"The actions of the first man and first woman in the Garden of Eden introduced disobedience into the Creator's perfect world. In the metaphor of the early Kabbalists, this disobedience caused the sparks of holiness to become intermingled with unholiness, so that mankind cannot easily identify and separate the actuality of goodness from the appearance of evil which surrounds it. The need to recover the purity of Eden, to separate Reality from Semblance, is central to the messianic concept." "Noted scholar and philosopher, Chaim Nussbaum, traces the tortuous path of the light of the Messiah through Biblical literature, noting the nature of the confusion of good and evil in the actions of a struggling mankind and the courageous attempts of great men and women to bring the world closer to the Messianic age by trying to separate the good from the evil, the reality from the semblance." "This a work of unique insight and wisdom which will offer its readers a perspective of the flow of human spiritual history that is at once breathtaking in its scope and deeply compassionate in its understanding."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved