Some Basic Principles of Kabbalistic Spirituality

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Walks ups will be accepted.

What distinguishes the world-view of the kabbalist from other kinds of Jews? Is kabbalah a form of metaphysics, or is it what the world calls “mysticism?” If it is “mysticism,” what makes it like other forms of religious mysticism? How can conventional Jews incorporate kabbalistic ideas into their religious practice and world-view, and in what ways was this done over Jewish history? This talk will serve the purpose of clarify the role of Kabbalah in Jewish practice and to define the appropriate, as well as the improper uses of Kabbalah.

Pinchas Giller was brought up in Cocoa Beach, Florida. He was ordained at Yeshiva University and received his doctorate at the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley. Rabbi Giller has written extensively on Judaism and his field of expertise, Jewish Mysticism or Kabbalah. He has written five books, The Enlightened Will Shine: Symbolism and Theurgy in the Later Strata of the Zohar (State University of New York Press, 1993), Reading the Zohar (Oxford University Press 2000), Shalom Shar’abi and the Kabbalists of Beit El (Oxford University Press 2000) and Kabbalah: A Guide for the Perplexed (Continuum Press; 2011) Rabbi Giller also edited Be’er Moshe Al ha-Torah, a Bible commentary by the nineteenth-century grammarian Moshe Reicherson. Rabbi Giller is Professor of Jewish Thought and chairman of the Jewish Studies department of the American Jewish University, Los Angeles.