A bold, mythic exploration of the darkest human experiences-and the pathways toward wholeness that Jewish mystical traditions make possible.
Nathaniel Berman draws deeply on the mythologies of classical Kabbalah, particularly the Zohar, to illuminate how ancient Jewish narratives confront rage, violence, and mortality not with abstract doctrine, but with transformative imagination. Berman begins by leading readers through the biblical rebellion of Korah-a desert uprising saturated with divine rage, human fury, accusations of evil, and mass death. In the face of uncontrollable chaos, the story offers no resolution, only ritual: the high priest Aaron wielding incense as a fragile bridge between the living and the dead. In myth, Berman argues, we find not simple answers but enduring, open-ended encounters with what threatens to destroy us. The book presents a radically different Kabbalistic myth from the Zohar-what Berman calls the "Myth of the Flame." Here, the flickering candle flame becomes a symbol of divine-human unity and disintegration. Its light embodies the levels of the soul and the divine; its burning fuel, humanity. Life depends on death as divine vitality consumes the human body. In this shocking cosmology, human beings are not passive worshipers but essential participants in divine life-and divine loss. Through close readings of Jewish myths from biblical, Talmudic, and especially Kabbalistic sources, Berman traces how these stories do not evade anger, evil, or death, but face them head-on. They envision the shattering of selves, communities, and even God-and then offer rituals and retellings as acts of repair. This is a work for seekers, scholars, and readers drawn to the wild edge where theology meets myth, and where healing begins.