Heresy, kabbalah, magic, science, Freemasonry, and two angry rabbis.

A mystical creed that hasn’t entirely faded away.

The printing press and Jewish mysticism.

Reincarnation, visits to Muslim fortunetellers, and exorcisms.

Abraham Isaac Kook.

A new book tackles the history of one of Kabbalah’s most elusive ideas.

Ashlag’s ladder to the Zohar.

An unresolved paradox when it comes to secular culture.

Leo Perutz’s By Night Under the Stone Bridge.

Shavuot reflections from a country at war.

Flouting Hebrew grammar and Jewish theology.

And the rabbi who tried to convert the pope.

A letter from Isaac Luria.

The 13th-century rabbis who dared to put secret teachings on paper.