Exploring Jewish Meditation

A special issue of Religions (ISSN 2077-1444).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (25 July 2022) | Viewed by 6038

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Jewish Studies, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem 91905, Israel
Interests: Jewish meditation; Jewish spirituality; globalization; hybridization; bricolage; neo-traditionalism; symbolic boundaries; transnational religious networks

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This issue of Religions is dedicated to exploring Jewish meditation in an interdisciplinary perspective from antiquity to the present. While the concept of “Jewish Meditation” is still largely unknown by the wider audience, Jewish contemplative techniques have been an integral part of the construction of Jewish culture for millennia.

The purpose of this Special Issue is to bring together papers from contemporary scholars from within various academic disciplines, temporal scales, and geographic and cultural areas, to focus on different aspects of the vast and complex field of Jewish contemplative practices.

By contrast with the abundant literature dedicated to Kabbalah and Hasidism, especially over the last half-century, the number of academic works to specifically address Jewish meditation remains limited.

This issue aims at shedding light on a vast and complex subculture which is both deeply intertwined with normative and mystical Jewish culture and at the same time has remained esoteric and culturally marginal enough that it remains largely unexplored.

Papers focusing on the history, trends, techniques, teachers, relation to normative Jewish social and religious culture, and interaction with other cultures are particularly welcome.

We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 400–600 words summarizing their intended contribution. Please send it to the guest editor Dr. Mira Niculescu () or to /Religions/ editorial office (). Abstracts will be reviewed by the guest editors for the purposes of ensuring proper fit within the scope of the Special Issue. Full manuscripts will undergo double-blind peer-review.

References

Fenton, Paul. “Solitary meditation in Jewish and Islamic Mysticism in the light of a recent archeological discovery” Medieval Encounters 1.2. Brill: Leiden 1995.

Green, Arthur, Mayse, Ariel Evan (eds.) A New Hasidism. Branches. Directed Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, pp. 223–250.

Idel, Moshe. « Meditation and other mystical techniques » in Comparative mysticism. An anthology of original sources, Steven T. Katz (ed.) Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013: 25-152.

Persico, Tomer. 2016. Jewish Meditation [Hebrew]. Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University Press.

Verman, Mark. The history and varieties of Jewish meditation, New York: Jason Aronson, 1996.

Wolfson, Elliot R. Through a speculum that shines: Vision and imagination in medieval Jewish mysticism. Princeton University Press, 2020.

Dr. Mira Niculescu
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

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Keywords

  • Jewish meditation
  • Jewish spirituality
  • Jewish mysticism
  • contemplative practices
  • Kabbalah
  • Hassidism
  • esotericism
  • cultural borrowing
  • neo-traditionalism
  • hybridization

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

18 pages, 322 KiB  
Article
“Jewish Meditation Reconsidered”: Hitbodedut as a Meditative Practice and Its Transmission from the Egyptian Pietists to the Hasidic Masters
by Matan Weil
Religions 2024, 15(10), 1232; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15101232 - 10 Oct 2024
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1721
Abstract
This research challenges the prevailing consensus in the field of Jewish meditation that there is no longstanding tradition of Jewish meditation, but rather a plethora of independent, unrelated techniques. By applying a context-sensitive research methodology, this study reconsiders the common understanding of Hitbodedut [...] Read more.
This research challenges the prevailing consensus in the field of Jewish meditation that there is no longstanding tradition of Jewish meditation, but rather a plethora of independent, unrelated techniques. By applying a context-sensitive research methodology, this study reconsiders the common understanding of Hitbodedut as ‘concentration’ and suggests instead a new view of Hitbodedut as a three-step solitary meditation technique, used as a means for Devekut (cleave to God). Drawing on the work of past scholars, this research demonstrates the potential transmission of Hitbodedut from the school of Jewish Egyptian Pietists to the 13th-century Kabbalists of Acre, then to the 16th-century Kabbalists of Safed, and eventually to 18th-century Hasidism. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Exploring Jewish Meditation)
14 pages, 262 KiB  
Article
Studying Jewish Meditative Techniques: A Phenomenological Typology and an Interdisciplinary View
by Tomer Persico
Religions 2022, 13(7), 648; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13070648 - 13 Jul 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 3326
Abstract
The field of mystical and meditative research lacks a basic typology delineating the varied genres and characteristics of the mystical experience and of the meditative practices that may be correlated to those. Such a state hinders the comparative study of mysticism and meditation [...] Read more.
The field of mystical and meditative research lacks a basic typology delineating the varied genres and characteristics of the mystical experience and of the meditative practices that may be correlated to those. Such a state hinders the comparative study of mysticism and meditation through different philosophical, religious and spiritual traditions, or along the chronological development in a single tradition. In this article, I introduce phenomenological typological tools developed in a previous monograph dealing with the Jewish meditative tradition and illustrate how these can be used to analyze the adjustments and the variations between previous and contemporary Jewish mystics, through examining the four different types of mystical experience and five different characteristics of meditative techniques. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Exploring Jewish Meditation)
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