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V Abulafia's Kabbalah Versus Other Kabbalists VAbulafia’sKabbalahversus other Kabbalists 24 Prophecy and Individuality The emphasis on the readingofthe parable thatviews it as dealingwith Abulafia’s own role as the son of God and the possessor of the pearl is part of the more indi- vidualistic propensity of his general approach. Under the pressureofthe noetic vi- sions he adopted from the Greek sources as mediated by Muslim and Jewish texts, Abulafia regards the paramount processes as amatter of an individual’smind and as reversible events that an aspirant mayre-experience if he so chooses. He also al- legorised collective events such as the Exodus from Egypt and the Sinaitic revelation. As Abulafia explicitlystates:Sinai, Paradise, and the Land of Israel are analogous to alower entity,just as the Seat of Glory,Jerusalem, and the supernal academyall rep- resent the same entity on high, although they are reinterpreted as being related to the experience of aliving person.¹ Ipropose to designatethis type of allegory as spiritu- alistic exegesis,² which also reverberatesinhis followers’ writings.³ AccordingtoAbulafia’sunderstanding,his Kabbalah had two mains goals: one is union with God and the other is the attainment of prophecy.The formerisunder- stood as the goal of the Torah,⁴ and the various expressions of Abulafia’sunitive vi- sion have been analysed in detail elsewhere.⁵ The second one, which Ihaveanalysed in aseparate study,isdiscussed in numerous instances in Abulafia’stexts.⁶ However, Iwould like to adduce one more expression of the centrality of this ideal. In the in- troduction to his Mafteaḥ ha-Ḥokhmot,Abulafia writes: From the entireTorah, the prophet will indeed onlypursue that which is sufficient to bring him to prophecy.Sincewhat does it matter whether the world is eternal or created?This will not add anydegree to him or diminish his degree because of this; it will not add to his rank and will not diminish his rank.⁷ This seems to me to be afundamental statement on Abulafia’sattitude towards the special nature of the topics thatare found in the Bible: neither the theological nor the cosmologicalones are conceivedasimportant,but onlyahuman’spsychological See SitreiTorah,90. See Idel, Language,Torah, and Hermeneutics,xvi–xvii. This has to do with astrongindividualist tendency in Maimonides’s Guide. See also Ralph Lerner, “Maimonides’ Governanceofthe Solitary,” in Perspectives on Maimonides,33–46. יה נכ חס לי ןג דע ן : Forexample,see the anonymous treatise from his school, Sefer ha-Ṣeruf,1 Introduction to his Mafteaḥ ha-Ḥokhmot,32. Idel, Studies in Ecstatic Kabbalah,1–31. Idel, “Definitions of Prophecy: Maimonidesand Abulafia.” See also Mafteaḥ ha-Šemot,163. Mafteaḥ ha-Ḥokhmot,38: או נמ הם בנ אי אל בי שק כמ הל ות הר וכ הל לא מא שה סמ יפ לק לו בה אי לו די הי בנ האו . יכ המ ול םא עה לו קם מד ןו וא שדח קו מד תו לו תא סו ףי ול עמ הל לו תא רג מע לע ות צמ הד חו די שו גו כם לן יא סו מולףי לע וה אל פי יח מת רד ותג . OpenAccess. ©2020, Moshe Idel, published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110641585-005 258 VAbulafia’sKabbalah versus other Kabbalists transformation into aprophet.Inthis context,weshould takeinto consideration a statement from the same book—which will be quoted in Appendix B—to the effect that he wrotehis commentary on the Pentateuch onlyfor those who prophesy. As seen above, the true operation is the inner change. To be sure: aserious schol- ar does not have to accept the self-presentation of the author that he is studying,but in Abulafia’scase, the content of his writingsabundantlysustains thosestatements as to what is or is not central for him. In anycase, Abulafia envisions the purpose of the Torahinamannerthatexplicitlycontradictsthe Rabbinic statement thatprophe- cy had alreadyceased,⁸ aview adopted by manythinkers,though not all Jewish ones, in the Middle Ages.⁹ Unlike for the Rabbinic authorities, for Abulafia,the ulti- mate aim of the Torahistobring people to prophecy. Let me provide one more example of his allegorical understanding of avital topic in biblical and Rabbinic Judaism: the ancient Temple ritual. In one of his epis- tles, Abulafia writes: Whoever wants to come into the Temple and to enterits inmost part should sanctify himself by the sanctity of the highpriest,and should studyand teach and keep and do¹⁰ until he becomes perfect in his ethical and intellectual attributes, and then he should seclude himself ¹¹ in order to receive the prophetic influx from the mouth of the Dynamis.¹² Ephraim E. Urbach, “When Did ProphecyCease?” in Me-ʿOlamam Šel Ḥakhamim,ed. Ephraim E. Urbach (Jerusalem: Magnes Press,1988): 9–20;Ephraim E. Urbach, “Prophet and Sageinthe Jewish Heritage,” in Collected Writings in JewishStudies,eds.Robert Brodyand Moshe D. Herr (Jerusalem: Hebrew University Magnes Press,1999): 393–403;Philip S. Alexander, “ASixtieth Part of Prophecy: The Problem of ContinuingRevelation in Judaism,” in WordsRemembered, Texts Renewed:Essaysin Honour of John F. A. Sawyer,eds.Jon Davies,Graham Harvey,and WilfredG.E.Watson (Sheffield: Shef- field Academic Press, 1995): 414–33;Alon Goshen-Gottstein, “‘The SageisSuperior to the Prophet’: The Conception of Torahthrough the Prism of the History of Jewish Exegesis” [Hebrew],inStudy and Knowledge in JewishThought,2:37–77;Joseph Dan, “The End of Prophecyand ItsSignificance to Jewish Thought” [Hebrew], Alppayyim 30 (2007): 257–88;Stephen L. Cook, On the Question of the “Cessation of Prophecy” in Ancient Judaism (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011); and especiallyBen- jamin D. Sommer, “Did ProphecyCease? EvaluatingaReevaluation,” Journal of Biblical Literature 115 (1996): 31–47. As to the medieval material, see the rich material collectedand analysedinAmos Goldreich, Au- tomatic WritinginZoharic Literatureand Modernism [Hebrew] (Los Angeles:Cherub Press,2010), 9– 12; Huss, “ASageIsPreferable Than aProphet,” 103–39;Wolfson, “SageIsPreferable to Prophet.” Cf. Avot 4:5. Yitboded. This term can also be translated here as “concentrate.” See Idel, Studies in Ecstatic Kabbalah,103–69. Maṣrefla-Kesef,Ms. Sassoon 56,fols. 33b–34a, ed. Gross (Jerusalem: 2001), 23: רצ ךי רה צו לה וב אא בל תי מה דק וש הל כי סנ פל ינ פל ינ ם , הל קת שד קב וד תש הכ גן וד ול לל ומ וד לל דמ של ומ ור על וש עת ד יש לש בם דמ תו וי בו בד יר תו וי , או יז בת דו כד יד קל לב שה עפ נה וב יא פמ הי בג רו ה . Letmepoint out that Iproposed to distinguish between ecstatic Kabbalah, which is less interested in placebut rather seeks to emphasise the importance of the human being’sperfection, versus theo- sophical-theurgical Kabbalah, which is much moreconcerned with placeand with the emendation of the divine sphere. See my “The Land of Israel in Jewish Mystical Thought” [Hebrew], in The Land of Israel in Medieval JewishThought,207–8, 211. In my opinion, this claim is true both emicly 24 Prophecy and Individuality 259 Abulafia himself was not of priestly extraction, nor was he especiallyinterested in rebuildingamaterial Temple¹³ or even in the Jews’ return to the Land of Israel, de- spite his belief that he wasthe Messiah. We know for sure that he was an Israelite,¹⁴ and as such, he could not,Halakhicallyspeaking,serveasapriest—Kohen—still less ahighpriest.Thus, accordingtohis own criterion, if we takehis words on the level of their plain sense, he could not become aprophet. Interestingly enough, he claims thathereceivedatradition thatthe Messiah would build the supernal Jerusalem by means of the divine name before the terres- trial Temple would be built,apassagethat Iunderstand to be dealing with the human intellect.¹⁵ Though emiclyspeaking, Abulafia believes he is dealingwith the real temple and does not actually subvert what he sawasthe authentic under- standing of this concept,from aRabbinic or etic point of view,hesubverts the tradi- tional understanding of the Temple as such, as well as the importance of the special space in general. In two discussions, one in the context of the parable of the pearl and again in a parallel to this context,Abulafia claims that the best of the Israelites are the Levites, that the best of the Levites are the priests, and thatthe priestsare considered to be prophets.¹⁶ The ecstatic Kabbalist’sassumption that the highpriest’sexperience in (in whatthe Kabbalists themselvesclaim) and eticly(what can be observed by an outsider). However, Haviva Pedaya, in “The Divinity as Place and Timeand the HolyPlace in Jewish Mysticism,” in Sacred Space: Shrine, City,Land,eds.Benjamin Z. Kedar and Raphael J. Zwi Werblowsky (London: Palgrave Macmillan,1998): 95,claims that theosophicalKabbalah is also concerned with the form of man and his activity and thus in this wayissimilar to ecstatic Kabbalah. In this case, it contradicts the emic, theomorphic, and theocentric approaches of the theosophical Kabbalists,which Iconsider to be cor- rect, although it is true that it empowers the human being. Pedaya simplyconfuses the emic and the etic categories. See also below chapter 25 note 84.Given Abulafia’sreduction of the ideal humanityto the intellect and the divine to asublime, separate intellect,the idea of theomorphism as merely deal- ing with both the human and the divine limbs is agross religious misunderstanding. The onlypossible exception is abrief reference to the buildingofthe temple in Sefer ha-Ot,69, though immediatelyafterwards, he mentionsthe lettersofthe names of 72 and 42 letters that were revealed to him as somethingtobeperformed now;another exception maybehis Oṣar ʿEden Ganuz,2:8,272.Iassume that the passageabout the Temple is part of the national/historical narra- tive. See Mafteaḥ ha-Šemot,148. Mafteaḥ ha-Šemot,100–101: קו לב ונ לע מה יש שח וה בא נו יה ור לש שם מל לע בה םש יי ' לכ מו מר יכ מן וק הם קמ שד הל כש ןי כש ני בה ו , או רח ןכ דנ יח שי אר יל נכ ס .
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