Tuesday, March 04, 2008
LURIA AND HEGEL
Dr. Sanford L. Drob, faculty member in the Clinical Psychology doctorate program of Fielding Graduate University, describes the parallels between the system of the philosopher Hegel and Rabbi Isaac Luria's Lurianic Kabbalah:
the extent of the impact of the Kabbalah on Hegel is difficult to determine. Hegel discusses the Kabbalah briefly in his Lectures on the History of Philosophy and Religion, and uses the Hebrew term Adam Kadmon to refer to the "archetype of humanity." ...
Kabbalistic ideas seem to have reached him indirectly. For example, Hegel¹s predecessor and early maestro, Friedrich Schelling was himself of a mystical bent and was influenced by the Christian Kabbalah, the Swabian pietists, and such thinkers as Jacob Boehme, each of whom had transmitted Kabbalistic insights into the Christian intellectual world. ...
For Hegel, as for the Kabbalists, the Absolute negates itself in order to enter into a finite, natural realm, but begins the return to itself through the formation, within nature, of the World Spirit, which is embodied in man. ...
Hegel discusses the Kabbalah along with Gnosticism in his Lectures on The History of Philosophy...
That's just a sampling. There are more examples at the website. Dr. Drob's biography can be read here.
