Open Secret: Postmessianic Messianism and the Mystical Revision of Menahem Mendel Schneerson
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.58 (993 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0231146310 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 472 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2015-06-17 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
Zvi M. Aranoff said Great book, with one fatal flaw. The fatal flaw in this dense, virtually impenetrable, book is that there's very little to connect Wolfson's ideas, however interesting, to the ideas of the person he purports to analyze, namely, R. MM Schneerson. In order to achieve this, he must first adopt a radical postmodern POV that rejects the validity of facts and sees them as mere subjective fabrications. Once that notion is established, he can sail . Nothing truly good is easy I've taught in the Religion Department of a highly-regarded liberal arts college for 23 years, and over that period have fought a constant uphill battle in my own teaching to avoid watering down material for students. This past semester, in a course on Jewish messianism, I decided to assign "Open Secret," a brilliant book that I myself was struggling through, in an attempt to puzzle out its thesis together w. A Masterful Insight Into The Messianism of The Rebbe If you are looking for an easy read about the Lubavitcher Rebbe and his messianic aspirations, this would not be the book for you. The Rebbe by Heilman and Friedman or The Rebbe, The Messiah and The Scandal of Orthodox Indifference by David Berger is more your style. I highly recommend both of those books and even better The Seventh by Yitzchak Kraus (Hebrew only). Wolfson's book "Open Secret" is an amazing
Menahem Mendel Schneerson (1902-1994) was the seventh and seemingly last Rebbe of the Habad-Lubavitch dynasty. Situating Habad's thought within the evolution of kabbalistic mysticism, the history of Western philosophy, and Mahayana Buddhism, Wolfson articulates Schneerson's rich theology and profound philosophy, concentrating on the nature of apophatic embodiment, semiotic materiality, hypernomian transvaluation, nondifferentiated alterity, and atemporal temporality.. For Schneerson, the ploy of secrecy is crucial to the dissemination of the messianic secret. While most literature on the Rebbe focuses on whether or not he identified with the role of Messiah, Elliot R. Schneerson astutely masked views that might be deemed heterodox by the canons of orthodoxy while engineering a fundamentalist ideology that could subvert traditional gender hierarchy, the halakhic distinction between permissible and forbidden, and the social-anthropological division between Jew and Gentile. Marked by conflicting tendencies, Schneerson was a radical
(Alon Dahan H-Judaic)Wolfson has not only produced an excellent study of Rabbi Mena?em Mendel Schneerson's views, but he has argued convincingly that this work will serve as a paradigm for Jewish philosophic thought. Wolfson's new work is a masterful exposition of the phenomenology and ontology of Habad thought, particularly its bearing on messianic mysteries and consciousness. The book argues insightfully that beneath his well-attested endeavors to demonstrate the imminence the messianic advent, and his resort to the traditional language of Jewish messianic speculation, lays the paradoxical 'open secret' of a totally impersonal Messiah who, reflecting the nature of the infinite kabbalistic godhead itself, can be revealed in the world only by way of concealment. This study is an extraordinary integration of precise philology, philosophical comprehension, and the inner course of Habad theosophy as it flows through the discourses of its seven masters. Wolfson's
Elliot R. Wolfson is the Abraham Lieberman Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Fellow of the American Academy of Jewish Research. He is the author of numerous essays and books, including Through a Speculum that Shines: Vision and Imagination in Medieval Jewish Mysticism, which was