reports, "and, eventually, with a cosmic love story . . .with tragic episodes and a happy ending." The mystics also broke down the traditional Judaic separation of mat- ter and spirit, man and transcendent God. For example, says Maccoby, a 16th-century Palestinian Jew named Isaac Luria argued, "In order to create the world, God had had to exile part of Himself from Himself; and this creative withdrawal (tzimtzum)or exile was what was being re-enacted on earth Israel."
The mystics...