Abstract
Many Jewish texts speak of thunder, or qolot and re‘amim, as the voice issued forth from\r god. This sound is connected to the deity, yet removed from it as well. How a text conceives of and interprets thunder, then, reflects its author’s views on the religious question of god’s engagement with the world. This thesis, which engages with biblical, rabbinic, and kabbalistic texts, contends that Hasidic interpretations of thunder draw from rabbinic and midrashic ideas of a transcendent god. In the first chapter I describe how Hasidic texts speak of qolot in the context of many layers of Jewish interpretation. In the second chapter I argue that Hasidic texts think about re’amim in light of rabbinic texts, specifically Talmud Bavli Berakhot 59a and the Mekhilta de-Rabbi Yishma’el. In my third chapter, finally, I contend that Nahman of Bratslav, a third-generation Hasidic leader, incorporates this renewed rabbinic worldview into his mystical thought.