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A Whiteheadian Interpretation of the Zoharic Creation Story A WHITEHEADIAN INTERPRETATION OF THE ZOHARIC CREATION STORY by Michael Gold A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of The Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Florida Atlantic University Boca Raton, Florida May 2016 Copyright 2016 by Michael Gold ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The author wishes to express sincere gratitude to his committee members, Professors Marina Banchetti, Frederick E. Greenspahn, Kristen Lindbeck, and Eitan Fishbane for their encouragement and support throughout this project. iv ABSTRACT Author: Michael Gold Title: A Whiteheadian Interpretation of the Zoharic Creation Story Institution: Florida Atlantic University Dissertation Advisor: Dr. Marina P. Banchetti Degree: Doctor of Philosophy Year: 2016 This dissertation presents a Whiteheadian interpretation of the notions of mind, immanence and process as they are addressed in the Zohar. According to many scholars, this kabbalistic creation story as portrayed in the Zohar is a reaction to the earlier rabbinic concept of God qua creator, which emphasized divine transcendence over divine immanence. The medieval Jewish philosophers, particularly Maimonides influenced by Aristotle, placed particular emphasis on divine transcendence, seeing a radical separation between Creator and creation. With this in mind, these scholars claim that one of the goals of the Zohar’s creation story was to emphasize God’s immanence within creation. Similar to the Zohar, the process metaphysics of Alfred North Whitehead and his followers was reacting to the substance metaphysics that had dominated Western philosophy as far back as ancient Greek thought. Whitehead adopts a very similar narrative to that of the Zohar. First there is mind containing all the eternal objects which serve as potential for the creation (God’s primordial nature). Mind becomes immanent in v all actual occasions through prehension (God’s consequent nature). Finally God becomes “the lure” (to use Whitehead’s phrase) in the ongoing process of nature (God as superject). In this narrative, God is not the static being, the unmoved mover as discussed by Aristotle, but rather, is portrayed as a dynamic becoming, a God of process. Due to these significant similarities between Whitehead’s process philosophy and the Zohar with regard to the immanence of God and the process of creation, it is worthwhile to attempt a process interpretation of the kabbalistic creation story. The first part of this dissertation is entitled Philosophical Foundations, focusing on the intellectual framework of this study of the Zohar. The second part is entitled Creating a Narrative, looking at the text of the Zohar through the lens of Whitehead’s metaphysics. Finally, the conclusion looks at the narrative and discusses whether the goals of the dissertation have been achieved. vi DEDICATION In appreciation to my wife Evelyn for all of her love and support. WHITEHEADIAN INTERPRETATION OF THE ZOHARIC CREATION STORY List of Figures ......................................................................................................................x Introduction ..........................................................................................................................1 Part 1: Philosophical Foundations .......................................................................................9 Chapter 1: The Process of Jewish Hermeneutics ..............................................................10 Schleiermacher, Gadamer, Ricoeur .......................................................................... 14 Barthes and Derrida .................................................................................................. 19 Where is God? ........................................................................................................... 27 Jewish Hermeneutics ................................................................................................ 32 Chapter 2: Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism—Two World Views ................................40 From Aristotle to Maimonides, and Beyond ............................................................. 43 From Plotinus to the Zohar, and Beyond .................................................................. 47 After Maimonides and the Zohar .............................................................................. 68 Chapter 3: Whitehead’s Philosophy of Organism ............................................................70 Three Cornered Contest ............................................................................................ 70 Actual Entities ........................................................................................................... 80 Prehension ................................................................................................................. 83 Whitehead’s Conception of God ............................................................................... 87 Part 2: Creating a Narrative ..............................................................................................95 Chapter 4: Mind, or God’s Primordial Nature ..................................................................97 Mind as Light .......................................................................................................... 100 Whitehead’s Primordial God .................................................................................. 104 Ein Sof .................................................................................................................... 106 Did God Create the Universe Ex Nihilo? ................................................................ 110 Emanation ............................................................................................................... 116 Ḥokhmah and Binah ................................................................................................ 124 A Radical Statement ............................................................................................... 128 Chapter 5: Immanence, or God’s Consequent Nature ...................................................135 The Next Six Sefirot ................................................................................................ 139 From Mind to Matter .............................................................................................. 150 Separation and Conflict ........................................................................................... 157 Shrinking the Moon ................................................................................................ 172 Chapter 6: Process, or God’s Superject Nature .............................................................178 viii God as Superject ..................................................................................................... 178 Masculine and Feminine ......................................................................................... 182 The Shekhinah ........................................................................................................ 189 No Light of Its Own ................................................................................................ 199 What Does It Mean? ............................................................................................... 206 Chapter 7: Conclusion......................................................................................................220 Three Fundamental Ideas in this Story ................................................................... 222 A New Interpretation .............................................................................................. 223 Works Cited .....................................................................................................................232 ix LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. The Sefirot ..........................................................................................................96 x INTRODUCTION In this dissertation, I am arguing for a Whiteheadian interpretation of the notions of mind, immanence, and process as they are addressed in the Zohar. Sefer HaZohar (“the Book of Splendor”) is the most influential literary work in the Jewish mystical tradition known as kabbalah. It appeared in the heart of Castile, Spain around the year 1275 C.E. The work is traditionally attributed to the third-century Talmudic sage Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai, a mystic who spent many years hiding in a cave from the Romans and studying esoteric doctrines. 1 Many contemporary scholars beginning with Gershom Scholem attribute the work to Moshe de Leon (1250–1305), a Spanish rabbi and kabbalist. The question of the author of the Zohar is still being debated among scholars, but most see it coming from the school of mystics studying with de Leon. Scholem writes regarding the Zohar: In the years immediately following 1275 … a book was written somewhere in the heart of Castile which was destined to overshadow all other documents of Kabbalist literature by the success and the fame it achieved and the influence it gradually exerted. … It place in the history of Kabbalism can be gauged from the fact that alone among the whole of post- 1 Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 33b. 1 Talmudic rabbinical literature it became a canonical text, which for a period of several centuries actually ranked with the Bible and the Talmud. (Trends 158) This dissertation will focus on one small part of the vast corpus of material in the Zohar—the creation story
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