From Metaphysics to Midrash

<p>In <i>From Metaphysics to Midrash </i> Shaul Magid explores the exegetical tradition of Isaac Luria and his followers within the historical context in 16th-century Safed a unique community that brought practitioners of Judaism Christianity and Islam into close contact with one another. Luria's scripture became a theater in which kabbalists redrew boundaries of difference in areas of ethnicity gender and the human relation to the divine. Magid investigates how cultural influences altered scriptural exegesis of Lurianic Kabbala in its philosophical hermeneutical and historical perspectives. He suggests that Luria and his followers were far from cloistered. They used their considerable skills to weigh in on important matters of the day offering at times some surprising solutions to perennial theological problems.</p>