In the Orthodox Jewish world, we tend to avoid secular scholarship because so many mishandle traditional Jewish sources, approach them un-Jewishly, or eisegetically inject non-Jewish ideas into the discussion (this is mostly evident in scholarly works on gnosticism, for example). However, Dr. Andrei Orlav does a fantastic job at staying true to the original texts, keeping them within a Jewish context, and allowing the texts to speak for themselves rather than telling the reader what to believe about them. Additionally, his footnotes were goldmines of information and I recommend those who are interested in this subject to peruse them studiously. Dr. Orlav brings scholarly rigor to a topic largely neglected in academia and I am happy to have found this work.Not only did his book open me up to a completely new topic of study but it inspired me to go further into the later kabbalistic, chasidic, and midrashic sources - something I found quite fulfilling.
