• Abraham Abulafia's Mystical Theology of the Divine Name and its Philosophical Revision in Walter Benjamin

    Author(s):
    Michael Miller (see profile)
    Date:
    2015
    Group(s):
    Frankfurt School Critical Theory, Philosophy, Religious Studies
    Subject(s):
    Mysticism--Judaism, Jews--Study and teaching
    Item Type:
    Article
    Tag(s):
    Jewish Philosophy, Kabbalah, Walter Benjamin, Jewish mysticism, Jewish studies
    Permanent URL:
    http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/M62C3P
    Abstract:
    The thirteenth century kabbalist Abraham Abulafia held Hebrew to be the divine language, designed by God as an ontological aspect of reality. Through meditating on and deconstructing names into their letters, one could then engage in the process of reunifying reality into the primordial Name of God, the Tetragrammaton. This paper offers an original analysis, aligning Abulafia with Walter Benjamin's writings on language wherein the world speaks itself phenomenally to human beings, who must take an active role in translating this silent speech. Here the human, as name-giver, is finalizer of reality; by translating base phenomena into named entities humanity elevates them into a new realm, beyond the merely real into the true. This epistemic-soteriological theory speaks to common speculative questions about language and the world, offering a new way of understanding how human beings can come to know the world as-it-is, and as-it-should-be; a way that is philosophical, yet based firmly in Medieval Jewish theology.
    Metadata:
    xml
    Published as:
    Journal article     Show details
    Pub. DOI:
    10.1179/2046572615Z.00000000033
    Publisher:
    Informa UK Limited
    Pub. Date:
    2015-9-7
    Journal:
    Medieval Mystical Theology
    Volume:
    24
    Issue:
    1
    Page Range:
    80 - 94
    ISSN:
    2046-5726,2046-5734
    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    6 years ago
    License:
    All Rights Reserved
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