Mystical Vistas The Intriguing World of Moshe Idel: An Interview Moshe Idel, a senior fellow of the Shalom Hartman Institute and Max Cooper Professor of Jewish Thought at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, is widely regarded as the most important scholar of Jewish mysticism since Gershom Scholem. For more than three decades, in dozens of books and countless articles, he has rewritten the history of Kabbalah, applying a bold variety of interpretive methodologies. 42 | Spring 2009 Mystical Vistas /// An Interview with Moshe Idel Mystical Vistas Photo of Moshe Idel by Hezi Hojesta. Courtesy of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem In 1999, Idel was awarded the Israel Prize, His forthcoming book is Old Worlds, New the nation’s top honor, in the field of Jew- Mirrors: On Jewish Mysticism and Twenti- ish thought. He has also received honor- eth Century Thought (2009). ary doctorates from several universities, Renowned for his meticulous reading of including Yale in 2006. Among his most texts, Idel has reinterpreted Jewish mysti- important works are Kabbalah: New Per- cal sources and discovered many new ones. spectives (1988), Hasidism: Between Ec- His prodigious oeuvre has enhanced the stasy and Magic (1995), Messianic Mystics global reach of Jewish studies, influencing (1998), Absorbing Perfections: Kabbalah scholars of religion, philosophy and liter- and Interpretation (2002), Kabbalah and ary theory, Jewish and non-Jewish alike. Eros (2005), Enchanted Chains: Techniques In an interview with Havruta, Idel offers and Rituals in Jewish Mysticism (2005), and personal reflections on his life and his Ben: Sonship and Jewish Mysticism (2008). evolving work. HAVRUTA | 43 You were born in Romania, and you mainly as a way of becoming acquainted with Q came to Israel in 1963 at the age of 16. Israeli culture. I happened also to take a class How many languages did you know then? in mysticism, but not because of any special interest in it. I wasn’t even formally registered Not too many. Romanian, Yiddish, in the class, but the professor, Ephraim Gott- A French, Russian, Latin. lieb, said to me one day, you seem to know the answers to my questions, perhaps you want to Not Hebrew? be my research assistant. For me, this was a Q huge honor. I knew how to daven in the synagogue. So, while I was starting my Ph.D. with A I studied in heder, but after two years it Pines in Jewish philosophy, to make some was closed, because the schoolteacher died, money I started working for Gottlieb, read- the melamed, but also because of Communism. ing manuscripts. This is when I first started I had a traditional background, but I can’t say reading manuscripts. And at a certain mo- I knew Hebrew well, although my father, who ment, I came across a manuscript of Avraham was in the shoe business, made many efforts Abulafia on the Guide of the Perplexed. This to find me a tutor. I learned Hebrew in an was the accident. I was doing my Ph.D. on the ulpan for immigrants, after I got to Israel. We Rambam, and came to Abulafia through the lived in a shtetl, a market town called Târgu Rambam. I thought it might be a good idea Neamţ. All the Jews spoke Yiddish, and were for my dissertation to write about this com- more or less traditional. There were a few peo- mentary of Abulafia on Maimonides. This is ple in the shtetl who knew Hebrew and stud- how it began. ied Talmud. I was not part of this group: they didn’t want to accept me, since I didn’t wear Did you study with Scholem? a yarmulke regularly. It was a pity. I was ac- Q tually interested, not because of the Talmud, but because I read a book about the Dead Sea No. When I arrived at the Hebrew Uni- Scrolls, translated from Russian to Romanian. A versity in 1970, he had already retired. It was fascinating. Only when I started to work on Abulafia did I call him. It was not out of some fascination And that book kindled your interest in with the figure of Scholem. But from the mo- Q Jewish mysticism? ment we met, we began to see each other reg- ularly, maybe 50 to 100 times between 1971 No, I wasn’t particularly interested in and 1981. Lengthy meetings. A Jewish mysticism. Not then, and not even later. I entered Jewish mysticism sim- Your friend, the Yale literary critic Har- ply by accident. After we got to Israel, we Q old Bloom, has written, with regard to lived near Haifa, in Kiryat Ata, and I did my poetry, about the “anxiety of influence.” Can undergraduate studies at Haifa University, in you connect that notion with your relation- Hebrew and English literature. I wasn’t too ship to Scholem? interested in this either, but as a new oleh I wanted to acquire a profession, to become Unlike many other people, given the a high school teacher. But then I became in- A fact that I did not study with him, the terested in Jewish philosophy, and when I figure of Scholem was not so authoritative for came to the Hebrew University in Jerusalem me. He was like an institution – beyond a hu- I studied with Shlomo Pines, the great scholar man being – but I did not have this form of of Maimonides. I read Gershom Scholem, but fascination and rebellion. When I entered the 44 | Spring 2009 Mystical Vistas /// An Interview with Moshe Idel Illuminated page from Abraham Abulafia’s Light of the Intellect (1285). Artist unknown (PD art) HAVRUTA | 45 field, I did not think there would be any clash came in from many places. There are differ- or difference with Scholem, because Scholem ent trends that are equally representative of simply was the truth. But if you read a lot of what we call Kabbalah, because there are dif- manuscripts you see that things aren’t so sim- ferent histories and different sources. In my ple. You read the same manuscripts in a differ- book, Messianic Mystics, I claim that there is ent way, or you read other manuscripts that no such thing as one messianic idea. There is emerge. You see things that can’t be seen by an apocalyptic idea, a mystical idea, a magical someone who did not read those manuscripts. idea. From this point of view, my book Ben is I don’t believe that we had any significant not an exception. I believe this is the only way divergence for the first five years. I was ta- to really understand the history and phenom- bula rasa, absorbing everything, without even enology of Kabbalah. We cannot subsume ev- dreaming that it would be possible to have a erything into one major line, one major trend. dispute. This was beyond my horizon. This way of looking at things is my basic as- The first time it happened, I don’t know sumption. when, I was reading manuscripts and I saw It is not that I am pluralistic as an intel- that not everything was working. Scholem lectual predilection, but it is a matter of the and I discussed it in a relatively open man- material coming from so many places. The ner. But it just happened, without any inten- Jews, including the kabbalists, were cosmo- tion to diverge. So I don’t see it as a form of politan. They could absorb and transform “anxiety of influence.” Certainly, without and generate a variety of material. Because Scholem I would not have become a teacher the Jewish scholars were in contact with so at the Hebrew University. I came from no- many cultures and in contact with each oth- where and no one knew about me, and Sc- er, they could transmit knowledge from one holem accepted me. He also never attempted center of learning – Ashkenazi or Sephardi to convince me that I was wrong. I published, – to another. For sure, there are differences during his lifetime, articles that held a differ- between Ashkenazi and Sephardi, but my ba- ent view from his, and he thought this was sic assumption is that that there was cross- legitimate. fertilization. I use the plural a lot. I believe the plural is very important. What would you say is the most impor- Q tant point of departure? Your recent book Ben: Sonship and Jew- Q ish Mysticism won the National Jewish I think that it would be a simplification Book Award for scholarship. Do you see it in A to try to find one point of departure. some way as a culmination of many of the things you had done before? In your work, you emphasize streams, Q confluences of materials, which origi- Yes. In my Ph.D. dissertation, I wrote nate in antiquity and skip a period and then A a section dealing with the son of God resurface, rather than a clear-cut historical in Avraham Abulafia. Since then, whenever account of the tradition. Would it be fair to I have come across something on the son of call your approach pluralistic? God, I have made a note. I never intended to write a book, but simply wanted to be up-to- This has always been my method. I have date in this field. I did not intend to write a A always claimed that Judaism is not a book on it until 2004, when I was in Paris and theological religion. We did not have a central had a discussion with an editor. He had seen authority, or one point of view, and we were a small article I had written on this subject, tolerant and less suppressive of trends that and he wanted to publish it as a small book of 46 | Spring 2009 Mystical Vistas /// An Interview with Moshe Idel Illustration by N.