Freemasonry and Kabbalah

Abstract The first book-length scholarly treatment of the intersection between Freemasonry and Kabbalah is presented through the remarkable Masonic-Kabbalistic artworks of David Rosenberg, a Freemason rabbi who was active in the Paris of the July Monarchy (1830–1848). Freemasonry, with its lodges serving as small-scale laboratories for the most progressive Enlightenment values (liberty, equality, and tolerance) and their institutional fruits (democracy and republicanism), exerted a profound and lasting influence on Western culture. Kabbalah, a set of Jewish speculative interpretative methods focusing mainly on traditional texts and questions of the divine sphere, represents a prominent domain in Jewish thought that eventually made inroads into Christian culture. Rosenberg innovatively fused Masonic and Kabbalistic visual genres, symbols, and textual traditions, enriched by those of Western esotericism, thereby creating a new genre, the ‘Masonic mizrach’, and a unique symbolic device, the Masonic Kabbalistic tree. The book provides access to these complex artworks—many of which have never been previously examined by historians. Through the rabbi’s œuvre, readers gain insight into hitherto unexplored historical, intellectual, and social developments, including the dynamics of cultural exchange and cross-fertilization in nineteenth-century Europe. Rosenberg’s journey through several countries, the extensive reception history of his works, and the complex nature of the subject required a genuinely multidisciplinary approach and extensive research, which was conducted in over a hundred archives, collections, libraries, and museums across fifteen countries on four continents. Richly illustrated and historically contextualised, this book meets the growing scholarly and public interest in the visual dimensions of Western esotericism.