Berman Center: The Kabbalistic Tree: Visual Interface of Jewish Mysticism with Prof. Yossi Chajes

Most students of kabbalistic literature 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 for the first time 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 an indispensable tool to Lurianic kabbalists. Chajes will introduce this little-known genre and explain the origins and functions of these amazing kabbalistic artifacts. 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. A former recipient of Fulbright, Rothchild, Wexner, and Hartman Fellowships, Chajes has also been a visiting professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, a three-time fellow at the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, and a fellow at the Israel Institute for Advanced Studies in Jerusalem and the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften of Goethe University Frankfurt. He sits on the Executive Board of the World Union of Jewish Studies, representing the fields of rabbinics and Jewish thought.