 2014 - 2015 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 0697-4083-01 | Magic, Mysticism and Religion | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FACULTY OF HUMANITIES | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
University credit hours: 4.0
Course description
Pri Haretz is a small collection of homilies and writings of Rabbi Menachem Mendel from Vitebsk, a student of the Maggid of Mezritch, who immigrated to the Holy Land with his family and his student, Abraham from Kalisk, at the head of a group of three hundred people in 1777. It is one of the most important books of early Hassidism, with much to teach on the spiritual perspective of one of the central figures in the Maggid of Mezritch's court, who of course had been the most important student of the Baal Shem Tov. In the seminar we will read the book in order to look at the nature of the spiritual-mystical experience reflected in the writings of one of the most original and impressive early Hassidic masters, discuss ideas such as Dibbuk and the love of friends that were central to Rabbi Menachem Mendel's teachings, and find out what the experience of love among group members he wrote so much about consists of.