Peter Schäfer’s scientific contributions

This new edition of the Hekhalot, prepared by Peter Schäfer and his colleagues, is one of the most important publications to appear in Judaic studies in recent years. It marks the beginning of a new epoch in the study of the early literature of Jewish mysticism. I devote this review article to defending and elaborating these judgments. Using as an example the Hekhalot materials relating to the rabbinic story of the four rabbis who entered a garden (pardes), I indicate why no critical edition of the Hekhalot is now possible, and why Schäfer's synoptic publication of manuscripts is the only viable alternative. On the basis of the materials assembled in this publication, I suggest that scholars have normally exaggerated the role that the ecstatic journey plays in the Hekhalot. A key bit of evidence for the conventional view, the responsum of Hai Gaon, turns out to be based on a misunderstanding of a passage from the Hekhalot. The Śar Torah materials, which promise magically acquired mastery of Torah, are at least as fundamental.