Book Excerpts:

SpiritSite.com is pleased to offer excerpts from the following books.  You may click on a book's cover to begin, or on the links below:

Selections from Daniel Matt's The Essential Kabbalah: The Heart of Jewish Mysticism

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four

Daniel Matt is a writer and professor of Jewish mysticism at the Center for Jewish Studies, Graduate Theological Union (Berkeley, CA).  Dr. Matt earned his Ph.D. at Brandeis University, and has taught at the Graduate Theological Union for nearly 20 years.  Other published works include God and the Big Bang and "Varieties of Mystical Nothingness: Jewish, Christian, and Buddhist."

The Essential Kabbalah

In The Essential Kabbalah (review or buy), Dr. Matt explores the Judaic Kabbalistic writings -- long considered the pillars of Jewish mysticism.  Quotations are organized around central themes such as "God as Infinity," "Mystical Nothingness," and "Revelation and Torah."  As Dr. Matt says in his foreword, "Kabbalah, the Jewish mystical tradition, is precious and well hidden.  Its symbolisms, allusions, and multiple layers of meaning have attracted and confounded readers for centuries."  Although the greater part of The Essential Kabbalah is made up of direct selections from Kabbalistic literature, we are presenting an excerpt which speaks to the background of the Kabbalah.