Kabbalistic Souls: Zoharic Journeys in the Mirroring and Intertwining of the Human and the…

Catalog description

Souls in motion, each a kaleidoscope of soul-levels, soul-communities extending through generations, the divine itself as a soul-kaleidoscope….When the writers of the Zohar envisioned the soul, they did not imagine a bounded, discrete “self” in the modern Western sense. They saw each soul – and the entire realm of souls – as a precarious striving for unification among various elements, mirroring the divine striving for unification and intertwined with it. The Zoharic writers transcribed their powerful and diverse visions of souls in poetic form, often differing amongst themselves in both subtle and dramatic ways. We will explore these Zoharic visions from a variety of perspectives: the human being as an arduous process of unification, the achievement of higher soul-levels through dreams, the dissociation of souls through anger, souls as the offspring of the divine, the fate of the soul-levels after death, gilgul as the striving for soul-unification across the generations and embracing all of humanity, the divine itself as a process of unification, gilgul as a vision of divine unfolding. Our readings will mostly consist of primary texts, largely drawn from the various strata of the Zoharic literature, including the Tikkunei Ha-Zohar and the Raya Mehemna. We will focus on close readings of these primary texts. Texts will be provided in both the original Aramaic and English translation. This course fulfills the Mysticism requirement.