Is Kabbalah Mysticism?
In a provocative essay “Jewish Mysticism in the University: Academic Study or Theological Practice?” (Zeek December, 2007) Boaz Huss raises a series of questions that should challenge academics and non-academics alike who study and teach Kabbala, pietism, or Hasidism – what is problematically known as “Jewish mysticism.” In this essay (as in an earlier version published in Hebrew),1 Huss makes two basic claims: (1) “mysticism” is a term that is foreign to Judaism and thus should not be used to identity or describe kabbalistic literature; and (2) mysticism is a theological category in any case and should not be part of academic discourse more generally. Huss also argues that scholars, even those who have rejected the “pure consciousness” notion of mystical experience and adopted a more constructivist approach, have by and large retained an uncritical notion that mysticism is a universal phenomenon.2 That is, even those who agree that mystical experience, like all experience, is cultural
