This book examines the history, teachings, and practices of a school of kabbalists who have flourished in the Middle East for the last two and a half centuries. The Beit El kabbalists center their practice around the teachings of Shalom Sharʾabi, an 18th century Yemenite kabbalist who came to prominence in Jerusalem. Sharʾabi is considered by his acolytes to be the recipient of divine inspiration from the prophet Elijah. The practice itself is a form of mystical prayer, utilizing a specific underlying linguistic theory. The application of this theory extends to the entire religious practice of ... More

This book examines the history, teachings, and practices of a school of kabbalists who have flourished in the Middle East for the last two and a half centuries. The Beit El kabbalists center their practice around the teachings of Shalom Sharʾabi, an 18th century Yemenite kabbalist who came to prominence in Jerusalem. Sharʾabi is considered by his acolytes to be the recipient of divine inspiration from the prophet Elijah. The practice itself is a form of mystical prayer, utilizing a specific underlying linguistic theory. The application of this theory extends to the entire religious practice of the Beit El kabbalists. The school drew on the Rabbinic elite of Jerusalem, Syria, the present‐day Baghdad, Persia and to the east. Its influence in North Africa was less strong and although it accumulated European adherents, the Hasidic movement moved to negate many of its ideas and practices. It became a dominant force in the Jerusalem chief Rabbinate of the late Ottoman empire. There remain, however, desiderata in the religious thinking of the Beit El kabbalists. This missing aspects of the practice cast doubt on whether the Beit El kabbalists can properly be called mystics, and whether the academy's identification of Kabbalah with Jewish mysticism.