Judah Abrabanel’s Philosophy of Love and Kabbalah

Description

The first book to argue that knowledge of God is dependent upon an experience of divine love. The book attempts to provide readers with tools for understanding an important piece of Jewish Renaissance literature. It examines topics such as Mysticism, Pantheism, Jewish Thought, and others from a philosophical perspective to better understand the main ideas of the text. While it does not claim to be a comprehensive commentary on the work, it does attempt to explain many of its aspects in its search for the truth and its goal of answering the question regarding its relationship to Kabbalah. There is a lengthy methodological introduction that grounds the work, which may be of interest to scholars of Judaic Studies and the History of Ideas. The claim is that Judah Abrabanel's philosophy departs drastically from traditional Jewish philosophy. It also makes the claim that it is not a part of the genre of kabbalistic writings and that there is no evidence that Abrabanel was a Kabbalist.