LAUSR

mythical speculation. It is in this respect that Berman’s argument emphasizing the polysemy of the Zohar does not go far enough. Behind these texts stands an authorship that promotes devotion and piety in addition to its enigmatic mythical portraits of the origins of divine reality. The authorship’s mythical musings are not disingenuous, but a totalizing reading of their attitude towards evil refuses to acknowledge some of the Zohar’s own messiness. Ultimately, the text’s heterogeneity defies Berman’s attempt to frame a persistence and coherence of instability as a comprehensive organizing principle. Notwithstanding these disagreements about the interpretation of particular texts, Nathaniel Berman has produced an exciting and game-changing book. And ultimately, his ambitions run grander than the analysis of kabbalistic texts. In his introduction he writes, “The relationship to the ‘Other’—ethnic, racial, sexual, religious, unconscious—is the central challenge of our time... the contemporary world seems in a veritable state of hysteria about alterity. Embrace or exclude? Efface difference or respect it? Protect or crush? Celebrate or ignore? Repress or express?” (2). Berman uses God’s own self-wrestling as a plea for recognizing how we human beings construct our various Others from the stuff of our very selves, and he claims that this recognition is the first step towards mitigating the hostility and then toward healing. How often does textual scholarship of arcane medieval texts prompt us to be introspective and moved to ethical considerations? In this way, Berman succeeds in using the smallest bits of textuality to influence his reader to think about changing the world, both exemplifying and transcending scholarship.