This thesis explores the portrayals of the demonic, the Sitra Aḥra, the “Other Side,” in the Zohar and closely related texts. Such portrayals form a key theme in the Zohar, a collection of 13th century mystical, mythological, and homiletical texts, written in Spain. In proposing new approaches to this theme, the thesis also advances new ways of understanding the work’s literary virtuosity and ontological innovativeness. At the rhetorical level, the thesis focuses on close readings, attending to the distinctive ways Zoharic texts employ “schemes” and “tropes” (Quintilian) in a manner that constructs and manages ambivalence about the divine/demonic relationship. This methodology grows out of a rejection of past scholarly approaches, which tended to read such texts as reflective of large-scale cultural-historical phenomena, such as the putative divide between Gnosticism and Neoplatonism. Such approaches bypass the distinctiveness of Zoharic writing, in which all precursor texts, be they scriptural, rabbinic, or theological, become transformed into elements of novel literary works. At the ontological level, the thesis rejects the unreflective notions of “catharsis” that have often guided past Zohar scholarship’s understandings of the relationship between the divine and the demonic. The inadequacy of such notions appears particularly when Zoharic texts’ literary specificities are foregrounded. Drawing on psychoanalytic theory, the thesis illuminates the phenomenon that Zoharic texts continually portray the recurrent emergence, collapse, and re-consolidation of divine subjects and structures as inextricably bound up with that of demonic subjects and structures. The approach taken by the thesis highlights the centrality of “abjection” (Kristeva) for the emergence of differentiated subjects, human or divine. Reading the Zohar in this way facilitates a comprehensive embrace of the distinctiveness of its textuality and an explication of its vision of the ways the differentiation of divine and human subjects from their “Others” is both indispensable and yet ultimately impossible.

The focus of this thesis is a critical edition and an annotated English translation of Sefer Hakhmoni, one of the earliest commentaries on Sefer Yetzirah (The Book of Formation). The author, Shabbatai ben Abraham Donnolo, lived in Byzantine Southern Italy in the 10th century. He produced works on diverse topics ranging from medicine and pharmacology (Sefer ha-mirqahot, Antidotarium, Practica) to the study of the celestial bodies (Sefer ha-mazzalot and Barayta de-mazzalot), but he owes his greatest fame to Sefer Hakhmoni, his opus magnus wherein, by commenting on Sefer Yetzirah, he tried to reconcile the professional expertise he had acquired in the milieu of Byzantine Southern Italy with his Jewish background. The thesis is divided into four parts. The first part consists of seven chapters outlining the historical and cultural context of Donnolo's life in medieval Italy. The second part is a study of the manuscript tradition of Sefer Hakhmoni, followed by the critical edition of the Hebrew text and the annotated English translation. The first chapter offers a general overview of the presence of Jews in medieval southern Italy. The Jewish community of Apulia originated in the captive Judean population deported by Titus from Palestine to Italy after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 C.E. It was during the Byzantine period, however, that this Jewish community came to flourish, with the establishment of Talmudic schools and academies and the rebirth of the Hebrew language as a literary medium. This is evidenced by the funerary inscriptions of the Jewish catacombs of Apulia where, from the 8th century on, Latin and Greek were gradually being replaced by Hebrew, and by the emergence, from the 10th century, of Hebrew literature including the works of Donnolo, Sefer Yosippon and Sefer Yuhasin (Megillat Ahima‘atz). The second and third chapters present a detailed analysis of Donnolo’s life and literary production. He was born in Oria, from where he was deported, probably to Taranto, by Arab raiders in 925. According to his own account in the introductory section of Sefer Hakhmoni, he learned Greek, Latin and the local vernacular, all of which he used extensively in his works. He spent most of his life in Rossano Calabro, one of the most important Byzantine cities, where he was on good terms with the Christian ecclesiastical and political establishments. The fourth chapter is devoted to the study of Donnolo’s scientific and exegetical Jewish and non-Jewish sources. The fifth, sixth and seventh chapters of the first part attempt to explain why Donnolo set Sefer Hakhmoni, his major work, as a commentary on Sefer Yetzirah – an anonymous work of uncertain provenance which, prior to the appearance of the first 10th century commentaries by Sa‘adiah Gaon, Dunash ibn Tamim and Donnolo himself, was virtually unknown in the Hebrew literary tradition. By commenting on Sefer Yetzirah’s cosmological and metaphysical statements, Donnolo was able to display his own scientific knowledge, underpinned by Neo-Platonic principle whereby the microcosm reflects the structure and model of operation of the macrocosm. The second part of the thesis provides a detailed analysis of the thirty-two extant manuscripts of Sefer Hakhmoni and the relationships between them, concluding with a graphic outline of the stemma codicum. This is followed by the critical edition of the Hebrew text and the annotated English translation. The fourth part consists of the bibliography and of an appendix concerning the study of astrological chart contained in the introductory section Donnolo’s text.

Nathan Neta ben Shlomo Shapira (1585-1633) is the most famous kabbalist stemming from the Jewish intellectual environment of Poland. His major treatise, Megaleh Amuqot, is among the most complex kabbalistic texts ever written. It combines variegated strata of older mystical traditions, to which the author applies diverse, often obscure modes of interpretation. For this reason, Nathan Shapira has remained one of the least studied figures in modern scholarship, despite the fact that he is generally acknowledged as the most important early-modern Ashkenazi kabbalist, whose influence on later Eastern-European mystical circles is well attested. Although there are some general accounts of Shapira’s religious activity in Kraków, and references have been made to his startling mathematical mind-set, scholarship still lacks a thorough examination of his literary legacy, and a detailed evaluation of his contribution to the development of Jewish mystical thought. My dissertation aims to integrate Nathan Shapira’s kabbalah within a broad panorama of Jewish mystical traditions of the early modern period. It challenges the notion of the dominance of Lurianic ideas in Shapira’s thought, arguing for a more pluralistic perspective of the historical development of the kabbalistic tradition. Recently, Yehuda Liebes and Moshe Idel have raised the possibility that Nathan Shapira’s kabbalah may have belonged to a tradition that sprang from a multifaceted cultural milieu of Ashkenazi mysticism, consisting of at least two distinct major strands. Following this notion, I propose to challenge the common view that the Ashkenazi mysticism was a homogenous entity, whose influences effectively ceased after 13th century. On the contrary, I claim that the medieval mystical Ashkenazi ideas underlie much of Nathan Shapira’s kabbalah. In considering medieval Ashkenazi mysticism as Shapira’s formative background, I focus on the ‘Enoch-Metatron’ cluster of traditions, which I claim was as central to Shapira’s thought as it was to his Ashkenazi predecessors.

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The present work fills an important gap in Samaritan studies, in that it treats of one of the most chartsmatic personalities in Samaritan tradition and of a period (3rd - 4th cent. A. D.) which constituted a high-water mark in Samaritan history. The figure of Baba Rabbah looms large on the Samaritan canvass. Much has been said of him that is legendary; much that is true. earlier and later traditions have been interwoven around. his personality. No critical attempt has ever been made, however, to reconstruct his life by analyzing the historicity of these traditions, especially regarding the victories he is said to have won over the Roman (and other) enemies of the community and the social, religious and political reforms he introduced in order to achieve a total reconstruction of Samaritan life. The present study brings to light a hitherto unpublished part of the important Samaritan Chronical No. II. Two versions are critically compared and presented in. parallel texts though all the extant chronicles and traditions are referred to in the oommentary Which accompanies the texts. The two versions - designated H1 and H2 - are far more detailed. than any other Samaritan Chronicle, presenting a full and readable account of the life and activity of Baba Rabbah, and, in general, of the social and political history of the period. The nature of these versions is described. and analysed., and. their linguistic features detailed. H1 and H2 differ mainly in that the former is written in Samaritan Hebrew, while the latter reflects their particular dialect of Aramaic. These versions are, additionally, therefore, a rich source of new vocabulary to deepen and broaden our ever-growing knowledge of non-Masoretic forms. The commentary and word-list, which accompany this section of the chronicle, highlight this particularly important aspect of the research. The Samaritans of the 3rd - 4th cent. A.D. did not live in a vacuum, as did some of their predecessors and most of their successors, when enemies permitted them ·this luxury. This generation was outgoing and determined, and roused to a unique degree of national pride and solidarity by the personality and leadership of Baba Rabbah. Their emergence into the political and religious arena of Palestine would have been bound, therefore, to have brought them into closer contact with the Judean community. The course of this interrelationship is plotted in the Chronicle; and the present study enables us, therefore, to fill in the background to Jewish attitudes toward the Samaritans, as reflected in rabbinic literature, such as the charge that they worshipped an image of a dove on Mount Gerizlm. Since Baba's reforms laid the foundation for the fruitful. period of Marqah, and other Samaritan liturgists and writers who made a pioneering contribution to the flowering of Samaritan literature, Baba's significance cannot be overestimated, and it is thus of the greatest importance that his life and times be researched.

This study examines the notion of music as a spiritual process in Nahman of Bratzlav’s thought. Nahman’s teachings, his tales and his biography are analyzed in relation to his rabbinic and kabbalistic sources, focusing on the doctrine of the ‘good points’ and its musical dimension, both literal and metaphoric. The first section introduces the doctrine of the 'good points’, exploring the rich Kabbalistic symbolic of ‘points’ as sefirot that represent ‘beginning’ or ‘centre’ in time, space and the human soul, as well as their use in the sense of musical notes. It establishes the connection between ‘good points’ and hesed (‘loving kindness’). The second section focuses on Nahman’s use of the Talmudic legend of David’s lyre and its kabbalistic interpretations. It shows how music is invested with the power to subdue the imagination and overcome negative spiritual forces, while David, the ‘skilled musician’, is held to be a model of religious devotion. The third section analyses the tzadiq’s personality as a reflection of his dual function, in society as well as in the supernal realm. It focuses on his portrayal as a cantor, who brings out the ‘good’ points’ in each individual and elevates them to holiness through music. The fourth section highlights the importance of creativity and renewal in Nahman’s worldview, expressed in the constant transformation of ‘loving kindness’ into ever new melodies. This transformation bridges the gap that separates human experience, which is finite and temporal, from the infinite, ex-temporal quality of the transcendent God.

This thesis examines the ritual content of the Damascus Document and the Gospel of Matthew, demonstrating how community identity is constructed and developed through the interpretation of the Law represented in each. The content is arranged according to the ritual typology of Catherine Bell, which organises ritual into six categories: calendrical ritual, rites of exchange and communion, political ritual, rites of passage, rites of affliction and rites of feasting and fasting. Analysis by type enables comparison and comment on the features and effects of ritual. I identify the Scriptural precedent for the discussions of ritual and any similar texts from the same period. These two ritually dense texts provide a great deal of material representing different perspectives on ritual function and obligations within a Jewish community setting. The Damascus Document is a non-sectarian legal text from the Second Temple period. The Gospel of Matthew presents the narrative of Jesus with considerable comment on ritual matters, reflecting an audience steeped in Jewish ritual praxis while looking towards an eschatological inclusion of Gentiles who adhere to Jewish obligations. Each offers an insight into a community dissenting from aspects of mainstream Judaism without withdrawing completely. Each community maintains traditional ritual obligations to some extent, but claims additional information clarifying the correct interpretations of the Law. This thesis analyses how they negotiate the practical, and often theological, issues that accompany their distinct practices, creating a community identity through ritual.

This dissertation attempts to observe Solomon's faults in the Solomon account in Chronicles using a kind of 'reader-response criticism' (This dissertation denotes its methodology 'readerjnsitive approach' in order to emphasize the sense that the text is designed to guide its reader sensitively to convey effectively its meaning, message and intention. The 'reader-sensitive approach' can be a subcategory of 'reader-response criticism', excluding the possibility of an overly reader-centred reading such as a deconstructionist reading). The attempt is a challenge to the near consensus view that Solomon is portrayed as flawless or impeccable in Chronicles.

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