This review of "On the Mystical Shape of the Godhead: Basic Concepts in the Kabbalah" is aimed primarily at assessing the book's level of difficulty, and its place among the author's studies of Jewish Mysticism which are now available in English. I have read each of those mentioned at least twice, and most of them three or more times, so I think that my observations are well-informed, if not typical of all potential readers.
I have not attempted to summarize the contents, which have been covered in Amazon's Book Description, and by many of the previous reviewers.
Kabbalah is an esoteric form of Judaism, so even a truly basic introduction demands some prior knowledge of post-Biblical Jewish history, and exoteric Judaism; otherwise, references to names, locales, philosophical schools, and periods of time, are likely to blur together, even if briefly defined in the volume itself. For a reliable introduction, I would suggest, among many worthy titles, "Back to the Sources: Reading the Classic Jewish Texts," edited by Barry W. Holtz (1984), which covers most of the relevant literature, albeit sometimes very briefly.
Gershom Scholem's "On the Mystical Shape of the Godhead" ("Von der mystischen Gestalt der Gottheit," 1962; English translation, Schocken, with Foreword by Joseph Dan, 1991) is a set of six complex and elaborately documented essays, tracing specific themes in Jewish mystical thought. Despite being well-translated, they together make up one of his more difficult works (in English), perhaps surpassed only by his long "Origins of the Kabbalah" (Princeton, 1991), with its densely-argued readings of some notoriously obscure and corrupt medieval texts. In this case, the difficulties are presented mainly by the long histories of the ideas he investigates, and their many variations and transformations.
For this reason, the English-language subtitle of "Basic Concepts in the Kabbalah" is accurate, but, as some reviewers have complained, misleading. "Basic" is often used in English book titles to indicate "simple, or elementary." The German "Studien zu Grundbegriffen" in the original subtitle (1962) might instead have been translated as "Investigations towards Fundamental Principles," or something equally, or even more, polysyllabic and intimidating.
Certainly, the six essays which made up the contents of "Mystical Shape" are substantially denser, and more elaborately documented -- and often richer in content -- than the five pieces in an earlier volume, to which it is in effect a sequel, "On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism" ("Zur Kabbala und ihrer Symbolik," 1960; English translation, Schocken, 1965, with Foreword by Bernard McGinn, 1996). Both books contain lectures originally delivered at the C.G. Jung's "Eranos" conferences in Zurich, in the 1950s (one of the few places where Scholem felt he could use his native German language -- and introduce to Jewish thought to a part of the intellectual elite of a continent from which Jews had been nearly obliterated). Revised versions of both "Symbolism" and "Mystical Shape" were published in one volume in Hebrew, in 1976, as Joseph Dan points out in his useful Foreword to this English translation by Joachim Neugroschel. (The 1991 English text of "Mystical Shape" was revised by Jonathan Chipman to incorporate Scholem's emendations.) When the essays are read in order of publication, they take a reader from truly elementary (which is not to say easy or self-evident) aspects of Jewish mysticism to some of its most complex and wide-ranging developments.
I have often recommended "Symbolism" as an introductory book; it has the great advantage of being about half the length of Scholem's "Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism" (1941, 1946, 1954; Schocken Paperback 1961; with Foreword by Robert Alter, 1995), and considerably more inviting, as well as significantly shorter, than the encyclopedia articles collected in "Kabbalah" (1974; Meridian paperback, 1978). (Another collection, longer, but addressed to non-specialists, is Scholem's collection of popular and "occasional" pieces, "The Messianic Idea in Judaism, and Other Essays on Jewish Spirituality," Schocken, 1971; with Foreword by Arthur Hertzberg, 1995). However, it might be wise to try "Major Trends" or "Kabbalah" *before* attempting "Mystical Shape."
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