In On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism, Gershom Scholem guides the reader through the central themes in the intricate history of the Kabbalah, clarifying the relations between mysticism and established religious authority, the mystics' interpretation of the Torah and their attempts to discover the hidden meaning underlying Scripture, the tension between the philosophical and the mystical concepts of God, and the symbolism employed in mystical religion.With a new foreword by Bernard McGinn

    It also includes a number of lengthy sermons delivered on the major Jewish Festivals as well as a few discourses alluding to people loved and lost. Because writing is not permitted on the Sabbath, these "words of Torah" were transcribed from memory, after the Sabbath or festival had ended. Although the pages of Sacred Fire are not stained with the names of its author's tormentors, there are numerous references to historical events through which parallels can be drawn. Rabbi Shapira often refers, for example, to the binding of Isaac and the martyrdom of Rabbi Akiba. Sacred Fire forms a religious, spiritual response to the Holocaust that speaks from the heart of the darkness. In doing so, it may well form the basis for what could one day become Judaism's formal liturgical response to the events that occurred during those years of fury.

    It was a climax of a series of Messianic meals, this time a passover meal. Jesus himself abstained, in anticipation of the new Exodus, to be initiated by the breaking of his body and the outpouring of his blood, but at it the disciples received a share in the atoning power of their Lord's sufferings.

    The authors are scholars of international standing.