by Prof. Elliot R. Wolfson

There is still no consensus regarding the best way to delineate the major characteristics of Jewish mysticism, let alone a single definition. The basic historical framework for this academic discipline, however, remains the one established by Gershom Scholem on the basis of his careful philological studies, which built on the foundation laid by some scholars who preceded him. Rather than follow a strictly chronological approach, the account that I will provide here is organized thematically. Before turning specifically to the mystical dimensions of Judaism, I will provide a brief philosophical sketch of the phenomenon of mysticism in general.

Taxonomy of the term ‘mysticism’

All religions, East and West, are considered to have a history of mysticism associated with them. Like all key terms used to study human culture, there is no universal agreement with respect to the precise meaning of the term “mysticism,” and a good deal of effort on the part of scholars has been to come up with a taxonomy that is both comprehensive and flexible. Indeed, there is even debate regarding the legitimacy of seeking a definition of mysticism that is broad enough to include all the experiences from diverse religious cultures that are referred to as mystical. The two major schools of thought to have emerged, so to speak, are the essentialist and contextualist. Proponents of an essentialist orientation presume the sameness of the experiences that are deemed mystical in nature. The further assumption is that human nature itself does not change from culture to culture or from one historical period to another. The contextualist orientation, by contrast, denies the notion of a perennial philosophy that expresses an unchanging essence of mysticism, and focuses instead on the specific cultural context that gave way to the particular experiences that are tagged with the label “mystical.” The strongest claim proffered by the contextualist argument is that the very notion of an unmediated experience is put into question, as it is presumed that all human experience, and not only the interpretation thereof, is conditioned by criteria predetermined by the specific framework within which the experiences occurs.

The resolution of this philosophical debate would benefit from a median position according to which the opposing views are no longer seen as oppositional. That is, if essentialism and contextualism are posed as antinomical, one is left with an intellectual impasse. If, however, one positions oneself in the midpoint that affirms the sameness of the opposites in their difference, then it is possible to adopt a view that does not neglect either perspective, so that we can speak of a contextual essentialism that is essentially contextual. Irrespective of one’s epistemological perspective regarding the status of a pure, unmediated experience, the mystical element as it is studied academically is still very much linked to extreme and intense forms of the consciousness of ultimate reality, the quest to have a direct encounter of the one true source of all being, identified theistically as God or nontheistically as the Absolute. The unique state of mindfulness, which in some accounts is depicted as mindlessness, that is, the dissolution of an egological sense of self distinct from the other, brings the mystic into immediate contact with a domain of experience that is inaccessible to the human mind in its ordinary waking awareness. What is experienced by the enlightened is neither something perceptible (an object of sense experience) nor a logically deduced principle (a rational truth). Some scholars use the word “transcendence” to capture this quality of formlessness that lies beyond human comprehension, and yet it is believed to be the experience of the absolute ground that facilitates the manifestation of reality in its multiple appearances.

Open System and Generalizing from the Particular

A word is in order concerning the methodological assumption that it is possible, indeed preferable, to classify aspects of Jewish mysticism in generic terms. My tendency to generalize should not be misconstrued as viewing the variegated history of Jewish mystical doctrines and practices monolithically. The assumption that it is legitimate to speak in general terms does not come at the expense of ignoring specific details and historical changes. On the contrary, the generic claims are rooted in and must be tested against textual particularities. I do think, however, that it is plausible to speak of structures of thought that persist through the phases of temporal evolution. The assumption regarding repetition of structure does not presuppose an ontological condition of presence that imposes sameness and precludes difference. On the contrary, in my mind, the history of kabbalism as a religious phenomenon illustrates that the presumed immutability of system occasions novel interpretation. In the wisdom of the tradition, if a teaching is old, it is because it is new, but it is new because it is old.

I offer here one textual example from Abraham Abulafia to illustrate the larger hermeneutical point. In Sitrei Torah, one of his commentaries on the Guide of the Perplexed of Maimonides, Abulafia attempts to uphold the veracity of both the traditional belief that the world was created anew (ḥadash) and the philosophically sanctioned view that it is eternally old (qadmon), the former conveyed by the literal sense of Scripture and the latter by the allegorical, blatantly acknowledging that this possibility, affirmed by the prophetic tradition, is a challenge to the law of contradiction. “Know concerning the image (ṣiyyur) of the world either being created alone or eternal and created together, even though it appears that the two matters are opposites and they would not be found in the same subject at the same time, that is to say, one thing being eternal and created together, this is a matter that the human intellect is prevented from comprehending. Even so, we know that the prophet comprehends his truth by way of the narrative (haggadah) and story (sippur) that the Lord, blessed be he, dictates to him in the prophetic kabbalah that he transmits to him.” The theological debate of creation versus eternity can be taken as paradigmatic for the dialectical confluence of innovation and conservation in the exegetical imagination that has informed the approach of the kabbalists. Just as creation and eternity are both to be affirmed as veritable options, so the simultaneity of truth as novel and erstwhile is to be maintained, a fundamental axiom of interpretation—linked to an underlying conception of time as the instant of novel reiteration, the repetition of the same as different in the renewal of the different as same—legitimated not by reason but by prophetic experience whence disseminated the oral tradition in a presumed unbroken chain (qabbalah mi-peh el peh). System, therefore, is precisely what accounts for interruption of order by chaos, the intervention of the moment that renders time continuously discontinuous and discontinuously continuous.

The notion of system that I am affirming is indebted to the thinking of Franz Rosenzweig expressed especially in a letter to Rudolf Ehrenburg (dated 12 December 1917). According to Rosenzweig, system does not denote an architectural structure that is formed by assembling individual stones whose meaning is determined only by the sense of the whole, but rather it bespeaks a striving on the part of all individual entities qua individual for relationship and interconnectivity; the viability of system is related to affirming a unity perpetually in the making, a sense of the whole that is not order but chaos, a totality that must always lie “beyond a conscious horizon.” Rosenzweig notes that, in the Hegelian system, each individual position is anchored only in the whole and is thus related exclusively to two others, the one that immediately precedes it and the one that immediately succeeds it. In the system affirmed by Rosenzweig, the genuine novelty of each temporal moment is not determined by its occupying a median position in a linear sequence between what came before and what comes after. On the contrary, to the extent that the moment is authentically novel, it is experienced as the constant resumption of what is always yet to be, the return of what has never been, the vertical intervention that opens the horizontal time-line to the spherical fullness of eternity.

That I assume structures of thought may be recovered philologically, structures influenced but not causally determined by historical factors, does not subject kabbalistic texts to a standard of rigid uniformity as some of my critics have alleged; on the contrary, in my way of thinking, structure accounts for heterogeneity, system for unpredictability. A genuinely “variegated phenomenology” of kabbalah, which is based on attending to the “spiritual polymorphism in Jewish mysticism,” should not be set in polar opposition to a “monochromatic phenomenology,” for it is precisely by seeing the recurring pattern that the changes become most visible. In the hermeneutical praxis of scholar and practitioner alike, innovation and repetition are not mutually exclusive, but well forth from the spot where the novel is recurringly ancient and the ancient interminably novel.

Secrets of Torah- Esotericism and the Contours of Jewish Mysticism

The word “mystic” apparently has its origin in the Greek mystery cults into which an individual was initiated and thereby gained knowledge of the secrets of divine things. The one initiated into these mystery cults was reborn into eternity and thereby redeemed from historical contingency and temporal finitude. “Mystery,” whence the term “mystic” is derived, is from the root muo, which means to close, or, more specifically, to shut the eyes, since the initiate into the mysteries gained knowledge of the invisible realities, truths that could not be seen by ordinary modes of sense perception. Early Christianity, in part, took over this idea of mystery, although it is also true that in Judaism of the late Second-Temple period the notion of a mystery as secret doctrine evolved. These secrets were thought to have been communicated by God or an angel to the individuals who had extraordinary visual experiences, sometimes ascents to heavens—in the view of a number of scholars, part of the matrix of formative Christianity was Jewish apocalyptic, and Jesus is sometimes described as a prophet infused with a concern for eschatological matters. Paul, too, was a kind of visionary who reports his mystical experience of being caught up to third heaven (2 Cor. 12-14) and he also speaks of “God’s wisdom in a mystery” (1 Cor. 2-6-7).

The enduring legacy of the origin of the term mysticism in the mystery cults is linked to the emphasis on the esoteric characteristic of the knowledge that is attained by the mystic as a result of his or her experience of the divine. This knowledge is mysterious in least two senses- first, it is not to be readily disclosed to the others, and, second, reason cannot grasp the mysterious character of this knowledge. The historical manifestations of Jewish mysticism betray both connotations of the term. Whatever the mystical components of the various trends of speculation that scholars refer to by the generic title Jewish mysticism, a more appropriate term to characterize this body of lore is esotericism, ḥokhmat ha-nistar, a set of doctrines that are deemed secretive and that must therefore be transmitted only to a small circle of initiates. In an essay published in 1936, Alexander Altmann already noted that the “esoteric nature of mystical teachings in Judaism is expressed by the terms sod (‘secret’), sithrey Torah (‘mysteries of the Law’), and their equivalents. Obscure though the historical origins of Jewish mysticism are, and especially its connections with the various schools of prophecy, apocalyptic literature, and Gnosis, a definite esoteric posture, setting down a precise form of transmission, had evolved as early as the tannaitic period.” Altmann went so far as to suggest that the exclusive transmission of mystical knowledge from master to disciple attested in rabbinic sources may be due to the influence of Hellenistic mystery religions. Be that as it may, it is noteworthy that Altmann discerned that in Jewish mysticism, beginning in its early stages, the notion of secret is essential. Indeed, Altmann’s remarks suggest that, in his opinion, the mystical phenomenon must be circumscribed within the framework of esotericism.

Gershom Scholem, for his part, distinguished sharply between mysticism and esotericism. Thus, in one context, he noted that the former “means a kind of knowledge which is by its very nature incommunicable,” whereas the latter involves “a kind of knowledge that may be communicable and might be communicated, but whose communication is forbidden.” There seems to me little doubt that the issue of esotericism in the way delineated by Scholem is much more critical in assessing the nature of what we call Jewish mystical speculation in its different varieties or trends. Indeed, in my judgment, the experiential aspects of Jewish mysticism are contextualized within a hermeneutical framework predicated on some form of esotericism. This point has also been expressed by Moshe Idel- “Kabbalah is by definition an esoteric body of speculation; whether in its theosophical-theurgical explanation of the rationales for the commandments, or in the ecstatic trend dealing with techniques of using divine names, esotericism is deeply built into this lore.” Nothing is more important for understanding the mentality of the Jewish mystic than the emphasis on esotericism. The possession of secret gnosis, which relates to both doctrine and ritual, empowers the individual, as he or she alone has the keys to unlock the hidden mysteries of the tradition.

Esotericism has informed Jewish spirituality from ancient times. One thinks of the apocalyptic notion of raz, which referred to a secret transmitted to select individuals of extraordinary caliber or pedigree. The secret could relate to history, cosmology, or eschatology. The influence of the apocalyptic notion of secret is evident in Qumran texts and the New Testament, as I noted above. Jewish esotericism of the late Second Temple period also provides the context to apprehend the significant emphasis on mysteries in Gnosticism and Jewish Christianity as well as in the ancient Jewish mystical-magical speculation preserved in Heikhalot literature. On occasion these secrets are portrayed as being recorded in books of limited circulation (sometimes the secrets are said to be inscribed on the heavenly tablets) that can be revealed again to the particular visionary. The topos of celestial or hidden books, whose primary aim is to establish a credible chain of tradition as a source of esoteric knowledge, continued to influence Jewish mysticism and magic through the generations. Thus, we find, for example, various references to such works in the Zohar. The Spanish halakhic authority and kabbalist, Solomon ben Abraham ibn Adret, refers in one of his responsa, presumably directed against Abraham Abulafia, to one who is a prophet or one with whom an angel communicates and for whom he writes a book. Another striking example of this phenomenon is found in the following line of succession generated by the Iyyun circle and incorporated by the fourteenth-century kabbalist, Joseph ben Shalom Ashkenazi, in his commentary on Sefer Yeṣirah, a composition that is better described as an aggregate of disparate parts that were assembled over a lengthy period of time and eventually redacted into a text, but still one whose boundaries remained porous- “The teacher of the first Adam was Raziel, and that of Shem Yofiel, and that of Moses Metatron, and that of Elijah Maltiel. Each and every one of these angels would transmit the tradition (qabbalah) to his student by means of a book or orally.” The receiving of esoteric knowledge from a text is combined here with the emphasis on oral reception. The notion of angelic disclosure of secret knowledge underlies the phenomenon of maggidism that became prevalent in sixteenth-century kabbalistic circles, but which has an earlier source in Jewish mysticism.

Equally important, however, is the fact that in the formative period of classical Judaism, the rabbis viewed select issues as arcane and therefore improper for public discussion or exposition. There is the well-known mishnah in Ḥagigah 2-1 in which three subjects, illicit sexual relations, the account of creation, and the account of the chariot, are signaled out as sections of Scripture that cannot be studied openly. In addition, in several places in rabbinic literature mention is made of sitrei torah, the “mysteries of Torah.” The oral nature of the transmission of the mysteries of Torah and the high level accorded the individual who is worthy to receive them is affirmed in the following anonymous interpretation of the verse, al ken alamot aheivukha, “Therefore do maidens love you” (Song of Songs 1-3)-

If a man reads [Written Torah] but he does not study [Oral Torah], he is still standing outside. If he studies [Oral Torah] but he does not read [Written Torah], he is still standing outside. If he reads [Written Torah] and studies [Oral Torah] but he does not serve the scholars (shimmesh talmidei ḥakhamim), he is like one from whom the mysteries of Torah are hidden, as it says, “Now that I have turned back, I am filled with remorse; [Now that I am made aware, I strike my thigh. I am ashamed and humiliated, for I bear the disgrace of my youth]” (Jer. 31-19). However, if the man reads the Torah, Prophets, and Writings, and he studies Mishnah, the exegetical works on halakhah and aggadah (midrash halakhot we-aggadot), and he serves the scholars, even if he dies or is murdered for his sake, he is eternally happy. Thus it says, “Therefore do maidens love you” (Song of Songs 1-3).

Implicit in the exegesis of the verse from Song of Songs is the play on words of alamot , “maidens,” and ha‘alamah, “concealment.” The anonymous rabbinic sage discerns a reference in this verse to the sitrei torah, the mysteries that are concealed from most people. In order to receive these mysteries, which are transmitted orally from master to disciple, one must not only read the Written Torah and study the Oral Torah, but one must also minister to the scholars in a personal way. The point here seems to be that only one who has immediate access to the sage will be in a position to receive the secrets through a direct transmission, from mouth to mouth, so to speak. The one to whom secrets are revealed truly loves God and merits eternal felicity, for he is prepared to sacrifice his life on behalf of the divine. The disciples who receive mysteries from the master are feminized through the hermeneutical lens of the rabbinic exegete, and hence the biblical idiom “maidens” is ascribed to them.

An interesting comment regarding the need to conceal secrets, thought to be derived exegetically from Scripture, from those who are not ready to receive them occurs in Song of Songs Rabbah 1-2- “R. Simeon ben Ḥalafta and R. Ḥaggai said in the name of R. Samuel ben Naḥman- ‘The lambs (kevasim) will provide you with clothing’ (Prov. 27-26). It is written kevasim, for when your students are small you should conceal (mekhabesh) from them words of Torah, but when they grow, you should reveal to them secrets of Torah (sitrei torah).” A similar passage that relates more specifically to the secrets of the chariot is found in Babylonian Talmud, Ḥagigah 13a- “[R. Joseph] said to them- It has been taught, ‘Honey and milk are under your tongue’ (Song of Songs 4-11)—matters that are sweeter than honey and milk should be under your tongue. R. Abbahu said [it] is derived from here- ‘The lambs will provide you with clothing’ [kevasim li-levushekha] (Prov. 27-26)—matters that are the mysteries of the world [kivshono shel olam] should be under your garment.” Implicit here is the hermeneutical technique “do not read X but Y,” which is employed in this context to articulate the rabbinic idea that certain issues must remain secret and thus hidden under one’s garments. Indeed, this interpretation is supported by a variant manuscript reading of the text as well as by a citation preserved in the commentary on Sefer Yeṣirah by Judah ben Barzillai and in Jacob ibn Ḥabib’s Ein Ya‘aqov- “R. Abbahu said [this] is derived from here- ‘The lambs will provide you with clothing.’ Do not read kevasim but rather kevushim, that is, matters that are the mysteries of the world should be under your garment.”

Mention should also be made of the expression sodah shel torah, the “secret of Torah,” employed in Song of Songs Rabbah 1-8, where it refers to the figurative or non-literal sense of Scripture derived through an apparently non-mystical, exoteric method of exegesis. On the other hand, the term sitrei torah, referring in a technical sense to esoteric secrets, is employed by the anonymous redactor(s) in Babylonian Talmud, Pesaḥim 119a in interpreting the words we-limekhaseh atiq in Isaiah 23-18- “this refers to the one who conceals the matters that the Ancient of Days (atiq yomin) concealed. And what are they? The secrets of Torah.” A related exegetical turn is taken in a passage in Genesis Rabbah 1-5 interpreting the verse, “that speak haughtingly (ataq) against the righteous (ṣaddiq)” (Ps. 31-19)- [this refers to] the Righteous One, Life of the Worlds who hid [literally, removed, he‘etiq] things from his creatures.” The sense of an esoteric meaning of Torah is also implied in the following interpretation in Babylonian Talmud, Ḥagigah 14a of the words, “were shriveled” (asher qummeṭu) in the verse, “How they were shriveled up before their time and their foundation poured out like a river” (Job 22-16)- “These are the scholars who bend (meqammeṭin) themselves over words of Torah in this world; the holy One, blessed be he, reveals to them the secret (sod) in the world-to-come, as it says, ‘their foundation (yesodam) poured out like a river’.” Although not stated explicitly, I assume that the secret here has an exegetical reference, i.e., God discloses the secret of Torah in the world-to-come to the scholars who have dedicated their lives to study in this world. In a statement attributed to R. Meir in Mishnah Avot 6-1, the one who studies Torah for its own sake merits various things, including the disclosure of secrets enfolded in Scripture (megallin lo razei torah).

SILENCE AND DISCLOSING MYSTERIES OF TORAH

The demand to be utterly silent, as opposed to speaking silently, with respect to esoteric wisdom is not unknown in Jewish mysticism, not to mention mystical literature produced in other contexts wherein the apophatic ascent leads the mind to what can be neither known nor spoken. If the most serious matters are, as Plato intimated, to remain unspoken (and this includes both verbal and written communication), then it is precisely by not speaking that these matters may be delivered. The unspeakable, in a word, is transmitted without being spoken, for if spoken, it is not the unspeakable that has been transmitted. Although Plato seemed to be especially anxious about the written dissemination of secrets, for, as commonsense dictates, what has been committed to writing cannot be unconditionally controlled, a concern later expressed by Maimonides as well, his philosophical esotericism runs deeper, as he apparently felt that certain topics should not be communicated by either oral or written means.

Here, it is beneficial to recall the words attributed to Aqiva, “silence is a fence for wisdom.” Aqiva’s dictum, which may have been inspired textually by Proverbs 17-28, is not connected to esotericism, even though he is portrayed in other contexts as adroit in mystical secrets, the most well-known in the rabbinic tale of the four sages who entered Pardes. I do not think, however, that it is implausible to suggest that the requirement to be silent with respect to secrets promulgated by other rabbinic sages can be seen as a specific application of a more general pietistic sensibility regarding the nexus between wisdom and silence. Thus, for example, we find the following interpretation of “The glory of God is to conceal a matter, and the glory of kings is to search out a matter,” kevod elohim haster davar u-khevod melakhim ḥaqor davar (Prov. 25-2) transmitted in the name of R. Levi- “‘The glory of God is to conceal the matter’—before the world was created. ‘And the glory of kings is to search out the matter’—after the world was created.” From this exegetical gloss, we may glean evidence that it is appropriate to be silent with regard to the most profound mysteries, secrets that relate to the divine nature prior to creation. The admonition is reiterated in a second tradition preserved in the name of R. Levi, explaining why the world was created with beit, the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet, but the first letter of bere’shit, the word with which the Torah begins- “Just as beit is closed on all its sides but open from one side, so you have no permission to seek out what is above, below, before, or after, but only from the day the word was created and forward.”

The reticence to divulge secrets about the account of creation (ma‘aseh bere’shit) is affirmed as well with respect to secrets about the account of the chariot (ma‘aseh merkavah), two central taxonomies employed by rabbinic scribes to circumscribe the contours of esoteric wisdom. For example, we find the following teaching attributed to R. Aḥa bar Jacob-

There is another firmament above the heads of the beasts, as it is written, “Above the heads of the creatures was a form- an expanse, with an awe-inspiring gleam as of crystal” (Ezek 1-22). Until here you have permission to talk, but from there and beyond you have no permission to speak, as it is written in the book of Ben Sira, “Do not seek out what is too enigmatic for you and do not investigate what is concealed from you.” Contemplate that for which you have permission, but you have no business being occupied with hidden matters.

A similar outlook is expressed in what appears to be a later scribal interpolation that serves as the opening of Heikhalot Zuṭarti, a textual unit from the corpus of ancient merkavah mysticism- “Do not investigate the words of your lips, contemplate what is in your heart, and be silent, so that you will merit the beauties of the chariot.” Bracketing the question of the provenance of this interpolation, the critical point is that attested therein is the avowal of silent contemplation as the appropriate means to occasion a vision of the divine throne.

The need for silence with respect to esoteric matters is reiterated in a passage from the first part of the ancient cosmological work Sefer Yeṣirah, where the word belimah in the expression eser sefirot belimah is rendered midrashically as belom pikha mi-ledabber belom libbekha mi-leharher, “close your mouth from speaking and stop your heart from thinking.” We may presume that encoded here is a code of esotericism—perhaps, as has been suggested, an oath of secrecy, alluded to as well in the continuation of the passage where reference is made to a covenant (berit) that is decreed in relation to this affair —which impels the initiate not to discourse about or to meditate on the sefirot excessively, a stance that was linked by kabbalists at a later period to the verse already crucial to the talmudic tradition mentioned above, kevod elohim haster davar, “The glory of God is to the conceal a matter” (Prov 25-2). To cite one of numerous examples, the thirteenth-century kabbalist, Azriel of Gerona, commenting on the aforementioned directive in Sefer Yeṣirah, remarks that “even with respect to what you have permission to contemplate, ‘Do not allow your mouth to cause your flesh to sin’ (Eccles 5-5), for it says ‘The glory of God is to the conceal the matter’.” It is possible to interpret this statement politically, that is, silence is necessary to prevent the transmission of secrets to those who are not fit to receive them, a form of esotericism at work, for instance, in the thought of Maimonides. However, it is equally feasible that the issue here is not political, but rather epistemological and ontological, that is, the need to be silent rests on the surmise that the secrets portend the inherently inscrutable dimensions of divine reality, even if permission has been granted to contemplate them; indeed, the contemplation thereof leads one to the discernment that these are matters beyond comprehension. The citation from Ecclesiastes is also significant, as it brings together indiscretion of the mouth and sin of the flesh. In the medieval kabbalistic imaginary, especially pronounced in zoharic kabbalah, the reserve to hide secrets is juxtaposed to the modesty of covering the genitals, for the inappropriate disclosure of esoteric wisdom is on a par with sexual improprieties. Thus, according to one zoharic passage, R. Isaac applied the scriptural idiom of the mouth causing the sin to flesh to the transgression of explicating matters of the Torah that one did not receive directly from his master, an indiscretion that is linked as well, both thematically and exegetically, to the prohibition against making idols and/or worshipping images.

The nexus between these two elements comes to the fore in the following interpretation of the aforecited verse from Proverbs attributed to R. Ḥiyya in a zoharic homily-

“The glory of God is to the conceal a matter,” for a man does not have permission to reveal hidden matters that were not transmitted to be revealed, matters that the Ancient of Days covers, as it says “that they may eat their fill and clothe themselves elegantly” (Isa 23-18).” “That they may eat their fill,” to the place for which there is permission, and not more. And “clothe themselves elegantly” (we-limekhasseh attiq), surely [these words must be applied] to what the Ancient One (attiq) covers (mekhasseh).

The zoharic interpretation of the key term we-limekhasseh attiq is based on the midrashic rendering attested in the talmudic dictum, “What is [the meaning of] we-limekhasseh attiq? The one who covers matters that the Ancient of Days (attiq yomin) covered. And what are they? Secrets of Torah.” In the zoharic context, the Ancient of Days is one of the technical designations of Keter, the first of the ten emanations. From the exegesis transmitted in the name of R. Ḥiyya, it would seem that these secrets must always be concealed in emulation of the aspect of the Godhead that covers them, the terminus beyond the place about which there is permission to investigate and to converse. This suggestion is supported by the continuation of the zoharic text in which another explanation is offered, an explanation that challenges the perspective implied in the words attributed to R. Ḥiyya.

Another explanation- “That they may eat their fill,” these are the comrades who know the ways and paths to go in the way of faith, as is appropriate, like the generation in which R. Simeon dwells. “And the Ancient One covers,” this refers to other generations, for they are not worthy to eat or to drink, or for words to be revealed in their midst. Rather, “and the Ancient One covers,” as it is said, “Do not allow your mouth to cause your flesh to sin” (Eccles 5-5). In the days of R. Simeon, a man would say to his neighbor, “Open your mouth and let your words shine.” After he departed, they would say, “Do not allow your mouth [to cause your flesh to sin].” In his days, “that the may eat their fill,” after he departed, “and the Ancient One covers.” For the comrades were stammering, and the words were not established.

According to this textual layer, a distinction must be made between the status of esoteric knowledge when Simeon ben Yoḥai is alive and its status after he has expired. In his presence, the code of secrecy could be disbanded, as the master elevates the stature of all those who live in his time, but with his absence, the mysteries that were revealed have to be hidden again. This aspect of the zoharic hermeneutic of secrecy has been duly noted in previous scholarship, with particular attention paid to the messianic implications implied thereby, but I wish to focus on the view preserved in the name of R. Ḥiyya. It seems to me that that this view is reiterated in the explication of the phrase from Isaiah 23-18 proffered at the end of the passage- “Another explanation- ‘That they may eat their fill,’ in those matters that were revealed; ‘and the Ancient One covers,’ in those matters that are covered.” Some matters may be revealed, other matters must be concealed, secrets that forever elude our grasp, even in the generation of the supreme master of esoteric lore.

The point is reiterated in another zoharic homily where the distinction is made (based, in part, on the language of Deut 29-28) between the revealed matters (niglot) that one has permission to know and to investigate and the concealed matters (nistarot) about which one has no permission to acquire knowledge. The admonition against seeking what lies beyond our capacity to seek is linked textually to Ecclesiastes 5-5, that is, the mouth that speaks what cannot be spoken brings about sin to the flesh. In that context, the apophatic orientation is immediately qualified by the statement that no one has permission to utter or to explicate hidden matters except for Simeon ben Yoḥai. I submit that we can identify in this instance as well two distinct approaches preserved in the zoharic text, one predicated on the assumption that some things are forever beyond human comprehension and another that maintains that R. Simeon is the exception to the rule since he was empowered to disclose mysteries that had been hidden prior to his time and that would not be revealed again until the era of the messiah.

As intriguing as is the portrait of Simeon ben Yoḥai that emerges from these passages and especially the implicit messianic significance attributed to his role as master of esoteric lore, the other opinion expressed in the Zohar is the one I wish to emphasize, as it sheds light on the erotic nature of secrecy and the secret nature of eros. The mysteries that the Ancient One conceals can be (un)seen only through a veil, simultaneously seen and not seen, seen precisely because not seen, and not seen precisely because seen. The pursuit of the most recondite truths, which can never be apprehended, lures the heart with the greatest enticement, just as in matters of sexual temptation, the object of the gaze becomes more exposed precisely when it is most hidden. Moses de León alludes to this paradox in his commentary on Ezekiel’s chariot vision when he notes that the verse “And Moses approached the thick cloud where God was” (Exod 20-18) indicates that one cannot draw near the sefirot without a garment, ein lavo lahem beli levush. A double connotation is implied here, though the two meanings can be understood as two sides of the selfsame coin. On the one hand, the statement conveys that one cannot approach the divine emanations without being properly attired, a gesture that has a decidedly erotic connotation in the zoharic symbolism, and, on the other hand, the statement also communicates that the emanations cannot be envisioned unless as they are garbed in a form by which they appear to be other than what they appear to be, a general tenet that is illustrated by the particular liturgical practice of vocalizing the ineffable name (YHWH) by way of its epithet (Adonai). Just as the ineffability of the name is preserved by the epithet by which it is (mis)pronounced, so the formlessness of the inner reality is preserved by the garment by which it (dis)appears. As de León puts it in Sefer ha-Rimmon, the “Book of the Pomegranate,” a lengthy kabbalistic exposition of the 613 commandments enumerated in rabbinic jurisprudence,

The matter of his existence is hidden, and the scrutiny of him is concealed, and there is no one who can understand his secret, but even so from the revealed one can comprehend in the contemplation of the hidden matter [ki mi-tokh ha-nigleh yukhal ha-adam lehavin be-hitbonenut be-inyan ha-nistar], as you find that the secret of the matter of the soul is concealed and not revealed or discerned, for it is concealed and hidden, but its rank is revealed and discerned from its many actions through the limbs of the body, the limbs that act by its power and on account of its agency. Analogously, the essence of God’s existence, blessed be he, is concealed and hidden, but through his being conjoined to the inner gradations, he displays his power and his actions, and through his actions his rank is discerned.

De León’s words reflect the distinction made by Maimonides between the unknowable essence of God’s being and the attributes by which his actions are known, but he subverts the distinction by identifying the attributes that disclose the providential power of the divine actions as the “inner gradations” (madregot ha-penimiyyot), that is, the sefirotic emanations, the potencies that reveal the inscrutable essence by concealing it. From an anthropocentric perspective, the task is similarly to emulate this pattern, primarily by exposing the secrets hidden in the Torah by way of the appropriate forms of dissimilitude.

SEAL WITHIN THE SEAL AND THE DOUBLING OF THE SECRET

A similar point of view is expressed in a different terminological register in the conclusion of the first part of the anonymous Sefer ha-Temunah, the “Book of the Image,” an important and influential kabbalistic text whose provenance is still a matter of dispute, though it is likely to have been composed sometime in the fourteenth century- “The twenty-two letters are forces from above in thousands and myriads. Know and understand everything well, and your mind should be very strong, conceal and seal the matters, for ‘The glory of God is to conceal a matter, and the glory of kings is to search out a matter.’” The little attention that this treatise has commanded has been mostly focused on the doctrine of cosmic cycles (shemiṭṭot) and their eschatological implication, especially as they relate to the antinomian (or what I would prefer to call the hypernomian ) status of the messianic Torah. There are, however, many other important ideas in this textual aggregate and here I offer a modest attempt to articulate briefly some features of the esotericism that may be elicited from a selection of the relevant passages, concentrating particularly on those aspects that touch on the nature of eroticism as well.

The first thing to note is that the mandate to place a seal around mysteries, to double the secrecy by secreting the secrets that one secretes, is followed dutifully by the anonymous author of Sefer ha-Temunah. As Scholem astutely noted, the kabbalist responsible for this text employed a “highly allusive style that conceals more than it reveals in matters of detail.” The need to hide mystical secrets connected to the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, which constitute the divine image that is configured in the Torah as it is beheld in the contemplative vision, is reiterated in the conclusion of the second part of this treatise, albeit in a somewhat more expansive and effusive tone-

These are the inner matters, concealed, wondrous, mysterious, pure, radiating in the eye of the intellect (ein ha-sekhel), and from them there is the light for the soul, for this is the light of the image (or ha-temunah) upon which those who contemplate gazed, and from them their faces were illumined, and from them they were darkened, and from them glory extended to glory. Concerning this [it is said] “Do not come at any moment” (Lev 16-2) into them but on a pure day and with a pure soul and a pure intellect, and a mind that is good, pure, clean, and subtle, to expand and to rise to the resplendent light, to ascend to the “mount of the Lord” and to the “holy place” (Ps 24-3), “one of clean hands and a pure heart” (ibid., 4), to contemplate and to comprehend great, wondrous matters. A person should not probe faith and knowledge (ma‘amiq dat we-da‘at) except by way of straight path (derekh yesharah) so that he does not expire as Elisha the heretic (aḥer) expired. And you must understand well that all is before you like a “set table” (Ezek 23-41), and you should eat and live eternally, for “this is the table that is before the Lord” (ibid., 41-22), and the angels of the living God derive pleasure from it. You must be careful as to how you draw near them or how you draw away from them. Conceal and secure the matters in a seal (ḥotam) and in an encasement (misgeret), “and make a gold molding for its rim round about” (Exod 25-25), and a seal upon a seal (ḥotam al ḥotam), for “The glory of God is to conceal a matter, and the glory of kings is to search out a matter.”

To highlight the point most critical to this summary account of kabbalistic esotericism, we reiterate the admonition near the conclusion- the one who contemplates mysteries must know how to approach them and how to withdraw from them. Engagement with secrecy demands a twofold movement, taking-hold and letting-go, “to distance that which is remote and to draw near that which is proximate,” according to a passage in Sod Illan ha-Aṣilut, “The Tree of Emanation,” an anonymous text that was composed in all likelihood by someone who belonged to the circle of kabbalists responsible for Sefer ha-Temunah. I would propose that here we have come to the point where the erotic and esoteric intersect- the former, as the latter, can be spoken of as exhibiting the duplicity of attraction and repulsion. The stipulation to secure the secrets in a seal suggests, moreover, that the interplay of coming-near and pulling-away must be thought from the point of their conjunction and not as oppositional. In this regard, it is noteworthy that the encasement of the mysteries is depicted as the “seal upon a seal.” One might have thought that a single seal would have been sufficient. What is the import of the rhetorical replication? That the seal must be sealed imparts the sense that the hiddenness must be hidden as the hiddenness exposed as what is hidden. The truth of the secret is disclosed through the guise of the disclosure that is secret. The twofold seal opens the door through which one can enter to behold the mystery of eros from within the eros of mystery.

The notion of double secrecy, the secret secreted and thereby uncovered as secret, is expanded in the introduction to the third part of the book where the author relates that the “twenty-two supernal and wondrous letters” (kaf-beit otiyyot elyonot we-nora’ot) and the “ten closed and hidden emanations” (eser sefirot segurot we-ne‘elamot) were “inscribed in the secret of the power of Ḥokhmah, subtle and greatly concealed, without image, form, or boundary on account of the abundance of its subtlety, and they emanated in Binah, and Binah brings them to light in subtle inscriptions and great merit, the thirty-two wondrous paths from which all beings and cycles derive, and the spirit of God is in their midst, and all of them were hidden, sealed, and concealed within Ḥokhmah.” The description of the thirty-two paths, the ontic source of all beings and of all the historical epochs in which they will be manifest, inscripted without image or form within the depths of the splendor of divine wisdom provides a model to understand the ideal of iteration proffered in the figure of the duplicate seal, the seal that is sealed within the seal, an enfolding that unfolds all that is enfolded in Ḥokhmah to the attribute of Binah, where the entities assume differentiated form, and from there to Tif’eret and Aṭarah, four of the ten attributes that correspond to the four letters of the name, which comprise all the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, the fullness of the divine pleroma.

The profundity of the erotic secrecy, which is always at the same time a secret eroticism, proffered in this text is underscored particularly by the notion of alphabetic ciphers that have neither ocular or acoustic images. In the precise language of the text itself- “And in this wondrous Torah that is acquired and that is comprised of the ten emanations … everything is written in a supernal language, concealed and very sublime, supernal letters, wondrous and hidden, not understood by an angel or a supernal archon but only by God, may he be blessed, glorious and awesome, blessed be he, who explained them to Moses our master, may peace be upon him, and he informed him of all of their secrets and their matters, and Moses wrote them in his language in the order of the supernal way that is alluded to in the Torah, in the crownlets, tittles, great and small letters, broken, crooked, folded, straight, vocal and graphic forms, opened and closed sections. All of these supernal, wondrous allusions were concealed, for he did not have the capacity to find a language to write them or any way to stipulate them.”

The matter is reiterated in slightly different terms in a passage in the aforementioned Sod Illan ha-Aṣilut where the ultimate unity in which the ten sefirot are incorporated is described as follows-

“Thus you must know that there is no form (temunah) or image (dimyon) there, no measure (middah) or computation (ḥeshbon), no face (panim) or back (aḥor), no upper (elyon) or lower (taḥton), but there is discrete unity (yiḥud meyuḥad), holy (qadosh) and sanctified (mequddash), awesome (nora) and majestic (adir), lofty (nisgav) and hidden (ne‘elam), concealed (nistar) and elevated (na‘aleh) above every other creature in this cycle.” From the perspective of the world of creation (olam ha-beri’ah), the unity of the realm of emanation (aṣilut) is fractured and hence it is perceived under the guise of binary opposites—left /right, up /down, front /back, mercy /judgment, inside /outside, pure /impure, distant /proximate—but from the perspective of the divine all divisions are integrated into the attribute (middah) that “is consumed in its being to the [point of] the unification of being for all of them (ha-mitballa‘at be-hawwayatah ad be-yiḥud hawwayah le-khullam), a wondrous, concealed, and hidden name, lofty and elevated in the Infinite (shem nora we-nistam we-ne‘elam nisgav we-na‘aleh be-ein sof), beginning [and] end for all of them (ro’sh [we-]sof le-khullam).” The consumption of all things in the Infinite is a topos well known from kabbalistic compositions as well as mystical literature in other religious cultures. The crucial point to underscore here is the depiction of the concealed name so sublime that it is devoured in the silent mystery of the Cause of Causes (illat ha-illot), the indifferent one that is the commencement and terminus of all that exists in the continuous chain of differentiated being. Needless to say, the image of consumption deployed in this citation suggests a loss of identity that has obvious erotic overtones.

To be even more precise, it is said of Keter, which is characterized as the “first” of the ten utterances of creation (ma’amar ri’shon) or as the “first” of the ten words of revelation (dibbur ri’shon), that it has no place (ein lo maqom) and consequently that it is not included in the enumeration (ḥeshbon) of the sefirot, but it is nonetheless depicted as beginning and end; indeed, in this ultimate state of ontological indifference, future and past meet in the compresence of the moment at hand, a point that is conveyed as well by the fact that this attribute, also called the “supernal supplement” (musaf elyon) for the increase (tosefet) of the divine efflux overflows from it to the other emanations, the “supernal appointed times” (mo‘adim elyonim), is designated by the appellation “Ehyeh” and identified as the “root of the river Khebar.” The former, the name of God revealed to Moses at the epiphany of the burning bush (Exod 3-14), denotes what shall be, and the latter, the place in Babylonia where Ezekiel had his vision of the heavenly chariot (Ezek 1-1), signifies by a play on words (kevar, which means “previous,” but it is also the proper name of the river) what has come to pass. The import of this wordplay is underscored by another title assigned in this text to Keter, the “light that has been” (or kevar), a turn of phrase based on the rabbinic idea that a portion of the primordial light was stored away for the righteous in the eschaton. It is likely, as Scholem already suggested, that the biblical and rabbinic idioms are meant to be joined together insofar as the Hebrew nahar can be linked philologically to the Aramaic nehora, which means “light.”

If we accept this suggestion, and I think it reasonable to do so, then nehar kevar, literally, the “river Khebar,” can be transposed into or kevar, the “light that has been beforehand.” The confluence of opposites in Keter yields the ideational structure that underlies the kabbalistic conception of time as a circular linearity—a present determined concurrently by the past of the future that is yet to come as what has already been and by the future of the past that has already been what is yet to come. Language here falters as the notion of temporality can be properly enunciated only through the withdrawal of speech that bespeaks the annihilation of thought at the point of its fullest realization.
As a final illustration of the role accorded silence in kabbalistic esotericism, I cite a passage from the commentary on the Torah by Baḥya ben Asher that forges a synthesis between the negative theology embraced by Maimonides and the code of secrecy attested in Jewish esotericism. The relevant comment appears as an elucidation of the scriptural decree “Know therefore this day and keep in mind that the Lord alone is God in heaven above and on earth below, there is no other” (Deut 4-39)-

This is a positive commandment from the Torah regarding the knowledge of God, blessed be he, for we are commanded to know him, to investigate about his unity, and not to rely solely on tradition. This knowledge is from his actions and wondrous deeds, the lower and upper created beings. Thus this knowledge is [of] the contingent (ha-efsharit), but knowledge from the aspect of his substance (mahuto) and essence (aṣmuto) is inaccessible, and it is impossible to attain it, and concerning it is said “The glory of God is to the conceal the matter” (Prov 25-2). Since the matter of divinity (inyan ha-elohut) is not comprehended by man through his intellect in the beginning of his thought the expression “keep in mind” (wa-hashevota el levavekha) is mentioned in relation to it, like a man who contemplates something and he must go back and contemplate, as we find in the case of Elijah- “[And lo, the Lord passed by. There was a great and mighty wind, splitting mountains and shattering rocks by the power of the Lord;] but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind—an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake—fire; but the Lord was not in the fire. After the fire—a soft murmuring sound” (1 Kings 19-11-12). The matter of what is written- when a man thinks about him, whether he is wind, or an earthquake, or fire, he goes back and closes the edifice of his mind with respect to everything he thinks about him, and after all of the thoughts he will find nothing but concealment (ha‘alamah) and ineffability (belimah), and this [the import of the words] “After the fire—a soft murmuring sound,” in accordance with the matter that was mentioned in Sefer Yeṣirah, “Close your mouth from speaking and your heart from thinking” (belom pikha mi-ledabber we-libbekha mi-leharher).

This passage is well demonstrates the genuine tension between the kataphatic orientation of scriptural faith, on one hand, and the apophatic orientation of the medieval theological perspective, on the other. The conflictual tug is resolved to some degree by appeal to the Maimonidean approach, that is, the injunction to know God is limited to apprehension of the contingent beings of the cosmos, whereas knowledge of the divine essence is not available to the human mind. The thirteenth-century kabbalist from Saragossa thus interprets the sequence of images from Elijah’s epiphany on Mount Carmel in a manner that accords with the negative theology of Maimonides. Apropos of the above discussion regarding the exegetical link of the gesture of the whisper to the scriptural elocution qol demamah daqah, it is important to emphasize that in Baḥya’s mind the “soft murmuring sound” denotes the cessation of thought, the “concealment” and “ineffability” that marks the culmination of the path, the silence that re/sounds after the wind, earthquake, and fire. The philosophical insight is supported by the mystical directive in Sefer Yeṣirah to close one’s mouth from speaking and one’s heart from thinking about the sefirot.

WHISPERING SECRETS- DISPELLING MYSTERIES OF TORAH

In contrast to the statements that implore the adept to be quiet, there was another strategy advocated by some kabbalists, a tactic connected to the rabbinic stipulation to transmit secrets in a whisper, a form of speaking silently. According to Genesis Rabbah 1-3, Simeon ben Yehoṣadaq asked Samuel ben Naḥman, identified as a ba‘al haggadah, “master of folklore,” whence the first light of creation was created. Samuel responded that God wrapped himself in light as in a garment and its splendor shone from one end of the world to the other. The reader is told, moreover, that Samuel revealed this information in a whisper, which led Simeon to ask him, since the point is made explicitly the verse, “wrapped in a robe of light You spread the heavens like a tent cloth” (Ps. 104-2), why did he transmit it in a whisper? To this query, Samuel responded- “Just as I heard it in a whisper so I said it to you in a whisper.”

Presented here is a code for the transmission of esoteric doctrine- even if the specific idea can be deduced from an explicit scriptural passage, still it must be revealed “in a whisper,” i.e., not in a public manner, if it has been so received. The oral nature of the transmission of this motif is underscored by variant readings of this text and parallel versions in other midrashic compilations where the expressions qibbalti, “I received,” qibbaltiha, “I received it,” or amruha li, “they it said to me,” are used in place of shama‘ti, “I heard” or shema‘tiha, “I heard it.” The general connotation of the word shama‘ti in rabbinic texts is a literal repetition or memorization of a teaching that is considered to be an authoritative tradition. With regard to the text from Genesis Rabbah, however, it seems that the hearing of the esoteric doctrine is actual. Nevertheless, it is still not clear if the secret that has been orally transmitted is from a verbal or a written source. There is an explicit acknowledgement in the passage that the secret could have been deduced from Scripture. Samuel’s response that he must transmit it in a whisper because he received it in such a way does not directly challenge the point that the secret is encoded in the biblical text and it is conceivable that what he received in a whisper was an oral exposition of this very verse. Another example that may be adduced as confirmation of the idea that esoteric matters are to be divulged through oral transmission is found in the interpretation of the word “enchanter” (laḥash) in Isaiah 3-3 given in the Babylonian Talmud, Ḥagigah 14a- “the one to whom it is worthy to transmit words of Torah that are given in a whisper (be-laḥash).” In this case, it seems fairly obvious that the issue is the elucidation of esoteric doctrines from the text of Scripture. We can well imagine that the explication is of an oral nature, but it is nonetheless exegesis of a written text.

The gesture of a whisper hovers between speech and speechlessness, as it is a verbal act, but one that, nonetheless, remains inaudible except to the person to whom it is directly communicated. It is worth noting, in passing, that a manner of silent oration—qol dimmat elohim, a locution likely based on the expression qol demamah daqqah in 1 Kings 19-12—is associated already in some Qumran fragments with angelic speech. Further evidence for the depiction of the liturgical utterance of angels as silent language may be educed from the Aramaic targum (traditionally ascribed to Jonathan ben Uziel) on the aforementioned phrase from 1 Kings 19-12, qal dimeshabbeḥin ba-ḥasha’i, the “voice of those who utter praise silently.” To utter praise silently is to execute a form of speech that is at the same time silence, to speak and not speak concomitantly, to speak by not speaking, not to speak by speaking. It is reasonable to surmise that at some point the characterization of the angelic mode of liturgical utterance was appropriated and utilized to depict the form of secret talk by which human beings should propagate esoteric wisdom. This surmise is enhanced by the further presumption that angels are privy to cosmological and theological mysteries known to God, and on rare occasions revealed to extraordinary human beings, the righteous souls who are transformed and attain an angelic status.

With respect to this type of speech, as opposed to unmitigated silence, we can grasp another component of the intimate nexus between the esoteric and erotic that has informed the path of the kabbalists. Here it is worth recalling the comment of Hai Gaon, a leading figure in the rabbinic academy of Pumbedita in the tenth and eleventh centuries, on the talmudic instruction that secret matters be transmitted in a whisper- “They whisper to him in whispers, give him the principles, he understands them, and from heaven they show him the mysteries of the heart.” Medieval masters of esoteric lore elaborated and embellished this notion of communicating secrets in a murmur. As an illustration, I will mention a passage in the first part of the compendium of mystical doctrines Sodei Razayya composed by Eleazar of Worms, the thirteenth-century Rhineland Jewish pietist. According to this text, the secret of the chariot (sod ha-merkavah), which is associated with three distinct literary compositions, Sefer ha-Merkavah, Sefer Yeṣirah, and Sefer ha-Qomah, can be revealed only in a murmur (be-laḥash or bi-leḥishah). Eleazar does not indicate either explicitly or implicitly that the esotericism surrounding the chariot entails an erotic dimension. This possibility cannot be ignored, however, given comments scattered about in the works of Eleazar as well as in other pietistic writings that overtly utilize sexual symbolism to discuss the nature and experience of the chariot.

The connection between esotericism and eroticism is made more openly by Spanish kabbalists who were active in the second half of the thirteenth century. Consider, for example, the following statement in Abraham Abulafia’s Ḥayyei ha-Nefesh, one of the three commentaries he wrote on The Guide of Perplexed by Maimonides-

In the beginning of creation were contained three types of transgression, idolatry, illicit sexual relations, and murder. These three are also found in the secret of circumcision, for from it is the beginning of the creation of the species and its perpetual existence. And this in order to overturn what was created corresponding to the final divine intention [ha-kawwanah ha-elohit ha-aḥronah], and this is the first natural intention [ha-kawwanah ha-ṭiv‘it ha-ri’shonah], for the natural intention, which is the account of creation [ma‘aseh bere’shit], is to preserve the species perpetually and to maintain its particulars, the attribute of a single time [middat zeman eḥad] through the intermediary of the uncovering of the genitals [gilluy arayot]. And the divine intention, which is the account of the chariot [ma‘aseh merkavah], is to sustain the unique individual [ha-ish ha-meyuḥad] perpetually by means of the disclosure of secrets [gilluy nistarot], which are like the uncovering of the genitals in the case of the multitude of the species [ha-hamon ha-miniyyim], lewd matters to speak about and concerning which it is not appropriate to listen like words pertaining to illicit sexual relations [ke-divrei arayot], and they are the essence and the rest is secondary. Therefore it is necessary for the select ones [yeḥidim] to believe their opposite, and this is to uncover the nakedness of the revealed to themselves [legallot erwat ha-nigleh le‘aṣmam] but to cover it in relation to others [lekhasoto mi-zulatam], and to take the hidden [nistar] as wheat and the revealed [nigleh] as chaff. Concerning something similar to this Solomon, peace be upon him, said “Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten secretly is tasty” (Prov 9-17), that is, mysteries of Torah [sitrei torah] are the secrets said in a murmur [setarim ha-ne’emarim bi-leḥishah] and are known by the intellect with an abundance of thought [ha-sekhel be-rov maḥshavah], and they are stolen and hidden from the multitude, and all the hidden matters attest to the two inclinations. When one of the necessary and beneficial commandments of the commandments, which are for the sake of the welfare of the body [tiqqun ha-guf] or for the welfare of the soul [tiqqun ha-nefesh], is revealed, the revealed [ha-nigleh] is a key to open the gates of the hidden [sha‘arei ha-nistar] … for rectification of the body is preparation for rectification of the soul, and rectification of the soul is preparation for the final perfection, which is the goal of the final divine intention, and this is comprehension of the name [hassagat ha-shem].

The Abulafian text can be read as an interpretive gloss on a number of philosophical claims by Maimonides. To begin with there is the correspondence made between the account of creation and physics, on the one hand, and the account of the chariot and metaphysics, on the other. For Abulafia, the rabbinic classifications allude respectively to the natural and divine intentions, the former characterized as the impetus to maintain the existence of the species and of the particulars comprised within them, and the latter as the impulse to sustain the existence of unique individuals. The natural intention is identified, moreover, with gilluy arayot, the disclosure of secrets that are linked exegetically to the delineation of illicit sexual relations in the eighteenth chapter of Leviticus, which together with ma‘aseh bere’shit and ma‘aseh merkavah are the subjects designated by tannaitic authorities as too dangerous to be divulged publicly. It seems to me, however, that Abulafia employed the term in a way that was closer to an alternative connotation of “uncovering the genitals” attested in rabbinic literature, which is based, in turn, on the scriptural expression legallot erwah, “to uncover nakedness” (Lev. 18-2), the root eryah signifying that which is without garment. This is also the import of the comment that the “secret of circumcision” (sod ha-milah) is the “beginning of the creation of the species and its perpetual existence,” the word “circumcision” obviously denoting in this context the male organ upon which the ritual cut is performed.

Abulafia thus draws an analogy between two forms of denuding, uncovering the genitals and exposing secrets, the former associated with the account of creation, which is revealed to the masses, and the latter with the account of the chariot, which is set aside for unique individuals. The preservation of the species quite literally depends on the former and hence gilluy arayot fulfils the first natural intention. But this interpretation relates only to the external level, the chaff that is disclosed for the multitude; the internal meaning or the wheat consists of the secrets that are revealed exclusively to select individuals (yeḥidim). The point is reiterated when Abulafia notes that the “mysteries of Torah,” which are the secrets said in a murmur and are known by the intellect with an abundance of thought, are hidden from the multitude. He adds that “all the hidden matters attest to the two inclinations,” a tacit reference to the imagination and intellect. Abulafia does not disclose in this context the esoteric import of the secrets that are connected to the illicit sexual relations, but from other treatises that he composed, we can assert that the mysteries pertaining to arayot refer to the allegorical representation of form and matter, which are associated respectively with Adam and Eve. This is implied as well in the connection that Abulafia draws between sitrei arayot and the aggadic theme of the serpent having intercourse with Eve.

In the conclusion of the passage from Ḥayyei ha-Nefesh, Abulafia establishes a hierarchy based on another teaching of Maimonides concerning the twofold purpose of the law, the welfare of the body and the welfare of the soul. Abulafia’s reworking of the Maimonidean view yields three perfections, which correspond to body, soul, and intellect. The ritual performance of the commandment, which encompasses the two goals specified by Maimonides, constitutes the revealed aspect that is appropriate for the consumption of the populace, but the revealed aspect opens the gates of the hidden aspect, which corresponds to the final perfection, the comprehension of the name that is ascertained exclusively by the elite. There are many important themes in this text that can be clarified only by an intertextual analysis with other writings of Abulafia, a task that lies beyond the scope of this study. What is most important to underscore for our purposes is Abulafia’s acceptance of the older tradition that the proper way to transmit secrets is through the still speech of the murmur. However, it must be pointed out that several passages in Abulafia’s corpus indicate that he interpreted the gesture of the whisper in a novel way (though he may have been influenced in part by Maimonides) as a reference to a technical meditative technique, an idea he supports by the fact that the consonants of be-laḥash, “in quiet,” can be rearranged to spell laḥashov, “to contemplate.” For Abulafia, therefore, the notion that secrets are transmitted in a whisper is not to be interpreted literally, but rather as a figurative expression of the contemplative ideal.

By way of summary, it can be said that the distinctive view of secrecy that emerges from medieval kabbalistic teaching is that the inability to communicate the secret is not due simply to the unworthiness of a particular recipient, but it is associated rather with the inherent ineffability of the truth that must be kept secret. This is not to suggest that kabbalists did not also embrace the idea that secrets must be withheld from those unworthy to receive them. The hermeneutic of esotericism displayed in many kabbalistic sources does indeed attest to this elitist posture, but it certainly goes beyond it as well, inasmuch as the concealment of the secret is dialectically related to its disclosure. Simply put, the utterance of the mystery is possible because of the inherent impossibility of its being uttered. Even for the adept who demonstrates unequivocally that he deserves to be a recipient of the esoteric tradition there is something of the secret that remains in the very act of transmission. The secret has an ontological referent that is separate from the phenomenal realm and thus transcends the limits of human understanding and modes of conventional discourse. A classical example of this is the mystery of the Trinity in Christianity. To apprehend the mystery is not to resolve the fundamental paradox of one God being three. The sacramental experience of the Trinity, which is really what Christian faith is all about, is predicated on holding the paradox in place. If I logically solve the paradox, my faith in the Trinity is questionable. The mystery as such involves the belief in and practice based on the fundamentally incomprehensible notion of one God being manifest in three configurations.

As an illustration of the point let me mention a secret that many scholars have signaled as one of the characteristic doctrines of medieval kabbalah, the sod du-parṣufin, the mystery of the androgyne in the Godhead. To receive the secret about the androgynous nature of the divine is not to resolve the problem of the mystery; on the contrary, this gnosis is precisely what opens the mystery to its deeper depths, for what is it to say that the oneness of the God of Judaism is predicated on the comprehension of and experiential participation in the sacred union between the King and the Matrona, the bridegroom and the bride? From the one example we may generalize: In kabbalistic texts, apprehension of the secret does not settle the apparent conflict between the external and the internal meaning, which correspond respectively to the poles of revelation and reason, but it forges the paradoxical awareness that the external veil and the internal face are identical because they are different. The secret as such must be exposed if it is to be a secret, but being a secret precludes its being exposed except as a secret that cannot be exposed.

The secret, therefore, presupposes the concomitant transmission and withholding on the part of the one in possession of the secret. If I possess a secret and transmit it to no one, the secret has no relevance. By the same token, if I readily divulge the secret without discretion, the secrecy of that secret is rendered ineffectual. What empowers me as the keeper of a secret is not only that I transmit it to some and not to others, but that in the very transmission I maintain the secret by holding back in advancing forward. The secret is a secret to the extent that it is concealed in its disclosure, but it may be concealed in its disclosure only if it is disclosed in its concealment.

An important aspect of secrecy is the investiture of power to those who seek to disseminate the secrets they possess; dissemination, however, invariably occurs in such a way that the hidden nature of the secret is preserved. The words ascribed to Jesus in response to the query of his disciples regarding the use of parables capture the posture of exclusivity implicit in the hermeneutical structure of secrecy: “To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of heaven of God, but for those outside everything is in parables so that they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand; lest they should turn again, and be forgiven” (Mark 4:11-12). The disciples represent the elect circle that have no need for parables, since they directly know the mystery of the kingdom, and thus they perceive and understand; by contrast, the masses addressed by Jesus can only see and hear and thus they must receive the truth in the form of parables, which conceal even as they reveal. “With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; he did not speak to them without a parable, but privately to his own disciples he explained everything” (ibid., 33-34). A secret presupposes the concomitant transmission and withholding on the part of the one in possession of the secret.

The communication of a secret is even more problematic, insofar as the secret as such cannot be transmitted, for in the act of transmission it is betrayed. As Scholem put it, an “authentic tradition” must remain hidden, and hence only the “fallen tradition” can become visible. The truly esoteric knowledge cannot be divulged if it is to remain esoteric and thus a secret tradition that is transmitted is by definition a fallen (as opposed to an authentic) tradition. To be itself, therefore, the secret must be withheld; it is precisely in the holding back that the power of disclosure lies. The more one attempts to express the secret the further one is from it. Something of the secret endures even as the secret is disclosed, and thus in the most exact sense there can be no tradition of secrecy. The truly esoteric knowledge cannot be divulged if it is to remain esoteric and thus a secret tradition that is transmitted is by definition not secretive. The secret that the secret cannot be transmitted plays a part in securing hope in the expectation of a genuinely open future, a hope that indeed may lie at the core of the apocalyptic messianism that has informed both Judaism and Christianity in varying degrees. If, however, the secret that there is no secret were to be revealed, then there would be no secret to reveal since there would be nothing to conceal. The logic of esotericism is predicated on the dialectical relation that pertains between the secret that is disclosed and the secret that is withheld. For a secret to be genuinely secretive it cannot be divulged, but if it is not divulged in any manner it is hardly a secret.

When this paradox is fully comprehended then even the distinction between speech and silence is transcended. That is, the esoteric nature of the secret is predicated on the ultimate ineffability to which the secret refers, but the ineffability itself is the measure of what is spoken. That mystics in certain traditions (Judaism, Islam, Hinduism) bestow a positive valence on language as the medium by which the enlightened can participate in the creative process (especially through scriptural exegesis) does not mean that they oppose in principle the restraint on speech that is often associated with mystical experience and the strict code of esotericism. On the contrary, it is precisely the affirmation of language as inherently symbolic that facilitates the acceptance of that which inevitably exceeds the boundary of language. The phenomenon to which I refer has been expressed by Michel de Certeau in his telling reference to the “split structure” of mystical language by which he intends that the “only way to establish a ‘symbolic’ expression is to separate two terms that are necessary, but contrary to each other.” From that perspective mystical speech is always a “manifestation of a cut,” and consequently the ineffable is “not so much an object of discourse as a marker of the status of language.”[1]

Mystical knowledge is esoteric in two senses: it is knowledge of the secrets of the divine, and the one who gained this knowledge is under the obligation to keep silence regarding these secrets. From the ancient times of the mystery cults, mysticism was associated with esotericism, i.e., the belief that secrets are revealed only to select individuals. Secrets are not acquired either through normal sense perception or the exercise of human reason, but through revelation to those who had the special capacity to receive them. These individuals typically formed a circle of initiates bounded by possession of this unique apprehension of the divine, which is often called by scholars gnosis, one of the Greek words for knowledge. The term “gnosis” conveys the idea of the special knowledge as revelatory and illuminative in nature. The goal of the mystical path, therefore, is often portrayed as illumination or enlightenment that ensues from the direct encounter with the ultimate source of all being.

 

Jewish mysticism: Aniconism and the Quest to See God

Mysticism can be used meaningfully in the history of Judaism to mark the quest, cultivated by individuals or groups, seeking to have a direct experience of the God. While it is difficult to offer a definition of mysticism that would adequately cover all of the phases and stages of Jewish history, a recurrent theme in Jewish mystical texts has been the desire to experience what prophets of yore experienced, envisioning the presence, the glory of the Lord, kevod yhwh, in forms forbidden for priests and other Israelites to worship iconically, though seemingly permissible for poets to depict imaginally. That is, ancient Israelite culture was distinguished from other ancient near eastern societies by the explicit injunction against worshipping an idol of God, but this did not stop poetic souls—preserved in works of prophecy—from depicting God in very graphic form.

It is sometimes assumed, moreover, that the ban on graven images is related to the further presumption that God has no visible form and, by extension, no tangible body. A growing consensus in biblical scholarship, however, maintains that for the ancient Israelites the burning issue seemed not to be God’s corporeality, as difficult as this may seem for us to comprehend, but rather the problem of depicting that body in material images. Indeed, already in the early monarchic period the official cult in Jerusalem was aniconic, but this aniconism did not imply the incorporeality of God, an inference made repeatedly by rationalist interpreters of Judaism from Philo of Alexandria in the first century to Maimonides in the twelfth century and to Hermann Cohen in the twentieth century. If I may be so bold, I would suggest that one theological premise shared by the various denominations of Jewish practice today is the belief that God is not a body and hence anthropomorphic depictions of God must be interpreted figuratively. Notwithstanding the tenacity by which this conviction is held, the evidence from the Bible and later sources suggests that many Jews presumed that God was capable of assuming tangible forms.

The key point, however, is that those forms could not be portrayed pictorially for cultic purposes. In the long and variegated development of Judaism as a religious phenomenon, no evidence exists for the use of icons in liturgical service, even if we know today that examples of representational art abound. The images of God—whether on the walls and/or floors of synagogues in Late Antiquity or in the margins of illuminated manuscripts from the Middle Ages—served either a decorative or a symbolic function, but not as aids to devotional acts of worship. To express the matter in somewhat more technical terminology, the will to envision God in images without succumbing to idolatry, on the one hand, or rejecting iconoclasm, on the other, is the ultimate challenge of the prophetic imagination as it has expressed itself in a plethora of Jewish texts through the ages. The tension between aniconism, the prohibition of representing God in pictorial forms, and visualizing the deity has played an especially distinctive role in the development of the mystical currents within Jewish history. The need to visualize God concretely without reifying the content of vision lies at the heart of the mystic quest that has evolved within the iconoclastic setting of Judaism. It is precisely the aniconicity that fostered a remarkable imaginative representation of the nonrepresentable in ancient Israelite/Judean prophecy and its mystical aftermath through the centuries where specific meditational practices were cultivated for the stated aim of attaining a vision of the invisible. The locus of that vision was typically situated in the heart/imagination of the visionary, the site where the normal division between inside and outside is dissolved in the play of double mirroring, that is, the heart mirrors the image of the imageless as the image of the imageless mirrors the divine.

One must surely avoid defining Jewish mysticism monolithically, but it is nevertheless valid in my judgment to assert that the various streams that have been studied under this rubric consistently exhibit a yearning to envision the divine form in a manner that is congruent with the visionary experiences preserved in the literary accounts of prophetic epiphanies. Ironically, the lack of iconic representation in ancient Israelite religion and in the diverse forms of post-biblical Judaism has provided the ongoing context for visualization of the divine in imaginative terms. The iconoclastic orientation has fostered a fecund theological imagination, which has been particularly prolific in the writings of mystic visionaries in their quest to see God. Although the experiences of the divine related by Jewish mystics involved other senses, including hearing, scent, and touch, the sense of sight assumed an epistemic priority, reflecting and building upon the scriptural passages that privilege the ocularcentric nature of revelatory experience: Jacob’s vision of God face-to-face (Gen 32:30); the appearance of the glory of the Lord to the Israelites in the cloud (Exod 16:10) or as a consuming fire (ibid., 24:17); the vision of the back of the fleeting glory accorded Moses (ibid., 33:21-23); Isaiah’s seeing the Lord sitting on a high and lofty throne (Isa 6:1); or Ezekiel’s beholding the image of the glory in the likeness of the image of a man enthroned upon the sapphire stone (Ezek 1:26), to name but a few of the most salient examples. Whatever the origins of the different trends of Jewish mystical speculation, the earlier traditions colored the nature of the visionary experience cultivated through the generations. Indeed, in a scriptural religion like Judaism, one cannot speak of mystical experience (of which vision is one specific type) divorced from an interpretative framework that is shaped by the cultural matrix of that tradition. This is not to deny that the experience of immediacy, which is often singled out as a distinguishing characteristic of mystical experience, is impossible, but only that even such experiences are mediated by specific contexts. Instead of setting immediacy and mediation in binary opposition, as one finds frequently in scholarly analyses of mysticism, we would do better to speak paradoxically of a mediated immediacy or of an immediate mediation. The Jewish mystic may experience the God of Israel without any intermediary, but it is still an experience that takes shape within the parameters of Judaism as a singular religious phenomenon, and hence what that Jewish mystic experiences is not the same as what the Christian, Muslim, Hindu, or Buddhist mystic would experience in the immediacy of her or his experience.

Mystics in various traditions have considered the imagination to be the divine element of the soul, the element that enables them to gain access to the realm of incorporeality by transferring or transmuting sensory data and/or rational concepts into symbols. Through images within the heart, which invariably is the locus of the imagination, the divine, whose pure essence is incompatible with any form, is nevertheless manifest in incarnational forms. The paradox that the hidden God appears to human beings in multiple images, including, most significantly, that of an anthropos, is the enduring legacy of the prophetic tradition. The role of the imaginal—a term that I borrow from Henry Corbin, the historian of Islamic esotericism—is expressed philologically by Jewish mystics by the expressions demuyot, dimmuyot, and dimyonot, terms that were used in classical rabbinic literature to demarcate God’s “incarnational forms” at critical moments in Israel’s sacred history: For example, at the splitting of the Red Sea, God is said to have appeared as a young warrior, and at Sinai, as a merciful elder, sometimes further depicted as a scribe teaching Torah. The use of the locution “incarnational form” demands a brief explanation, as I assume that most people would not consider this a suitable way of speaking about Judaism. To ascribe to God an incarnational form does not imply that God assumes a corruptible body in the historical plane. It assumes, rather, that the spiritual reality can be apprehended only through an image configured in the imagination of the visionary, an image that is most often anthropomorphic in nature. Locating these forms in the imagination is not to divest them of reality, however, since the theophanic image is accorded the status of reality only inasmuch as it is imagined as real.

The polymorphous nature of God articulated in the rabbinic sources, which bears a striking resemblance to the docetic orientation found in several Christian Apocryphal and Gnostic texts of the third and fourth centuries, is developed at length by medieval Jewish mystics, but enhanced by the theoretical assumptions of tenth- to twelfth-century writings on the nature of the divine glory and prophetic-mystical revelation. The theophanic imaging of God affirmed by the Jewish mystics in the Middle Ages should be seen as continuous both with the aggadic motifs, which are themselves exegetical elaborations of the prophetic tradition of Scripture linked specifically to visualization of divine forms, and the docetic reinterpretation of visions of the divine glory enthroned upon the chariot (influenced in some cases by a Neoplatonic epistemology). In my judgment, the sefirotic apparatus affirmed by kabbalists can be translated into the notion of image mentioned above, a notion that serves as the coincidence of opposites that bridges transcendence and immanence, and thereby facilitates the epiphany of incarnational forms that escape the threat of idolatry. The image is not derived from the corporeal world of space and time; it is what imparts meaning to the objects of the world. The reflexivity implied by the double mirroring associated with the image—that is, the image mirrors the one who beholds the image as the one who beholds the image mirrors the image—is not be understood simply in allegorical terms, since this would imply the depiction of something in terms of another thing that is fundamentally different. The imaginal perspective, by contrast, implies a presumed identity between symbol and what is symbolized, albeit an identity that preserves the difference of that which is identified as the same.

The vision of God in the history of Jewish mystical speculation is engendered by the concomitant affirmation of presence and absence. The God who is envisioned is the invisible God, and that which is revealed is revealed in its concealment. Despite the significant historical differences that separate the anonymous mystics of the Heikhalot literature, the Rhineland Jewish Pietists, the enlightened Castilian kabbalists responsible for the zoharic compilation in its earliest redactional layers, and the prophetic kabbalists who followed the teachings of Abraham Abulafia, they all shared a common biblical heritage that concomitantly affirmed the possibility of God assuming visible form and the denial that the God of Israel could be iconically represented. This point is related in one passage from Sefer ha-Zohar, wherein the divine emanations (sefirot) are depicted as the “glorious garments” (levushin diqar), “veritable garments” (levushin qeshoṭ), “true arrayments” (tiqqunei qeshoṭ), and “true sparks” (boṣinei qeshoṭ), which reveal the hidden light of the infinite, the “supernal spark” (boṣina ila’ah) that is beyond the polarity of light and darkness, the luminous dark that is the dark luminosity, neither light nor dark.[2] The sefirotic gradations, therefore, embody the central paradox that informed the mystical logic employed by kabbalists, as they reveal the concealed, but only by concealing the concealment, for if it were otherwise, how could the concealed be revealed?

This very tension between vision and invisibility provided the ideational framework within which kabbalists articulated the esoteric dialectic of concealment and disclosure. Every act of disclosure is a form of concealment when what is disclosed is what has been concealed, but the disclosed can be concealed as the disclosed only to the extent that the concealed is disclosed as the concealed. In kabbalistic sources, the image of circumcision in particular was employed to communicate this dialectic: an integral part of the rite according to the rabbinic ruling is the unveiling of the phallus after the foreskin has been cut away. What is unveiled is that which must remain veiled even in—precisely on account of—its unveiling. The teaching of truth, like truth itself, is characterized by this hide-and-seek drama, and hence the hermeneutic of esotericism, the duplicity of the secret, is predicated on letting that which is hidden appear as what is hidden and that which appears remain hidden as what appears, an orientation that revolves about the paradox that what is most visible is the invisible. Alternatively expressed, the form that is seen preserves the invisibility of the unseen, just as the liturgical tradition to vocalize YHWH as Adonai secures the ineffability of the name. To attend this paradox is to ascertain that every act of uncovering is a re/covery, every act of undressing a re/dressing. This paradox was enunciated explicitly by sixteenth-century kabbalists in Safed utilizing a maxim that can be traced textually to the Muslim philosopher Avicenna, “disclosure is the cause of concealment and concealment the cause of disclosure.” 

Theosophic and Prophetic Kabbalah

 

It is customary to map the historical development of Jewish mysticism in European centers beginning in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries along the contours of the typological distinction between theosophic and prophetic kabbalah. Theosophic kabbalah is a form of contemplative mysticism that sets its focus on the visualization of the ten sefirot in the imagination. The term sefirot is first used in Sefer Yeṣirah, the “Book of Formation,” an ancient work on cosmology whose provenance is still a matter of scholarly dispute, is notoriously difficult to translate. The work is an amalgamation of two discrete textual units, the first that describes the ten inscrutable enumerations (sefirot belimah) and the second the twenty-two foundational letters (otiyyot yesod), which are grouped together under the umbrella concept of the thirty-two paths of wondrous wisdom. The notion that the letters of the Hebrew alphabet are the means by which all things are created is an idea familiar from other sources, and indeed it has roots in some biblical verses. By contrast, this is the first source in which the concept of the sefirot appears, and it is clear that in Sefer Yeṣirah itself the reader can discover several ways to explain the terminology. Indeed, there is no consensus regarding its etymological origin. The most convincing surmise is that the word sefirot derives from the root sfr, which can be vocalized as sefer (book), but it is also associated with the words sappir (sapphire) and safar (to count). No single word in English (or any other language as far as I can judge) adequately accounts for the richness of the range of semantic meaning linked to the term sefirot, which concurrently denotes luminosity (sappir), speech (sefer), and enumeration (sefar). What can be said with more confidence and certainty is that at the heart of the mystical experience that informs the world of the medieval kabbalists (and here, again, I see no reason to impose the scholarly typological distinction between the schools of theosophic and ecstatic kabbalah) is a convergence of these three fields of discourse: The potencies of the divine are experienced as the translucent letters that are enumerated within the Torah, which is identified as YHWH, the most sacred of the divine names. From the kabbalistic vantage point, Torah is both the book written by God and the text in which God is written. The Torah, accordingly, is the image through which the imageless God is manifest.

The connotation of the nomenclature sefirot—number, light, and narration—implies that the ten emanations are the measure of the immeasurable God, the luminosity of the divine darkness, and the description of the indescribable. In medieval kabbalistic sources, moreover, the sefirot are viewed primarily under the symbolic guise of light and language, so that in the visionary’s imaginal representation of what cannot be represented, emanation of the light coincides with revelation of the name. Indeed, it is uniformly affirmed by kabbalists that the ten sefirot collectively are comprised within the four-letter name, YHWH. Consequently, in kabbalistic sources, seeing and hearing are intertwined in mystical envisioning, to behold the invisible is to heed the ineffable. Here we come upon an essential dimension of the poetic sensibility of kabbalah: In the visionary thinking of the poet, too, words consist of images and images of words. The revolt of the poet against language through language in the attempt to portray what cannot be portrayed, the absence that is more real than presence, can be profitably compared to the desire basic to the kabbalistic worldview to envision the invisible, which is also expressed as the urge to utter the ineffable.

The kabbalists identified themselves as prophets, casting the ancient prophets as kabbalists—that is, ancient prophets are portrayed as having access to the secret wisdom of kabbalah and contemporary kabbalists, the “enlightened of Israel” (maskilei yisra’el), as having experiences of a prophetic nature. The common element is the possibility of envisioning the invisible, imagining the imageless, a process that is also portrayed by the capacity to expand thought limitlessly beyond the limit of thought. By thought thinking what lies beyond the parameters of thought to think, the mind of the kabbalist contemplates complex infinity from infinite complexity. The visualization is thus expressed as an ascent through various gradations from the measurable attribute on the bottom to what is hidden on top, from the comprehensible to the incomprehensible. As Isaac the Blind, one of the first kabbalists in twelfth-century Provence who was considered to be the master of a number of thirteenth-century Catalonian kabbalists, the spiritual elite of Israel are set apart by their capability of contemplating from the measure as it is seen in the heart to the infinite (lehitbonen mi-tokh ha-middah ha-nir’eit ba-lev lehitbonen ad ein sof); hence the mystical state is referred to as “contemplation that has no substance” (hitbonenut she-ein bo mamash)—what is visualized contemplatively is “all that which the comprehension of thought comprehends to the infinite,” kol mah she-hassagat ha-maḥshavah masseget ad ein sof, the trail of thought winding its way not to that which is not thought but to that which is thought as what cannot be thought, the unthought, beyond being, beyond not being, beyond the unthought, beyond being, beyond not-being, beyond the dichotomy of being and not-being. Thus, mystical illumination is depicted in the wonderfully pregnant formulation “contemplation that has no substance,” that is, contemplation of what cannot be reified as an object of knowledge or subject of predication, the one that is lacking substance precisely because of the fullness of its insubstantiality. The “way of contemplation,” derekh hitbonenut, is thus compared figuratively to “sucking” (yeniqah) as opposed to “knowing” (yedi‘ah), a distinction meant to convey the idea that meditation yields and is generated by an intimate and direct gnosis of divinity rather than through discursive knowledge, a unified intuition of many in one rather than a composite inference of one from many.

Two main conceptual approaches to the nature of the sefirot were articulated by kabbalists as they struggled to explain discursively the idea that the one God, infinite and invisible, could be manifest in ten emanations: the latter were viewed either as vessels through which the divine light flows or as the essence of that light, but in either case the paradox of the hidden being revealed only by being concealed remains intact, since the hidden cannot be fully revealed and remain the hidden that is revealed—the key to understanding the kabbalistic notion of mystery, the secret is what must both be and not be revealed, the symbolic understanding of language as saying the unsayable. Just as the name YHWH is vocally pronounced Adonai, even as it is one name graphically, so every word has both a latent and overt sense. The Torah, which is the name in its esoteric essence, is similarly marked by this twofold nature. The hermeneutical approach adopted by the zoharic authorship, and extended by numerous kabbalists whose worldview was greatly indebted to the Zohar, likewise mimics the duplicitous structure and the consequent play of disclosure and concealment.

The prophetic/ecstatic kabbalah, by contrast, is focused on the cultivation of meditative practices centered around the divine names and the letters of the Hebrew alphabet that lead to unitive states of consciousness, the separation of the intellect from the body and its conjunction with the divine intellect. Abulafia combined the basic tenets of Maimonidean religious philosophy with esoteric doctrines and mystical practices (mediated chiefly through the works of the Rhineland Jewish pietists, but also through select treatises of Catalonian and Castilian kabbalists that either preceded or were contemporary with him) to produce his distinctive understanding of kabbalah as a path (derekh), a way to attain knowledge of the name (yedi‘at ha-shem). To cite a succinct formulation by Abulafia himself from one of his major treatises, Ḥayyei ha-Olam ha-Ba, composed in Rome in 1280: “Hence, you must know in truth that the emergence of these permutations from the glorious name (yeṣi’at ha-ṣerufim min ha-shem ha-nikhbad) is for us the prophetic kabbalah (qabbalah ha-nevu’it) whence the soul is conjoined to the name. And the receiving of the emergence (qabbalat ha-yeṣi’ah) is so that one may be influenced by the other (lehiyotah nishpa‘at zo mi-zo), and the one that is influenced (ha-nishpa) by it is called the holy spirit (ruaḥ ha-qodesh).”[3]

Although Abulafia is better known for disseminating the meditative practices that lead to prophecy, his works are also replete with references to and discussions about the sefirot. Indeed, in his view, reflecting the notion of the thirty-two paths of wisdom delineated in Sefer Yeṣirah, kabbalah consists of two parts, the former focused on the ten sefirot and the latter on the twenty-two Hebrew letters. He identified the former with the ten separate intellects that were a commonplace in medieval cosmology, and intellect associated with each of the celestial spheres, the outermost or diurnal sphere, the sphere of the fixed stars, the spheres of the seven planets, and the sublunar sphere.

In a manner consonant with Maimonides, the universe is described by Abulafia as issuing from and being sustained by an influx of divine intellection, the light that emanates from the First Cause (sibbah ha-ri’shonah), the “necessary of existence” (meḥuyav ha-meṣi’ut), the “form of the intellect” (ṣurat ha-sekhel) that links all of reality in an unbroken chain of being. Abulafia identifies the intellectual overflow as the Tetragrammaton, but, in a manner closer to Judah Halevi than to Maimonides, he maintained that the knowledge of this name, which is the essence of the tradition, is not grasped by speculation shared universally by all nations, but by a prophetic vision unique to the people of Israel. Moreover, insofar as this name is equated with the Torah, and the Torah is composed of the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet, we may surmise that implied by this identification is the belief that the vital life force of all existence consists of the “holy tongue” (leshon ha-qodesh), the “mother of all languages” (em kol ha-leshonot) that Abulafia considered “natural” in contrast to all the other seventy languages that are derived from Hebrew and are assigned the status of “conventional.”

Abulafia maintained that by means of  proper discipline, one can be conjoined to the effluence of intellectual light, a unitive experience that, both conceptually and experientially, relates to the contemplative ideal of conjunction (devequt) whose epistemological and ontological contours he configured on the basis of philosophical assumptions elicited from Jewish and Muslim sources wherein the Aristotelian and Neoplatonic currents are intertwined, for example, Avicenna, Averroës, Abraham Ibn Ezra, and, above all others, Maimonides. The ambiguity that one may discern in Abulafia’s demarcation of the object of the unitive experience as either God or the Active Intellect, may be explained by the fact that he viewed the latter, which he identifies as the first and the last of the ten separate intellects or the sefirot,  as the visible vehicle by which the invisibility of the former is manifest in space and time. In the moment of theophanic incarnation, the line separating the two is blurred. As Abulafia himself put it in Sefer ha-Ḥesheq, “All these matters emanate from the Active Intellect, which informs the person about the truth of the substance of his essence by means of the permutation of the letters (ṣeruf ha-otiyyot) and the mentioning of the names (hazkarat ha-shemot) without doubt, until the person is restored to the level of intellect (ad she-yashuv ha-adam be-madregat ha-sekhel) so that he may be conjoined to him in the life of this world in accord with his capacity and in the life of the world-to-come in accord with his comprehension.”[4]

Mystical gnosis of the name, which is achieved as a result of the meditational technique of letter-combination (ḥokhmat ha-ṣeruf), entails a state of intellectual conjunction that Abulafia, following Maimonides, branded in terms of both the scriptural idea of prophecy (nevu’ah) and the rabbinic notion of eschatological felicity, the “life of the world-to-come” (ḥayyei ha-olam ha-ba). Although the latter retains something of its original connotation in Abulafia’s scheme, he was far more interested in utilizing the phrase to denote an interior state of spiritual transformation occasioned by the triumph of intellect over imagination, spirit over body, an orientation that is attested as well in other medieval Jewish philosophical exegetes, poets, and kabbalists. To be sure, Abulafia does not go so far as to negate entirely the nationalistic and geo-political aspects of the messianic ideal, but it is clear from his writings that his messianism is primarily psychic in nature. Tactilely, the ecstatic experiences the illumination as being anointed with oil, and thus the one who is illumined is not only capable of being redeemed proleptically prior to the historical advent of the messiah, but such an individual noetically attains the rank of the messianic figure. The anointment also denotes the priestly status of the illuminate; indeed, in the unitive state, the ecstatic assumes the role of high priest, the position accorded Metatron in the celestial Temple, the angelic viceregent summoned by Abulafia as the object of conjunction. We may conclude, therefore, that the phenomenon of anointment comprises three distinct, though inseparable, aspects of the pneumatic metamorphosis— messianic, priestly, and angelic. For Abulafia, moreover, the matter of reception is critical to his understanding of the prophetic-messianic experience, as the enlightened mind, the soul unfettered from the chains of corporeality, receives the overflow of the holy spirit, which is identified in Abulafia’s system as the Active Intellect, the angelic Metatron, and as the wheel of letters that is the Torah scroll in its idealized form. The experience of mystical union may be viewed phenomenologically from four vantage-points: to cleave to the name, to be conjoined with the intellect, to be transformed into the demiurgical angel, and to be incorporated within the textual embodiment of the word of God.

 

Gender In/difference and the Imaginal Body of God

A central aspect of kabbalistic theosophy is related to the emphasis on the imaginal configuration of the sefirotic emanations in the shape of an anthropos. In the earliest kabbalistic documents, it is presumed without qualification that the potencies of God relate to the limbs of a human body, a theosophical claim that is linked exegetically to the scriptural notion of the divine image in which Adam was created. Just as the human in the mundane sphere is constituted by a gender binary, so in the divine sphere the form by which the imageless is imaged consists of male and female, the former characterized as the potency to overflow and the latter as the capacity to receive. Kabbalistic symbolism is marked by gender fluidity, as each attribute can be both male and female, but the comportment of each gender is fixed.  As complex as kabbalistic thought can be, the issue of gender is surprisingly simple: Male and female are correlated consistently with the activity of projection and the passivity of restriction. To be sure, we must be on guard against reifying these as polar opposites, for the relevant sources attest that passivity can be an expression of activity and activity an expression of passivity. This provision notwithstanding, the kabbalistic orientation is translucent in its mythopoeic simplicity: when an emanation overflows it assumes a masculine character, and when it receives, it assumes a feminine character. Adopting an earlier rabbinic tradition, kabbalists link the male and female potencies respectively with the attributes of mercy and judgment and their designated names YHWH and Elohim. The religious obligation imposed traditionally on the Jewish man to unify the God of Israel is interpreted as the harnessing of male and female, a pairing of right and left, the will to bestow and the desire to contain. Beyond the theurgical task of repairing the masculine and feminine potencies, the reconstitution of the mystery of faith, the traditional duty to proclaim the oneness of God was understood by kabbalists as providing the occasion to restore the unified differentiation of the manifold to the non-differentiated oneness of Ein-Sof. This task was signaled out as the mystical rationale for prayer, the true kawwanah, intentionality, that the maskil, the enlightened sage, had to cultivate.

Running the risk of redundancy, let me again emphasize that I am not denying that, according to kabbalistic lore, traversing of gender boundaries applies to both female and male. My point is, rather, that there is invariability in the change, a rigidity that fosters the fluency: When male becomes female, he constricts, when female becomes male, she overflows. To comprehend this point—indeed to enter at all into the garden of gender speculation tended by kabbalists—it is necessary to bear in mind that the symbolic circumlocutions mythically convey the metaphysical dialectic of bestowing and receiving. Commenting on the anthropomorphic depiction of the sefirot, the anonymous author of Sefer ha-Peli’ah formulated the matter axiomatically: “Do not consider in your mind that there is a human or an image of a human, God forbid, but everything is for the sake of making the ear understand, for they called him a man (adam) on account of the fact that they receive an influx and a blessing from him. He overflows and because he overflows he is called ‘male’ and the one that receives is called ‘female,’ but, God forbid, that there is there a male or female.”[5] The erotic play of implanting seed articulates in poetic garb the dual ontological principle of releasing and retaining. Underlying the somatic imagery of the theosophic myth is an archaic notion of cosmological causality based on the inter/polarity of active agent and passive recipient, engendered as male and female.

From the kabbalist’s vantage point, which resonates with the alchemic wisdom shared and expressed in similar terms of heterosexual conjunction in Eastern and Western sources, the creative process requires a balance of both poles, or better the momentum to swing from one pole to its opposite, but it would be brushing against the grain of being if a female were to overflow and remain female or if a male were to constrict and remain male. A female overflowing is masculine, a male constricting feminine; the creative process entails the balance of projecting and contracting, breathing out and breathing in. Only through contraction is the formless light expanded into form both ontically and imaginally. Alternatively expressed, the feminine is the primal garment that enfolds the infinitely extending light, the line that encompasses the point in which it is encompassed. Gender valence is not affected by this qualification, as the female is still valued in relation to the male, the vessel that delimitedly contains the limitlessly overflowing potency.

Consider a second passage from Sefer ha-Peli’ah, which occurs in the context of a sustained homiletical explication of the biblical account of the creation of woman from the rib or side of man in Genesis 2:22. In this exposition, the author divulges the gender implication of the sexual dynamic as it applies to both divine and human spheres:

 

Concerning the emanation of Shekhinah, the verse states “I planted you with noble vines, all with choicest seed,” [we-anokhi neta‘tikha shoreq kullo zera emet] (Jer 2:21), kullo is written without a waw to indicate that it alludes to the bride that is comprised of the All [kalah ha-kelulah min ha-kol], which is the true seed [zera emet]. From here, my son, you can understand and contemplate the secret of the bridegroom and bride, and the commandment to procreate. Know, in truth, my son, that all the essences [hawwayot] are “like the nakedness of a man with spirals” [ke-ma‘ar ish we-loyot] (1 Kings 7:36), like a man wrapped in his ornament [ke-ish ha-me‘ureh be-livyah shelo]. My son, see the hidden matters, and now I will mention to you true words concerning which you cannot dispute, diverge, or question, for they are taken from the mouth of the angel of God, verily an angel. Know that this world is a shadow of the supernal world. … See and understand that everything is in the supernal pattern, and there is procreation in the upper gradation, for on Sabbath the King unites face to face with the Queen by way of the window,[6] which is Yesod, and then the body becomes one and all of the world is blessed and standing in peace, happiness, and quiet. Listen, my son, to what the sages have alluded in their words “Honor your wives”[7] and you will be enriched in the manner of “From the north the gold will emerge” (Job 37:22).  It is like what the rabbis, blessed be their memory, said “Those who are bringing the incense anew should come and cast a lot.”[8] The intention is that since a woman is in the pattern of the Shekhinah the rabbis, blessed be their memory, said “Honor your wives.” Now, my son, listen to what one tanna alluded to when he said “He who nullifies the commandment to procreate is considered as if he commits murder and diminishes the likeness,”[9] and the intention is he causes a diminution of mercy from the woman and consequently she receives from [the attribute of] Fear, and he diminishes the likeness [demut] from the image [ṣelem], which is Tif’eret, so that there is only half a person.[10]

 

Enunciated in this passage is a theme repeatedly affirmed by kabbalists: Theurgical efficacy is imparted to carnal sexuality as an action that enhances the unity of male and female in the realm of divine potencies. The ontological assumption is stated explicitly as an indisputable matter that was revealed to the author orally through the agency of an angel even though it is attested in a plethora of earlier written sources: The terrestrial world is a “shadow” (ṣel) of the world of emanation and thus everything in the latter is the “supernal pattern” [dugma elyonah] of what is found in the former. Obviously, inasmuch as the medium to enhance the union above is the heterosexual mating of husband and wife, a theurgic role will be assigned to both genders. This, in and of itself, however, is hardly a challenge to the androcentric bent of traditional kabbalistic symbolism. On the contrary, the androcentrism becomes even more evident when one considers the nature of the particular task assigned to the woman, which consists primarily of being the proper vessel to receive the seminal flow from her husband. Moreover, as a consequence of sexual union, the female receives the attribute of mercy from the male, but in its absence she is judgmental and dreadful. When feminine is joined with masculine—union of the “likeness” (demut) and “image” (ṣelem) with which primal Adam was created—she receives the “true seed” (zera emet) from Yesod and is thus transformed into a creative potency.

In spite of the recurring symbolic representation of God as masculine and feminine, the gender orientation of medieval kabbalists was androcentric in nature, and, consequently, both the male and female elements, active bestowal and passive reception, were interpreted as features of the male. The simplest way to express the matter is to note that kabbalists read the account of God having created Adam male (zakhar) and female (neqevah) in the first chapter in Genesis in light of the second account wherein the derivative ontic status of woman (ishshah) from man (ish) is made explicit, the woman having been constructed from the body of man. Accordingly, the proto-human, adam, is conceived as a male androgyne, the single gender that contains its other as part of itself, a typical patriarchical construction. For kabbalists, therefore, we can speak properly of an Edenic state of the androgynous prelapsarian man, a condition to be retrieved in the end of time.

Repeatedly, the esoteric tradition in Judaism affirms the alchemical emphasis placed on the sacred union of male and female in the divine and earthly realms. Hence, the supreme theurgic meaning accorded sexual intercourse between husband and wife with an appropriate role assigned to each gender in the coital mating. The union of the two, however, results in the amelioration of judgment by mercy, the reabsorption of the feminine into the masculine. Obviously, the pairing of male and female will have an impact on both parties, and the possibility of interaction and intermingling rests on the inclusion of each in the other, but the ultimate purpose of heterosexual bonding is the reintegration of the part into the whole whence it was severed, a restoration that signals a gender transposition of the female. In the conjunctio oppositorum, therefore, the two sexes are unified and woman is restored to man, the ideal unification that tolerates no difference.  

Representations of Shekhinah, the last of the ten emanations, as feminine, and especially as the erotic object of male desire, bespeak the sexual dimorphism characteristic of a state of exile wherein the unity of the male androgyne has been severed, and as a consequence the male seeks his other, to restore the part of his self that has been taken and rendered independent. Redemption entails the overcoming of this dimorphic condition, the reconstitution of the androgynous male, expressed by the image of the ascent of Shekhinah as the diadem (aṭarah) that rises to the head of Keter, the first of the sefirot. By virtue of this ascent, Shekhinah is transformed into the crown of the male and the unity that was rendered asunder in the commencement of creation is repaired. Just as the beginning is marked by the splintering of the indivisible unity of the androgynous male, into the polarity of male and female, a splintering patterned after the model of the “unnatural” and patriarchical account of the creation of man and woman, ish and ishah, in the second chapter of Genesis, the woman being constructed out of the male, the end, analogously, is marked by the restoration of the female to the male whence she was taken. In this state, opposite sexes are fully integrated, for the human being is whole, of one piece, and the female is reincorporated into the male in the image of the encircling crown, an idea linked often by kabbalists to the scriptural expression neqevah tesovev gaver (Jer 31:21), the “female encompasses the male.” The reversal of sexual positioning signified by the prophetic formulation of the female surrounding the male signals not the empowerment of the female, which one might interpret as a rupture in the androcentric fabric, but her absorption and reintegration into the body of the male. In the Endzeit, as in the Urzeit, there is one gender, for the feminine is restored to the masculine, and the image of God is reconstituted in its pristine form. We are thus justified in speaking about the male androgyne as the engendering symbol of kabbalistic theosophy. Rather than making room for the feminine as a genuine other, the myth of androgyny reifies the androcentric hierarchy by demarcating the feminine as other in relation to and contained within the masculine.

 

Textual Embodiment and Divine Incarnation     

The preponderant utilization of anthropomorphic imagery to depict God on the part of the kabbalists is predicated on the presumption that the Hebrew letters assigned to each of the relevant limbs constitute the reality of the body on both the human and divine planes of being. Indeed, a basic tenet of Jewish esotericism, which runs its course from late antiquity through the middle ages to the present, consists of the following principle that I refer to as the “semiotics of creation”: What exists in the world, examined sub-phenomenally, are the manifold permutations of the twenty-two Hebrew letters, themselves enfolded in the four-letter name, YHWH, which is the root-word, the origin of all language, the mystical essence of the Torah. For the kabbalists, therefore, the use of human terms to speak of matters divine is not simply understood in the philosophical manner as an approximate way for embodied human beings to discourse figuratively about a disembodied God. On the contrary, from the kabbalistic standpoint, the examples of anthropomorphism, beginning in the canonical texts of Scripture and extending beyond to later rabbinic and liturgical sources, indicate that the nature of human corporeality can only be understood in light of divine corporeality, but to comprehend the nature of divine corporeality one must presume that the body of God is constituted by the letters of the name. The key point to emphasize for our purposes is that the Hebrew letters are the most elemental forms of representation of the divine, and thus even the sefirotic emanations are to be envisioned from this semiotic perspective. This alternative conception of body facilitated the overcoming of the Jewish proscription against the production of graven images of God, but not because the letters and sefirot are abstract figurative images of the human body applied to God. On the contrary, the letters and sefirot constitute the limbs of the imaginal body, a body configured in the imagination that is more concretely real than the real body. On this score, the tangible human body available to the senses is, in truth, the abstract figurative representation of the real body, which is the literal body, the body that is the letter.

For the kabbalists, therefore, the use of human terms to speak about matters divine is not simply understood in the philosophical manner as an approximate way to speak of God figuratively, a concession to the inevitable limitations of embodied human beings who desire to speak of that which is disembodied. On the contrary, from the kabbalistic standpoint, the examples of anthropomorphism in the canonical texts of Scripture indicate that the nature of human corporeality can only be understood in light of divine corporeality, but to comprehend the nature of divine corporeality one must presume that the body of God is constituted by the letters of the name. The Tetragrammaton, which is the root-word, the origin of all language, the mystical essence of the Torah, comprises within itself the rest of the Hebrew alphabet.

The textual evidence from the kabbalists indicates that the object of contemplation is the name configured anthropomorphically in the mind of the mystic. To cite a passage from the anonymous author of the fourteenth-century treatise Ma‘arekhet ha-Elohut, “It says in Sefer Yeṣirah that there are twenty-two objects in one body, and the body refers to the ten sefirot, for they one totality, and objects are the twenty-two letters … and they are all in one body, which is the ten sefirot contained in the one name, which is the Tetragrammaton” (196b-197a). The imaginal body of God that accompanies the meditational exercise of the kabbalist may not be the suffering of Christ, as Scholem insisted in an effort to contrast the Jewish and Christian sensibility, but it is no less pictorial and concrete. Countless examples could be cited to support my claim, but here I will mention one brief passage from the zoharic text Idra Zuṭa, the “Small Gathering,” which appears in the culmination of the text as the final meeting of Simeon ben Yoḥai and the surviving members of the fraternity. The relevant passage, which is cited as a quotation from the aggadah of R. Yeiva Sabba, is a mystical reflection on the name of the third emanation, Binah, the mother that comes forth from and is united with the second emanation, Ḥokhmah, the father. From the union of these two emanations comes forth Tif’eret, the son, who contains within himself Malkhut, the daughter. In the name Binah is a reference to the quaternity of the Godhead, which is depicted more specifically as the four members of the divine family, an aspect of the kabbalistic doctrine that I mentioned previously. Yod and he refer respectively to Ḥokhmah and Binah; the remaining consonants, bet and nun, spell ben, which is the son, but the son is androgynous (after the pattern of the earthly Adam) and thus contains bat, the daughter, within himself. The son and daughter refer, moreover, to the last two letters of the Tetragrammaton, the waw and he. The four letters of the name, therefore, correspond respectively to the father, mother, son, and daughter.   The sensitive nature of this disclosure and the implied manner of visualizing the divine in concrete anthropomorphic images is underscored by a remark contained in the zoharic text itself after the matter is brought to light:

 

These words cannot be revealed except to the supernal holy ones who have entered and exited and who know the ways of the blessed holy One, and they do not deviate to the right or to the left. … Praiseworthy is the lot of one who merits to know his ways, and who does not deviate from them or err with respect to them, for these matters are concealed, and the supernal holy ones are illumined by them like the one who is illumined from the flame of the candle. These words are not transmitted except to one who has entered and exited.[11]

 

The incarnational insight on the part of the kabbalists rests on the belief in the onto-graphic inscripting of flesh into word and the consequent conversion of the carnal body into the etheral, luminous body, finally transposed into the literal body, the body that is the letter, hyperliterally, the name that is the Torah. Comparing this conception with the more familiar Christological doctrine, we can say that both narratives presume a correlation of body and book but in an inverse manner: for Christians, the literal body is embodied in the book of the body; for Jews, the literal body is embodied in the body of the book. The secret of poetic incarnation imparted by masters of Jewish esoteric lore, beholding the luminous flesh from the word, may be seen as a counter myth to the image of the word/light made flesh in the Johannine prologue, a mythologoumenon that played an inestimable role in fashioning the hermeneutical aesthetic of medieval Christendom. This is not to deny that in the history of Christian devotion the incarnational theme did express itself in terms of textual embodiment. My point is, however, that the mythologic basis for this form of embodiment in Christianity is always the incarnation of the Word in the person of Jesus, whether this is understood veridically or docetically. As a consequence, medieval Christian piety was informed by the exegetical supposition that incarnation of the word in the flesh had the effect of removing the veil of the letter as expounded by Jews, who resolutely refused to accept the spiritual interpretation that the Christological understanding demanded; the literal meaning, intricately bound to the carnal law, thus killed the spirit by obstructing the true knowledge of the Last Things. By contrast, in the kabbalistic wisdom that concretized in the course of the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, incarnation of the flesh in the word preserved the letter of the veil, as the only credible means to apprehend the inner meaning of the law was thought to be through its outer covering, to behold mysteries of Torah from underneath the garment,[12] to see the image of the imageless embodied iconically in the text that is the textual embodiment of the name.

The visionary imagination of the kabbalists is predicated, therefore, on the confluence of letter and anthropomorphic symbolism. In the contemplative praxis, the name is visualized in concrete and embodied terms as an anthropos. In the aforecited passage from the Zohar, one is introduced to another critical dimension of the pictorial representation of God in somatic terms: Only one who transforms the physical body into the spiritual body, the body that is made of letters—a transformation that is presented as an angelification of the mystic—is capable of imaging the divine form in bodily images. This is the implication of the zoharic claim that the words concerning the portrayal of God as father, mother, son, and daughter can be revealed only to the “supernal holy ones” who have entered and exited. Kabbalists who have undergone successfully the ecstatic experience of visual contemplation, those whose faith and mental capacity remain intact—a condition denoted by the technical expression derived from the description of Aqiva as the only one of the four rabbis to have entered and exited the mystical Pardes in peace—are called supernal holy ones, a term that usually designates angelic beings. The application of this expression to kabbalists signifies their transformation, which is expressed as well in the metaphor of illumination. Just as the way beyond language is through language, so the way beyond body is through body. This holds a key to understanding the role of asceticism in the formation of the mystical pietism affirmed by kabbalists of the period: Separation from sensual matters is not seen as a way to obliterate the body—commitment to rabbinic ritual precluded such an unmitigated renunciation of the natural world—but as a means for the metamorphosis of the mortal body into an angelic body, a body whose limbs are constituted by the letters of the name, the anthropomorphic representation of Torah. Adorned in the apparel of this body, the soul is conjoined to the divine name. The imaginal figuration of God, therefore, rests on the pneumatic transfiguration of the mystic. 

In spite of the fact that literature of the kabbalists is infused with tropes of eroticism to describe the inner workings of the divine and to account for their ecstatic experiences therewith, this tradition does no celebrate the sexual as such. On the contrary, gestures of ascetic renunciation are expressive of the most vigorously erotic response. As we find in other forms of mystical spirituality, so too in various currents of medieval kabbalah, the intensity of desire is to measured by the desire beyond desire, the desire not to desire, the most passionate of passions by the passion to be dispassionate. From a kabbalistic standpoint, contemplative envisioning of God revolves about the belonging-together, or the laying in proximity, of intercourse and discourse, not only two predominant modalities that structure human experience, as George Steiner appreciated, but also two forms that indicate the nature of the divine being, and, indeed, the nature of being more generally. The language of eros, one might say, reverberates with the eros of language. As kabbalists have repeatedly taught, the letter is the sign of the flesh that is the flesh of the sign, the sign that it is divested of all signification, since it signifies that which cannot be signified, the transcendence empty of all form and image, the void replete with the plenum of the nothing-that-is-everything, the absence rendered present through the presence that must forever remain absent.

[1]  MS Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale 774, fol. 149b.

 

[2] Franz Rosenzweig, Briefe, selected and edited by Edith Rosenzweig (Berlin: Schocken Verlag, 1935), p. 263 (emphasis in original). An English translation is found in Franz Rosenzweig, Philosophical and Theological Writings, translated and edited, with notes and commentary, by Paul W. Franks and Michael L. Morgan (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company. Inc., 2000), pp. 51-52 n. 11.

 

[3] Moshe Idel, “Kabbalah-Research: From Monochromatism to  Orphism,” Studia Judaica 8 (1999): 15-46, esp. 27-32. In Messianic Mystics (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1998), p. 33, where Idel proposes his “theory of models” based on “different paradigms of Kabbalistic messianism” as an alternative to the “essentialistic view” and “monolithic phenomenology” of Scholem’s approach. In my judgment, polymorphism and monochromatism as methodological paradigms should not be set in opposition, as the seeing of multiple forms is possible only against the background of remembering what has already been visually apprehended, a point well attested in phenomenological studies of human perception, memory, and imagination. For a more extensive discussion, see Elliot R. Wolfson, Language, Eros, Being: Kabbalistic Hermeneutics and Poetic Imagination (New York: Fordham University Press, 2005), pp. 88-94.

 

[4] Alexander Altmann, “Maimonides’ Attitude Toward Jewish Mysticism,” in Studies in Jewish Thought, ed. Alfred Jospe (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1981), pp. 201-2.

 

[5] Gershom Scholem, “Jewish Mysticism in the Middle Ages,” The 1964 Allan Bronfman Lecture  (New York, 1964), pp. 3-4. See idem, Kabbalah (Jerusalem: Keter, 1974), p. 4.

 

[6] Moshe Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988), p. 253. Aspects of Jewish esotericism related particularly to preoccupation with exegetical devices have been studied more recently by idem, “Secrecy, Binah and Derishah,” in Secrecy and Concealment: Studies in the History of Mediterranean and Near Eastern Religions, eds. Hans G. Kippenberg and Gedaliahu G. Stroumsa (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1995), pp. 310-343.

 

[7] See Gershom Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (New York: Schocken, 1956), p. 174. Scholem considered all citations to such works in the Zohar as “fictitious quotations” and “bogus references to imaginary writings.” Despite Scholem’s understandable skepticism, a careful study of these references remains a desideratum.

 

[8] MS New York, Jewish Theological Seminary of America Mic. 1878, fol. 38a; and cf. Joseph ben Shalom Ashkenazi’s commentary on Sefer Yeṣirah published under the name of the Rabad in the standard editions of that work (Jerusalem, 1962), 10a (with slight variation). The depiction of Adam as the first link in the chain of tradition is affirmed in a number of kabbalistic sources from the thirteenth century. See Zohar 1:52a; 2:55a; R. Moses de León’s Sefer Sheqel ha-Qodesh, edited and introduced by Charles Mopsik (Los Angeles: Cherub Press, 1996), p. 17; and the works of Abraham Abulafia and his disciples cited by Moshe Idel, Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abraham Abulafia (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989), pp. 17, 151-152 n. 89.

 

[9] On the phenomenon of maggidism in the sixteenth-century, see R. J. Zwi Werblowsky, Joseph Karo: Lawyer and Mystic  (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962), pp. 9-23, 75-83, 103-121, 159-165, 257-286; Lawrence Fine, “Maggidic Revelation in the Teachings of Isaac Luria,” in Mystics, Philosophers, and Politicians: Essays in Jewish Intellectual History in Honor of Alexander Altmann, edited by Jehuda Reinharz and Daniel Swetschiniski, with the collaboration of Kalman P. Bland (Durham: University of North Carolina Press, 1982), pp. 141-57.

 

[10] Palestinian Talmud, Ketubot 5:4 (ed. Venice, 29d); Tosefta, Ketubot 5:1; Sifre Numbers 117; and Babylonian Talmud, Qiddushin 10b (in that context the reading is ḥadrei torah, “chambers of Torah,” rather than sitrei torah, “secrets of Torah”); Ḥagigah 13a.

 

[11] “Standing on the outside” is one of the idiomatic expressions found in rabbinic literature to refer to one who is less than perfect or complete. In some contexts, it can also refer to a problematic, if not blatantly heretical, view. Cf. Babylonian Talmud, Ḥagigah 15a.

 

[12] Midrash Wayyikra Rabbah, ed. M. Margulies (New York and Jerusalem, 1993), 3:7, p. 74. My interpretation of this text follows the suggestive comments of the editor on p. 74 n. 3.

 

[13] Michael Fishbane, The Garments of Torah: Essays in Biblical Hermeneutics (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989), p. 23, and references given on p. 137 nn. 8-9.

 

[14] Mishnah, Avot 3:13; Avot de-Rabbai Natan, version A, ch. 26, p. 82.

 

[15] Palestinian Talmud, Ḥagigah 2:1, 77c; see Genesis Rabbah 9:1, pp. 67-68.

 

[16] Palestinian Talmud, Ḥagigah 2:1, 77c; see Pesiqta Rabbati, 21:52, p. 502.

 

[17] Babylonian Talmud, Ḥagigah 13a.

 

[18] Peter Schäfer, et al, Synopse zur Hekhalot-Literatur (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1981), § 335, pp. 142-143. The thematic link between this passage and the text from Sefer Yeṣirah was previously noted by Rachel Elior in  her annotated edition of Hekhalot Zuṭarti published in Jerusalem Studies in JewishThought—Supplement I (1982): 60 n. 3.

 

[19] There are a number of variants connected to this passage including a reversal of the order of the two phrases “mouth” and “heart.” For references see Ithamar Gruenwald, “A Preliminary Critical Edition of Sefer Yeẓira,” Israel Oriental Studies 1 (1971): 142 (section 5); A. Peter Hayman, Sefer Yeṣira: Edition, Translation and Text-Critical Commentary (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004), pp. 72-74.

 

[20] Ithamar Gruenwald, “Some Critical Notes on the First Part of Sēfer Yezīrā,” Revue des Études juives 132 (1973): 490. See Yehuda Liebes, Ars Poetica in Sefer Yetsira (Tel-Aviv: Schocken, 2000), pp. 55-56 (Hebrew).

 

[21] Azriel of Gerona, Perush le-Sefer Yeṣirah, in Kitvei Ramban, edited by Ḥayyim D. Chavel (Jerusalem: Mosad ha-Rav Kook, 1964), 2:456. The comment of Azriel seems to have been inspired by a section from Sefer ha-Bahir. See Daniel Abrams, The Book Bahir: An Edition Based on the Earliest Manuscripts (Los Angeles: Cherub Press, 1994), §§ 32-33, pp. 135-37; and brief analysis in Elliot R. Wolfson, Alef, Mem, Tau: Kabbalistic Musings on Time, Truth, and Death (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), p. 235 n. 32. The bahiric passage is cited together with the interpretation of Proverbs 25:2 in the dictum attributed to R. Levi in the Palestinian Talmud in Ṭodros Abulafia, Sha‘ar ha-Razim, edited with Introduction and Annotations by Michal Kushnir-Oron (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1989), p. 46.

 

[22] Elliot R. Wolfson, Abraham Abulafia—Kabbalist and Prophet: Hermeneutics, Theosophy, and Theurgy (Los Angeles: Cherub Press, 2000), pp. 38-52.

 

[23] Yehuda Liebes, Studies in the Zohar, translated by Arnold Schwartz, Stephanie Nakache, and Penina Peli (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993), pp. 24-26, 30.

 

[24] Zohar 2:87a. See Liebes, Studies in the Zohar, p. 24. For a more extensive discussion on idolatry in this literary setting, see Elliot R. Wolfson, “Iconicity of the Text: Reification of the Torah and the Idolatrous Impulse of Zoharic Kabbalah,” Jewish Studies Quarterly 11 (2004): 215-242.

 

[25] Zohar 3:105b.

 

[26] Babylonian Talmud, Pesaḥim 119a.

 

[27] Babylonian Talmud, Berakhot 22a.

 

[28] Zohar 3:105b.

 

[29] Zohar 3:105b.

 

[30] Zohar 3:159a.

 

[31] R. Moses de Leon’s Commentary to Ezekiel’s Chariot, critically edited and introduced by Asi Farber-Ginat, edited for publication by Daniel Abrams (Los Angeles: Cherub Press, 1998), p. 63.

 

[32] Book of the Pomegranate: Moses de León’s Sefer ha-Rimmon, edited by Elliot R. Wolfson (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988), pp. 20-21 (Hebrew section).

[33] Sefer ha-Temunah (Lemberg, 1892), 8a.

 

[34] See Elliot R. Wolfson, “Beyond Good and Evil: Hypernomianism, Transmorality, and Kabbalistic Ethics” in Crossing Boundaries: Ethics, Antinomianism and the History of Mysticism, edited by Jeffrey J. Kripal and William Barnard (New York and London: Seven Bridges Press, 2002), pp. 103-156, and the revised version in Elliot R. Wolfson, Venturing Beyond—Law and Morality in Kabbalistic Mysticism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 186-285.

 

[35] Gershom Scholem, Origins of the Kabbalah, edited by R. J. Zwi Werblowsky, translated by Alan Arkush (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), p. 461. On the tendency of the author of Sefer ha-Temunah to conceal his thoughts, see also the astute comments of Ephraim Gottlieb, Studies in the Kabbala Literature, edited by Joseph Hacker (Tel-Aviv: Tel-Aviv University Press, 1976), p. 571.

 

[36] This statement is somewhat enigmatic as the fate of Elisha according to the earlier rabbinic sources is not death but heresy in virtue of which he received the appellation aḥer, that is, the “other one,” the one whose views and/or actions led to his exclusion from the body politic of Israel. For some relatively recent analyses of this archetypical rabbinic sinner, Yehuda Liebes, The Sin of Elisha: The Four Who Entered Paradise and the Nature of Talmudic Mysticism, 2^nd ed. (Jerusalem: Hebrew University of Jerusalem Press, 1990) (Hebrew); Jeffrey L. Rubenstein, “Elisha ben Abuya: Torah and Sinful Sage,” Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy 7 (1998): 141-222; idem, Talmudic Stories: Narrative Art, Composition, and Culture (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), pp. 64-104, and Alon Goshen-Gottstein, The Sinner and the Amnesiac: The Rabbinic Invention of Elisha ben Abuya and Eleazar ben Arach (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000), pp. 21-229.

 

[37] Sefer ha-Temunah, 26b. On the hidden and formless letters within Ḥokhmah according to Sefer ha-Temunah, see Scholem, Origins, pp. 466-67.

 

[38] For elaboration, see Wolfson, Language, Eros, Being, pp. 111-15.

 

[39] Gershom Scholem,”The Secret of the Tree of Emanation by R. Isaac: A Treatise From the Kabbalistic Tradition of Sefer ha-Temunah,” Qoveṣ al Yad 5 (1950): 73 (Hebrew).

 

[40] Sefer ha-Temunah, 27a.

 

[41] In “Secret of the Tree of Emanation,” p. 74, Ḥokhmah is identified as the “secret of the world of letters” (sod olam ha-otiyyot). And see ibid., p. 75, where it is said that in Ḥokhmah is the “place of the Torah of the letters in their forms” (torat ha-otiyyot be-ṣiyyurim).

 

[42] Sefer ha-Temunah, 28b.

 

[43] Ibid., 30a. Consider the following statement in “Secret of the Tree of Emanation,” p. 72: “Cease from finding a true explanation and a reply in his mouth except by way of the wondrous and deep wisdom, the divine wisdom.” According to this text, the secrets are discernible only through divine wisdom, ḥokhmat ha-elohut, a theosophic gnosis that is transmitted exclusively to the Jews, the “holy seed of Israel,” in contrast to the “other nations” for whom the tradition is inaccessible. Hence, the author of this treatise insists that there is no way to explain the hidden matters (devarim ne‘elamin) except by this wisdom though he also emphasizes that all forms of knowledge are contained in it: “Everything is unified in the order of the emanation of the ten sefirot, for there is no wisdom, great or small, that does not emerge from there and that is comprised therein, and it is called the world-to-come, the good and elongated world, the eternal world, the awesome world, exceedingly hidden and elevated“ (p. 73). The radical difference between Israel and the nations of the world, a common theme affirmed by kabbalists through the generations (see extensive documentation of this point in Wolfson, Venturing Beyond, pp. 17-128), is expressed in another passage in the “Secret of the Tree of Emanation,” p. 78: ”In the secret of the first unleavened bread (maṣṣah ri’shonah) alluded to in the river that already was (nehar kevar), and thus [it says] ‘all who are uncircumcised will not eat of it’ (Exod 12:48), for no shell shall derive pleasure from it, as it is wholly of the river that already was and there is no foreskin or closing of the heart there.”

 

[44] “Secret of the Tree of Emanation,” p. 72.

 

[45] I have accepted Scholem’s suggestion, “Secret of the Tree of Emanation,” p. 73 n. 17a, to emend the text from ro’sh sof to ro’sh we-sof.

 

[46] Ibid., p. 73.

 

[47] Ibid., p. 75.

 

[48] Ibid., p. 74. In that context, the author further describes Keter, Tif’eret, and Malkhut, also referred to as the three beings (hawwayot) and demarcated respectively by the names Ehyeh, YHWH, and Adonai, as the “essence of all the emanation” (iqqar kol ha-aṣilut). The three names are contrasted in the following way: Ehyeh is “hidden and concealed in its pronunciation and in its scripting,” YHWH “is written but not pronounced except through its epithets,” and Adonai “is pronounced and it is seen.”

 

[49] Ibid., p. 74 n. 24.

 

[50] This aspect of kabbalistic thought is elaborated in Wolfson, Alef, Mem, Tau, pp. 87-98.

 

[51] For a more extensive discussion of this topic, see Elliot R. Wolfson, “Via Negativa in Maimonides and Its Impact on Thirteenth-Century Kabbalah,” to appear in Maimonidean Studies.

 

[52] Rabbenu Baḥya: Be’ur al ha-Torah, edited by Ḥayyim D. Chavel, 3 vols. (Jerusalem: Mosad ha-Rav Kook, 1981), 3:268.

 

[53] Oṣar ha-Geonim, 4:12.

 

[54] Sodei Razayya, p. 115.

 

[55] Ḥayyei ha-Nefesh, p. 15.

 

[56] Tosefta, Soṭah 6:3.

 

[57] Michel de Certeau, “History and Mysticism,” translated by Arthur Goldhammer, in Histories: French Constructions of the Past, edited by Jacques Revel and Lynn Hunt (New York: New Press, 1995), p. 443.

 

[58] Zohar 3:291b.

 

[59] Abraham Abulafia, Ḥayyei ha-Olam ha-Ba, second edition (Jerusalem, 1999), p. 73.

 

[60] Abraham Abulafia, Sefer ha-Ḥesheq (Jerusalem, 2002), p. 8.

 

[61] Sefer ha-Peli’ah (Przemysl, 1884), pt. 1, 28b.

 

[62] The imagery is derived from a parable in Sefer ha-Bahir. See Abrams, The Book Bahir, § 36, pp. 137-39.

 

[63] Babylonian Talmud, Bava Meṣi‘a 59a.

 

[64] Mishnah, Yoma 2:4; Tamid 5:2.

[65] Babylonian Talmud, Yevamot 63b.

 

[66] Sefer ha-Peli’ah, pt. 2, 7a-b.

 

[67] Zohar 3:290a.

 

[68] Based on Zohar 2:98b, where the secret embedded in the Torah is said to appear to the wise one “through the garment,” mi-go levusha, that is, through the letter of the text. See Wolfson, Language, Eros, Being, pp. 222-24.