Zimzum. God and the creation of the world
Micha Brumlik and Vivian Liska in conversation with the author Christoph Schulte (audio recording available, in German)
The Zimzum is one of the most colorful and famous teachings of Jewish mysticism. The omnipresent God before the creation of the world has to withdraw into His Zimzum to make room at his own center for the creation of the world. World and man, revelation and freedom arise only where God withdraws.
The book explores Jewish and Christian intellectual history over four centuries from the Zimzum perspective. From kabbalistic circles around Isaac Luria in Safed to popular Hasidism, from the Christian Hebraists to Newton and Schelling, from esoteric manuscripts to Else Lasker-Schüler and Anselm Kiefer – Zimzum interpretations and appropriations mix the divine and the human, mysticism, philosophy, theology, and art.
recording available
Where
Old Building, level 2, Great Hall
Lindenstraße 9–14, 10969 Berlin
In cooperation with the Institute for Jewish and Religious Studies at the University of Potsdam and the Jewish Publisher at Suhrkamp Publishing House.
Audio recording of the talk, in German; Jewish Museum Berlin 2014
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