A helpful compendium of phrases that I use pretty frequently and what they mean in context, to be updated as the need arises.
Bible Class: "The Hebrew Bible," a class I'm taking during my senior year at Sarah Lawrence.
Devekut: literally, "cleaving to God." A concept in Jewish mystical theology, placed at the top of the Kabbalist mystic's ladder (and that of Catholic mystics, albeit not in the same words) and viewed as the jumping off point of spirituality in Hasidic theology.
Gnosticism: Usually, I'm talking about the branch of early Christianity (mixed with a heavy dose of neo-Platonic philosophy) as seen in books like The Apocryphon of John and The Gospel of Judas. Occasionally, the Jewish Gnosticism will also come up.
Jeezus: The concept of Jesus you usually see in American popular religion — pro-abortion, anti-gay, America-centric, gun-toting Jesus, basically.
Kabbalah: Unless I specifically say that I'm talking about the pop-religion of which Madonna is a proponent, I mean the popular trend beginning in thirteenth century Judaism, first located in Spain and southern France.
Sophia: literally, "wisdom"; in Hebrew, "hokhmah." A character from Proverbs 8, portrayed sometimes as God's helper and sometimes as the/a feminine aspect of God.
Sparks and shells: a reference to mystical Judaism's concept of the Qlipoth (also: kliffoth, klippot or kellipot); the "sparks" are the pieces of Divine presence in all things and the "shells" are the matter (ie, physical substance) that surrounds it.
Yeshua: Jesus. Jesus is the Latinate form of the Greek name, Ιησους (Iesous), which is itself derived from the Aramaic name, Yeshua, a contracted form of Yehoshu'a (Joshua). There's a whole big old list of names I'll use for Jesus, but the big ones are: Jesus, Yeshua (ben Joseph), and JC.
Zaddik: Specifically, this refers to the spiritual leader of early Hasidic circles, but the term itself just denotes a "righteous man."
