Kabbalah and the Founding of America - by Brian Ogren

Book Synopsis

Explores the influence of Kabbalah in shaping America's religious identity

In 1688, a leading Quaker thinker and activist in what is now New Jersey penned a letter to one of his closest disciples concerning Kabbalah, or what he called the mystical theology of the Jews. Around that same time, one of the leading Puritan ministers developed a messianic theology based in part on the mystical conversion of the Jews. This led to the actual conversion of a Jew in Boston a few decades later, an event that directly produced the first kabbalistic book conceived of and published in America. That book was read by an eventual president of Yale College, who went on to engage in a deep study of Kabbalah that would prod him to involve the likes of Benjamin Franklin, and to give a public oration at Yale in 1781 calling for an infusion of Kabbalah and Jewish thought into the Protestant colleges of America.

Kabbalah and the Founding of America traces the influence of Kabbalah on early Christian Americans. It offers a new picture of Jewish-Christian intellectual exchange in pre-Revolutionary America, and illuminates how Kabbalah helped to shape early American religious sensibilities. The volume demonstrates that key figures, including the well-known Puritan ministers Cotton Mather and Increase Mather and Yale University President Ezra Stiles, developed theological ideas that were deeply influenced by Kabbalah. Some of them set out to create a more universal Kabbalah, developing their ideas during a crucial time of national myth building, laying down precedents for developing notions of American exceptionalism. This book illustrates how, through fascinating and often surprising events, this unlikely inter-religious influence helped shape the United States and American identity.

Review Quotes

"Ogren's analysis of the use and impact of Kabbalah on early religious thought in the New World is remarkable... [T]here is little doubt that Kabbalah and the Founding of America will shape the future study of early Protestant Christian theology and its ties to Jewish thought traveling between the Old World and the New."-- "Reform Jewish Quarterly"

"Anyone interested in the history of the colonial period and the development of spirituality in America, as well as in the impact of Kabbalah on Christian intellectuals, will welcome Brian Ogren's remarkable book. This is a fascinating, thorough, and compelling study of a very important topic and I highly recommend it."--Yaakov Ariel, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

"Offers a groundbreaking, often breathtaking story, based on first-rate scholarship, about the relation between forms of Kabbalist thought and major figures and ideas in early America. It is a gripping, thoughtful, and often surprising account that will provoke a reconsideration of the intellectual sources of American ideals and of early modern thought more generally."--Christia Mercer, Gustave M. Berne Professor of Philosophy, Columbia University

"Ogren has authored a tour de force with this well-written and captivating volume that reexamines the role of religion in the period leading up to American independence. A must for readers interested in an often untold perspective on the history and religious identity of the United States."-- "STARRED Library Journal"

"Ogren offers an insightful revisionist take on how esoteric Jewish texts shaped American religious thought in the 17th and 18th centuries ... Historians of American Judaism must take a look."-- "Publishers Weekly"

"Ogren takes no shortcuts when it comes to scholarly analysis of his texts and the endless complexities of kabbalistic thought. In the end, his book is about finding Judaism and Jewish thought precisely where it was not supposed to be, and then rethinking both Judaism and Protestantism in response."-- "The American Jewish Archives Journal"

"Radically changes our understanding of the intellectual links between colonial American Puritanism, identity formation, and the esoteric literature of rabbinic scholarship, the mysticism of the Kabbalah, Zohar, and Sefer Yetzirah. Ogren is the foremost scholar to trace the influence of kabbalistic literature and Jewish thought . . . drawing on archival resources few have bothered to examine. This is an intellectual feast of the first order and a credit to American religious historiography."--Reiner Smolinski, Georgia State University

"The book offers intriguing insights into American History and the History of Religion between 1680 and 1780 and adds innovatively to our understanding of American identity."-- "Religious Studies Review"

"This learned and ambitious study reevaluates the role of Kabbalah in shaping early American religious sensibilities and sheds important new light upon the Kabbalistic interests of such key figures as the Mathers, George Keith, Judah Monis, and Ezra Stiles. A path-breaking contribution."--Jonathan D. Sarna, Joseph H. & Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History, Brandeis University

About the Author

Brian Ogren is Anna Smith Fine Associate Professor of Judaic Studies at Rice University. He is the author of The Beginning of the World in Renaissance Jewish Thought and Renaissance and Rebirth: Reincarnation in Early Modern Italian Kabbalah.