God, Universe, and Man-their essential unity and fundamental attributes as seen through the eyes of Jewish esoteric tradition-is the subject of Leo Schaya's masterly study of the Kabbalah. Unlike most works on the subject, which focus on the history of the Kabbalah or the Kabbalah as literature (not to mention countless "new age" rants), this penetrating text expounds the universal teachings of the Kabbalah on the relationships of all things to their supreme archetypes, the ten Sefiroth, or principial aspects of God. In addition to the Old Testament and the Talmud, Schaya draws on one of the classical sources of Jewish mysticism, the Zohar or Book of Splendor, from which he extracts an all-embracing synthesis of the numberless degrees of All-Reality, to which correspond the multiple states of the human being, from earthly individuality to essential identity with the Absolute. This work, acclaimed by reviewers and scholars alike, fittingly concludes with an illuminating chapter on the Name of God, which saves "all those who invoke him in truth."
God, Universe, and Man-their essential unity and fundamental attributes as seen through the eyes of Jewish esoteric tradition-is the subject of Leo Schaya's masterly study of the Kabbalah. Unlike most works on the subject, which focus on the history of the Kabbalah or the Kabbalah as literature (not to mention countless "new age" rants), this penetrating text expounds the universal teachings of the Kabbalah on the relationships of all things to their supreme archetypes, the ten Sefiroth, or principial aspects of God. In addition to the Old Testament and the Talmud, Schaya draws on one of the classical sources of Jewish mysticism, the Zohar or Book of Splendor, from which he extracts an all-embracing synthesis of the numberless degrees of All-Reality, to which correspond the multiple states of the human being, from earthly individuality to essential identity with the Absolute. This work, acclaimed by reviewers and scholars alike, fittingly concludes with an illuminating chapter on the Name of God, which saves "all those who invoke him in truth."
Über den Autor
Leo Schaya (1916-1985) was born in Switzerland, where he received a traditional Jewish upbringing. From his early youth he devoted himself to the study of the great metaphysical doctrines of East and West, particularly the works of neo-Platonism, Sufism, and Advaita Vedanta. Along with some other writers in the so-called Traditionalist/Perennialist school, Schaya is noted for his grasp of sometimes difficult metaphysical concepts and his ability to summarize and interpret the writings of ancient and medieval sages for current readers. In 1958, he published his much heralded book The Universal Meaning of the Kabbalah on the metaphysical and esoteric wisdom of the Jewish Kabbalah, which remains one of the most often quoted books on the subject. He also wrote a book on the transcendent unity of all three Abrahamic faiths. More recently (2014), a collection of articles on Jewish esoteric tradition entitled Universal Aspects of the Kabbalah and Judaism was published.
