Paper is due 3/25 (formerly due 3/10)
2-3 pages
Typed and formatted according to MLA guidelines
If sent by email, paper must be either an MSWord or PDF attachment.
Any other format will be returned by me and marked late.  

The first paper corresponds to the following learning objectives:

• explore how the foundational narratives of Judaism have been reworked or reimagined by one Jewish mystic
• identify the key texts and writers associated with different periods of Jewish mysticism
• describe the folk customs and beliefs of two Jewish mystic movements
• contrast the philosophical underpinnings of several Jewish mystic movements
• identify the philosophical orientation of scholarship on Jewish mysticism
  

Answer any one of the following:

1. Analyze the role of the Hebrew Alphabet in the Kohen brothers' project of Kabbalah.
2. According to the Bahir, what is the relationship between the patriarchs and middot?
3. Explore the uses of the sephirotic tree in one of the early Kabbalistic writers.
4. Describe and analyze one ritual of golem-making in Jewish mysticism.
5. How did Jewish Kabbalists answer their critics' claim that they embraced pantheism and idolatry?  
6. What role does Lilith play in the Kohens' project?
7. Describe and analyze the sephirot in Rabbi Azriel's project.
8. Explore how the gap between YHWH and humans is addressed by one or more Jewish mystics. If using Kabbalistic texts, you should analyze devekut too. 
9. Analyze the implications of Abulafia's prophetic mysticism.  Why were none of his texts on this topic ever published by Kabbalists?
10. In the context of any one of the mystics analyzed by Scholem, explore and describe his philosophical orientation and its import for Kabbalist scholarship.