The oxymoronic title of Moshe Idel's dense but lucid study of Kabbalah and of what Arthur Lovejoy called the Great Chain of Being is an epitome of Idel's lifelong enterprise. Never a formal student of Gershom Scholem (though they had some conversations about Kabbalah), Idel has developed into Scholem's leading revisionist. I recall Robert Alter (no more a scholar of Kabbalah than I am) angrily chiding Idel, in a book review, for having had the audacity to deviate from Scholem's Kabbalah. Doubtless, some of Scholem's own students have also expressed their displeasure with Idel. Chained by Scholem's strong enchantments, his more conventional disciples have sought to build a hedge around what they consider to be his Torah.

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