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Spreading Secrets: Kabbalah and Esotericism in Isaac Ibn Sahula's Meshal Ha-Kadmoni

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Spreading Secrets: Kabbalah and Esotericism in Isaac Ibn Sahula's Meshal Ha-Kadmoni T HE J EWISH Q UARTERLY R EVIEW, Vol. 100, No. 1 (Winter 2010) 111–138 Spreading Secrets: Kabbalah and Esotericism in Isaac ibn Sahula’s Meshal ha-kadmoni HARTLEY LACHTER ISAAC IBN S AHULA’S Meshal ha-kadmoni, completed in 1281, is one of the most famous works of Jewish literature from medieval Castile. Imitat- ing the style of both Muslim and Christian popular compositions, ibn Sahula’s Hebrew poetic allegory was intended to attract the attention and admiration of learned medieval Jews who were drawn to non-Jewish literary works such as Kalila and Dimna and The Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor.1 Meshal ha-kadmoni, a rhymed prose narrative, consists of five sec- tions depicting a debate between a ‘‘cynic’’ and a ‘‘moralist’’ arguing themes of ethics and piety through the use of animal fables.2 The work also contains an introduction by the author and a prologue in which a ‘‘Man of God’’ exhorts ‘‘Isaac’’ to advocate the cause of morality and inspire religious devotion among the masses through the telling of fables and riddles. The scholarly consensus has been that the Meshal ha-kadmoni contains no kabbalistic material.3 This finding is surprising in light of the fact that 1. See Joseph Dan, ‘‘Hebrew Versions of Medieval Prose Romances,’’ Hebrew University Studies in Literature and the Arts 6.1 (1978): 1–9. 2. On the relationship between Hebrew rhymed prose narratives from this period to Arabic and European literatures, see Jonathan P. Decter, Iberian Jewish Literature: Between al-Andalus and Christian Europe (Bloomington, Ind., 2007), esp. 99–124. 3. See Raphael Loewe, Meshal ha-kadmoni: Fables from the Distant Past (Oxford, 2004), xviii, xxiii–xxiv; Arthur Green, ‘‘Rabbi Isaac ibn Sahola’s Commentary on the Song of Songs,’’ (Hebrew), Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 6.3–4 (1987): 393–94. One important exception is S. M. Stern, ‘‘Rationalists and Kabbalists in Medieval Allegory,’’ Journal of Jewish Studies 6.2 (1956): 73–86, who argued that the Meshal ha-kadmoni is of great value for understanding ‘‘the social tendencies that prevailed in the circle of the author of the Zohar’’ (ibid., 86). Stern bases his argument on passages that reflect the author’s opposition to the Jewish aristoc- The Jewish Quarterly Review (Winter 2010) Copyright ᭧ 2010 Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies. All rights reserved. 112 JQR 100.1 (2010) ibn Sahula completed a kabbalistic commentary on the Song of Songs just two years later in 1283,4 in which he attests that he studied Kabbalah with Moses of Burgos,5 an important Castilian Kabbalist. He also claims in that text that his learning in esoteric matters of a kabbalistic bent began in his youth,6 thus precluding the possibility that he acquired all of his knowledge of Kabbalah after he completed the Meshal ha-kadmoni.We know that ibn Sahula was a fellow townsman and likely associate of Moses de Leon, and possibly even a member of the group of Kabbalists believed to be responsible for the composition of the Zohar.7 Most sig- nificantly, the Meshal ha-kadmoni is the first text to cite the Midrash ha- ne‘elam, the earliest stratum of the Zohar.8 Below I will argue that though there is no explicit reference to the doctrine of the ten sefirot in the Meshal ha-kadmoni, a number of important passages indicate that ibn Sahula sought to promote a conception of Ju- daism in which an esoteric tradition, inaccessible to rational speculation and in keeping with Kabbalah, represents the ideal form of piety and wisdom. Knowledge concerning divine providence, mysteries of the human soul, and the attainment of ‘‘spiritual health’’ and prophetic or mystical enlightenment are all addressed in the work on the basis of a secret tradition. While some of the more complex and radical symbolism of medieval Kabbalah is not treated explicitly, the evidence suggests that racy and science of astrology, as well as his penchant for ascetic practice. Yitzhak Bear also notes that the Meshal ha-kadmoni reflects the tensions between the com- munity and the courtier class, A History of the Jewish in Christian Spain trans. L. Schoffman (Philadelphia, 1992), 92–93. See also Bernard Septimus, ‘‘Piety and Power in Thirteenth-Century Catalonia,’’ in Studies in Medieval Jewish History and Literature, ed. I. Twersky (Cambridge, 1979), 197–230. 4. This text is preserved in only one manuscript and has been transcribed and annotated by Arthur Green, ‘‘Rabbi Isaac ibn Sahola’s Commentary on the Song of Songs,’’ 393–491. Gershom Scholem speculated that, in light of the discovery of ibn Sahula’s kabbalistic commentary on the Song of Songs, it is possible that ‘‘behind the author of Meshal ha-kadmoni’s battle with foreign poetry, Kabbalah could be revealed as a motivating force’’ in Perakim le-toldot sifrut ha-kabalah (Je- rusalem, 1931), 59. 5. Green, ‘‘Rabbi Isaac ibn Sahola’s Commentary on the Song of Songs,’’ 404. On the works of Moses of Burgos, see Gershom Scholem, Le-heker kabalat R. Yitsh. ak ben Ya?akov ha-Kohen (Jerusalem, 1934), 123–45. 6. Green, ‘‘Rabbi Isaac ibn Sahola’s Commentary on the Song of Songs,’’ 407–8. 7. See Yehuda Liebes, ‘‘How the Zohar Was Written’’ (Hebrew), Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 8 (1989): 12–15. 8. See Gershom Scholem, ‘‘Ha-Tsitut ha-Rishon min ha-Midrash ha- Ne‘elam,’’ Tarbiz 3 (1931/32): 181–83; Yitzhak Baer, Toldot ha-yehudim be-sefarad ha-notsrit (Tel Aviv, 1959), 508–9. SPREADING SECRETS—LACHTER 113 ibn Sahula sought to promote a kabbalistic approach to Judaism in this work, and as such we can regard this text as an early attempt to popular- ize a kabbalistic worldview.9 A careful examination of the Meshal ha-kad- moni can thus yield valuable information concerning the intellectual environment that gave rise to many important kabbalistic texts in the late thirteenth century.10 THE POWER OF THE SECRET As a number of scholars have noted, one of ibn Sahula’s stated motiva- tions for composing the Meshal ha-kadmoni was to demonstrate the superi- ority and beauty of Hebrew poetry.11 However, a careful examination of ibn Sahula’s articulation of his purpose in composing the Meshal ha- kadmoni indicates that he was interested in more than the promotion of Hebrew aesthetics. Ibn Sahula describes his project as one in which he hopes to reinfuse meaning into Jewish texts and rituals by imparting to his readers, through allusion and parable, something of the esoteric core of Judaism. As Elliot Wolfson has argued, ‘‘Nothing is more important for understanding the mentality of the kabbalist than the emphasis on esotericism,’’12 and it is precisely this mentality that we find at work in the Meshal ha-kadmoni. In his introduction to the book, ibn Sahula laments: 9. Harvey Hames has argued persuasively that Kabbalah in the thirteenth century ‘‘was not just an esoteric doctrine restricted to an elite, but a religious system that sought to engage with the wider community providing Jewish teach- ings with new content,’’ The Art of Conversion: Christianity and Kabbalah in the Thir- teenth Century (Leiden, 2000), 31. See also idem, ‘‘Exotericism and Esotericism in Thirteenth Century Kabbalah,’’ Esoterica 6 (2004): 102–12. 10. On the use of medieval Jewish fabular literature as a source for Jewish cultural and intellectual history, especially through the appropriation of ‘‘non- Jewish’’ forms and motifs for distinctly Jewish and polemical purposes, see Marc M. Epstein, Dreams of Subversion in Medieval Jewish Art and Literature (University Park, Pa., 1997); idem, ‘‘The Ways of Truth Are Curtailed and Hidden: A Medie- val Hebrew Fable as a Vehicle for Covert Polemic,’’ Prooftexts 14 (1994): 205–31. 11. See David A. Wacks, ‘‘Don Yllan and the Egyptian Sorcerer: Vernacular Commonality and Literary Diversity in Medieval Castile,’’ Sefarad 65 (2005): 423–25; Jefim Schirman, The History of Hebrew Poetry in Christian Spain and South- ern France, ed. E. Fleischer (Hebrew; Jerusalem, 1997), 347–49; Loewe, Meshal ha-kadmoni, xxi–xxii. 12. Elliot Wolfson, ‘‘Beyond the Spoken Word: Oral Tradition and Written Transmission in Medieval Jewish Mysticism,’’ in Transmitting Jewish Traditions: Orality, Textuality and Cultural Diffusion, ed. Y. Elman and I. Gershoni (New Haven, Conn., 2000), 170. On the paradox within Kabbalah of revealing the secret in a concealed way, see idem, ‘‘Occultation of the Feminine and the Body of Secrecy in Medieval Kabbalah,’’ in his Luminal Darkness (Oxford, 2007), 258–94; idem, Abulafia—Kabbalist and Prophet: Hermeneutics, Theosophy, Theurgy 114 JQR 100.1 (2010) Because I have observed many of the common people, from whom the gold luster of [Hebrew] poetic expression is dulled13 through their occupation with the books of heretics and the sciences of Greeks and proverbs of Arabic peoples . I responded to them with a shocked and bitter heart, saying; ‘‘I declare, you are divine beings,14 you are hewn from the holy quarry, and you are hammered out from a mine of light.15 Why have you rebelled? You have destroyed the treasure of my congregation . You have cast behind you Torah and commandment, all of the noble [Hebrew] rhetoric and rabbinic analogies (gezerah shavah) . .’’ They responded to me and said with a bitter spirit and lacking knowledge, ‘‘The Torah is a sealed message,16 and it is sufficient for us to recite the shema‘ with humility, and utter the prayers as has been decreed, for the historical conditions (ha-mikrim) are pressing upon us, the constraining circumstances (ha-metzarim) deal harshly with us and oppress us.17 There are comforts for afflicted hearts in the histories and books of the foes.
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