This book examines a unique phenomenon that emerges in early modern Kabbalistic literature: ritual simulations of capital punishment, particularly the four modes of execution depicted in ancient rabbinic discourse. Patrick Benjamin Koch interrogates why early modern kabbalists developed ritualized reenactments of these "four executions" as both mental and physical practices, and how these practices were transmitted and adapted over time. Koch argues that the shift from human to divine judicial authority in post-Temple Judaism gave rise to a distinct logic of criminal law-one that served early modern kabbalists as a basis for preserving the normative structure of capital punishment while substituting ritual practices for actual execution. These rituals function as forms of vicarious atonement, enabling individuals to proactively confront a punitive system that is divinely governed and enforced. Exploring how these concepts, initially developed within elite circles, came to be integrated into the devotional life of broader Jewish society, this book traces the emergence of symbolic reenactments of executions in Ottoman Palestine and their spread across Ashkenaz, Italy, the Ottoman Empire, and North Africa. Through a careful examination of a wide range of primary sources, Koch illuminates the ways in which these punishments became vehicles of spiritual transformation and charts the fascinating dynamics that shaped the spread and popularization of Lurianic Kabbalah in modern Judaism.
