Abstract

This article argues that ethics is an integral aspect of medieval Jewish mysticism (Kabbalah). The basis for this necessary relation resides in a notion of imitatio dei that infuses the rabbinical commandments with mystical meaning and power. The manner in which the miẓvot become mystical conduits for the kabbalists is seen to be connected with the kabbalists' revised cosmogony. In this reinterpretation of the dynamic powers and processes at work in the world, human action acquires the ability to bring the kabbalists to the divinity and the divine presence to the human realm.