Reel Kabbalah

Jewish Mysticism and Neo-Hasidism in Contemporary Cinema

By Brian Ogren

Rutgers University Press

Reel Kabbalah: Jewish Mysticism and Neo-Hasidism in Contemporary Cinema studies the ways in which fictional film in the first decade of the twenty-first century represents the esoteric Jewish speculative traditions known as Kabbalah and Hasidism. It examines the textual and conceptual traditions behind five important cinematic representations -- Pi (1998), Ushpizin (2004), Bee Season (2005), The Secrets (2007), and A Serious Man (2009) -- and it considers how film both stands in continuity with those traditions and modifies them in the New Age vein of what is known as neo-Kabbalah and neo-Hasidism. Brian Ogren transforms our understanding of reception history by focusing on how cinema has altered perceptions of Jewish mysticism. In showing how the Jewish speculative traditions of Kabbalah and Hasidism have been able to affect mass-consumed cinematic portrayals of ultimate Truth, this book sheds light on the New Age, pop-cultural dialectic of the particular within the universal and of the universal within the particular.

Brian Ogren’s Reel Kabbalah is an outstanding and pioneering study that breaks disciplinary boundaries and extends the horizons of Kabbalah research. Reel Kabbalah offers a highly sophisticated analysis of cinematic representations and interpretations of Jewish mysticism and contributes significantly to the understanding of modern Kabbalah and its impact on contemporary arts and culture. Boaz Huss, author of Mystifying Kabbalah: Academic Scholarship, National Theology, and New Age Spirituality

Reel Kabbalah is a significant contribution to the field of religion and film, which has so far largely overlooked the intersections of cinema and Jewish mysticism. Through his thoughtful reading of five case studies, Brian Ogren reveals to us why Kabbalah matters in film analysis and specifically how, by dint of cinema's global reach, neo-Kabbalistic ideas make an impact well beyond the confines of the Jewish world. Dan Chyutin, author of Hidden Light: Judaism and Mystical Experience in Israeli Cinema

BRIAN OGREN is the Anna Smith Fine Professor of Judaic Studies and the chair of the Religion Department at Rice University in Houston, Texas. He is the author of Kabbalah and the Founding of America, The Beginning of the World in Renaissance Jewish Thought, and Renaissance and Rebirth.

Introduction: Contemporary Film and the New Age of Kabbalistic and Hasidic Folklore
Chapter 1: Pi: Divine Madness and the Kabbalistic Blurring of Worlds
Chapter 2: Ushipizin: The Narrow Mystical Bridge between the Sacred and the Profane
Chapter 3: Bee Season: Academic Kabbalah for the New Age Big Screen
Chapter 4: The Secrets and 'Alma di-Itkasiya: On Tikkun, Cinematic Feminism, and the Kabbalah of Safed
Chapter 5: A Serious Man: Mystical Wonder, Jewish Literacy, and Serious Indeterminacy
Conclusion: Neo-Kabbalah through the Cinematic Lens

Acknowledgments
Notes
Index

Related Titles