Language:
English
Year of publication:
2020
Titel der Quelle:
European Journal of Jewish Studies
Angaben zur Quelle:
14,2 (2020) 177-214
Keywords:
Moses ben Shem Tov,
;
Cabala History 13th century
;
Cabala
;
Pietism
Abstract:
The historiography of medieval Jewish pietism has duly described the development of new discourses of pietistic ethics in Judeo-Arabic, as well as the corpus of Hebrew pietistic and penitential literature composed by the Rhineland pietists. Scholars have long clung to the consensus that the contemporaneous appearance of Kabbalah did not give rise to a characteristic mode of penitential pietism of its own prior to early modern period. This article argues against that consensus. Evidence from Moses de León’s writings points to the conclusion that, already in thirteenth-century Castile, kabbalists sought to impart modes of supererogatory living in accord with their esoteric speculations. This article shows how de León constructed at least three different penitential programs based upon his Kabbalah. Focusing on the program of the “Unnamed Composition,” this article coordinates the appearance of kabbalistic pietism with a variety of historical factors, including the proliferation of Franciscan mendicants in medieval Castile.
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