Most students of Kabbalah find themselves "visualizing" its cosmogonic and cosmological teachings. The iconic "Tree of Life" is certainly the best-known kabbalistic symbol and is often the first thing conveyed to those being exposed to this lore. What few realize is that complex graphical scrolls have been a genre of kabbalistic literature in their own right since the Renaissance, and that from the late seventeenth century such scrolls became indispensable to Lurianic kabbalists. In this presentation, Professor Chajes will introduce this little-known genre and explain the origins and functions of these amazing kabbalistic artifacts. Chajes’s "The Kabbalistic Tree" (PSUP, 2022) is the first-ever study of this practical expression of Kabbalah, about which he is the preeminent authority. 

Speaker

J. H. (Yossi) Chajes (Ph.D., Yale University 1999) is Sir Isaac Wolfson Professor of Jewish Thought in the Department of Jewish History at the University of Haifa. Chajes’s research focuses on the intersection of Kabbalah, magic, and science in Jewish cultural history. He has written on spirit possession and exorcism, egodocuments, women’s religiosity, Jewish attitudes towards magic, and, most recently, on the visualization of knowledge. Chajes’s recent book, "The Kabbalistic Tree," has been lauded as a “monumental achievement that will be valuable to scholars and general readers interested in Judaism, religion, and art history.” For over a decade, Chajes has directed the Ilanot Project, an ambitious and unprecedented attempt to research the history of kabbalistic diagrams; in partnership with the University of Göttingen, he is also creating a platform for the research and presentation of critical editions of kabbalistic trees online: Maps of God.