Concealment and revelation : esotericism in Jewish thought and its philosophical implications / Moshe Halbertal ; translated by Jackie Feldman.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

The paradox of esotericism : "and not on the chariot alone" -- The hidden and the sublime : vision and restriction in the Bible and in the Talmudic literature -- The ethics of vision : the attitude of early Jewish mysticism towards gazing at the chariot -- Concealment and power : magic and esotericism in the hekhalot literature -- Esotericism and commentary : Ibn Ezra and the exegetical layer -- Concealment and heresy : astrology and the secret of the Torah -- Double language and the divided public in the guide of the perplexed -- The breaching of the limits of the esoteric : concealment and disclosure in Maimonidean esotericism -- From transmission to writing : hinting, leaking and orthodoxy in early Kabbalah -- Open knowledge and closed knowledge : the Kabbalists of Gerona Rabbi Azriel and Rabbi Yaakov Bar Sheshet -- Tradition, closed knowledge and the esoteric : secrecy and hinting in Nahmanides' Kabbalah -- From tradition to literature : Shem Tov Ibn Gaon and the critique of Kabbalistic literature -- "The widening of the apertures of the showpiece" : Shmuel Ibn Tibon and the end of the era of esotericism -- Esotericism, sermons and curricula : Ya'akov Anatoli and the dissemination of the secret -- The ambivalence of secrecy : the dispute over philosophy in the early 14th century -- Esotericism, discontent and co-existence -- Taxonomy and paradoxes of esotericism : conceptual conclusion.

During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, great new trends of Jewish thought emerged whose widely varied representatives--Kabbalists, philosophers, and astrologers--each claimed that their particular understanding revealed the actual secret of the Torah. They presented their own readings in a coded fashion that has come to be regarded by many as the very essence of esotericism. Concealment and Revelation takes us on a fascinating journey to the depths of the esoteric imagination. Carefully tracing the rise of esotericism and its function in medieval Jewish thought, Moshe Halbertal's richly.

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