Jewish Ideas and Beliefs

The renewed interest in Jewish mysticism can partially be attributed to a renewed interest in non-traditional spirituality.

In the last three decades, Jewish mysticism has gone from an underground discipline to a mass phenomenon.

Suffering is meaningless unless you decide otherwise.

The rabbis of the talmudic era were more interested in the human response to suffering than in finding theological justifications for its existence.

Joseph Caro and Moses Cordovero, icons of Safed mysticism, elaborated on the teachings of the Zohar.

An early group of Jewish mystics conceived of the Hebrew alphabet as the building blocks of creation.

The findings of modern science and the tragedy of the Holocaust led some Jewish thinkers to redefine God.

Scholars debate whether the Israelites recognized only one God or worshipped only one God.

The deviant use of human freedom, not God, is the source of evil and suffering.

According to some thinkers, the events of the Nazi era initiated changes in the nature of Judaism.