Moshe Idel


Moshe Idel is a Romanian-born Israeli historian and philosopher of Jewish mysticism. He is Emeritus Max Cooper Professor in Jewish Thought at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, and a Senior Researcher at the Shalom Hartman Institute.

Life and scholarship

Born in Târgu Neamț, Romania, on 19 January 1947. Idel was a precocious child, with a passion for reading which made him read all the books in the town, cooperative, then High school Library, in addition to buying more books with the money earned by singing at weddings.
Although the Holocaust did not directly affect the Jewish population of Târgu Neamț, they were affected by the so-called “population displacements”. In 1963 he immigrated with his family to Israel, settling in Haifa.
Enrolled at the Hebrew University, he studied under Shlomo Pines. After earning his doctorate with a thesis on Abraham Abulafia, he eventually succeeded Scholem to the chair of Jewish Thought. He has served as visiting Professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, UCLA, Yale, Harvard, Princeton, University of Pennsylvania and the Collège de France.
Idel has undertaken a systematic revision of the history and analysis of Jewish mysticism. His explorations of the mythical, theurgical, mystical, and messianic dimensions of Judaism have been attentive to history, sociology, and anthropology, while rejecting a naïve historicist approach to Judaism.
His 1988 work, Kabbalah: New Perspectives, is said to have revolutionised Kabbalah studies. His historical and phenomenological studies of rabbinic, philosophic, kabbalistic, and Hasidic texts have transformed the understanding of Jewish intellectual history and highlighted the close relationship between magic, mysticism, and liturgy. He is also a three-time fellow at the University of Pennsylvania's Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies.

Awards

In 1999, Idel was awarded the Israel Prize for excellent achievement in the field of Jewish philosophy, and in 2002 the EMET Prize for Jewish Thought. In 2003, he received the Koret Award for Jewish philosophy for his book Absorbing Perfections. He has been conferred honorary doctorates by the universities of Yale, Budapest, Haifa, Cluj, Iasi and Bucharest. In 1993, he received the Bialik Prize for Jewish thought.

Book awards

The following is a list of Idel’s publications in English.
  • Kabbalah: New Perspectives.
  • The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia.
  • Studies in Ecstatic Kabbalah
  • Language, Torah and Hermeneutics in Abraham Abulafia.
  • Golem: Jewish magical and mystical traditions on the artificial anthropoid.
  • Hasidism: Between Ecstasy and Magic.
  • Mystical Union and Monotheistic Faith, An Ecumenical Dialogue, eds. M. Idel, B. McGinn.
  • Messianic Mystics.
  • Jewish Mystical Leaders and Leadership, eds. M. Idel, M. Ostow.
  • Abraham Abulafia, An Ecstatic Kabbalist, Two Studies.
  • Absorbing Perfections, Kabbalah and Interpretation.
  • Ascensions on High in Jewish Mysticism: Pillars, Lines, Ladders.
  • Enchanted Chains: Techniques and Rituals in Jewish Mysticism.
  • Kabbalah and Eros.
  • Ben: Sonship and Jewish Mysticism
  • Old Worlds, New Mirrors, On Jewish Mysticism and Twentieth-Century Thought.
  • Kabbalah in Italy 1280-1510.
  • Saturn’s Jews, On the Witches’ Sabbat and Sabbateanism.
  • Mircea Eliade: From Myth to Magic.
  • Representing God, eds. H. Samuelson-Tirosh, A. Hughes.
  • Kabbalah : a neurocognitive approach to mystical experiences, with Shahar Arzy,.
  • The Privileged Divine Feminine in Kabbalah.
  • Golem: Jewish Magical and Mystical Traditions on the Artificial Anthropoid.
  • Vocal Rites and Broken Theologies: Cleaving to Vocables in R. Israel Ba'al Shem Tov's Mysticism.
  • ''Middot: On the Emergence of Kabbalistic Theosophies''

    Students

  • Prof. Jonathan Garb, Hebrew University
  • Prof. Boaz Huss, Ben-Gurion University
  • Prof. Haviva Pedaya, Ben-Gurion University