Absorbing Perfections: Kabbalah and Interpretation

Rating:
Summary: The outstanding work on this subject of our generation
Review: Absorbing Perfections is the outstanding work on Kabbalah of this generation. It is a serious ( and heavy) academic work that breaks new ground and adds important dimensions to the work of previous scholars such Scholem and Shatz.
Whereas other popular works on Kabbalah lack the serious historical perspectives and mastery of the original texts Moshe Idel is unique. There is no one like him writing about Kabbalah in the Western World today.
If Scholem was too Germanic, detached and disregarding of the experiences and spiritual achievements of Kabbalah, Idel adds all these dimensions to the solid academic foundations.
This book is a hard read, its style is not easy, but if anyone wants a serious understanding of Kabbalah rather than a comic book version, this has to be the book to read.

Rating:
Summary: Absorbing yes, perfections no
Review: In the Preface, Idel acknowledges someone specifically for editing the manuscript and improving his English. It was a thankless task, for which I as a reader can offer no thanks. Idel is a wonderful scholar, but this book is an overlong, sprawling, occasionally repetitious tangle. It is useful mainly as a quarry from which one can haul away huge unfashioned blocks of the strangeness that is Jewish mysticism. It will be more a burden than an aid to anyone not already possessing a fairly good grasp of the subject.

Rating:
Summary: Absorbing yes, perfections no
Review: In the Preface, Idel acknowledges someone specifically for editing the manuscript and improving his English. It was a thankless task, for which I as a reader can offer no thanks. Idel is a wonderful scholar, but this book is an overlong, sprawling, occasionally repetitious tangle. It is useful mainly as a quarry from which one can haul away huge unfashioned blocks of the strangeness that is Jewish mysticism. It will be more a burden than an aid to anyone not already possessing a fairly good grasp of the subject.