Epilogue
The epilogue to the book clarifies that this book took the opposite direction from the ongoing project of exposing the existence of Jewish mysticism and of subjugating Kabbalah and Hasidism to this category. Instead of assuming the universality of mysticism, and presupposing that Kabbalah and Hasidism are Jewish forms of mysticism, the book exposed how these assumptions were formed and the way they shaped the research and practice of Kabbalah and Hasidism. The book explored the historical contexts and discursive processes that shaped the construction of Jewish mysticism uncovered the political and theological presuppositions underlying the academic study of Jewish mysticism and showed how the theological paradigms of the academic discipline have defined the borders of this field, directed the creation of scientific knowledge, and determined the symbolic value of the researched data. The epilogue suggests that relinquishing “mysticism” as the major category for the conceptualization and study of Kabbalah and Hasidism may disengage the research field from theological presuppositions. This can open up the study of social, political, and economic aspects of Kabbalah that scholars of Jewish mysticism have neglected, enable a research of new historical and cultural contexts that were not taken hitherto into consideration, and encourage the study of Kabbalistic movements that were rejected by scholars as insignificant or inauthentic.