I CAME THIS DAY TO THE SPRING IBD

Sinopse

&ldquo,After reading two or three paragraphs the hair of my head stood up. Nothing like this was ever seen or known from any heretic or disbeliever of this world . . . and it certainly deserves to be burned.&rdquo,

The Hebrew Kabbalistic text called I Came This Day to the Spring (Va-avo ha-Yom el ha-&lsquo,Ayin) created a scandal among the Jewish communities of Central Europe when it surfaced, in manuscript, in 1725. It was obviously linked to the cult of Sabbatai Zevi, the would-be Messiah who drove the Jewish world wild with excitement in 1665 and converted to Islam the following year. Its author was the brilliant young rabbi Jonathan Eibeschuetz (1695&ndash,1764), soon to become one of the foremost preachers and rabbinic authorities of the era.

Now, for the first time, Eibeschuetz&rsquo,s extraordinary book&mdash,a charter for the world religion of the future, rooted in Kabbalistic Judaism but unlike any religion ever known&mdash,is available in English translation, by a leading scholar of Judaism and its Kabbalah. It is not easy reading. But David Halperin&rsquo,s full annotations will give readers the guiding thread they need to follow Eibeschuetz on his amazing journey &ldquo,to the spring of wisdom&rdquo,&mdash,and beyond.