Jewish Philosophy and Kabbalah

A classroom-ready study of Jewish philosophy and Kabbalah as two intertwined currents of a shared intellectual tradition. The path runs from the Hebrew Bible and Philo, through Saadia Gaon, Judah Halevi, and Maimonides, to the Bahir and the Zohar, the kabbalists of Safed, Spinoza, and modern Jewish thought. Along it, students follow enduring arguments over revelation and reason, law and interpretation, God and creation, knowledge and human responsibility. Philosophical argument and mystical symbolism keep their own voices, and the book shows where they meet, collide, and reshape the same fundamental questions.

For instructors, the volume gathers material usually split among philosophy, religious studies, and Jewish studies into one coherent course. It traces Jewish thought through its encounters with Greek philosophy, Islam, Christianity, and modernity, while separating documented intellectual transmission from superficial resemblance. Students can compare rational, legal, theological, and mystical approaches without dissolving one into another. The book can anchor a course in Jewish philosophy or Jewish philosophy and Kabbalah, and it can supply substantial units for Jewish thought, Jewish mysticism, medieval and modern Jewish philosophy, and philosophy of religion.