Acknowledgements
Abbreviations and Notes to the Reader
Introduction: A First History of a Forgotten Genre
1. The Emergence of the Kabbalistic Tree
2. Classical Ilanot
3. Visualizing Lurianic Kabbalah
4. Ilanot 2.0: The Emergence of the Lurianic Ilan
5. Luria Compounded
6. Ilan Amulets
7. The Printed Ilan
Conclusion
Appendix: Catalogue of the Gross Family Ilanot Collection
Collector’s Afterword, by William Gross
Notes
Bibliography
Index
J. H. Chajes is Sir Isaac Wolfson Professor of Jewish Thought at the University of Haifa. He is the author of Between Worlds: Dybbuks, Exorcists, and Early Modern Judaism, coeditor of The Visualization of Knowledge in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, and the director of the Ilanot Project.
“A monumental achievement that will be valuable to scholars and
general readers interested in Judaism, religion, and art
history.”—starred review Library Journal
“A superb accomplishment.”—Richard Smoley Quest
“The Kabbalistic Tree is a carefully curated and richly interpreted
visual resource.”—Avinoam J. Stillman Jewish Review of Books
“A feast for the eyes and for the mind, The Kabbalistic Tree should
be essential reading for all of us eager to imagine a Judaism for
the future.”—Micha Odenheimer Haaretz
“This beautifully produced work provides an unprecedented study of
the pictorial representations of the ten sefirot, divine
emanations, as imagined by the Kabbalists over the centuries. . . .
This is a thoughtful, learned, and wise study.”—S. T. Katz
Choice
“The outcome of a decennial work by Yossi Chajes and his
collaborators, this volume indeed constitutes the first collection
and systematic study of a forgotten genre – the ilanot, or
kabbalistic “trees” – and can therefore legitimately aspire to
become a milestone of research in Jewish studies.”—Maurizio
Mottolese Jewish Matter
“Chajes’s book is bound to become a classic, not just because it is
the first and most comprehensive survey of the history and
development of kabbalistic trees but also because its attention to
detail, both graphic and written, makes it an invaluable tool for
further research and discoveries in this often neglected area of
Jewish thought.”—Mordechai Beck The Christian Century
“Chajes has gifted an in the diverse rivers flowing forth from Eden
– from early modern history, religion, art history, and
esotericism, as well as those fascinated by Kabbalah and its
iconography – with a feast of the eyes sure to expand the
heart-mind of both seeker and scholar.”—Aubrey L. Glazer Religious
Studies Review
“The Kabbalistic Tree is a landmark accomplishment”—Vadim Putzu
Religion
“Chajes has made these trees of ink on parchment and paper sing out
loud and clear, redeeming them from obscurity and thus
simultaneously enriching the fields of the history of visual
aesthetics and the history of Jewish culture.”—Marc Michael
Epstein,author of Skies of Parchment, Seas of Ink: Jewish
Illuminated Manuscripts
“J. H. Chajes’s spectacular book offers a comprehensive and
fascinating study of the diagrammatic visualization of Kabbalistic
knowledge. Chajes’s meticulous study of the arboreal Kabbalistic
diagrams is an outstanding contribution to the study of Kabbalah,
early modern and modern Jewish history, and Jewish visual
culture.”—Boaz Huss,author of Mystifying Kabbalah: Academic
Scholarship, National Theology, and New Age Spirituality
“Until this volume there has been no work that endeavours to
provide scholars and laypeople with a broad overall and particular
description of the ilanot in all of their varieties, twists, and
turns. This enterprise is fascinating and truly illuminating, and
no one to this day has touched even a fraction of what the book has
to offer.”—Richard I. Cohen,co-author of Samuel Hirszenberg,
1865–1908: A Polish Jewish Artist in Turmoil
“A tour de force! A brilliant analysis of an astonishing object.
Dense with texts and drawings, these Kabbalistic scrolls finally
receive the scholarly attention they so deserve. In his analysis of
these cosmological visualizations, Chajes treats image and text as
an inseparable totality. The result is a model for the analysis of
‘iconotexts.’ A richly illustrated work of great erudition and
intellectual imagination and a fascinating read.”—Barbara
Kirshenblatt-Gimblett,Chief Curator of the Core Exhibition at POLIN
Museum of the History of Polish Jews
“Late in the Middle Ages—mysteriously, graphically, and in a
strikingly abstract, yet concrete fashion—Kabbalistic trees began
sprouting from Judaism’s alphabet-saturated ground. J. H. Chajes’s
magnificent study takes us for the first time into the history of
their emergence and burgeoning, where visual and verbal vectors
align, and the ‘double-helix of Kabbalah’ is revealed. This is a
path-breaking book, years in the making and thrilling to
read.”—Peter Cole,author of The Poetry of Kabbalah: Mystical Verse
from the Jewish Tradition
Ask a Question About this Product More... |