 by Penn State University Press and has been lauded as a “monumental achievement that will be valuable to scholars and general readers interested in Judaism, religion, and art history.” In November 2023, The Kabbalistic Tree was awarded the Jordan Schnitzer Book Prize of the Association for Jewish Studies in the category of Philosophy and Jewish Thought. It is also a 2024 National Jewish Book Award finalist.