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INTRODUCTION

In recent years, the phenomenological and comparative approaches to the study of Jewish mysticism have come under criticism. This critique has been focused upon the very concept of “mysticism,” calling into question whether or not different mystical elements in different religious faith traditions may be compared with one another. This perspective is typified in the latest works of Boaz Huss, who understands all spiritual phenomena as creations anchored in their respective historical, social, and political contexts:

I believe that the different cultural formations categorized as “Jewish mysticism” should not be studied as expressions of a universal religious phenomenon and as different phases in the development of a Jewish mystical tradition, but rather as cultural products that were created as a result of various political interests, in distinctive historical, economic and social contexts. 1

Of course, this approach is valuable and quite legitimate. But Huss, who represents a much broader trend in contemporary Jewish Studies, demands that we contextualize all mystical phenomena at the expense, and negation, of the phenomenological and comparative perspectives. 2 According to Huss, phenomenological research has a clear ideological and theological aim. 3

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