Detective fiction Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Laurie R. King and Lawrence W. Raphael

Critical Essay by Laurie R. King and Lawrence W. Raphael

SOURCE: King, Laurie R., and Lawrence W. Raphael. Forward and Introduction to Criminal Kabbalah: An Intriguing Anthology of Jewish Mystery & Detective Fiction, edited by Lawrence W. Raphael, pp. 7-8; 11-16. Woodstock, Vt.: Jewish Lights Publishing, 2001.

In the following forward and introduction to a Jewish crime-mystery-detective anthology, King and Raphael define the term kabbalah and discuss the connections between Jewish mystical thought and the crime-mystery-detective genre.

Forward: Crime and Kabbalah

Criminal Kabbalah, the Kabbalah of crime—what does an esoteric form of mysticism have to do with common lawbreakers? Nothing, we declare with indignation. And yet …

The word Kabbalah grows from the Hebrew root kbl, which has to do with things received. Specifically, Kabbalah is a system (or, this being Judaism, a number of systems) by which a person might attain union with God, not despite everyday reality, but through it. There are divine sparks in each of us, says the Kabbalist, placed...
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