Daniel C. Matt

Matt's ideas will inform Bible studies for centuries to come, so they are well worth knowing. This is a beautifully written, modern introduction to a major if often unacknowledged, ingredient in the Western world view. Feminists (pro and con) should find it very useful. It looks like the Great Mother is back.

Before this, just about everything I knew about Kabbalah was garnered from the media attention around Madonna and Britney Spears and that center in LA. I knew it was "mystical Judaism" or something to
that effect. The introduction in this book really helped me understand some basics about Kabbalah, like the 10 sefirot, etc. I was reading it out loud to ALi John as we sat on the floor and he drew with my pastels and he commented, "It's like Rumi, but with physics!" I suppose this is show more a)inaccurate and b)an oversimplification but the two have a similer feeling, I have to admit. Something beautiful and mystical that touches you, stirs you.
When I purchased this book I was under the deeply mistaken impression that it was the entire Zohar or a condensed version. The Zohar, the most important text in Kabbalah, is really long and for many centuries was inaccessible. There's only one complete English translation, published in the 1930's. The editor, Daniel Chanan Matt, is working on a complete annotated edition of the Zohar (translated into English), a projected 12 volumes. There's 3 out so far; he seems to be putting out one a year. I'm awed by this undertaking. I want to read them all, but I feel this is like saying I'm going to read all of Remembrances of Things Past. (yeah right)
(Ahhh! Which totally reminds me of this great quote from Little Miss Sunshine, which is a really good film and you should go see it:
Dwayne: I wish I could just sleep until I was eighteen and skip all this crap-high school and everything-just skip it.
Frank: You know Marcel Proust?
Dwayne: He's the guy you teach.
Frank: Yeah. French writer. Total loser. Never had a real job. Unrequited love affairs. Gay. Spent 20 years writing a book almost no one reads. But he's also probably the greatest writer since Shakespeare. Anyway, he uh... he gets down to the end of his life, and he looks back and decides that all those years he suffered, Those were the best years of his life, 'cause they made him who he was. All those years he was happy? You know, total waste. Didn't learn a thing. So, if you sleep until you're 18... Ah, think of the suffering you're gonna miss. I mean high school? High school-those are your prime suffering years. You don't get better suffering than that. ) show less

This books provides a pretty good overview of Kabbalah. If you are a casual reader who may know little of this religious tradition, this may be the book for you. The introductory material is pretty good in laying out some background and history. The rest of the book presents selections from Kabbalistic texts. Overall, the language is pretty accessible. I think Judeo-Christian folks may find some connections here too. The text provides a nice sense of the spirituality of Kabbalah as well as show more its valuing of the pursuit of knowledge and truth. In the end, I am glad I read it as I learned a few new things. show less

This book is a cross between an academic look at the mysticism in Judaism with poetry, making it a contemplative work as well. As an outsider to the Jewish faith, I can still benefit from meditating on the poetic descriptions of aspects of the Divine and how one is to connect with God.