Gershom Scholem
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KABBALAH GERSHOM SCHOLEM @ A MERIDIAN BOOK NEW AMERICAN LIBRARY NEW YORK AND SCARBOROUGH, ONTARIO NAL BOOKS ARE AVAILABLE AT QUANTITY DISCOUNTS WHEN USED TO PROMOTE PRODUCTS OR SERVICES. FOR INFORMATION PLEASE WRITE TO PREMIUM MARKETING DIVISION, NEW AMERICAN LIBRARY, I633 BROADWAY, NEW YORK, NEW YORK I00I9. Copyright© I974 by Keter Publishing House Jerusalem Ltd. P.O. Box 7I45, Jerusalem, Israel All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form. For information address Times Books (The New York Times Book Company, Inc.) 3 Park Avenue, New York, New York IOOI6 This is an authorized reprint of a hardcover edition published by Times Books. MERIDIAN TRADEMARK REG. U.S. PAT. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES REGISTERED TRADEMARK-MARCA REGISTRADA HECHO EN WESTFORD, MASS., U.S.A. SIGNET, SIGNET CLASSIC, MENTOR, PLUME, MERIDIAN and NAL BOOKS are published in the United States by New American Library, I633 Broadway, New York, New York IOOI9, in Canada by The New American Library of Canada Limited, 81 Mack Avenue, Scarborough, Ontario MIL IMS First Meridian Printing, March, I978 6 7 8 9 IO II I2 I3 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA KABBAlAH CONTENTS PART ONE: KABBALAH 1. INTRODUCTION 3 General notes 3 Terms used for Kabbalah 6 2. THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF KABBALAH 8 The Early Beginnings of Mysticism and Esotericism 8 Apocalyptic Esotericism and Merkabah Mysticism I 0 Esoteric Literature: the Heikhalot, the Ma'aseh Beres hit, and the Literature of Magic 14 Jewish Gnosis and the Sefer Yezirah 21 Mysticism in the Geonic Period 30 J:lasidic Movements in Europe and Egypt 35 The Establishment of Kabbalah in Provence 42 The Kabbalist Center of Gerona 48 Other Currents in 13th Century Spanish Kabbalah 52 The Kabbalah in the 14th Century up to the Expulsion from Spain 61 The Kabbalah after the Expulsion from Spain and the New Center in Safed 67 The Kabbalah in Later Times 79 3. THE BASIC IDEAS OF KABBALAH 87 God and Creation 88 Emanation and the Concept of the Sejirot 96 Details of the Doctrine of the Sejirot and their Symbolism I 05 Earlier Worlds, Lower Worlds, and Cosmic Cycles (the Doctrine of Shemittot) 116 The Problem of Evil 122 The Doctrine of Creation in Lurianic Kabbalah 128 The Kabbalah and Pan theism 144 Man and his Soul (Psychology and Anthropology of the Kabbalah) 152 Exile and Redemption 165 The Torah and its Significance 168 The Mystic Way 174 Practical Kabbalah 182 4. THE WIDER INFLUENCES OF AND RESEARCH ON KABBALAH 190 The Influence of Kabbalah on Judaism 190 The Christian Kabbalah 196 Scholarship and the Kabbalah 201 Bibliography 203 PART TWO: TOPICS 211 I. The Zohar 213 2. Shabbetai ?:eviand the Shabbatean Movement 244 3. Jacob Frank and the Frankists 287 4. Ba'al Shem 310 5. Sefer ha-Bahir 312 6. Chiromancy 317 7. Demonology in Kabbalah 320 8. The Doenmeh 327 9. Eschatology 333 10. Gematria 337 II. Gilgul 344 12. Go/em 351 13. Lilith 356 14. Magen David 362 IS. Meditation 369 16. Merkabah Mysticism 373 17. Metatron 377 18. Providence 382 19. Samael 385 PART THREE: PERSONALITIES 389 I. Azriel of Gerona 391 2. Naphtali Bacharach 394 3. Abraham Miguel Cardozo 396 4. Moses Cordovero (by J.B. Ben Shlomo) 40 1 5. Jonathan Eybeschuetz 405 6. Joseph Gikatilla 409 7. Nehemiah J::Iayon 412 8. Christian Knorr von Rosenroth 416 9. Isaac Luria 420 10. I:IayyimMalakh 429 II. Moses ben Shem Tov de Leon 432 12. Nathan of Gaza 435 13. Judah Leib Prossnitz 441 14. I:Iayyim Vital 443 15. Moses Zacuto 449 16. Joshua Heshel :?oref 452 Notes 455 Abbreviations 460 Glossary 463 Illustration Credits 465 General Index 467 Index of Books 484 (Dates in parentheses appearing after titles of books in the text refer to date of firstor primary'edition .] Part ()nc KABBALAH 1 INTRODUCTION GENERAL NOTES "Kabbalah" is the traditional and most commonly used term for the esoteric teachings of Judaism and fo r Jewish mysticism, especially the forms which it assumed in the Middle Ages from the 12th century onward. In its wider sense it signifies all the successive esoteric movements in Judaism that evolved from the end of the period of the Second Temple and became active factors in Jewish history. Kabbalah is a unique phenomenon, and should not be considered to be ident ical with what is known in the history of religion as "mysticism." It is mysticism in fact; but at the same time it is both esotericism and theosophy. In what sense it may be called mysticism depends on the definition of the term, a matter of dispute among scholars. If the term is restricted to the profound yearning for direct human communion with God through annihilation of individuality (bittul ha-yesh in I:tasidic terminology), then only a fe w manifestations of Kabbalah can be designated as such, because few kabbalists sought this goal, let alone formu lated it openly as their final aim. However, Kabbalah may be considered mysti cism insofar as it seeks an apprehension of God and creation whose intrinsic elements are beyond the grasp of the intellect, although this is seldom explicitly belittled or rejected by the kabbalists. Essentially these elements were perceived through contemplation and illumir.ation, which is often presented in the Kabba lah as the transmission of a primeval revelation concerning the nature of the Torah and other religious matters. In essence, however, the Kabbalah is far removed from the rational and intellectual approach to religion. This was the case even among those kabbalists who thought that basically religion was subject to rational enquiry, or that, at least, there was some accord between the path of intellectual perception and the development of the mystical approach to the subject of creation. For some kabbalists the intellect itself became a mystical phenomenon_ So we find in Kabbalah a paradoxical emphasis on the congruence between intuition and tradition. It is this emphasis, together with the historical association already hinted at in the term "kabbalah" (something handed down by tradition), that points to the basic differences between the Kabbalah and other kinds of religious mysticism which are less closely identified with a 3 4 KABBALAH people'shistory. Nevertheless, there are elements common to Kabbalah and both Greek and Christianmysticism, and even historical links between them. Like other kinds of mysticism, Kabbalah too draws upon the mystic's aware ness of both the transcendence of God and His immanence within the true religious life, every facet of which is a revelation of God, although God Himself is most clearly perceived through man's introspection. This dual and apparently contradictory experience of the self-concealing and self-revealing God deter mines the essential sphere of mysticism, while at the same time it obstructs other religious conceptions. The second element in Kabbalah is that of theosophy, which seeks to reveal the mysteries of the hidden life of God and the relation ships between the divine life on the one hand and the life of man and creation on the other. Speculations of this type occupy a large and conspicuous area in kabbalistic teaching. Sometimes their connection with the mystical plane be comes rather tenuous and is superseded by an interpretative and homiletical vein which occasionally even results in a kind of kabbalistic pilpul (casuistry). In its form the Kabbalah became to a large extent an esoteric doctrine. Mystical and esotericelements coexist in Kabbalah in a highly confusing fashion. By its very nature, mysticism is knowledge that cannot be communicated direct ly but may be expressed only through symbol and metaphor. Esoteric know ledge, however, in theory can be transmitted, but those who possess it are either forbidden to pass it on or do not wish to do so. The kabbalists stressed this esoteric aspect by imposing all kinds of limitations on the propagation of their teachings, either with regard to the age of the initiates, the ethical qualities required of them, or the number of students before whom these teachings could be expounded. Typical of this is the account of the conditions fo r initiates in Kabbalah found in Moses Cordovero's Or Ne 'erav. Often these limitations were disregarded in practice, despite the protests of many kabbalists. The printing of kabbalistic books and the influence of Kabbalah on widening circles broke down such restrictions, especially as far as the teachings on God and man were con cerned. Nevertheless, there remained areas where these limitations were still more or less adhered to; for example, in the meditations on the letter combinations (l:zokhmatha-?eruf) and practical Kabbalah. Many kabbalists denied the existence of any kind of historical development in the Kabbalah. They saw it as a kind of primordial revelation that was accorded · to Adam or the early generations and that endured, although new revelations were made from time to time, particularly wheh the tradition had been either forgotten or interrupted. This notion of the nature of esoteric wisdom was expressed in apocryphal works like the Book of Enoch, was again stressed in the Zohar, and served as the basis fo r the dissemination of kabbalistic teaching in Sefer ha-Emunot by Shem Tov b. Shem Tov (c. 1400) and in Avodat ha-Kodesh INTRODUCTION 5 by Meir b. Gabbai (1567). It became widely accepted that the Kabbalah was the esoteric part of the Oral Law given to Moses at Sinai. Several of the genealogies of the tradition appearing in kabbalistic literature, which were intended to sup port the idea of the continuity of the secret tradition, are themselves faulty and misconceived, lacking in any historical value.