In recent years our view of Judaism has been significantly transformed, in no small measure due to the rediscovery and reappraisal of the Kabbalistic tradition. The great historians of Judaism who wrote in the second half of the nineteenth century tended to ignore this mystical stream, or else treated it with a mixture of embarrassment and vitriolic scorn. Heinrich Graetz, arguably the greatest of these scholars, took the latter approach. To quote from one representative assessment:

As new arrivals in a Western society that demanded Jewish acculturation, many nineteenth century historians were concerned that Judaism be portrayed as a familiar rather than foreign tradition, at least in its purported essence. As children of the Enlightenment, they were also influenced by regnant rationalist ideologies and Hegelian notions of historical progress which underscored the continual refinement of religion. These factors contributed to the downgrading of those elements within Judaism-to wit, Kabbalah-which were perceived as exotic, irrational, or antiquarian.

The renewed appreciation of Kabbalah is largely due to the pioneering work of Gershom Scholem and his Jerusalem school, along with insights afforded by the psychology and history of religion. Freed from the burden of apologetics that visited earlier scholars, Scholem and his successors have portrayed Kabbalah in a far more sympathetic light, discovering in its sources a genuine and vital religious impulse. While maintaining an impressive methodological rigor, they have deciphered and brought to light sundry mystical texts, reconstructed the social and spiritual worlds of its adepts, and charted the impact of Kabbalah on Jewish life.