A study of the Zohar & its connections. Some of the contents: Early Students of Kabalism; Hidden Church of Israel; Majesty of God in Kabalism; doctrine of Cosmology; Myth of Earthly Paradise; Serpent, Son of the Morning & Fall of the Angels; Fall.
This award-winning study traces the shifting relations between Israel, Iran, and the U.S. since 1948—including secret alliances and treacherous acts. Vitriolic exchanges between the leaders of Iran and Israel are a disturbingly common feature of the news cycle. But the real roots of their enmity mystify Washington policymakers, leaving no promising pathways to stability. In Treacherous Alliance, U.S. foreign policy expert Trita Parsi untangles to complex and often duplicitous relationship among Israel, Iran, and the United States from 1948 to the present. In the process, he reveals shocking details of unsavory political maneuverings that have undermined Middle Eastern peace and disrupted U.S. foreign policy initiatives in the region. Parsi draws on his unique access to senior American, Iranian, and Israeli decision makers to present behind-the-scenes revelations that will surprise even the most knowledgeable readers: Iran’s prime minister asks Israel to assassinate Khomeini; Israel reaches out to Saddam Hussein after the Gulf War; the United States foils Iran’s plan to withdraw support from Hamas and Hezbollah; and more. Treacherous Alliance not only revises our understanding of the recent past, it also spells out a course for the future. An Arthur Ross Book Award Silver Medal Winner A Choice Magazine Outstanding Academic Title
Kabbalah has gained notoriety in recent years, thanks in large part to a publicity boost from celebrity adherents like Madonna. Yet the uninitiated may be surprised to learn that Jewish mysticism has been practiced for thousands of years. First published in 1929, The Holy Kabbalah is Arthur E. Waite's guide to these esoteric teachings. Divided into twelve books, with five appendices and a detailed index, this heavily researched volume traces the origins of Kabbalah and examines its influence (if any) on astrology, alchemy, and freemasonry. Including a close look at Kabbalistic literature, and sections on the Zohar and the Ten Sephiroth, this volume will serve as an excellent introduction to the secret tradition for those wanting to learn more about Kabbalah out of scholarship or curiosity. American-born British author ARTHUR EDWARD WAITE (1857-1942) was cocreator of the famous 1910 Rider-Waite Tarot deck. Among his numerous books are Book of Ceremonial Magic, Devil Worship in France, and New Encyclopedia of Freemasonry.
This is the first translation with commentary of selections from The Zohar, the major text of the Kabbalah, the Jewish mystical tradition. This work was written in 13th-century Spain by Moses de Leon, a Spanish scholar.
Hollow Land is a groundbreaking exploration of the political space created by Israel’s colonial occupation. In this journey from the deep subterranean spaces of the West Bank and Gaza to their militarized airspace, Eyal Weizman unravels Israel’s mechanisms of control and its transformation of the Occupied Territories into a theoretically constructed artifice, in which all natural and built features function as the weapons and ammunition with which the conflict is waged. Weizman traces the development of these ideas, from the influence of archaeology on urban planning, Ariel Sharon’s reconceptualization of military defense during the 1973 war, through the planning and architecture of the settlements, to contemporary Israeli discourse and practice of urban warfare and airborne targeted assassinations. In exploring Israel’s methods to transform the landscape and the built environment themselves into tools of domination and control, Hollow Land lays bare the political system at the heart of this complex and terrifying project of late-modern colonial occupation.
This work, Volume II of The Secret Doctrine of the Gaon of Vilna, introduces the reader to the virtually unknown Kabbalah School of the Gaon of Vilna. This cosmology incorporates an ancient prophesy mandating a messianic interface between Kabbalah and science. The reader is taken on an exploration of the most challenging "secrets of secrets" to be found from among the entire corpus of the kabbalistic teachings of the Jewish sages: the secret mission of Mashiach ben Yoseph (the Josephic Messiah) and the Twin Messiahs, the cosmic drama of the Sacred Serpent and its role in accelerating technology, the Feast of Leviathan and its higher dimensional "flesh", and Metatron - Prince of the Presence - the ultimate key to unlocking the Gaon's Kabbalah system, specifically the doctrine of Kol HaTor, and for that matter, the entire Torah and the cosmos.
A vast reconstruction of the knowledge of the ancient Jewish priest-scientists, with vital implications for contemporary spirituality and science. • Reveals an ancient science that used geometry, sound, and number to link the finite world of human experience with the infinite realm of the divine. • Uses teachings extending back thousands of years to explicate key concepts of quantum physics and quantum cosmology. For centuries the Kabbalah has fascinated devotees of mysticism while its origins have remained obscure. Now, in her brilliant new work, Leonora Leet reveals that the Kabbalah was the product of a sophisticated, though largely forgotten, Hebraic sacred science that was the rival of any in Egypt or Greece. Not only does Leet reconstruct the secret teachings of the priest-scientists of the Hebrew temple, she also shows them to be the key to understanding both biblical and kabbalistic cosmology. Unlike previous purely historical explorations of the Jewish esoteric tradition, The Secret Doctrine of the Kabbalah resurrects this ancient body of knowledge to reveal eternal truths that can have a profound and positive impact on contemporary spirituality. New experimental methods of practicing Hebraic sacred science are explored that explain as never before the meaning of the central cosmological diagram of the entire Western esoteric tradition--the kabbalistic Tree of Life. Leet shows that the Kabbalah and its central diagram enshrine a key to the purpose of the cosmos, a key that has vast implications for modern physics and cosmology. In a final synthesis, she envisions a culmination in which the universe and its divine child, perfected humanity, achieve that unification of the finite and infinite which has ever been the secret doctrine of the Kabbalah.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW AND ECONOMIST BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR “A deeply reported, deeply personal history of Zionism and Israel that does something few books even attempt: It balances the strength and weakness, the idealism and the brutality, the hope and the horror, that has always been at Zionism’s heart.”—Ezra Klein, The New York Times Winner of the Natan Book Award, the National Jewish Book Award, and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award Ari Shavit’s riveting work, now updated with new material, draws on historical documents, interviews, and private diaries and letters, as well as his own family’s story, to create a narrative larger than the sum of its parts: both personal and of profound historical dimension. As he examines the complexities and contradictions of the Israeli condition, Shavit asks difficult but important questions: Why did Israel come to be? How did it come to be? Can it survive? Culminating with an analysis of the issues and threats that Israel is facing, My Promised Land uses the defining events of the past to shed new light on the present. Shavit’s analysis of Israeli history provides a landmark portrait of a small, vibrant country living on the edge, whose identity and presence play a crucial role in today’s global political landscape.