Sublime

the traditional kabbalistic perception of the physical world as a mirror image of the sefirotic pleroma, which, in turn, is a mirror image of the Infinite that is beyond image,

But no one tried to save the culture of Hasidism, for example, with its devotion to ordinary, everyday holiness—or Misnagdism, the opposing religious movement within traditional Eastern European Judaism, whose energy in the years before the war was channeled into the rigorous study of musar, or ethics. Entire academies devoted to the Musar Movement

Jaynes argues that the solution that emerged to prevent the scattering of the group was an introjection of the dominant male’s figure, whose “voice,” ordering what to do, became “heard” by his subjects even in his absence. The voice of the sovereign continues to be heard and revered even after his death. His corpse, preserved for as long as

The Kabala also points to a wild and fecund nothingness at the core of existence.

To a certain extent, therefore, mysticism signifies a revival of mythical thought, although the difference must not be overlooked between the unity which is there before there is duality, and the unity that has to be won back in a new upsurge of the religious consciousness.

MOYERS: Take a guess. What do you think the mythology, the stories they’re going to hear from you, do for them? CAMPBELL: They’re stories about the wisdom of life, they really are. What we’re learning in our schools is not the wisdom of life. We’re learning technologies, we’re getting information. There’s a curious reluctance on the part of

Bien que combattu par une partie des rabbins qui craignent des dérives messianiques et mettent en avant la centralité de l’étude du Talmud, le mouvement du Baal connaît un incroyable succès populaire.