THE BIBLE in the JEWISH MYSTICAL TRADITION Michael

THE BIBLE IN THE JEWISH MYSTICAL TRADITION Michael Fishbane The Hebrew Bible, Sacred Scripture, is the core text of Jewish religious cul ture, the foundational document of its creative life in every respect. All of its contents—from the opening account of the creation to concluding tra ditions about national exile and return, with emphasis on the lives of its religious leaders and the legal traditions recorded in the Torah, plus its col lections of prayer and wisdom teachings—all these comprise the authorita tive canon of Judaism. This written record was complemented from biblical antiquity to the present day by an oral tradition, for its understanding and interpretation in a wide variety of ways and contexts. Commentary is thus a core practice of Jewish religious culture; and the Hebrew Bible is its prin cipal subject and prooftext. Much of this commentary, beginning with legal and theological midrash in rabbinic antiquity, was grounded in the ongoing study and preaching of Scripture. Originally oral in both form and function, it was eventually written down, and supplemented by further study and other written traditions—for the past two thousand years. The Jewish mystical tradition is also founded upon Scripture. This is its primary subject and prooftext. The many rabbinic comments on Scripture are also woven into the mystical imagination, for Scripture was always read in Judaism through rabbinic lenses. Built upon these foundations, the Jewish mystical tradition is thus fundamentally a tradition of commentary. This anchors the mystical spirit and imagination in the sources of revela tion and tradition. It keeps its soaring spirit and imagination normative. Sacred Scripture Mystical experiences and reports of these experiences occur in the Hebrew Bible, and two of them became foundational texts for study and mystical visions. The most impor tant is Ezekiel’s vision of God upon a cosmic throne (Ezek. ch 1; mid6th c. BCE). Set upon a heavenly firmament, beneath which were four fiery figures at the four corners (each one with wings and a differ ent visage), the Divine Figure enthroned above had the “appear ance of the likeness of a man” (v. 26). It too had a fiery appearance—appearing “like a Extract by Michael Fishbane from pp. 1943–1963 “The Bible in the Jewish Mystical Tradition” from Jewish Study Bible, 2nd ed., edited by Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler (2004). By permission of Oxford University Press, USA. 116 The Bible in the Jewish Mystical Tradition rainbow,” with a luminous aura roundabout. Since the four divine creatures moved upon “wheels,” the entire complex resembled a chariot; and so the entire vision (in Ezek. ch 1) came to be called in rabbinic litera ture “The Account of the Chariot” (Maʾaseh Merkavah)—and all its textual details were scrutinized and meditated upon for millennia. This process of contem plation and in terpretation may have begun by the prophet or his disciples, as the fiery figures (called ḥayyot) seen in the first experience are identi fied with the “cherubs” envisioned in a later one (Ezek. 10.20). In a much less detailed heavenly vision, a century earlier, the prophet Isaiah called these creatures “seraphs”—a term that personified the “searing flames” of their appearance (Isa. 6.2). (The Hebrew root srf means “to burn.”) This des ignation also became one of the core “scriptural” terms studied and envi sioned over the ages, as did the angels’ threefold chant of Divine praise: “Holy, Holy, Holy! The Lord of Hosts! The entire earth is filled with His Glory [kavod]” (Isa. 6.3). Like Isaiah, Ezekiel also envisioned what seemed to him as the “likeness of the Glory [kavod] of the Lord” (Ezek. 1.28). Kavod, this epithet for the Divine Glory, became a standard trope for the Throne Figure as an embodied presence. Ezekiel’s commentary on his own experience was a prelude of things to come, as the Torah (and Scripture as a whole) came to be regarded as an inscription of special import. “Open my eyes” O Lord, said a later psalm istsage, “that I may perceive wonders through [or from] Your Torah [or Teachings]” (Ps. 119.18). And so when Daniel once studied the old prophetic “books,” in an attempt to figure out the chronology of Jeremiah’s oracle of a seventyyear time of destruction (Jer. 25.11–12) his prayer for Divine deliver ance was answered by a mystical vision in which the angel Gabriel instructed him in the mean ing of that prophecy (Dan. ch 9). We thus find, by the close of the biblical period (2nd c. BCE), an explicit expression of what would later become a major component of Jewish mysticism: the experience of visions (or inner illuminations) through the study of authorita tive sources. It is therefore not surprising that Daniel’s account alludes to Isa. 6.6–7 when it wants to indicate the way this angel ap proached and came into direct contact with the human visionary (Dan. 9.21). Already in Scripture there is both mystical experience and mystical commentary. Ancient Rabbinic Traditions The earliest stratum of rabbinic sources contains a ruling designed to restrict the public exposition of certain texts. Two of these were works .

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