Synopsis

A collection of lectures on the features of the movement of mysticism that began in antiquity and continues in Hasidism today.

Jewish Book World

A new introduction by Robert Alter reiterates the importance of Scholem's contribution to establishing the symbolic language which Jews used to express their "sense of connection to eternal things."

Biography

Gershom Scholem was professor of Jewish mysticism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem until his death in 1982. He is also the author of The Messianic Idea in Judaism, On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism,  On the Mystical Shape of the Godhead and Zohar.