Headshot of Elliot Wolfson

Marsha and Jay Glazer Endowed Chair of Jewish Studies

Distinguished Professor of Religion

ewolfson@religion.ucsb.edu

HSSB 3063

See Elliot Wolfson's CV

About

Academic History

  • Brandeis University: Ph.D. (1986), M.A. (1983)
  • Hebrew University, Jerusalem: Dissertation Research (1984-85). Fellow at the International Center for the University Teaching of Jewish Civilization in the Diaspora.
  • Queens College: M.A., B.A. (1979). Phi Beta Kappa, Summa Cum Laude.

Professional Experience

  • University of California, Santa Barbara, 2014-2024
    • Marsha and Jay Glazer Endowed Chair in Jewish Studies
    • Distinguished Professor of Religion Emeritus
  • New York University, 1987-2014
    • Assistant Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies, Fall 1987
    • Promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure, Fall 1991
    • Promoted to Full Professor, Fall 1995
    • Appointed as the Abraham Lieberman Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies, Fall 1996
    • Director of Graduate Studies, Fall 1989-Spring 1996
    • Director of Religious Studies, Fall 1995-Spring 2002
  • Harvard University, Fall 2016
    • Weinstock Visiting Professor of Jewish Studies
  • Rice University, Fall 2007
    • Lynette S. Autrey Visiting Professor, Humanities Research Center
  • Shandong University, Jinan, China, Summer 2005
    • Professor in Jewish Mysticism
  • Johns Hopkins University, Spring 2005
    • Visiting Professor, Humanities Center
  • Dartmouth College, Spring 2003
    • Brownstone Visiting Professor of Jewish Studies
  • University of Notre Dame, Fall 2002
    • Crown-Minnow Visiting Professor of Theology and Jewish Studies
  • Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati, Spring 2002
    • Visiting Professor of Jewish Mysticism
  • University of Toronto, Spring 1998
    • Shoshana Shier Distinguished Visiting Professor
  • Russian State University for the Humanities, March 1995
    • Visiting Professor of Jewish Mysticism and Philosophy
  • University of Chicago, Winter Quarter, 1992
    • The Divinity School, Regenstein Visiting Professor in Jewish Studies
  • Princeton University, Spring 1992
    • Adjunct Associate Professor of Religion
  • Columbia University, Fall 1989-Spring 2006
    • Adjunct Professor of Jewish History
  • The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1989-90; 1991-92; 1992-93
    • Adjunct Associate Professor of Jewish Philosophy
  • Queens College, 1988-89
    • Adjunct Professor of Jewish Studies
  • Cornell University, 1986-87
    • Instructor in Jewish Mysticism

Acadaemic Membership

  • Association for Jewish Studies (Member of the Program Committee, 1994-2000)
  • American Academy of Religion (Co-chair of the Study of Judaism Section, 1992-98)
  • Medieval Academy of America
  • World Union of Jewish Studies
  • American Society for the Study of Religion
  • American Academy of Arts and Sciences
  • American Academy of Jewish Research

Academic Awards and Distinctions

  • 2024-25 Visiting Scholar at the Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard Divinity School
  • 2017 Senior Fellow at the Maimonides Center for Advanced Studies, Universität Hamburg
  • 2013 Elected as Fellow of the American Society for the Study of Religion
  • 2012–2013 Fellow at the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, University of Pennsylvania.
  • 2012 Winner of the American Academy of Religion’s Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion in the Category of Constructive and Reflective Studies.
  • 2008-2009 Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies, Hebrew University, Jerusalem. Topic of Seminar: The Sociology of Contemporary Jewish Mysticism in Comparative Perspective.
  • 2008 Elected as Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
  • 2007 Visiting Fellow at the Humanities Research Institute, Rice University
  • 2006 Winner of the National Jewish Book Award for Excellence in Scholarship
  • 1999-2000 Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies, Hebrew University, Jerusalem. Topic of Seminar: Jewish and Christian Millennial Speculation in the Middle Ages
  • 1998 Elected as Fellow of the American Academy of Jewish Research
  • 1996 Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. Topic of Seminar: Messianism
  • 1995 Selected to participate in the Citizen Ambassador Program Religion and Philosophy Delegation to Russia
    • Winner of the American Academy of Religion’s Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion in the Category of Historical Studies
    • Winner of the National Jewish Book Award for Excellence in Scholarship
  • 1989-1990 Fulbright Fellowship, Hebrew University, Jerusalem.
    • Presidential Fellowship for Junior Faculty, New York University
  • 1986-1987 Andrew W. Mellon Teaching-Research Fellowship in the Humanities. Cornell University

Editorial Responsibilities

  • Editor:
    • Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy
  • Editorial Board:
    • Kabbalah: A Journal for the Study of Jewish Mystical Texts;
    • Jewish Quarterly Review;
    • Brill Series Supplements to the Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy;
    • Ekstasis: Religious Experience from Antiquity to the Middle Ages;
    • Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies;
    • The Review of Rabbinic Judaism;
    • Philosophy and Epistemology International Journal;
    • The International Journal of Philosophy.

Publications

Books

  • Apophasis and Envisioning the Invisible: Unveiling Veils of Infinity. Leiden: Brill, 2026.
  • Nocturnal Seeing: Hopelessness of Hope and Philosophical Gnosis in Susan Taubes, Gillian Rose, and Edith Wyschogrod. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2024.
  • Gender, Eroticism, and the Esoteric Imaginary in Jewish Mysticism. Tel Aviv: Idra Publishing, 2024 (Hebrew).
  • The Philosophical Pathos of Susan Taubes: Between Nihilism and Hope. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2023.
  • Unveiling the Veil of Unveiling: Philosophical Aphorisms and Poems on Time, Language, Being and Truth. San Francisco: Panui, 2021.
  • Suffering Time: Philosophical, Kabbalistic, and Ḥasidic Reflections on Temporality. Leiden: Brill, 2021.
  • Heidegger and Kabbalah: Hidden Gnosis and the Path of Poiēsis. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2019.
  • The Duplicity of Philosophy’s Shadow: Heidegger, Nazism, and the Jewish Other. New York: Columbia University Press, 2018.
  • Elliot R. Wolfson: Poetic Thinking. Library of Contemporary Jewish Philosophers. Edited Hava Tirosh-Samuelson and Aaron W. Hughes. Leiden: Brill, 2015.
  • Giving Beyond the Gift: Apophasis and Overcoming Theomania. New York: Fordham University Press, 2014.
  • A Dream Interpreted Within a Dream: Oneiropoiesis and the Prism of Imagination. New York: Zone Books, 2011.
    • Winner of the American Academy of Religion’s Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion in the Category of Constructive and Reflective Studies, 2012.
  • Open Secret: Postmessianic Messianism and the Mystical Revision of Menahem Mendel Schneerson. New York: Columbia University Press, 2009.
  • Footdreams and Treetales: 92 Poems. New York: Fordham University Press, 2007.
  • Luminal Darkness: Imaginal Gleanings From Zoharic Literature. London: Oneworld Publications, 2007.
  • Alef, Mem, Tau: Kabbalistic Musings on Time, Truth, and Death. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006.
  • Venturing Beyond—Law and Morality in Kabbalistic Mysticism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.
  • Language, Eros, Being: Kabbalistic Hermeneutics and Poetic Imagination. New York: Fordham University Press, 2005.
    • Winner of the National Jewish Book Award for Excellence in Scholarship, 2006.
    • Sprache, Eros, Dasein: Kabbalistische Hermeneutik und poetische Einbildungskraft, translated by D. Westerkamp. Berlin: Philo Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, 2002.
  • Pathwings: Poetic-Philosophic Reflections on the Hermeneutics of Time and Language. Barrytown: Station Hill Press, 2004.
  • Abraham Abulafia—Kabbalist and Prophet: Hermeneutics, Theosophy, and Theurgy. Los Angeles: Cherub Press, 2000.
    • Abraham Aboulafia—Cabaliste et Prophète: Herméneutique, Théosophie, et Théurgie, translated by J.-F. Sené. Paris: Éditions de L’éclat, 1999.
  • Along the Path: Studies in Kabbalistic Myth, Symbolism, and Hermeneutics. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995.
  • Circle in the Square: Studies in the Use of Gender in Kabbalistic Symbolism. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995.
  • Through a Speculum That Shines: Vision and Imagination in Medieval Jewish Mysticism. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994.
    • Winner of the American Academy of Religion’s Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion in the Category of Historical Studies, 1995
    • Winner of the National Jewish Book Award for Excellence in Scholarship, 1995.
  • The Book of the Pomegranate: Moses de León’s Sefer ha-Rimmon. Brown Judaic Series 144. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988.

Edited Books

  • D. G. Leahy and the Thinking Now Occurring. Edited by Lissa McCullough and Elliot R. Wolfson. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2021.
  • Studies in Medieval Jewish Intellectual and Social History: Festschrift in Honor of Robert Chazan. Edited with David Engel and Lawrence H. Schiffman. Leiden: Brill, 2012.
  • Philosophy Today 55 (2011), special guest editor of issue in memory of Edith Wyschogrod.
  • New Studies in Jewish Philosophy. Edited by Aaron W. Hughes and Elliot R. Wolfson. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2010.
  • Suffering Religion. Edited by Robert Gibbs and Elliot R. Wolfson. New York: Routledge, 2002.
  • Rending the Veil: Concealment and Secrecy in the History of Religions. New York: Seven Bridges Press, 1999.
  • Perspectives on Jewish Thought and Mysticism. Edited by Alfred Ivry, Allan Arkush, and Elliot R. Wolfson. Reading: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1998.

Articles

  • “Unveiling the Veil of Infinitivity: Apophasis and the Kabbalistic Envisioning of the Invisible.” In Oxford Handbook of Apophatic Theology, edited by John Betz and Rik Van Nieuwenhove. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2025.
  • “Hermeneutics, Imagination, and the Temporality of the Helical Spiral: Reflections on Hart’s Phenomenological Theology.” In Unfinished God: The Speculative Philosophical Theology of Ray L. Hart, edited by Alina N. Feld and Sean J. McGrath, 173-188. Edinburgh University Press, 2024.
  • “Death and the Infinitization of Finitude: Negation and the Ethical Crisis of Modernity in Edith Wyschogrod’s Postmodern Hermeneutics.” In Modern Jewish Thought on Crisis: Interpretation, Heresy, and History, edited by Ghilad H. Shenhav, Cedric Cohen-Skalli, and Gilad Sharvit, 241-265. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2024.
  • “Apophasis and the Parabolic Garment of Truth in Moses Maimonides and Meister Eckhart.” In Beloved David , Advisor, Man of Understanding, and Scribe: A Festschrift in Honor of David Stern, edited by Katrin Kogman-Appel and Naftali Cohn, 155-187. Providence: Brown Judaic Studies, 2024.
  • “Mystery of Infinity, Malkhut de-Adam Qadmon, and the Myth of Ṣimṣum: Engendering Alterity in the Theosophy of Nehemiah Ḥiyya Ḥayyon.” El Prezente 16-17 (2022-2023): 23-59
  • “Phallomorphic Underpinning of Abraham Miguel Cardoso’s Messianic Theosophy: Analysis and Edition of Derush ha-Yesod.” Kabbalah: Journal for the Study of Jewish Mystical Texts 56 (2023): 7-102.
  • “Zionism and the Sacramental Danger of Nationalism: Susan Taubes on Israel.” Ayin Press, June 2, 2023.
  • “Do Not Wake or Arouse Love: Erotics of Time and the Dream of Messianic Waiting.” In The Song of Songs Through the Ages: Studies on the Song’s Reception History in Different Epochs, Contexts, and Genres, edited by Annette Schellenberg, 129-144. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2023.
  • “Imagination, Theolatry, and the Compulsion to Worship the Invisible.” In Religion in Reason: Metaphysics, Ethics, and Politics in Hent de Vries, 50-79. Edited by Tarek R. Dika and Martin Shuster. London: Routledge, 2022.
  • “Phenomenology, Theosophic Topography and the Structures of Being: Unveiling the Seventh of Scholem’s Ten Unhistorical Aphorisms on the Kabbalah.” Kabbalah: Journal for the Study of Jewish Mystical Texts 55 (2022): 7-71.
  • “Concealing the Concealment: Towards a Theopolitics of Kabbalistic Esotericism.” In The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Secrecy, 120-130. Edited by Hugh B. Urban and Paul Christopher Johnson. London: Routledge, 2022.
  • “Melancholic Redemption and the Hopelessness of Hope.” Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy 30 (2022): 304-345.
  • “Gnosis and the Covert Theology of Antitheology: Heidegger, Apocalypticism, and Gnosticism in Susan and Jacob Taubes.” In Depeche Mode: Jacob Taubes Between Politics, Philosophy, and Religion, 151-202. Edited by Herbert Kopp-Oberstebrink and Hartmut von Sass. Leiden: Brill, 2022.
  • “Malkhut Ein Sof and Ṣimṣum: Gender Construction in the Kabbalistic Speculation of Jonathan Eibeschütz, with Special Reference to Wa-Avo ha-Yom el ha-Ayin.” Kabbalah: Journal for the Study of Jewish Mystical Texts 50 (2021): 7-77.
  • “Ascesis, Hypernomianism, and the Excess of Lack: Semiotic Transfiguration of the Somatic.” In Accounting for the Commandments in Medieval Judaism, 229-281. Edited by Jeremy P. Brown and Marc Herman. Leiden: Brill, 2021
  • “Nomadism, Homelessness, and the Homecoming of the Poet: Rosenzweig and Heidegger in Conversation.” In Into Life: Rosenzweig on Knowledge, Aesthetics, and Politics, 281-341. Edited by Antonios Kalatzis and Enrico Lucca. Leiden: Brill, 2021.
  • “Rosenzweig on Human Redemption: Neither Nothing nor Everything, but Only Something.” Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy 29 (2021): 121-150.
  • “Saturnine Melancholy and Dylan’s Jewish Gnosis.” In World of Bob Dylan, 214-225. Edited by Sean Latham. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021.
  • “Theosemiosis and the Void of Being: Kabbalistic Infinity through a Peircean Lens.” In Signs of Salvation: A Festschrift for Peter Ochs, 163-186. Edited by Mark Randall James and Randi Rashkover. Eugene: Cascade Books, 2021.
  • “Temporal Diremption and the Novelty of Genuine Repetition.” In D. G. Leahy and the Thinking Now Occurring, 53-96. Edited by L. McCullough and E. R. Wolfson. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2021.
  • “Tsimtsum, Lichtung, and the Leap of Bestowing Refusal: Kabbalistic and Heideggerian Metaontology in Dialogue.” In Tsimtsum and Modernity: Lurianic Heritage in Modern Philosophy and Theology, 141-189. Edited by Agata Bielik-Robson and Daniel H. Weiss. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2021.
  • “Metaphor, Dream, and the Parabolic Bridging of Difference: A Kabbalistic Aesthetic.” Images: A Journal of Jewish Art and Visual Culture 14 (2021): 82-95.
  • “To Stand in Relation with Something which is Neither Day nor Night: Temporal Overcoming and Heidegger’s Notion of Destiny.” Gatherings: The Heidegger Circle Annual 10 (2020): 207-210.
  • “To Distinguish Israel and the Nations: E Pluribus Unum and Isaac Hutner’s Appropriation of Kabbalistic Anthropology.” In Kabbalah and America: Ancient Lore in the New World, 316-340. Edited by Brian Ogren. Leiden: Brill, 2020.
  • “Malkhut de-Ein Sof and the Temporalization of Space: Ṣimṣum in the Teaching of Solomon ben Ḥayyim Eliashiv.” Kabbalah: Journal for the Study of Jewish Mystical Texts 46 (2020): 7-78.
  • “Heeding the Law beyond the Law: Transgendering Alterity and the Hypernomian Perimeter of the Ethical.” European Journal of Jewish Studies 14 (2020): 215-263.
  • “Apotheosis of the Nothing in Altizer’s Kenotic Atheology.” Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory 19 (2019-2020): 52-84.
  • “Discerning Difference through Comparison of the Same: Isaac Hutner’s Transmission of Esoteric Wisdom.” Kabbalah: Journal for the Study of Jewish Mystical Texts 45 (2019): 7-48.
  • “Hypernomian Piety and the Mystical Rationale of the Commandments in Nathan of Gaza’s Sefer Haberiya.” El Prezente 12-13 (2019): 90-153.
  • “Suffering Time: Maharal’s Influence on Ḥasidic Perspectives on Temporality.” Kabbalah: Journal for the Study of Jewish Mystical Texts 44 (2019): 7-71.
  • “Mysticism and the Quest for Universal Singularity—Post-Subjective Subjectivity and the Contemplative Ideal in Ḥabad.” In Jewish Spirituality and Social Transformation, 37-58. Edited by Philip Wexler. New York: Herder and Herder, 2019.
  • “Anxiety, Lament, and the Language of Silence: Poetic Redemption and Gnostic Alienation.” In All Religion Is Inter-Religion: Engaging the Work of Steven M. Wasserstrom, 17-37. Edited by Kambiz GhaneaBassiri and Paul M. Robertson. London: Bloomsbury, 2019.
  • “Judah ben Solomon Canpanton’s Leqaḥ Ṭov: Annotated Edition and Introduction.” Kabbalah: Journal for the Study of Jewish Mystical Texts 43 (2019): 7-86.
  • “Is There Any Room for Women in Jewish Kabbalah?” In Hermes Explains: Thirty Questions about Western Esotericism, 243-251. Edited by Wouter J. Hanegraaff, Peter J. Forshaw and Marco Pasi. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2019
  • “Deceitful Truth and Truthful Deceit: Sod ha-Hippukh and Abulafia’s Divergence from Maimonides.” In A Tribute to Hannah: Jubilee Book in Honor of Hannah Kasher, 91-125. Edited by Avi Elqayam and Ariel Malachi. Tel-Aviv: Idra Publishing, 2018 (English section).
  • “Recovering Futurity: Theorizing the End and the End of Theory.” In Jews at the End of Theory, 293-311. Edited by Shai Ginsburg, Martin Land, and Jonathan Boyarin. New York: Fordham University Press, 2018.
  • “The Holy Cabala of Changes: Jacob Böhme and Jewish Esotericism.” Aries—Journal for the Study of Western Esotericism 18 (2018): 21-53.
  • “Mysticism.” In The Cambridge History of Judaism. Volume 6. The Middle Ages: The Christian World, 742-786. Edited by Robert Chazan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018.
  • “Gottwesen and the De-Divinization of the Last God: Heidegger’s Meditation on the Strange and Incalculable.” In Heidegger’s Black Notebooks and the Future of Theology, 211-255. Edited by Mårten Björk and Jayne Svenungsson. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.
  • “Heidegger’s Apophaticism: Unsaying the Said and the Silence of the Last God.” In Contemporary Debates in Negative Theology and Philosophy, 185-216. Edited by Nahum Brown and J. Aaron Simmons. New York: Palgrave, 2017.
  • “Heidegger’s Seyn/Nichts and the Kabbalistic Ein Sof: A Study in Comparative Metaontology.” In Heidegger and Jewish Thought: Difficult Others, 177-200. Edited by Elad Lapidot and Micha Brumlik. London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017.
  • “Secrecy, Apophasis, and Atheistic Faith in the Teachings of Rav Kook.” In Negative Theology as Jewish Modernity, 131-160. Edited by Michael Fagenblat. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2017.
  • “Zeitliche Entzweiung und offenes System. Die Atonalität der Kabbala und Heideggers anfängliches Denken.” In Heidegger: die Falte der Sprache, 121-167. Edited by Michael Friedman and Angelika Seppi. Vienna: Turia and Kant, 2017.
  • “Theolatry and the Making-Present of the Nonrepresentable: Undoing (A)Theism in Eckhart and Buber.” Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy 25 (2017): 5-35.
    • Revised version in Martin Buber: His Intellectual and Scholarly Legacy, 3-32. Edited by Sam Berrin Shonkoff. Leiden: Brill, 2018.
  • “Phallic Jewissance and the Pleasure of No Pleasure.” In Talmudic Transgressions: Engaging the Work of Daniel Boyarin, 293-335. Edited by Charlotte Elisheva Fonrobert, Ishay Rosen Zvi, Aharon Shemesh, and Moulie Vidas. Leiden: Brill, ` 2017.
  • “Achronic Time, Messianic Expectation, and the Secret of the Leap in Ḥabad.” In Habad Hasidisim: History, Thought, and Image, 45-86. Edited by Jonathan Meir and Gadi Sagiv. Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar, 2016.
  • “Anonymity and the Kabbalistic Ethos: Fourteenth-Century Supercommentary on the Commentary on the Sefirot.” Kabbalah: Journal for the Study of Jewish Mystical Texts 35 (2016): 55-112.
  • “Asceticism, Mysticism, and Messianism: A Reappraisal of Schechter’s Portrait of Sixteenth-Century Safed.” Jewish Quarterly Review 106 (2016): 165-177 (special forum on the centennial anniversary of the publication of Solomon Schechter’s Studies in Judaism).
  • “Flesh Become Word: Textual Embodiment and Poetic Incarnation.” In Words: Religious Language Matters, 84-160. Edited by Ernst Van Den Hemel and Asja Szafraniec. New York: Fordham University Press, 2016.
  • “Eternal Duration and Temporal Compresence: The Influence of Ḥabad on Joseph B. Soloveitchik.” In The Value of the Particular: Lessons from Judaism and the Modern Jewish Experience: Essays in Honor of Steven T. Katz on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday, 195-238. Edited by Michael Zank and Ingrid Anderson. Leiden: Brill, 2015.
  • “Givenness and the Disappearance of the Gift: Ethics and the Invisible in Marion’s Christocentric Phenomenology.” In Ethics of In-visibility: Imago Dei, Memory, and Human Dignity, 169-191. Edited by Claudia Welz. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2015
  • “Retroactive Not Yet: Linear Circularity and Kabbalistic Temporality.” In Time and Eternity in Jewish Mysticism: That Which is Before and That Which is After, 15-50. Edited by Brian Ogren. Leiden: Brill, 2015.
  • “Bifurcating the Androgyne and Engendering Sin: A Zoharic Reading of Gen 1-3.” In Hidden Truths from Eden: Esoteric Interpretations of Genesis 1-3, 87-119. Edited by Caroline Vander Stichele and Susanne Scholz. Atlanta: SBL Publications, 2014.
  • “Die Schechina als Mundus Imaginalis: Ihre Vielen Gestalten im Prisma Menschlicher Einbildungskraft.” In Ulrike Grossarth, Wäre Ich Von Stoff, Ich Würde Mich Färben = Were I Made of Matter, I Would Color, 69-81. Edited by Sabine Folie and Ilse Lafer. Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2014.
  • “In the Mirror of the Dream: Borges and the Poetics of Kabbalah.” Jewish Quarterly Review 104 (2014): 362-379.
  • “Parting of the Ways That Never Parted: Judaism and Christianity in the Work of Jacob Neusner.” In  A Legacy of Learning: Essays in Honor of Jacob Neusner, 299-318. Edited by Alan Avery-Peck, Bruce D. Chilton, William Scott Green, and Gary Porton. Leiden: Brill, 2014.
  • “Skepticism and the Philosopher’s Keeping Faith.” In Jewish Philosophy for the Twenty-First Century: Personal Reflections, 481-515. Edited by Hava Tirosh-Samuelson and Aaron W. Hughes. Leiden: Brill, 2014.
  • “Becoming Invisible: Rending the Veil and the Hermeneutic of Secrecy in the Gospel of Philip.” In Practicing Gnosis: Ritual, Magic, Theurgy and Liturgy in Nag Hammadi, Manichaean and Other Ancient Literature.  Essays in Honor of Birger A. Pearson, 113-135. Edited by April D. DeConick, Gregory Shaw, and John D. Turner. Leiden: Brill,  2013.
  • “Configuration of Untruth in the Mirror of God’s Truth: Rethinking Rosenzweig in Light of Heidegger’s Alētheia.” In Die Denkfigur des Systems im Ausgang von Franz Rosenzweigs ‘Stern der Erlösung’, 141-162. Edited by Hartwig Wiedebach. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2013.
  • “Le corps de la letter: l’herméneutique soufie et kabbalistique.” In Histoire des relations entre juifs et musulmans du Coran à nos jours, 817-832. Edited by Abdelwahab Meddeb and Benjamin Stora. Paris: Albin Michel, 2013.
    • English translation: “Embodied Letter: Sufi and Kabbalistic Hermeneutics.” In A History of Jewish- Muslim Relations: From the Origins to the Present Day, 837-852. Edited by Abdelwahab Meddeb and Benjamin Stora,. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013.
  • “Nequddat ha-Reshimu—The Trace of Transcendence and the Transcendence of the Trace: The Paradox of Ṣimṣum in the RaShaB’s Hemshekh Ayin Beit.” Kabbalah: Journal for the Study of Jewish Mystical Texts 30 (2013): 75-120.
  • “Patriarchy and the Motherhood of God in Zoharic Kabbalah and Meister Eckhart.” In Envisioning Judaism: Studies in Honor of Peter Schäfer on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday, 1049-1088. Edited by Ra‘anan S. Boustan, Klaus Hermann, Reimund Leicht, Annette Yoshiko Reed, and Giuseppe Veltri, with the collaboration of Alex Ramos. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013.
  • “Theosis, Vision, and the Astral Body in Medieval German Pietism and the Spanish Kabbalah.” In Sky and Symbol: Proceedings of the Ninth Annual Sophia Centre Conference, 2011, 119-142. Edited by Nicholas Campion and Liz Greene. Ceredigion, Wales: Sophia Centre Press, 2013.
  • “Zoharic Literature and Midrashic Temporality.” In Midrash Unbound: Transformations and Innovations, 311-333. Edited by Michael Fishbane and Joanna Weinberg. Oxford: Littman Library, 2013.
  • “Echo of the Otherwise: Ethics of Transcendence and the Lure of Theolatry.” In Encountering the Medieval in Modern Jewish Thought, 261-324. Edited by Aaron W. Hughes and James A. Diamond. Leiden: Brill, 2012.
  • “Imagination and the Theolatrous Impulse: Configuring God in Modern Jewish Thought.” In The Cambridge History of Jewish Philosophy: The Modern Era, 663-703. Edited by Zachary Braiterman, Martin Kavka, and David Novak. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
  • “Nihilating Nonground and the Temporal Sway of Becoming: Kabbalistically Envisioning Nothing Beyond Nothing.” Angelaki 17 (2012): 31-45.
  • “Paul Philip Levertoff and the Popularization of Kabbalah as a Missionizing Tactic.” Kabbalah: Journal for the Study of Jewish Mystical Texts 27 (2012): 269-320.
  • “Revealing and Re/veiling Menaḥem Mendel Schneerson’s Messianic Secret.” Kabbalah: Journal for the Study of Jewish Mystical Texts 26 (2012): 25-96.
  • “Textual Flesh, Incarnation, and the Imaginal Body: Abraham Abulafia’s Polemic with Christianity.” In Studies in Medieval Jewish Intellectual and Social history: Festschrift in Honor of Robert Chazan, 189-226. Edited David Engel, Lawrence H. Schiffman, and Elliot R. Wolfson. Leiden: Brill, 2012.
  • “Unveiling the Veil: Apocalyptic, Secrecy, and the Jewish Mystical Imaginaire.” Association for Jewish Studies Perspectives (Fall 2012): 18-20.
  • “Abraham ben Samuel Abulafia and the Prophetic Kabbalah.” In Jewish Mysticism and Kabbalah: New Insights, 68-90. Edited by Frederick E. Greenspahn. New York: New York University Press, 2011.
  • “Apophasis and the Trace of Transcendence: Wyschogrod’s Contribution to a Postmodern Jewish Immanent A/Theology.” Philosophy Today 55 (2011): 328-347.
  • “Building a Sanctuary of the Heart: The Kabbalistic-Pietistic Teachings of Itamar Schwartz.” In Kabbalah and Contemporary Spiritual Revival, 141-162. Edited by Boaz Huss. Ben-Gurion: Ben-Gurion University Press, 2011.
  • “Dreaming the Dream of the Poem: Flattened Curves of Infinitivity.” The Poetic Front 4 (2011).
  • “Immanuel Frommann’s Commentary on Luke and the Christianizing of Kabbalah: Some Sabbatian and Ḥasidic Affinities.” In Holy Dissent: Jewish and Christian Mystics in Eastern Europe, 171-222. Edited by Glenn Dynner. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2011.
    • Revised Hebrew version in And This Is For Yehuda: Studies Presented to Our Friend, Professor Yehuda Liebes, on the Occasion of his Sixty-Fifth Birthday, 401-419. Edited by Maren R. Niehoff, Ronit Meroz, and Jonathan Garb. Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 2012.
  • “Open Secret in the Rearview Mirror.” Association for Jewish Studies Review 35 (2011): 1-18.
  • “Teaching Jewish Mysticism: Concealing the Concealment and Disclosure of Secrets.” In Teaching Mysticism, 103-117. Edited by William B. Parsons. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.
  • “Light Does Not Talk But Shines: Apophasis and Vision in Rosenzweig’s Theopoetic Temporality.” In New Studies in Jewish Philosophy, 87-148. Edited by Aaron W. Hughes and Elliot R. Wolfson. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2010.
  • “The Status of the (Non)Jewish Other in the Apocalyptic Messianism of Menahem Mendel Schneerson.” In Kabbalah and Modernity: Interpretations, Transformations, Adaptations, 221-257. Edited by Boaz Huss, Marco Pasi, and Kocku von Stuckrad. Leiden: Brill, 2010.
  • “Undoing Time and the Syntax of the Dream Interlude: A Phenomenological Reading of Zohar 1:199a-200a.” Kabbalah: Journal for the Study of Jewish Mystical Texts 22 (2010): 33-57.
  • “The Anonymous Chapters of the Elderly Master of Secrets: New Evidence for the Early Activity of the Zoharic Circle.” Kabbalah: Journal for the Study of Jewish Mystical Texts 19 (2009): 143-278.
  • “Das Kleid der Ka‘ba: Verhüllung und Entschleierung in den Bilderwelten des Sufismus.” In Taswir—Islamische Bildwelten und Moderne, 153-157. Edited By Almut Shulamit Bruckstein Çoruh and Hendrik Budde. Berlin: Nicolaische B. Verlagsbuchhandlung GmbH, 2009.
  • “Kenotic Overflow and Temporal Transcendence: Angelic Embodiment and the Alterity of Time in Abraham Abulafia.” Kabbalah: Journal for the Study of Jewish Mystical Texts 18 (2008): 133-190.
    • Revised version in Saintly Influence: Edith Wyschogrod and the Possibilities of Philosophy of Religion, 113-149. Edited by Eric Boynton and Martin Kavka New York: Fordham University Press, 2009.
  • “Revisioning the Body Apophatically: Incarnation and the Acosmic Naturalism of Habad Hasidism.” In Apophatic Bodies: Infinity, Ethics, and Incarnation, 147-199. Edited by Chris Boesel and Catherine Keller. New York: Fordham University Press, 2009.
  • “‘Sage Is Preferable to Prophet’: Revisioning Midrashic Imagination.” In Scriptural Exegesis:  The Shapes of Culture and the Religious Imagination: A Festschrift in Honor of Michael Fishbane, 186-210. Edited by Deborah A. Green and Laura S. Lieber. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
  • “Angelic Embodiment and the Feminine Representation of Jesus: Reconstructing Carnality in the Christian Kabbalah of Johann Kemper.” In The Jewish Body: Corporeality, Society, and Identity in the Renaissance and the Early Modern Period, 395-426. Edited by Maria Diemling and Giuseppe Veltri. Leiden: Brill, 2009.
  • “Murmuring Secrets: Eroticism and Esotericism in Medieval Kabbalah.” In Hidden Intercourse: Eros and Sexuality in the History of Western Esotericism, 65-109. Edited by Wouter J. Hanegraaff and Jeffrey J. Kripal. Leiden: Brill, 2008.
  • “Via Negativa in Maimonides and Its Impact on Thirteenth-Century Kabbalah.” Maimonidean Studies 5 (2008): 393-442.
  • “Imago Templi and the Meeting of the Two Seas: Liturgical Time-Space and the Feminine Imaginary in Zoharic Kabbalah.” RES 51 (2007): 121-135.
  • “Inscribed in the Book of the Living: Gospel of Truth and Jewish Christology.” Journal for the Study of Judaism 38 (2007): 234-271.
  • “Oneiric Imagination and Mystical Annihilation in Habad Hasidism.” ARC, The Journal of the Faculty of Religious Studies, McGill University 35 (2007): 131-157.
  • “Rose of Eros and the Duplicity of the Feminine in Zoharic Kabbalah.” In Botanical Progress, Horticultural Innovation and Cultural Changes, 51-59. Edited by Michael Conan and W. John Kress. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2007.
  • “Structure, Innovation, and Diremptive Temporality: The Use of Models to Study Continuity and Discontinuity in Kabbalistic Tradition.” Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideologies 18 (2007): 143-167.
  • “Beschneidung, Gottesvision und Textinterpretation Vom Midrasch-Tropus zum mystischen Symbol.” Analytische Psychologie: Zeitschrift für Psychotherapie und Psychoanalyse 146 (2006): 369-405.
  • “Mythopoeic Imagination and the Hermeneutic Bridging of Temporal Spacing: A Note on Fishbane’s Biblical Myth and Rabbinic Mythmaking.” Jewish Quarterly Review 96 (2006): 233-238.
  • “New Jerusalem Glowing: Songs and Poems of Leonard Cohen in a Kabbalistic Key.” Kabbalah: A Journal for the Study of Jewish Mystical Texts 15 (2006): 103-152.
  • “Suffering Eros and Textual Incarnation: A Kristevan Reading of Kabbalistic Poetics.” In Toward a Theology of Eros: Transfiguring Passion at the Limits of Discipline, edited by Virginia Burrus and Catherine Keller, 341-365. New York: Fordham University Press, 2006.
    • Hebrew version in Kabbalah, Mysticism and Poetry: The Journey to the End of Vision, 450-477. Edited by Avi Elqayam and Shlomy Mualem. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 2015.
  • “Secrecy, Modesty, and the Feminine: Kabbalistic Traces in the Thought of Levinas.” Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy 14 (2006): 195-224.
    • Reprinted in The Exorbitant: Emmanuel Levinas Between Jews and Christians, 52-73. Edited by Kevin Hart and Michael A. Signer New York: Fordham University Press, 2010.
  • “The Body in the Text: A Kabbalistic Theory of Embodiment.” Jewish Quarterly Review 95 (2005): 479-500.
  • “Language, Secrecy, and the Mysteries of Law: Theurgy and the Christian Kabbalah of Johannes Reuchlin.” Kabbalah: A Journal for the Study of Jewish Mystical Texts 13 (2005): 7-41.
    • Revised version in Invoking Angels: Theurgic Ideas and Practices, Thirteenth to Sixteenth Centuries, 312-340. Edited by Claire Fanger. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. 2012.
  • “Beneath the Wings of the Great Eagle: Maimonides and Thirteenth-Century Kabbalah.” In Moses Maimonides (1138-1204)—His Religious, Scientific, and Philosophical Wirkungsgeschichte in Different Cultural Contexts, 209-237. Edited by Görge K. Hasselhoff and Otfried Fraisse. Würzburg: Ergon Verlag, 2004.
  • “Hermeneutics of Light in Medieval Kabbalah.” In The Presence of Light: Divine Radiance and Religious Experience, 105-118. Edited by Matthew T. Kapstein. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004.
  • “Iconicity of the Text: Reification of the Torah and the Idolatrous Impulse of Zoharic Kabbalah.” Jewish Studies Quarterly 11 (2004): 215-242.
  • “Text, Context, Pretext: A Review Essay of Yehuda Liebes’s ‘Ars Poetica in Sefer Yetsirah’.” Studia Philonica Annual 16 (2004): 218-228.
  • “Asceticism and Eroticism in Medieval Jewish Philosophical and Mystical Exegesis of the Song of Songs.” In With Reverence for the Word: Medieval Scriptural Exegesis in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, 92-118. Edited by Jane Dammen McAuliffe, Barry D. Walfish, and Joseph W. Goering. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
  • “Circumcision, Secrecy, and the Veiling of the Veil: Phallomorphic Exposure and Kabbalistic Esotericism.” In The Covenant of Circumcision:  New Perspectives on an Ancient Jewish Rite, 58-70. Edited by Elisabeth Wyner Mark. Hanover: Brandeis University Press, 2003.
  • “Seven Mysteries of Knowledge: Qumran E/sotericism Reconsidered.” In The Idea of Biblical Interpretation: Essays in Honor of James L. Kugel, 173-213. Edited by Hindy Najman. Leiden: Brill, 2003.
  • “Assaulting the Border: Kabbalistic Traces in the Margins of Derrida.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 70 (2002): 475-514.
  • “Before Alef/Where Beginnings End.” In Beginning/Again: Towards a Hermeneutics of Jewish Texts, 135-161. Edited by Aryeh Cohen and Shaul Magid. New York: Seven Bridges Press, 2002.
  • “Beyond Good and Evil: Hypernomianism, Transmorality, and Kabbalistic Ethics.” In Crossing Boundaries: Ethics, Antinomianism and the History of Mysticism, 103-156. Edited by Jeffrey J. Kripal and William Barnard. New York: Seven Bridges Press, 2002.
  • “The Cut That Binds: Time, Memory, and the Ascetic Impulse.” In God’s Voice From the Void: Old and New Studies in Bratslav Hasidism, 103-154. Edited by Shaul Magid. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002.
  • “Divine Suffering and the Hermeneutics of Reading: Philosophical Reflections on Lurianic Mythology.” In Suffering Religion, 101-162. Edited by Robert Gibbs and Elliot R. Wolfson. New York and London: Routledge, 2002.
  • “Gender and Heresy in Kabbalah Scholarship.” Kabbalah: A Journal for the Study of Jewish Mystical Texts 6 (2002): 231-262 (Hebrew).
  • “Mirror of Nature Reflected in the Symbolism of Medieval Kabbalah.” In Judaism and Ecology: Created World and Revealed Word, 305-331. Edited by Hava Tirosh-Samuelson. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, Press, 2002.
  • “Lying on the Path: Translation and the Transport of Sacred Texts.” Association for Jewish Studies Perspectives 3 (2001): 8-13.
  • “Martyrdom, Eroticism, and Asceticism in Twelfth-Century Ashkenazi Piety.” In Jews and Christians in Twelfth-Century Europe, 171-220. Edited by Michael A. Signer and John Van Engen. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2001.
  • “Messianism in the Christian Kabbalah of Johann Kemper.” In Millenarianism and Messianism in the Early Modern European Culture: Jewish Messianism in the Early Modern World, 139-187. Edited by Matt D. Goldish and Richard H. Popkin. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001.
  • “Moisés de León y el Zohar.” In Pensamiento y Mística Hispanojudía y Sefardí, 165-192. Cuenca: Ediciones de la Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, 2001.
  • “Phantasmagoria: The Image of the Image in Jewish Magic from Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages.” In The Review of Rabbinic Judaism: Ancient, Medieval, Modern 4 (2001): 78-120
  • “Beyond the Spoken Word: Oral Tradition and Written Transmission in Medieval Jewish Mysticism.” In Transmitting Jewish Traditions: Orality, Textuality and Cultural Diffusion, 166-224. Edited by Yaakov Elman and Israel Gershoni. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000.
  • Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Oxford University Press, 2000. Entries on “Heikhalot Literature” and “Kabbalah.”
  • “Gazing Beneath the Veil: Apocalyptic Envisioning the End.” In  Reinterpreting Revelation and Tradition: Jews and Christians in Conversation, 77-103. Edited by John T. Pawlikowski, O.S.M., and Hayim G. Perelmuter. Franklin: Sheed & Ward, 2000.
  • “Judaism and Incarnation: The Imaginal Body of God.” In Christianity in Jewish Terms, 239-254. Edited by Tikva Frymer-Kensky, David Novak, Peter Ochs, and Michael A. Signer. Boulder: Westview Press, 2000.
  • “Ontology, Alterity, and Ethics in Kabbalistic Anthropology.” Exemplaria 12 (2000): 129-155. Reprinted in Turn It Again: Jewish Medieval Studies and Literary Theory, edited by Sheila Delany, 119-144. Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2004.
  • “Megillat Emet we-Emunah: Contemplative Visualization and Mystical Unknowing.” Kabbalah: A Journal for the Study of Jewish Mystical Texts 5 (2000): 55-110.
  • “Occultation of the Feminine and the Body of Secrecy in Medieval Kabbalah.” In Rending the Veil: Concealment and Revelation of Secrets in the History of Religions, 113-154. Edited by Elliot R. Wolfson. New York: Seven Bridges Press, 1999.
  • “Sacred Space and Mental Iconography: Imago Templi and Contemplation in Rhineland Jewish Pietism.” In Ki Baruch Hu: Ancient Near Eastern, Biblical, and Judaic Studies in Honor of Baruch A. Levine, 593-634. Edited by Robert Chazan, William Hallo, and Lawrence H. Schiffman. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1999.
  • “Constructions of the Shekhinah in the Sabbatian Theology of Abraham Cardoso, with a Critical Edition of Derush ha-Shekhinah.” Kabbalah: A Journal for the Study of Jewish Mystical Texts 3 (1998): 11-143.
  • Encyclopedia of Women and World Religion. Edited by Serenity Young. Macmillan Reference, 1998. Entries on “Divinity” and “Torah.”
  • “The Engenderment of Messianic Politics: Symbolic Significance of Sabbatai Ṣevi’s Coronation.” In Toward the Millennium: Messianic Expectations From the Bible to Waco, 203-258. Edited by Peter Schäfer and Mark Cohen. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1998.
  • “Fore/giveness On the Way: Nesting in the Womb of Response.” Graven Images: Studies in Culture, Law, and the Sacred 4 (1998): 153-169.
  • “Hebraic and Hellenistic Conceptions of Wisdom in Sefer ha-Bahir.” Poetics Today 19 (1998): 147-176.
  • “Listening to Speak: A Response to Dialogues in Postmodern Jewish Philosophy.” In Steven Kepnes, Peter Ochs, and Robert Gibbs, Reasoning After Revelation: Dialogues in Postmodern Jewish Philosophy, 93-104. Boulder: Westview Press, 1998.
  • “Mystical Rationalization of the Commandments in the Prophetic Kabbalah of Abraham Abulafia.” In Perspectives on Jewish Thought and Mysticism, 311-360. Edited by Alfred Ivry, Allan Arkush, and Elliot R. Wolfson. Reading: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1998.
  • “Re/membering the Covenant: Memory, Forgetfulness, and History in the Zohar.” In Jewish History and Jewish Memory: Essays in Honor of Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, 214-246. Edited by Elisheva Carlebach, John M. Efron, and David S. Myers. Hanover: Brandeis University Press, 1998.
  • “Coronation of the Sabbath Bride: Kabbalistic Myth and the Ritual of Androgynisation.” Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy 6 (1997): 301-344.
  • “Effacer l’effacement: sexe et écriture du corps divin dans le symbolisme kabbalistique.” In Transmission et passages en monde juif, 65-97. Edited by Esther Benbassa. Paris: PUBLISUD, 1997.
  • “Eunuchs Who Keep the Sabbath: Becoming Male and the Ascetic Ideal in Thirteenth-Century Jewish Mysticism.” In Becoming Male in the Middle Ages, 151-185. Edited by Jeffrey Jerome Cohen and Bonnie Wheeler. New York: Garland, 1997.
  • “The Face of Jacob in the Moon: Mystical Transformations of an Aggadic Myth.” In The Seduction of Myth in Judaism: Challenge and Response, 235-270. Edited by S. Daniel Breslauer. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997.
  • “Facing the Effaced: Mystical Eschatology and the Idealistic Orientation in the Thought of Franz Rosenzweig.” Zeitschrift für Neuere Theologiegeschichte 4 (1997): 39-81.
  • “Tiqqun ha-Shekhinah: Redemption and the Overcoming of Gender Dimorphism in the Messianic Kabbalah of Moses Hayyim Luzzatto.” History of Religions 36 (1997): 289-332.
    • French translation: “Le Tiqqun ha-Shekhinah: Rèdemption et rèsolution du dimorphisme sexuel dans la Kabbale messianique de Moïse Hayyim Louzzatto.” Pardès 24 (1998): 51-93.
  • “Iconic Visualization and the Imaginal Body of God: The Role of Intention in the Rabbinic Conception of Prayer.” Modern Theology 12 (1996): 137-162.
  • “Jewish Mysticism: A Philosophical Overview.” In The Routledge History of Jewish Philosophy, 450-498. Edited by Daniel H. Frank and Oliver Leaman. New York: Routledge, 1996.
  • “Traces of Philonic Doctrine in Medieval Jewish Mysticism: A Preliminary Note.” The Studia Philonica Annual 8 (1996): 99-106.
  • “Walking as a Sacred Duty: Theological Transformation of Social Reality in Early Hasidism.” In Hasidism Reappraised, 180-207. Edited by Ada Rapoport-Albert. Oxford: Litman Library of Jewish Civilization, 1996.
  • “The Doctrine of Sefirot in the Prophetic Kabbalah of Abraham Abulafia.” Jewish Studies Quarterly 2 (1995): 336-371 and 3 (1996): 47-84.
  • “Crossing Gender Boundaries in Kabbalistic Ritual and Myth.” In Ultimate Intimacy: The Psychodynamics of Jewish Mysticism, 255-337. Edited by Mortimer Ostow. London: Karnac, 1995.
  • “From Sealed Book to Open Text: Time, Memory, and Narrativity in Kabbalistic Hermeneutics.” In Interpreting Judaism in a Postmodern Age, 145-178. Edited by Steven Kepnes. New York: New York University Press, 1995.
  • Harper’s Dictionary of Religion. Edited by William S. Green. Entries: Baal Shem Tov; Devequt; Hitlahavut; Hasidism; Judaism, mysticism of; Lubavitch; Mitnaggedim; Torah Scroll; Zaddiq (1995).
  • Judaism in Late Antiquity. Volume Four. Special Topics: Death, Afterlife, Resurrection, and the World to Come. Edited by Alan Avery-Peck and Jacob Neusner. Leiden: Brill, 1995. Entry: “Judaic Mystical Literature of Late Antiquity.”
  • “Metatron and Shi‘ur Qomah in the Writings of Haside Ashkenaz.” In Mysticism, Magic and Kabbalah in Ashkenazi Judaism, 60-92. Edited by Karl Grözinger and Joseph Dan. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1995.
  • “On Becoming Female: Crossing Gender Boundaries in Kabbalistic Ritual and Myth.” In Gender and Judaism, 209-228. Edited by Tamar M. Rudavsky. New York: New York University Press, 1995.
  • “Varieties of Jewish Mysticism: A Typological Analysis.” In Mysticism and the Mystical Experience: East and West, 133-169. Edited by Donald H. Bishop. Selinsgrove: Susquehanna University Press, 1995.
  • “Weeping, Death, and Spiritual Ascent in Sixteenth-Century Jewish Mysticism.” In Death, Ecstasy, and Other Worldly Journeys, 207-247. Edited by John Collins and Michael Fishbane. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995.
  • “Mysticism and the Poetic-Liturgical Compositions From Qumran.” Jewish Quarterly Review 85 (1994): 187-204.
  • “Negative Theology and Positive Assertion in the Early Kabbalah.” Da‘at 32-33 (1994): V-XXII (English section).
  • “Woman—The Feminine As Other in Theosophic Kabbalah: Some Philosophical Observations on the Divine Androgyne.” In The Other in Jewish Thought and History: Constructions of Jewish Culture and Identity, 166-204. Edited by Laurence J. Silberstein and Robert L. Cohn. New York: New York University Press, 1994.
  • “The Image of Jacob Engraved Upon the Throne: Further Speculation on the Esoteric Doctrine of the German Pietism.” In Massu’ot Studies in Kabbalistic Literature and Jewish Philosophy in Memory of Prof. Ephraim Gottlieb, 131-185. Edited by Michal Oron and Amos Goldreich. Jerusalem: Mossad Bialik, 1994 (Hebrew).
  • “Beautiful Maiden Without Eyes: Peshat and Sod in Zoharic Hermeneutics.” In The Midrashic Imagination: Jewish Exegesis, Thought, and History, 155-203. Edited by Michael Fishbane. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993.
  • “Forms of Visionary Ascent as Ecstatic Experience in the Zoharic Literature.” In Gershom Scholem’s Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism 50 Years After, 209-235. Edited by Joseph Dan and Peter Schäfer. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1993.
  • “The Mystical Significance of Torah-Study in German Pietism.” Jewish Quarterly Review 84 (1993): 43-78.
  • “The Tree That Is All: Jewish-Christian Roots of a Kabbalistic Symbol in Sefer ha-Bahir.” Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy 3 (1993): 31-76.
  • “Yeridah la-Merkavah: Typology of Ecstasy and Enthronement in Early Jewish Mysticism.” In Mystics of the Book: Themes, Topics, and Typologies, 13-44. Edited by Robert A. Herrera. New York: Peter Lang, 1993.
  • “Images of God’s Feet: Some Observations on the Divine Body in Judaism.” In People of the Body: Jews and Judaism From An Embodied Perspective, 143-181. Edited by Howard Eilberg-Schwartz. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992.
  • “The Influence of the Ari on the Shelah.” Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 10 (1992): 423-448 (Hebrew).
  • “The Theosophy of Shabbetai Donnolo, with Special Emphasis on the Doctrine of Sefirot in Sefer Ḥakhmoni.” Jewish History 6 (1992): 281-316.
  • “Hai Gaon’s Letter and Commentary on ‘Aleynu: Further Evidence of R. Moses de León’s Pseudepigraphic Activity.” Jewish Quarterly Review 81 (1991): 365-410.
  • “God, the Intellect, and the Demiurge: On the Usage of the Word Kol in Abraham ibn Ezra.” Revue des études juives 149 (1990): 77-111.
  • “Letter Symbolism and Merkavah Imagery in the Zohar.” In Alei Shefer: Studies in the Literature of Jewish Thought Presented to Rabbi Dr. Alexandre Safran, 195-236. Edited by Moshe Hallamish. Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan Press, 1990 (English section).
  • “Merkavah Traditions in Philosophical Garb: Judah Halevi Reconsidered.” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 57 (1990-1991): 179-242.
  • “The Secret of the Garment in Naḥmanides.” Da‘at 24 (1990): 25-49 (English section).
  • “Anthropomorphic Imagery and Letter Symbolism in the Zohar.” Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 8 (1989): 147-181 (Hebrew).
  • “By Way of Truth: Aspects of Naḥmanides’ Kabbalistic Hermeneutic.” Association for Jewish Studies Review 14 (1989): 103-178.
  • “Female Imaging of the Torah: From Literary Metaphor to Religious Symbol.” In From Ancient Israel to Modern Judaism, Intellect In Quest of Understanding: Essays in Honor of Marvin Fox, 2: 271-307. Edited by Jacob Neusner, Ernest J. Frerichs, and Nahum Sarna. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989.
  • “La hermenéutica de la experiencia visionaria: revelación e interpretación en el Zohar.” Acta Poetica 9-10 (1989): 117-143.
    • Reprinted in Ensayos sobre cábala y misticismo judío, 161-181. Edited by Yom Tov Assis, Moshe Idel, and Leonardo Senkman. Buenos Aires: Ediciones Lilmod, 2006.
  • “The Problem of Unity in the Thought of Martin Buber.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 27 (1989): 419-439.
  • “Biblical Accentuation in a Mystical Key: Kabbalistic Interpretation of the Te‘amim.” Journal of Jewish Music and Liturgy 11 (1988): 1-16; 12 (1989): 1-13.
    • Reprinted in Essays of Jewish Music and Prayer: Commemorating the Jubilee Year of the Philip and Sarah Belz School of Jewish Music, 90-118. Edited by Macy Nulman. New York: Philip and Sarah Belz School of Jewish Music, 2005.
  • “The Hermeneutics of Visionary Experience: Revelation and Interpretation in the Zohar.” Religion 18 (1988): 311-345.
  • “Light Through Darkness: The Ideal of Human Perfection in the Zohar.” Harvard Theological Review 81 (1988): 73-95.
  • “Mystical Rationalization of the Commandments in Sefer ha-Rimmon.” Hebrew Union College Annual 59 (1988): 217-251.
  • “Mystical-Theurgical Dimensions of Prayer in Sefer ha-Rimmon.” In Approaches to Medieval Judaism, 3:41-80. Edited by David R. Blumenthal. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988.
  • “Circumcision and the Divine Name: A Study in the Transmission of Esoteric Doctrine.” Jewish Quarterly Review 78 (1987): 77-112.
  • “Circumcision, Vision of God, and Textual Interpretation: From Midrashic Trope to Mystical Symbol.” History of Religions 27 (1987): 189-215.
  • “Left Contained in the Right: A Study in Zoharic Hermeneutics.” Association for Jewish Studies Review 11 (1986): 27-52.

Reviews

  • “The Apocalyptic Secret of Judaism and Olga Tokarczuk’s The Books of Jacob.” Marginalia: Los Angeles Review of Books, March 31, 2023.
  • “A Forum on Elad Lapidot’s Jews Out of the Question: Thinking the Unthinkable. Marginalia: Los Angeles Review of Books, July 1, 2022.
  • “Overcoming the Body through the Body: Review of David Biale et al. Hasidism: A New History.” Marginalia: Los Angeles Review of Books, April 10, 2020.
  • “Hyperphilology and the Anachronism of Anachronism: Review of Daniel Boyarin. Judaism: The Genealogy of a Modern Nation.” Marginalia: Los Angeles Review of Books, July 5, 2019.
  • David Gelernter, Judaism: A Way of Being. Azure 41 (2010): 97-108.
  • Moshe Halbertal, Concealment and Revelation: Esotericism in Jewish Thought and its Philosophical Implications. Journal of Religion in Europe 2 (2009): 309-323.
  • Yehuda Liebes, Studies in Jewish Myth and Jewish Messianism. Jewish Quarterly Review 87 (1997).
  • Yehuda Liebes, Studies in the Zohar. Critical Review of Books in Religion-1994.
  • Gershom Scholem, On the Mystical Shape of the Godhead: Basic Concepts in the Kabbalah. Journal of Religion 73 (1993): 655-657.
  • Mark Verman, The Books of Contemplation: Medieval Jewish Mystical Sources. Journal of Religion 73 (1993): 657-658.
  • Elliot Ginsburg, The Sabbath in Classical Kabbalah and Sod ha-Shabbat: The Mystery of the Sabbath. Association for Jewish Studies Review 17 (1992): 123-126.
  • Moshe Idel, Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abraham Abulafia. Jewish Quarterly Review 83 (1992): 294-296.
  • Moshe Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives. Journal of Religion 72 (1992): 137-139.
  • David J. Halperin, The Faces of the Chariot. Jewish Quarterly Review 81 (1991): 496-500.
  • Gershom Scholem, Origins of the Kabbalah and M. Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives. Religious Studies Review 17 (1991): 318-321.
  • Moshe Idel, Studies in the Ecstatic Kabbalah. Shofar 8 (1990): 125-127.
  • Jacob Neusner, The Incarnation of God. Jewish Quarterly Review 81 (1990): 219-222.
  • Moshe Idel, The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia and Studies in Ecstatic Kabbalah. Association for Jewish Studies Review 14 (1989): 81-84.
  • Gershom Scholem, Origins of the Kabbalah. The Journal of Religion 69 (1989): 139-140.

Lectures and Papers Delivered

Since the Fall of 1987, I have regularly delivered papers at the annual meetings of the American Academy of Religion, Association for Jewish Studies, and the Medieval Academy of America. I have also been invited as a guest lecturer or have participated in conferences at the following institutions:

  • Bard College,
  • Bar-Ilan University,
  • Ben-Gurion University,
  • Bernard Revel Graduate School at Yeshiva University,
  • Boston University,
  • Brandeis University,
  • Brigham Young University,
  • Bristol University,
  • Brown University,
  • Cambridge University,
  • Columbia University,
  • Dartmouth College,
  • Drew University,
  • Duke University,
  • Freie Universität Berlin,
  • Goethe Universität Frankfurt,
  • Haifa University,
  • Harvard University,
  • Hebrew Union College,
  • Hebrew University,
  • Hussite Theological Faculty at Charles University in Prague,
  • Indiana University,
  • Institute for Philosophy and Religion,
  • St. Petersburg,
  • Instituut voor Joodse Studies, Antwerp,
  • Jewish Theological Seminary of America,
  • Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universität,
  • Lehigh University,
  • Johns Hopkins University,
  • McGill University,
  • McMaster University,
  • Moscow State University,
  • Muhlenberg College,
  • New York University,
  • Oberlin College,
  • Ohio State University,
  • Oxford University,
  • Purdue University,
  • Princeton University,
  • Reed College,
  • Rice University,
  • Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow,
  • Rutgers University,
  • Siena College,
  • Stanford University,
  • Swarthmore College,
  • Syracuse University,
  • Tel-Aviv University,
  • Trinity College,
  • Texas A & M University,
  • Towson University,
  • Tulane University,
  • Université de Montréal,
  • Université de Paris—Sorbonne,
  • University College, London,
  • University of Alberta,
  • University of British Columbia,
  • University of Calgary,
  • University of California, Berkeley,
  • University of California, Davis,
  • University of California, Los Angeles,
  • University of California, Santa Barbara,
  • University of California, Santa Cruz,
  • University of Cambridge,
  • University of Chicago,
  • University of Copenhagen,
  • University of Denver,
  • University of Judaism,
  • University of Hamburg,
  • University of Kansas,
  • University of Memphis,
  • University of Michigan,
  • University of Minnesota,
  • University of Notre Dame,
  • University of Pennsylvania,
  • University of Rochester,
  • University of Toronto,
  • University of Virginia,
  • University of Washington,
  • Vancouver School of Theology,
  • Vassar College,
  • Wesleyan University,
  • Williams College,
  • Yale University.