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Platonism and Kabbalah share a prominent characteristic: the formulation of epistemological and ontological concepts in erotic terms. Plato envisions eros as creating and sustaining the permeability of the boundaries between the earthly and the divine. This motif accompanies the theme of love in philosophical and mystical writings from Antiquity to the Middle Ages, presupposing that true love always points to its divine, transcendent source. The exuberant religious language of Plato's eros, carried on by Plotinus, facilitates its adoption into Islamic and Jewish devotional systems.
The Transcendent Beloved traces the course of Platonic and Neoplatonic concepts of eros as they shaped major patterns in medieval Islamic and Jewish thought. It shows the impact of the ancient Greek heritage on Arabic and Hebrew writings, culminating in the profound expression of the language of eros in the Zohar, the pre-eminent work of Jewish mysticism. Tanja Werthmann's study thus positions the rise of medieval Jewish mysticism in the context of medieval Jewish and Islamic philosophy, which are viewed here as a continuum. She sets the notions of love in Kabbalah against the background of their immediate historical precedents: the devotional and ontological formulations of love in Jewish philosophical writings and in the vast literature on love in Arabic. Werthmann showcases the rich dialogue between Greek, Islamic, Jewish and Christian traditions, thus offering a new and more sensitive decoding of kabbalistic metaphysics.
