Christian Kabbalah in Renaissance Italy

The Italian humanist Giovanni Pico della Mirandola was among the first of many Renaissance Christian thinkers to become interested in Jewish mysticism. David Navarro reviews a recent collection of essays on the subject:

As a humanist, Pico was exposed to ideas about magic and astrology, both of which were mainstream subjects in natural philosophy. Kabbalah was one of the movements Pico became involved with in order to prove the truth of Christianity. His main contribution is “to have conveyed to the Christian world a specific interpretation of the Jewish Kabbalah, and have given rise to a real and proper independent discipline that many imitators would have rendered more distant from its Jewish origin.” . . .

[The scholar] Moshe Idel examines . . . the strategy applied by Pico to bend Christianity to some central aspects of Kabbalah. The different Jewish esoteric doctrines represented a challenge to understanding the core of Jewish mysticism, and spread through various Jewish mystics during the 15th century in the Italian kingdoms. Pico’s methods for combining the hermeneutic strategies he acquired from these different movements are explained [by Idel], showing his approach to the use of Kabbalah in order to prove Christ’s messianic role and “convince Jews as to the correctness of Christian theology.”

Read more at Sephardic Horizons

More about: Christianity, Humanism, Italian Jewry, Italy, Kabbalah, Pico della Mirandola, Renaissance

The Mass Expulsion of Palestinians Is No Solution. Neither Are Any of the Usual Plans for Gaza

Examining the Trump administration’s proposals for the people of Gaza, Danielle Pletka writes:

I do not believe that the forced cleansing of Gaza—a repetition of what every Arab country did to the hundreds of thousands of Arab Jews in 1948— is a “solution.” I don’t think Donald Trump views that as a permanent solution either (read his statement), though I could be wrong. My take is that he believes Gaza must be rebuilt under new management, with only those who wish to live there resettling the land.

The time has long since come for us to recognize that the establishment doesn’t have the faintest clue what to do about Gaza. Egypt doesn’t want it. Jordan doesn’t want it. Iran wants it, but only as cannon fodder. The UN wants it, but only to further its anti-Semitic agenda and continue milking cash from the West. Jordanians, Lebanese, and Syrians blame Palestinians for destroying their countries.

Negotiations with Hamas have not worked. Efforts to subsume Gaza under the Palestinian Authority have not worked. Rebuilding has not worked. Destruction will not work. A “two-state solution” has not arrived, and will not work.

So what’s to be done? If you live in Washington, New York, London, Paris, or Berlin, your view is that the same answers should definitely be tried again, but this time we mean it. This time will be different. . . . What could possibly make you believe this other than ideological laziness?

Read more at What the Hell Is Going On?

More about: Donald Trump, Gaza Strip, Palestinians