عنوان

Kabbalah Practices / Practical Kabbalah

LA108372

انگلیسی

Kabbalah Practices / Practical Kabbalah

[Article]

J.H. Chajes

Leiden

Brill

Kabbalistic trees-ilanot, in Hebrew-are not merely arboreal diagrams illustrating the sefirot and other symbols associated with them. By the fifteenth century, the term ilan (singular) referred to a genre of kabbalistic creativity that fused this schema with a specific medium: an ilan was a diagram of the sefirot inscribed on a parchment sheet or rotulus. Ilanot had a variety of functions, from meditative to mnemonic. The present essay isolates a common element in the various uses of ilanot: they are performative, ritually-used artefacts. The ilan is thus a tool of kabbalistic practice, but is it to be considered part of so-called "Practical Kabbalah"? By the nineteenth century, ilanot were being produced specifically to serve as amulets; these apotropaic rotuli are certainly classifiable as artefacts of Practical Kabbalah. Ilanot not produced as amulets are best regarded as magical-but in the sense that they facilitate opportunities for ritual identification with the divine image that they map, and therefore participation in and manipulation of the divine. Kabbalistic trees-ilanot, in Hebrew-are not merely arboreal diagrams illustrating the sefirot and other symbols associated with them. By the fifteenth century, the term ilan (singular) referred to a genre of kabbalistic creativity that fused this schema with a specific medium: an ilan was a diagram of the sefirot inscribed on a parchment sheet or rotulus. Ilanot had a variety of functions, from meditative to mnemonic. The present essay isolates a common element in the various uses of ilanot: they are performative, ritually-used artefacts. The ilan is thus a tool of kabbalistic practice, but is it to be considered part of so-called "Practical Kabbalah"? By the nineteenth century, ilanot were being produced specifically to serve as amulets; these apotropaic rotuli are certainly classifiable as artefacts of Practical Kabbalah. Ilanot not produced as amulets are best regarded as magical-but in the sense that they facilitate opportunities for ritual identification with the divine image that they map, and therefore participation in and manipulation of the divine.

2019

112-145

Aries

19/1

1570-0593

amulets

diagrams

ilanot

Kabbalah

magic

material text

rotuli

tree of life

J.H. Chajes

10.1163/15700593-01901005

p

[Article]

275578

a

Y