The Parabolic World: Integrating Kabbalistic Wisdom with Clinical Hermeneutics in Contemporary Medical Practice
Julian Ungar-Sargon.
This article explores the integration of Jewish mystical understanding of creation as divine parable with contemporary approaches to healing and medical practice. Building upon the theological framework established by Reb Zadok HaKohen of Lublin and medieval Jewish mysticism, we examine how the conception of the world as continuous divine revelation extends into the therapeutic encounter, transforming clinical spaces into sites of sacred interpretation. Through synthesis of kabbalistic concepts including shevirat ha-kelim (breaking of vessels) and tikkun (repair) with hermeneutic approaches to medicine, we propose a framework for understanding healing as both personal and cosmic restoration. This integrative model addresses the limitations of purely biomedical approaches by incorporating the interpretive dimensions of illness experience, divine presence in healing relationships, and the hermeneutics of symptom formation. Drawing from contemporary scholarship on natural theology, postmodern hermeneutics, and the Book of Nature tradition, the article demonstrates how reading creation as continuous revelation provides a theological foundation for understanding the physician-patient relationship as a form of sacred textual interpretation, where healing emerges through attentiveness to the divine intentions encoded within suffering and restoration.
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