Metalogic of the Trace
The seminar "Metalogic of the Trace: The Disclosure of the World (ha-'olam) in the Concealment (he'elem) of Infinity" with Prof. Elliot Wolfson was held on Wednesday, November 15, 2023 at the Institute for Jewish Philosophy and Religion at the University of Hamburg. It explored the question of the viability of positing alterity in kabbalistic symbolism by examining carefully the dyad of light and vessel in Lurianic sources as it pertains to the notion of the trace of light that is left behind in the vacuum from which the light was withdrawn. Furthermore, it examined the ramifications of the discernment regarding the sameness of the light and the vessel drawn explicitly by the masters of the Ḥabad-Lubavitch dynasty in their insistence that the world itself is naught but the trace of the hiddenness of this light, a monistic orientation epitomized in their exploitation of the wordplay between ha-olam and he‘lem, that is, the world is the concealment of infinity.
Elliot Wolfson is the Marsha and Jay Glazer Endowed Chair in Jewish Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He received bachelor and master of Arts degrees from Queens College of the City University of New York, where he pursued the study of philosophy, focusing especially on phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism. He received master of arts and doctor of philosophy degrees from Brandeis University, where he specialized in the study of the Kabbalistic texts and traditions that have remained central to his scholarly work. He was the Abraham Lieberman Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University, where he taught between 1987 and early 2014.
Elliot Wolfson is the Marsha and Jay Glazer Endowed Chair in Jewish Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He received bachelor and master of Arts degrees from Queens College of the City University of New York, where he pursued the study of philosophy, focusing especially on phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism. He received master of arts and doctor of philosophy degrees from Brandeis University, where he specialized in the study of the Kabbalistic texts and traditions that have remained central to his scholarly work. He was the Abraham Lieberman Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University, where he taught between 1987 and early 2014.
