26 October 2009

Letter from Lhasa, number 151. (Idel 2007): Ben: Sonship and Jewish Mysticism

Letter from Lhasa, number 151. (Idel 2007): Ben: Sonship and Jewish Mysticism

by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Idel, M., Ben: Sonship and Jewish Mysticism, continuum, 2007.

(Idel 2007).

Moshe Idel

It is a book on sonship, being son of G-d. It drives through centuries, millennia and cultures.

“Freud characterized Judaism as the religion of the Father and Christianity, its offspring, as the religion of the Son.” (Idel 2007, p. 599)

“There is no doubt that Enoch [[ben Yared]] constitutes a major example of the search for a cooperative apotheosis that does not fit the psychoanalytical agonic narratives, which are indeed much closer the Gnostic types of sonship.” (Idel 2007, p. 622)

A general observation: Judaism has strange inferiority complexes relatively to its offspring. For example, Christianity is a political phenomenon, so to be evaluated historically and sociologically. From an ideological point of view, ALL the works later used for the building of the power’s/”government” “Christianity” are Jewish works produced from Jews for different purposes, after the destruction of the Second Temple. Even “Christian” theology is Jewish, in its foundations. The first “Christian” theologians are Jews.

Anyway, this book is not about that. It is a deep, vast and cultured study on what declared it its title.

Idel, M., Ben: Sonship and Jewish Mysticism, continuum, 2007.