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Apophasis and Envisioning the Invisible
Unveiling Veils of Infinity
Series: - Aries Book Series, Volume: 42
Author:
In this monograph, two of the most complicated theoretical topics confronting the scholar of mysticism (apophasis and infinity) are tackled. Writing about apophasis presents a unique dilemma as the term itself connotes the inability of language to name the namelessness of ultimate reality. Yet, the apophatic is a gesture of speaking-not, which entails saying the unsayable, as opposed to not speaking, which is the reticence appropriate to silence. The exploration of infinity presents an equally daunting demand as the intellect embarking on this path is summoned to circumscribe the uncircumscribable. Just as communicating the incommunicable is an endless enterprise of speaking the unspeakable, so mapping infinity is an unremitting pursuit of delimiting the limitless. The two subjects thus intersect at the vanishing point where the human mind reaches its limit by confronting the limitlessness that can be described only as indescribable.
Elliot R. Wolfson, is Fellow of the American Academy of Jewish Research and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and is the Marsha and Jay Glazer Endowed Chair in Jewish Studies and Distinguished Professor of Religion Emeritus at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of many publications including most recently The Duplicity of Philosophyâs Shadow: Heidegger, Nazism and the Jewish Other (2018); Heidegger and Kabbalah: Hidden Gnosis and the Path of PoiÄsis (2019); Suffering Time: Philosophical, Kabbalistic, and Ḥasidic Reflections on Temporality (2021); The Philosophical Pathos of Susan Taubes: Between Nihilism and Hope (2023); and Nocturnal Seeing: Hopelessness of Hope and Philosophical Gnosis in Susan Taubes, Gillian Rose, and Edith Wyschogrod (2025).
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Introduction
1 Calculating Infinity at the Perimeter of Thought and Heeding Silence at the Edge of Language
â1âUnified Fracture and the Singular Plural
â2âInfinity and the Proximal Distance from Proximity
â3âSpeaking-Not, Agnosis, and Thinking beyond the Beyond Thinking
â4âTacitly Saying Nothing: Commingling of Apophasis and Kataphasis
â5âPoiÄsis and Speaking the Unspeakable
2 Apophasis and the Parabolic Garment of Truth: Moses Maimonides and Meister Eckhart
â1âMaimonidean Via Negativa: Philosophical Mysticism and Seeing through the Veil
â2âSeeing Nothing and the Nakedness of the Godhead in Meister Eckhart
3 Envisioning Invisibility: Polyontological Meontology and the One That Is Not One in Thirteenth-Century Kabbalah
â1âFrom Luminal Darkness to Darkened Luminosity: Crossing the Threshold of Crossing
â2âDialetheic Identity of the Nonidentity of Darkness and Light
â3âMeontological Polyontology of the One That Is Not One
â4âNaming the Nameless and the Double Helix of Negation
â5âA Lacanian Interlude: No Other of the Other
â6âHeeding the Voice of Silence in the Silence of the Voice
â7âTetragrammaton without Letters: Language beyond Speech, Writing, and Contemplation
4 Metalogic of the Trace in Lurianic Kabbalah: Transcendent Immanence and Immanent Transcendence
â1âMonistic Meontology and Disruption of Discontinuity
â2âTrace of Infinity and Indifference of Difference
â3âVessel and Trace of Light: Othering the Otherness of the Not-Other
5 Imagining Nothing and the Snare of Metaphoricity: Abraham Miguel Cardosoâs Mystical Nominalism
â1âPhallomorphic Gaze and the Metaphorization of the Male Androgyne
â2âGnosis, Reason, and Faith: Messianic Enlightenment and the Secret of Divinity
â3âParabolic Investiture of the Infinitivity beyond Being and Nonbeing
â4âBridging the Unbridgeable and the Metaphor of the Metaphorical
6 Malkhut de-Adam Qadmon and the Myth of Ṣimṣum: Engendering Alterity in the Theosophy of Neḥemiah Ḥiyya Ḥayyon
â1âMystery of Infinity and the Diffusion of Light Depleted of Light
â2âGendering Infinity: á¹¢imá¹£um and the Capacity for Boundary in the Boundless
â3âApophasis and the Atheological Repudiation of Godliness
â4âPositioning the Feminine in a World That Is Entirely Masculine
7 Dialetheic Concealing the Disclosure of Concealing: Apophatic Embodiment and the Essence of Infinitivity in Ḥabad
â1âUnconcealing the Concealment and the Finitudinal Infinitivity
â2âConcealing the Concealment of Concealment
â3âTwo Types of Contemplation: Universal and Particular
â4âNegation of the Negated Negation
â5âHierarchical Inversion and Gender Transposition
â6âMessianic New Light: Retrieval of the End in Expectation of the Beginning
8 Naming the Namelessness of the Name: Constricting Expansion and Timespace of Infinity in Solomon ben Ḥayyim Ḥaiqel Elyashiv
â1âInfinity and the Eternality of Time beyond Temporality
â2âEin Sof and the Apophatic Divestiture of Ontotheological Discourse
â3âá¹¢imá¹£um and the Khoric Space between Literal and Figurative
â4âMetaphoricity and the Rhetoric of Same Difference
â5âApokatastasis and the Apophatic Return to Malkhut de-Ein Sof
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
Introduction
1 Calculating Infinity at the Perimeter of Thought and Heeding Silence at the Edge of Language
â1âUnified Fracture and the Singular Plural
â2âInfinity and the Proximal Distance from Proximity
â3âSpeaking-Not, Agnosis, and Thinking beyond the Beyond Thinking
â4âTacitly Saying Nothing: Commingling of Apophasis and Kataphasis
â5âPoiÄsis and Speaking the Unspeakable
2 Apophasis and the Parabolic Garment of Truth: Moses Maimonides and Meister Eckhart
â1âMaimonidean Via Negativa: Philosophical Mysticism and Seeing through the Veil
â2âSeeing Nothing and the Nakedness of the Godhead in Meister Eckhart
3 Envisioning Invisibility: Polyontological Meontology and the One That Is Not One in Thirteenth-Century Kabbalah
â1âFrom Luminal Darkness to Darkened Luminosity: Crossing the Threshold of Crossing
â2âDialetheic Identity of the Nonidentity of Darkness and Light
â3âMeontological Polyontology of the One That Is Not One
â4âNaming the Nameless and the Double Helix of Negation
â5âA Lacanian Interlude: No Other of the Other
â6âHeeding the Voice of Silence in the Silence of the Voice
â7âTetragrammaton without Letters: Language beyond Speech, Writing, and Contemplation
4 Metalogic of the Trace in Lurianic Kabbalah: Transcendent Immanence and Immanent Transcendence
â1âMonistic Meontology and Disruption of Discontinuity
â2âTrace of Infinity and Indifference of Difference
â3âVessel and Trace of Light: Othering the Otherness of the Not-Other
5 Imagining Nothing and the Snare of Metaphoricity: Abraham Miguel Cardosoâs Mystical Nominalism
â1âPhallomorphic Gaze and the Metaphorization of the Male Androgyne
â2âGnosis, Reason, and Faith: Messianic Enlightenment and the Secret of Divinity
â3âParabolic Investiture of the Infinitivity beyond Being and Nonbeing
â4âBridging the Unbridgeable and the Metaphor of the Metaphorical
6 Malkhut de-Adam Qadmon and the Myth of Ṣimṣum: Engendering Alterity in the Theosophy of Neḥemiah Ḥiyya Ḥayyon
â1âMystery of Infinity and the Diffusion of Light Depleted of Light
â2âGendering Infinity: á¹¢imá¹£um and the Capacity for Boundary in the Boundless
â3âApophasis and the Atheological Repudiation of Godliness
â4âPositioning the Feminine in a World That Is Entirely Masculine
7 Dialetheic Concealing the Disclosure of Concealing: Apophatic Embodiment and the Essence of Infinitivity in Ḥabad
â1âUnconcealing the Concealment and the Finitudinal Infinitivity
â2âConcealing the Concealment of Concealment
â3âTwo Types of Contemplation: Universal and Particular
â4âNegation of the Negated Negation
â5âHierarchical Inversion and Gender Transposition
â6âMessianic New Light: Retrieval of the End in Expectation of the Beginning
8 Naming the Namelessness of the Name: Constricting Expansion and Timespace of Infinity in Solomon ben Ḥayyim Ḥaiqel Elyashiv
â1âInfinity and the Eternality of Time beyond Temporality
â2âEin Sof and the Apophatic Divestiture of Ontotheological Discourse
â3âá¹¢imá¹£um and the Khoric Space between Literal and Figurative
â4âMetaphoricity and the Rhetoric of Same Difference
â5âApokatastasis and the Apophatic Return to Malkhut de-Ein Sof
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
Scholars of Jewish philosophy, mysticism, and intellectual history; philosophers of religion; scholars of comparative mysticism; scholars interested in the connection between science and religion, and those drawn to the utilization of critical theory to study mystical texts. The book will also serve advanced graduate students dedicated to the pursuit of these disciplines.