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About this book
Scholars have long argued that early Hasidic teachings introduced a psychological dimension to kabbalistic traditions and revitalized modern Judaism. Focused on the inner soul, Hasidism encouraged worshippers to experience joy and delight through their enthusiastic practices. In this new work grounded in the historical study of emotions, Leore Sachs-Shmueli shows that Hasidic teachers and preachers also nurtured and even promoted the negative emotions of yirah, an emotional cluster that encompasses fear, apprehension, anxiety, and awe.
Exploring their roots in classical texts of Kabbalah, including the Zohar and works of Safed Kabbalah, Sachs-Shmueli demonstrates how early Hasidic masters like the Baal Shem Tov, the circle of the Maggid of Mezhrich, Shneur Zalman of Liadi, and R. Nachman of Bratslav deliberately cultivated a tense emotional culture through the mental guidelines in their texts. Through an emphasis on God-fearing and the fear of sin, they motivated followers of the new movement to attain the mystical ideal while simultaneously fostering a social community devoted to divine worship according to Jewish law, in the face of persecution and secularization.
For readers interested in Jewish mysticism and Hasidism, Sacred Emotions argues that negative emotions serve as crucial catalysts for intensifying religious devotion and shaped the rise and cohesion of the Hasidic movement.
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Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Series Page
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: The History of Emotions and the Study of Hasidism
- One: The Medieval and Modern Heritage of Awe and Fear
- Two: Vocabularies of Fear and Sin in the Traditions Recorded in the Name of the Baal Shem Tov
- Three: The Role of Awe and Complementary Emotions (Delight, Joy, Love) in the Circle of the Maggid
- Four: Confession, Emotional Transformation, and the Fear of the Damage of Sin
- Five: Death Anxiety in R. Nahman of Bratslav’s Writings
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Index
- Series List