Kabbalah and Mystical Judaism

KABBALAH

What is it?
 Means reception
 That which is handed over to you
 Kabbalistic ideas are presented as received teachings transmitted through the tradition
 Locates origins in the past
 This is bc Judaism conserves a sense of its tradition as a religion of revelation of the
Torah
 So innovation, secretism are considered dubious
 All Jewish ideas can be traced back to Torah
 Anything that seems new is just a new aspect of something old
 What is its nature?
-Is it Jewish mysticism?
-Is it philosophy? – it is concerned with metaphysics
-Is it a practise? – It does have practises which are elitist and others that are normal –
they add a mystical dimension to everyday Jewish practises – gives a profound meaning
to everyday customary things like preparing food – cosmic mysterious significance

Ancient Jewish Mysticism and the Emergence of the Kabbalah

Mystical experiences in the Hebrew bible

 Narratives of encounters with God

 Moses on Mount Sinai – receives book of law and has sensory and intellectual
experience of God
 Elijah taken up to heaven
 Accounts of theophany have qualities that set them apart from prophets – not
encounters in which a divine message or prophecy is imparted on a human to take to
the people – they are private experiences where an individual has a intellectual and
sensory experience
Ancient roots

 Talmudic period = emergence of sense of certain material having a special or reserved

quality to it
  Statement in the Mishnah forbids discussion of two passages of scripture in public or
among the uneducated – creation narratives – genesis and Ezequiel (raised up to
chariot) – these passages have a special or secret or even dangerous character as they
need to interpreted in a certain authorities attitude and the reading of these passages
might have an effect on the consciousness and on the cosmos itself – these discussions
describe the moments the divine realm and the realm of created are at their most
delicate – describes the interaction and so must be treated with great delicacy and with
a sense of profundity of the mystery of creation that is contained in them so must be
respected. = no misunderstanding
The Hekhalot and Merkavah literature – mystical literature

 Small collection of esoteric texts deal with the secret of creation and the divine realm
 Cosmology and cosmogony
 Magic: incantations, procedures, remedies
 The chariot of Ezekiel, the abode of God, names of God, angels
 Procedures for ascending to the divine realms (descending to the chariot) disciplines
one might pursue to invite a mystical experience – a manual of sorts to mystical
experience.
Sefer Yezira – the book of creation

 3rd-4th century
 Not strictly Kabbalistic – scientific in nature – Aristotelian – astrology
 Traditionally ascribed to Abraham the Patriarch – in order to share – get away from idea
it is ____________ - contains his knowledge of cosmos
 Contains cosmic harmony – how the cosmos holds together order – night and day –
nature
 Creation happens by power of Hebrew alphabet and language – building blocks out of
which the world is made – combinations of letters make names – names create things –
genesis god creates by naming – creative gesture – molecules of humanity are Hebrew
alphabet – letters are law
 Human as the microcosmos – human person is a miniature iteration of the universe or
macrocosmos
Sefer Ha-Bahir – The book of the Bright

 Attributed to third century Rabbi Nahunya

 Most scholars agree it contains old traditions and is hard to date – not entirely
disingenuous – collection of stuff
 Main character is Esoteric interpretations of Torah to find mystogorical readings of the
TORAH
  Goes deeper in exploration of the mystical significance of the Hebrew language and
letters
 Introduces idea of the Sefirot – 10 attributes of God – idea there are attributes of god
that can be known through esoteric work on the meanings of the Torah.
 Belief in reincarnation as a solution to questions of justice – a solution to questions of
justice and evil – why do good suffer etc –
The Hasidey Ashkenaz

 Not text but a community

 Esoteric and mystic Jewish pietists based in the Rhineland during the High middle ages
 Shaped by experiences of the crusades – in these conflicts Jewish people are considered
fair game for both sides – traumatic for Jews – lots of death
 Develop deeply pessimistic view of the world – dualistic view – higher realm, divine and
lower realm – layers – begin to be severed or ruptured – the created world is to be
dismissed as it has become a world of suffer – their religion become sone of martyrdom
– they want to prepare to leave this horrid world
 In concern for divine realm they proposed a view of the divine realm as layered – each
realm emanating from the superior one – possibly borrowed from Aristotelian and
Neoplatonism
 Interested in magic, demonology and reincarnation as a way of finding a means of
transport between the realms
The formation of the Kabbalah in the middle ages

 13th century sees the Kabbalah formation become complete – you see diverse iterations
of traditions become synthesized and organised around schools of Rabbis working on
the mystical elements of Judaism – ordering of the cosmos – mystical understanding of
the bible – all brought together = lengthy texts written – longer teachings
 Centre was spain and France
 Key figures
 Rabbi Moses ben Nachman – great halakhist and preacher – works in dialogue with
Jewish rationalist philosophy – writings allude to secret meanings in the Torah
 Rabbi Abraham Abulafia – wandering mystic –
 Rabbi Moses De Leon – author of the Zohar – the SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT work in
Kabbalah – commentary on the to rah – synthesises earlier mystical teachings and
traditions and pulls out meanings in these teachings – goes deep into creation, alphabet,
inherent allegorical interpretations of narratives – final word on Kaballah until Isaac
Loriah
 14th and 15th century Zohar teachings spread – unify the worldview of ecoteric schools
across the Mediterranean under the Zohar.

Main Ideas/themes of the Medieval Kabbalah – key place in mystical thought

 Ein Sof

 ‘the endless’
 Name of God in his highest form – primordial changless perfect being – prior to being in
any relationship with anyone – self-sufficient version of himself
 The unified condition from which the divine attributes will emanate – oneness of god
pushed from biblical bases to higher philosophical expression.
 Youthimism for the endless, boundless – God beyond language and models of though,
allegorical representation in the Hebrew mountain – it is beyond these references and
beyond conceptual thought
 The justification is bc this is not a biblical idea this understanding is almost prior to the
bible – it is higher unique form of god beyond language is the reason it is not in the bible
 Influenced by Greek philosophy – nonplatonic thought and the idea of the primordial
ONE which all multiplicity emanates
 Creation emanates from this endless god
The Sefirot

 The 10 attributes of God

 The attributes emanate down from Ein Sof towards the creation
 Joining of higher and lower realms within the divine sphere
 Top is the intellectual or hidden attributes – Understanding, wisdom, knowledge. These
descend through the revealed attributes:
 Revealed attributes – strength, loving-kindness etc…
 The left and right of the tree are attributes that balance and regulate each other
 The lower brings focus to and sustain the energies of the higher
 These attributes of God are attributes also of creation – which resembles his nature
The Sefirot and Anthropology

 We can see the attributes in the natural world

 Sefirot applies to human beings
 Kabalastic understanding of Genesis 1:26 ‘let us make man in our image’ – corresponds
to idea the Sefirot will manifest in the human being
 Human being is a microcosm of the macrocosm of the divine realms of emanation
 The intellectual, emotional and active attributes of God are reprised in miniature in the
individual person
 Knowledge in the head,
 Limbs = the revealed attributes
 Foot = intellectual or active life – joining up of the material with the earthly
The sefirot

 Another example -psychological and ethical version

  Actions at bottom ----- emotional ------ cognitive
The Shekhinah

 = dwelling place of God

 Compliments Ein Sof
 From Ein SOf to Sefirot there is this imparted sense of the divine that dwells in the world
– not remote or alien but close to us
 Typically talked about as a feminine power in the divine world
 It is the lowest power in the divine realm – her estrangement signifies the disharmony in
the sefirot/divine realm = tension within the sefirot
 Usually associated with the divine power envisioned by the Prophets
 It is close to the people of Israel in their sufferings
 The Sekhinah is almost the exiled part of God – lost down on earth
 Kabbalistic rituals aim to encounter her and redeem her from her exile and release
 The motif of exile and redemption occurs within the Godhead and is experienced by the
people of God – IDENTITY – idea of exile reverberates within mystical theology – what it
means to be a jew – historical exile – abiding tension of the covenant – along this is the
idea od the exiled part of God
Isaac Luria

 Prominent Rabbi in Safed.

 Poems and teachings made him greatest kabbalist of modern time
 Teaching: TZIMTZUM – the contraction of God
-God first created nothingness
-God withdraws into himself to leave the empty space, which can then be the setting for
the world he creates
-creation as self-sacrifice for got – God restricts himself to allow other existence
 SHEVIRAT HAKEILIM
-After the contraction the divine attributes of god (the shifirat) the 10 attributes are
divided between the 10 vessels. But they weren’t strong enough and they broke and so
the attributes scattered about the imperfect world – the Shefirat stands as an ideal
image that needs to be reinterpreted leads to….
 TIKKUN
-The healing
-The fulfilment of mitzvot, rituals and meditations is the process of healing the world
which has fallen into disorder – Jewish customs have a role in redeeming the primordial
light
 Some aspects are controversial (in particular TZIMTZUM) as it traces the disorder in the
world back to a fault in the Godhead. But the TIKKUN is accepted by nearly all
contemporary denominations and is prominent in HASIDISM.