So now I want to move to the third

big wave of Kabbalah, which developed in

the 18th century.
Which is very important part of modernity.
A lot of modernity as we know it developed
in the 18th century.
Think about the American revolution, the
French revolution, the industrial
revolution, which is
more 19th century but actually began with
a steam engine in the 18th.
Think about the feminist revolution.
It took a long time to get going, but it
began,
actually, in the 18th century.
Think about newspapers, coffee houses, all
things today that we take for granted are
all 18th century developments.
Now, the Kabbalah also had very intense
development in the 18th century.
It's all based on 16th century, it all
goes back to Valley, to Luria.
He's a central figure of modern Kabbalah,
undoubtedly.
For me,
undoubtedly; there are people who might
think otherwise.
Even people who are close to me,
academically.
Now, the four movements, the, actually
five movements, really.
One of them is already beginning to end in
the 18th century.
Its movement which is the radical,
heretical movement
which attracted a lot of attention
especially from
girls from Salleh mosque, talked about
before, the
founder of the field, and there's a
Sabbatean
movement in the 17th century he was
a mystical messiah, went to very intense
psychological
travels I would say, episodes Well we
could call it bipolar, or something like
that.
It's a bit hard to project backwards from
modern catagories.
But, no doubt went through some kind of
psychiatric suffering.
And through that he broke in a way, with
the traditional normative Jewish codes and
Gave people the possibility of maybe going
against
the law sometimes in sexual areas and
other areas.
And he was eventually, though he got a lot
of support initially, and this
is being repressed later in the, in the
history of Kabbalism itself, and this
is one of Scholem's great innovations to
show how Sabbatities [INAUDIBLE] Can, the
Sabbatai
is like Sabbath here, so the planets,
the seventh planet, the planet of Sabbath,
Sabbatai,
which is Satan in, in Hebrew.
so, Sabbatai Zevi, he, in the 17th
century, goes through psychic suffering,
and his solution, the diagnosis he
gets from a The psychological Kabbalistic
[INAUDIBLE]
diagnostician that he goes to, Nathan of
Gaza, of Gaza also in,
in Palestine, yes no longer in, not in
Israel but in, in Palestine.
So Nathan, he's a young Kabbalist in the
tradition of Ali gives him this very
striking diagnosis.
He says, Your solution to your problem is
actually that you're the messiah.
You're going through the suffering of a
messiah inside your own soul.
It's a very interesting psychological
figure.
Both of them, as the, as a therapist and a
patient, so to speak.
But the whole Sabbatean movement fails
because it converts to
Islam, that's a long story I'm sure you've
heard about
at length.
And it's not really our topic.
And because [INAUDIBLE] did put such a lot
of energy to
it and afterwards his student you
delivered as I mentioned before.
I'm not really going to go into the stream
much especially
because in the 18th century to get
[INAUDIBLE] begins to fade out.
It's still there.
It goes underground after the failure of
[INAUDIBLE] Messianic project.
But still there in the 18th century.
since one of this five streams,
but before others, which I want to focus
on, and I only going to focus on two.
Cause one stream which is a very sort of
a stir, scholarly form of Kabbalah,
developed in a big
urban intellectual sense of Vilna,
Lithuania, Especially by Elijah Kramer,
who's usually known as the Gaon, the
genius of Vilna.
So that's one scene which I won't really
focus on much, just limits of time.
The other is, and also not to have
cognitive overload, the other is, and now
again
I won't focus on it, a really important
Kabbal that really develops the project of
Ali.
In the original sites, in Palestine, the
land of
Israel, in the 18th century, not in
Galilee, but
in Jerusalem, back in Jerusalem, he
doesn't come from
Jerusalem, but he works in Jerusalem in
the 18th century.
Rabbi Shalom Sharabi.
That's S
H A R A, but it's an A with an inflection,
[UNKNOWN] in Hebrew, B I.
Shalom Sharabi, usually known by his
acronym, for Rashash.
The Kabbalahists are very into acronyms.
Ari, Rashash, and so on.
now, I'm not going to focus on these two
figures.
Kramer and Sharabi were very important.
They've not been studied much.
I want to follow a bit more my
own work, and the mainstream of
scholarship.
In focusing on two figures.
One, Vets Shalom's main student Shaol
Tushbi worked
very intensely in the 70s, 80s, early 90s.
A very fascinating figure that I've just
devoted a Hebrew biography
to and several English articles that you
can find on my website.
That's Moshe Hayyim.
Those are two private names, we could
[INAUDIBLE] say Christian names in
Kabbalistic concept,
context, Luzzatto, that's Luzzatto, Moshe
Hayyim Luzzatto.
Italian Kabbalist as you can hear in the
name, of northern Italy in 18th century.
Now Lazzatto is somewhat leaning towards
the Sabbatean model.
It is a bit related to the history of
Sabbateenism as Tische pointed out.
And he also goes for all kinds of internal
developments.
Less dramatic than Champlates views less
depressive I would say.
But it test's it's balances.
And at a very early age, at the age
actually of 22
he also comes to sense that he's the
Messiah in some form.
And just like [UNKNOWN] because of that he
is afterwards
rejected by the mainstream of the Jewish
world, of the Jewish,
of the Kabbalistic world.
And has really quite a tragic life story,
and dies in, in his 40s.
He goes to Galilee, actually, and dies in
Galilee in the 40s.
However, unlike the Sabbagean movement,
Luzzatto is rehabilitated by
the Jewish world, by the Kabbalistic
world, and actually
one of his psychological masterpieces that
he writes, the
Path of the Just, in Hebrew, [FOREIGN],
becomes almost
canonical work.
But he studied in all traditional circles,
and not
just traditional of the Jewish world, to
this day.
Really a masterpiece of psychology in many
ways.
Not very Kaballah'istic, but more
psychological.
More stress on psychology than on
Kabbalah.
But still, Kaballah'istic psychology.
And he's rehabilitated in the Jewish
world, especially by Eleo Kramer.
The [UNKNOWN], the genius of Vilna,
who said that he would go by foot to study
all the way from Vilna to
[INAUDIBLE], which is quite a way, even if
you take a train these days, to study.
But he would go by foot in order to study
with him if he was alive.
Almost a sort of regret, psychologically
speaking.
[INAUDIBLE] a sense of lack, of absence,
of loss.
As if Jewish people had also missed
something by rejecting Luzzatto.
So Moshe Luzzatto, just like [INAUDIBLE],
he develops
a circle.
He develops, a group of young Kabbalists,
students, and this is interesting for
students.
University students.
That study medicine in the University of
Padua in Northern Italy, they allow
Jews to study there, which is not to be
taken for granted, even
in the 18th century, and they
clustered around Luzzatto, around this
charismatic figure,
himself didn't go to university, devoted
himself from a very, very early age,
maybe 15, to Kabbalah.
And that's the age in which I started to
study in Kabbalah, by the way.
And he really immerses himself in
Kabbalaha,
develops this mystical, messianic
psychology one could say.
Him and his associates and close friends
and students.
Before the circle is disbanded by
persecution.
And Luzzatto, I won't go much into the
details of his psychological thought, just
to really recommend,
if you've got a chance, it's been
translated, to
look at Mesilat Yesharim, because it's
really a classic.
Now, I'll speak briefly now about the
fourth movement, and then
we'll go into it in a bit more detail,
because it's in
many ways In terms of modern Kabbalah, for
most studied, the
most researched, the most popular known
movement that has really been popularized
by another person from the central
European, early 20th century Jewish
world, Martin Bubba, who later became a
professor here in Jerusalem.
And Also popularized by people that may
have heard of, later, in the American
world...
[UNKNOWN] [UNKNOWN] a writer,
Jewish-American writer.
Out of...important American Jewish figures
really
popularized the Hassidic world.
And the world of Hasidism is the fourth,
or fifth, actually, besides Sabbateanism.
Major movement develops out of the
teachings [UNKNOWN].
A bit less of [UNKNOWN] than the others.
A bit less focused than [UNKNOWN].
Because [UNKNOWN] system, [UNKNOWN] system
is very complex, very difficult.
[UNKNOWN] understood maybe 50% of it.
That's pretty good, actually.
And.
The Hassidic movement really wants to turn
Kabbalah
into a social movement, we're not speaking
here only about
social psychology, about small circles, or
fellowships like circle of
Luzzatto, the circle of Shalabi, the
circle of Krama, the
circle of Ari, of Kultiverro, we're
speaking about a mass movement.
We're speaking about a movement that takes
over 50% of big parts of the Eastern
European world in a matter of 20 years or
so, so which spreads like wildfire
in the Jewish world of the late 18th,
early 19th century.
With tremendous appeal to wide circles, to
scholars also, not
just to the masses, people once thought
mostly to the masses.
Not true, also to scholars.
However, also to the masses, to people who
barely know
how to read, who certainly don't know how
to read Hebrew.
In distant villages, all over Poland, what
is today Poland, Lithuania, Russia,
Romania, Hungary.
And in Eastern Central Europe, the hacidic
movement becomes very powerful.
The trends tempered out, just like the
authorities, just like with [UNKNOWN].
The Vilna Gaon, Kremer, he excommunicates
the Hasidim.
However, it doesn't work, because when
they become 50% or more
in some places, you can't excommunicate
half of the Jewish people.
So, they accept it.
And today we're actually The very strong
part of the conservative part
of the traditional Jewish world may be
less conservative than we might think
though.
That I'll speak about later.
So this is the fourth or fifth movement,
the Hassidic
movement, developing in more as we see Al
Vaceen moves safer
and in Italy and in other places more in
Central Europe,
and then we move sort of northward and
deep into Russia.
You create the Ukraine, et cetera, the,
the
Baltic states, and we have a very strong,
powerful social movement, again focused on
charismatic figures, just like
with the circles, just like with the
fellowships but much wider.
We've got [INAUDIBLE] Kim, the Webbers,
the mystics, and mystical psychologists.
A great part of the attraction, the
charisma, the
power of [UNKNOWN] is the ability to
diagnose, like [UNKNOWN].
And to give, repair, but to do it in a
much more simple level.
To speak to people's everyday concerns.
The concerns about finding a match, the
concerns about having children, the
concerns about raising children, about
finding
livelihood in difficult economic
conditions, about health.
So they're speaking ot people about their
lives, in a way like pscyoanalysts do.
Not just about their spiritual lives.
And this is the power of Hasidic movement.