Path: typhoon.sonic.net!not-for-mail Message-ID: <3CBCD0FA.694B@luckymojo.com> From: catherine yronwode Reply-To: cat@luckymojo.com Organization: Lucky Mojo Curio Co. X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01-C-MACOS8 (Macintosh; I; PPC) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.magick Subject: Re: Kelippot in Jewish Qabala (was Re: Beg. Enoch) References: <3caaec21.3089625@trialnews.peoplepc.com> <361f09a8.0204081036.36c2606a@posting.google.com> <3cb3424f.5875621@trialnews.peoplepc.com> <361f09a8.0204091102.6f44961@posting.google.com> <361f09a8.0204100833.15958070@posting.google.com> <361f09a8.0204150745.345ed6d8@posting.google.com> <361f09a8.0204161648.78d18a57@posting.google.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 40 Date: Wed, 17 Apr 2002 01:21:28 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.204.150.232 X-Complaints-To: abuse@sonic.net X-Trace: typhoon.sonic.net 1019006488 209.204.150.232 (Tue, 16 Apr 2002 18:21:28 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2002 18:21:28 PDT Xref: typhoon.sonic.net alt.magick:297540 BhP wrote: > > Moshe Idel, "Kabbalah: New Perspectives" Yale University Press, > 1988. > ISBN 0-300-04699-5 > > ***** > p 156 > In his essay on Kabbalistic ritual, Gershom Scholem emphatically > asserts that "the Kabbalists strove from the very first to *anchor > the ritual of rabbinical Judaism in myth by means of a mystical > practice.*" Two implicit assumptions underlie this far-reaching > statement: (1) that "the ritual of rabbinical Judaism" was free of > myth and mysticism, which were infused into it by the Kabbalists; > and (2) that the Kabbalah emerged from a non-rabbinical, presumably > mythico-mystical Judaism that needed to come to terms with > rabbinical Judaism. Neither of these claimed "implicit assumptions" arises from or is indicicative of a logical necessaity in the quoted Scholem passage, thus neither assumptions can truly be said to be "implied." Rather, both have been INFERRED by the author, and thus they do not reflect upon Scholem at all, but upon the one making the inferrence. To demonstrate, one could just as easily infer (1) that "the ritual of rabbinical Judaism" was already deeply bound up in myth and mysticiam so the Kabbalists sought to bring Kbbalah in line with that ongoing tradition and (2) that the Kabbalah emerged from a rabbinical, presumeably mythico-mystical Judaism known as rabbinical Judaism. You see? Just labelling somthing "implied" does not make it so. It is bad writing, and it is the result of falwed thinking. In short, Scholem was describing what he thinks was done, not WHY. The rest of the so-called "critique" foillows from these mislabeled "implicit" (inferred) assumptions and can be discarded. cat yronwode