Shalom Shar'abi and the Kabbalists of Beit El [Hardcover]

The Jerusalem kabbalists of the Beit El Yeshivah are the most influential school of kabbalah in modernity. The school is associated with the writings and personality of a charismatic eighteenth-century Yemenite Rabbi, Shalom Shar'abi, considered by his acolytes to be divinely inspired by the prophet Elijah. Shar'abi initiated what is still the most active school of mysticism in contemporary Middle Eastern Jewry. Today, this meditative tradition is rising in popularity not only in Jerusalem, but throughout the Jewish World.

Pinchas Giller examines the characteristic mystical practices of the Beit El School. The dominant practice is that of ritual prayer with mystical intentions, orkavvanot. Thekavvanotthemselves are the product of thousands of years of development and incorporate many traditions and bodies of lore. Giller examines the archaeology of thekavvanotliterature, the principle aspect of which is the meditation on God's sacred names while reciting prayers, the development of particular rituals, and the innovative mystical and devotional practices of the Beit El kabbalists.

Pinchas Giller has filled in a major gap in Kabbalah studies with this meticulously researched and beautifully written account of the most influential school of practicing Jewish mystics in the contemporary world. Giller chronicles the development of the Beit El School from its founding in Jerusalem during the eighteenth century by the Yemenite kabbalist Shalom Shar'abi up to the present. He sheds light on its thought, its praxis, its key figures, and their literary creativity, and he masterfully places it all within the wider context of Kabbalah history and scholarship. The clarity with which Giller is able to present abstruse mystical doctrines without in any way vulgarizing or compromising the material is truly impressive. This is and -- no doubt -- will remain for a long time to come the authoritative work on the subject. --Norman A. StillmanlC»