Giordano Bruno and the Kabbalah: Prophets, Magicians, and Rabbis

Giordano Bruno (1548–1600), a defrocked Dominican monk, was convicted of heresy by the Roman Catholic Inquisition and burned at the stake in Rome. He had spent fifteen years wandering throughout Europe on the run from Counter-Reformation intelligence and eight years in prison under interrogation.

The author of more than sixty works on mathematics, science, ethics, philosophy, metaphysics, the art of memory and esoteric mysticism, Bruno had a profound impact on Western thought. Until now his involvement with Jewish mysticism has never been fully explored. Karen Silvia de León-Jones presents an engaging and illuminating discussion of his mystical understanding and use of Jewish and Christian Kabbalah, theology, and philosophy, including the famous Hermetica, and especially his exploration and use of magic to reveal the mysteries of the universe and the divine.

Karen de León-Jones is a research fellow in religious studies at the Centre d'Etudes des Religions du Livre, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique-Ecole Pratique des Etudes Scientifiques (Paris) and at the Institut Karma Ling (Arvillard).

Tormented Master

The search for spiritual meaning drives great leaders in all religions. This classic work explores the personality and religious quest of Nahman of Bratslav (1772–1810), one of Hasidism’s major figures. It unlocks the great themes of spiritual searching that make him a figure of universal religious importance.

In this major biography, Dr. Arthur Green—teacher, scholar, and spiritual seeker—explores the great personal conflicts and inner torments that lay at the source of Nahman’s teachings. He reveals Nahman to have been marked at an early age by an exaggerated sense of sin and morbidity that later characterized his life and thought. While subject to rapid mood swings and even paranoia, Nahman is a model of spiritual and personal struggle who speaks to all generations. Green’s analysis of this troubled personality provides an important key to Nahman’s famous tales, making his teachings accessible for people of all faiths, all backgrounds.

“If there is any single feature about Nahman’s tales, and indeed about Nahman’s life as well, that makes them unique in the history of Judaism, it is just this: their essential motif is one of quest. Nahman, both as teller and as hero of these tales, is Nahman the seeker. He has already told us, outside the tales, of his refusal ever to stand on any one rung, of his call for constant growth, of his need to open himself up to ever-new and more demanding challenges to his faith. The tales now affirm this endless quest…”

—from Excursus II. The Tales