The Thirteen Petalled Rose: A Discourse On The Essence Of Jewish Existence And Belief
by Adin Steinsaltz
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Book Summary Information
Author: Adin SteinsaltzEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2006-09-12
ISBN: 0465082726
Number of pages: 224
Publisher: Basic Books
Book Reviews of The Thirteen Petalled Rose: A Discourse On The Essence Of Jewish Existence And Belief
Book Review: A Rose that glows, and prose that flows.
Summary: 4 Stars
If you want an insider's view of the Jewish mystical tradition known as Kabbala, start here.
This book is so well written, with such knowledge and care and belief, by such a very bright, worldly mind as Adin Steinsaltz's, that his is the one to read. So why do I only give it four stars? Well, first the good stuff, because I do recommend it, after all:
This is probably Steinsaltz's most popular work. It primarily covers Jewish mysticism, but is subtitled more generally as "A Discourse On The Essence Of Jewish Existence And Belief", so in many ways the subject is practical Jewish mysticism and Jewish theology. It tries to remove or condense the most esoteric aspects of Kabbala, at least until the end; and focus on the fundamental and practical ideas contained in it, so that it can be understood and appreciated by the average person.
Chapter 1 is very beautiful, and the book continues on in the same vein as that chapter, being mostly easier to understand as it goes along. There is (again,) quite a bit of 'practical magic' mixed into the mysticism, including a very wise chapter about prayer that seem to be great advice to anyone who needs to think seriously about any subject that must be well understood, whether it is one's prayers or anything else of importance.
This is all very challenging but facinating and credible until the 13th and final chapter (titled 'Patach Eliyahu', and only found in the revised edition published in the last decade.) Here's where I might loose some observant Jews, but please stay with me. But I think it fair to say that at this point, the reader reaches a most boring and -- in the face of a dab of healthy skepticism -- superstitious finale to an otherwise fine and even wonderful exposition on Kabbala and Jewish theology for anyone interested enough to pick the book up.
Steinsaltz is erudite and writes with great precision all through the book about various aspects of the Jewish God and soul; but his thesis falls apart in this last chapter to those who do not assume it to be true, mostly because of the litany of assumptions he makes about the metaphysical reality of the universe while he simultaneously tries to be very reasonable and analytical and constructionist in tone. The chapter is an analysis of some earlier mystical writings which bend credibility in a way that Steinsaltz refuses in any way to address or even acknowledge.
These mystical writings are supposedly the written log of a gathering of prophets, living and dead, who are discussing the nature of God's creation. This by itself is not necessarily beyond belief, but the gravely serious and specific details about the various paths that God's light takes thtough the various worlds, is done without the slightest hint of objectivity, and at times Steinsaltz seems in his analysis to cease speaking to the reader and switch over to addressing God himself in his pronouns.
Steinsaltz folds in what can only be described as outlandish mystical definitions into otherwise very logical, scientific reasoning in his final description of the nature of the universe, which according to Kabbala is primarily about the Divine Light passing through the ten Sefirot. These Sefirot are channels of divine energy with very specific qualities that are known and explained by Steinsaltz, and which are supposed to transport this light through four very particular worlds in very particular ways, even though God himself, who is described as the sole hidden source of the Divine Light and ultimately as being the light itself; the God-light is *known* to be utterly unknowable.
For most of the book, Steinsaltz stays away from the technical details of how the universe channels this light, and he lets the beauty of the action of God's light passing down through humans here on earth take center stage, in ways that can be understood in terms of one's own experience. But in the final chapter, he states too many ideas without any kind of justification which assume a very particular (in an intellectual as well as spiritual sense) mystical vision of the universe, as if the sefirot are obvious facts, as if he lives on a planet where they are objects for everyone to see like trees or clouds and he's just telling you some meteorological or botanical details. And he writes as if we are supposed to go along and assume that Planet Steinsaltz is the real universe.
Because of this approach, his otherwise lovely writing seems at best more like fanciful literature by Frank Herbert or J.R.R. Tolkien, than serious philosophical inquiry in which assumptions are examined with critical scrutiny. This is totally ok in the earlier chapters, but the last chapter loses any aesthetic quality and suddenly sounds almost cultish in it's serious presumptions of what a reader should accept about things unseen and otherwise unknown. No doubt Steinsaltz didn't write to be merely aesthetically appealing, but without the beautiful sense of his desire to share the wonder of his God's light, the final chapter becomes cold, harsh, and both more absurd and less human than the rest of the book.
But `The Thirteen Petalled Rose' is at least wonderful literature. And for true believers, it must read like some kind of final theory of everything.
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