DOCSLIB.ORG

Ellen Haskell for Indiana University Borns Jewish Studies Program Faculty-Graduate Student Workshop Fall 2017

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Ellen Haskell for Indiana University Borns Jewish Studies Program Faculty-Graduate Student Workshop Fall 2017 Ellen Haskell For Indiana University Borns Jewish Studies Program Faculty-Graduate Student Workshop Fall 2017 Countenancing God: Facial Revelation and Ritual in Sefer ha-Zohar Physiognomists were clearly wrong when they claimed that they could judge people based on the appearance of their faces. …However, the fact that physiognomists were wrong about many things does not automatically invalidate all of their claims. The same studies that prove that people cannot accurately do what physiognomists claimed was possible consistently show that they were, nevertheless, better than chance. Thus, physiognomists’ main claim—that the character is to some extent displayed on one’s face—seems to be correct (while being rather upsetting). –Michael Kosinski and Yilun Wang1 This image of a human includes all images, and all are included within it… This one, when they look at his outer face –a face that stands before eyes of the heart– they love it. –Sefer ha-Zohar 2:74a2 Introduction One of the many things that makes Sefer ha-Zohar, the multi-authored thirteenth- century Castilian work that became the canonical text of Kabbalah, so compelling is its ability to say and to not say at once.3 Long studied for its influential theology, in recent years the Zohar has begun to yield a wealth of knowledge about topics once thought largely absent from in its pages. Melila Hellner-Eshed’s A River Flows from Eden 1 Michael Kosinski and Yilun Wang, “Authors’ Note” accompanying the article “Deep Neural Networks are More Accurate than Humans at Detecting Sexual Orientation from Facial Images,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (forthcoming). The authors’ notes can be found at the following web address: docs.google.com/document/d/11oGZ1Ke3wK9E3BtOFfGfUQuuaSMR8AO2WfWH3aV ke6U/edit 2 The edition of Sefer ha-Zohar used in this study is Reuven Moshe Margaliot, ed., Sefer ha-Zohar al Hamishah Humshei Torah, 3 vols. (Jerusalem: Mosad ha-Rav Kook, 1999). Translations of biblical and Zoharic texts are my own, unless otherwise indicated. 3 For a list of sources regarding the Zohar’s composition, see note 55 below. Haskell Working Paper revealed the Zohar’s accounts of mystical experience. Hartley Lachter’s Kabbalistic Revolution explained Zoharic theology as empowering political discourse, while my own work Mystical Resistance uncovered the Zohar’s role in resistance to Christian domination. None of these topics is addressed plainly in the Zohar’s pages, yet each is an important aspect of the work as a whole. In this project, I turn to another under-exposed Zoharic topic: the Zohar’s teachings on the human face and face to face encounter. These teachings reveal how the kabbalists enlist their own bodies in the production of themselves as mystics– a process inextricably tied to their participation in ethical engagement. The Zohar’s teachings on the human face bring together two seemingly incompatible aspects of medieval Jewish thought. On the one hand, these teachings engage the most transcendent aspects of esoteric revelation, since the face is never simply a face but is always already a window on the divine in whose image the human is formed.4 In this sense, the kabbalists understand the face as a potential site of revelation– a revelation fully realized when the Zoharic companions encounter Shekhinah (the Divine Presence) in each other’s faces. On the other hand, the Zohar’s teachings on the face are tied inextricably to medieval physiognomy and its claim that faces and their features reveal individual character to those with the knowledge to interpret such signs. Physiognomy’s historical role in human subjugation justifiably categorizes it for contemporary readers as a dangerous pseudo-science that inspires unethical conduct. Indeed, the intent of the Kosinski and Wang study quoted above is to deter discrimination rooted in computerized physiognomic diagnoses of sexual orientation. Yet physiognomic interpretation, ritualized through religious practice, was also a critically important method for identifying and training kabbalistic practitioners. Tempting though it might be to separate facial revelation from physiognomic ritual, the Zohar clearly renders them inseparable. This interdependence is most clear in Zoharic narratives about the kabbalistic companions. Rabbi Abba, a sage whose face reveals Shekhinah and shines 4 See Yehuda Liebes, “Physiognomy in Kabbalah,” Pe’amim 104 (2005): 27; Moshe Idel, “Panim– On Facial Re-Presentations in Jewish Thought: Some Correlational Instances,” in On Interpretation in the Arts: Interdisciplinary Studies in Honor of Moshe Lazar, ed. Nurit Yaari , Assaph Book Series, ed. Eli Rozik (Yolanda and David Katz Faculty of the Arts, Tel Aviv University, Israel: 2000), 22-23. Idel reflects on the face as revealing a “correlational theology” that associates the human with the divine. 2 Haskell Working Paper with esoteric knowledge, is also a physiognomist who performs miraculous facial healing.5 Rabbi Hiyya reveals Shekhinah’s face, interprets the faces of students and strangers, and conducts spiritual therapy through face to face encounter.6 In what follows, I argue that for the Zoharic kabbalists physiognomic discourse is ethical discourse. Divine revelation emerges from relations among individuals where ethical interaction is foregrounded, and the premier form of relation is the face to face encounter. Facial revelation cannot be detached from physiognomic ritual, because revelatory capability is dependent upon an individual’s moral character, and this worthiness –as well as the training that cultivates it– is for the kabbalists to a great extent physiognomically determined. Yet Zoharic physiognomy, as I will show, is not the same as other methods of physiognomy common to the medieval cultural environment. Instead, the Zohar draws on prior Jewish esoteric tradition and its own unique theology of cosmic dynamism to craft a physiognomy that calls for ethical action even as it recognizes the potential for moral subversion inherent in reading character from physical appearance. Facial gazing, face to face encounters, and the knowledge that emerges from them become premier Zoharic methods for ascribing sanctity and revelatory potential to daily life, cultivating a sense of the transcendent inherent in the familiar that is especially powerful because it is known and practiced through the kabbalists’ own bodies. Dynamic Face, Dynamic Cosmos In the Zohar, the human face is a powerful model for thinking about the self, the cosmos, and the self and cosmos in relation to each other. Social historians, anthropologists, and linguists long have observed that the human body is a complex structure well suited to modeling experiential ways of thinking about other complex structures such as ritual, social, technological, intellectual, and political fields of 5 Rabbi Abba additionally offers many teachings on divine and human faces throughout the Zohar. For examples, see Zohar 1:36b, 1:94a-b, 2:64b; 2:83a; 2:88a; 3:78a, 3:84a; 3:89b; 3:147a. For thoughts on Rabbi Abba’s shining face and facial radiance’s connection to Zoharic mystical experience, see Hellner-Eshed, 306-307. Facial illumination is beyond the scope of the current essay. 6 See Zohar 1:190a, 2:94b, 2:163b, and 3:45bff. In this paper I use “h” for the Hebrew letter het. 3 Haskell Working Paper knowledge and meaning.7 Scholars of medieval Judaism point to the body as a primary model for developing religious and political thought.8 Kabbalistic theology itself relies on the doctrine of imitatio dei, teaching that the human being as microcosm reflects the divine being as macrocosm, and that macrocosm and microcosm are dynamic and responsive to each other. The kabbalists inhabit a conceptual universe in which all that exists stands in relation. The human face is an ideal model for thinking about this dynamic, relational cosmology and its ethical implications, because the face itself is always already dynamic and relational. It is a familiarity that continually de-familirizes and re-familiarizes itself. Patrizia Magli has called the face a “perpetuum mobile” in which “the roles of its individual actors, such as the nose, eyes, eyebrows, mouth, all belong to the indefinite time of their action, to a fluctuating and unstructured logic, one based on the genesis and relationships between movement, stasis and variations in speed.”9 This inherent dynamism is amplified when one face encounters another, entering into a face to face relationship. For the kabbalists, God also is revealed in dynamic relations among sefirot that form part of a greater whole within the infinity of Ein Sof (Endless God), much as the face is composed of dynamic features.10 The face to face encounter, by evoking 7 For examples, see Victor Turner, 96, 142, 150; Michael Jackson 132-133; Lakoff and Johnson, 40; Paul Friedrich, 36. 8 According to Elliot Wolfson, despite medieval calls to escape the demands of the body, “the flesh continued to serve as the prima materia out of which ritual gestures, devotional symbols, and theological doctrines were fashioned.” Elliot Wolfson, “The Body in the Text: A Kabbalistic Theory of Embodiment,” The Jewish Quarterly Review 95:3 (2005): 480. David Shyovitz notes that for medievals, “‘the body’ functioned simultaneously, and not always, consistently, in overlapping physical, political, and theological registers.” David. I. Shyovitz, A Remembrance of His Wonders: Nature and the Supernatural in Medieval Ashkenaz (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017), 74.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Paper 2 Judaism Beliefs Revision Notes
    The Nature of God: The Almighty God is One God is a single, whole being that Judaism is a monotheistic religion. This means the belief in one God. cannot be divided. God as One is best expressed in the first two verses of the Shema, an important Therefore, God is everlasting Jewish prayer. and beyond something that humans can understand because of how great God is. This means He is the only thing that should be praised as He alone has the power over all things. He is almighty. The Shema Deuteronomy 6: 4-5 The prayer which expresses the oneness of God. It is said in the morning and at night. God created the universe out of nothing, exactly how He wanted it to be. God as Creator Genesis tells Jews that God is Therefore, God has a major effect the One creator of the whole and influence on the world and world. people’s place within it. God expects loyalty from his He has almighty power over the world as He people for giving them the gift was the one to create it. that is earth and because he sustains the world in which they live. God as Law-giver and Judge God gave laws to help people exercise their The basis of the Jewish law is the 10 free will in the correct Commandments. way. God judges people The Torah contains 613 laws. especially at Rosh These are called the mitzvot. They Hashanah (the form the basis of the Halakhah Jewish new year) which is the code of conduct for and after death.
    [Show full text]
  • The Concept of Infinity (Eyn-Sof ) and the Rise of Theosophical Kabbalah
    T HE J EWISH Q UARTERLY R EVIEW, Vol. 102, No. 3 (Summer 2012) 405–430 The Concept of Infinity (Eyn-sof )andthe Rise of Theosophical Kabbalah SANDRA VALABREGUE-PERRY THIS ESSAY DISCUSSES the rise of theosophical Kabbalah in light of the development of the notion of infinity. Arguing that the origin of the theosophic notion of infinity goes back to Sefer yetsirah, I will analyze its applications in early sources and in Sefer yetsirah’s medieval philosophical commentaries up to its theosophical commentaries in Kabbalah. In these theosophical texts we encounter a concept of God as infinite dimension, where emanation is primarily understood as an infinite essence in expan- sion. This essay sets out to demonstrate how this theosophical infinite God has emerged from the multidirectional expansion of the sefirot in Sefer yetsirah. The very movement from the sefirot to God himself and from the cosmological to the theosophical was made possible by two major shifts. The first depends on the understanding of the sefirot as divine, thus as infinite; and the second, in the shift from the multidirectional expansion to a unidirectional and vertical one. This argument leads, therefore, to a new understanding of Eyn-sof and its role in theosophic Kabbalah. It will reflect, as well, upon the relation between Kabbalah and philosophy. After some short methodological remarks, I will examine the concept of Eyn-sof in early Jewish sources and notably in Sefer yetsirah. Then, in order to understand the novelty of theosophical Kabbalah, I will analyze the philosophical interpretations of Eyn-sof in the philosophical commen- taries of Sefer yetsirah.
    [Show full text]
  • Conceptualizations of Tzimtzum in Baroque Italian Kabbalah
    Conceptualizations of Tzimtzum in Baroque Italian Kabbalah Moshe Idel Abstract The paper will survey the ways in which three Kabbalists active in Italy at the end of the 16th and early 17th centuries transformed the Lurianic concept of divine contraction: Menahem Azariah of Fano, Joseph Shlomo of Candia, and Abraham Herrera. The main point of this essay is to analyze the contribution of philosophical concepts to the inter- pretion of Luria’s mythopoeic method. Tzimtzum: A Constellation of Ideas The concept of tzimtzum, understood as divine contraction, or alternatively, as divine withdrawal when it refers to the first act of the theogonic/cosmo- gonic process, has enjoyed a distinguished career in Kabbalistic texts and their scholarship.1 Earlier scholars believed tzimtzum was an original contribution 1 See, e.g., David Neumark, Toledot ha-Filosofiah be-Yisrael, vol. 1, 1921 (New York: A.Y. Shtibl, 1971), 179–80; Gershom Scholem, Origins of the Kabbalah, trans. Allan Arkush, ed. R.Z.J. Werblowsky, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987), 449–50; idem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, (New York: Schocken Books, 1960), 260–64, especially 411 n. 51, 412 n. 77; idem, Kabbalah ( Jerusalem: Keter, 1974), 129–35; Lawrence Fine, Physician of the Soul, Healer of the Cosmos: Isaac Luria and His Kabbalistic Fellowship (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003), 128–31; Daphne Freedman, Man and the Theogony in the Lurianic Kabbalah (Pistakaway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2006), 27–42; Joseph Avivi, Kabbalah Luriana, vol. 3 ( Jerusalem: Ben Zvi Institute, 2008), 1184–88; Christoph Schulte, “Zimzum in the Works of Schelling,” Iyyun 41 (1992): 21–40; idem, “Zimzum in der Kabbala Denudata,” Morgen-Glantz 7 (1997): 127–40; idem, “Zimzum in European Philosophy, A Paradoxical Career,” in Jewish Studies in a New Europe: Proceedings of the Fifth Congress of Jewish Studies in Copenhagen 1994 under the Auspices of the European Association for Jewish Studies, ed.
    [Show full text]
  • Zohar and Iamblichus by Yehuda Liebes
    Zohar and Iamblichus By Yehuda Liebes Moshe Idel, my friend and colleague, has reshaped our understanding and image of Cabbala in many ways. One of the major themes of his research is the Hermetic and Neo-Platonic mystical-magical complex of praxis and ideas, dealing with drawing down spiritual forces from supernal entities. Idel dedicated to it much research, demonstrating the major role this theme played in Jewish mysticism and its development from Cabbala to Hasidism. 1 In the following article, dedicated to Idel and to our friendship, I'd like to make some contribution to this research, by establishing a possible literary connection between a paragraph dealing with this theme in the Zohar , the Cabbalistic 'Bible' (written in thirteenth century Spain), and a passage from Iamblichus, the Syrian philosopher of the third and fourth century of the Christian era, the foremost representative of Hermeticism and theurgy within the Neo-Platonic philosophical school. In propounding its lore about idolatry and magic, the Zohar does not pretend to be original. It refers explicitly to its sources, saying: Come and see: If a person is drawn toward the blessed Holy One – his desire pursuing Him in this world – then afterward, when he departs, he 1 Moshe Idel, Hasidism – Between Ecstasy and Magic , SUNY, Albany 1994. See also Moshe Idel, 'The Magical and Neoplatonic interpretations of the Kabbalah in the Renaissance', Jewish Thought in the sixteenth Century (ed. Bernard D. Coopermann), Harvard University Press 1983, pp. 186-242; Moshe Idel, 'Hermeticism and Judaism', Hermeticism and Renaissance (eds. Merkel & Debus), Associated University Presses, 1988, pp.
    [Show full text]
  • Aaron Zeitlin and Rebbe Nachman
    The Poetry of Faith and Doubt ELUL 2018 The Poetry of Faith and Doubt: Aaron Zeitlin and Rebbe Nachman Poetry of Faith and Doubt Aaron Zeitlin and Rebbe Nachman The Poetry of Faith and Doubt ELUL 2018 Where does faith live? If you want to find its dwelling—go to despair and ask. The path leads through his lands. Faith lives on ruins. On the bare foundation of a building, which is burned, her tears run. The tears reflect a dawn, which illuminates the firmament over her and the ruins. In her tears dawn shines while she sits and wrings her hands. And if you did not know despair— you will not find faith. Aaron Zeitlin January, 1946 Poetry of Faith and Doubt Aaron Zeitlin and Rebbe Nachman The Poetry of Faith and Doubt ELUL 2018 The Yiddish poetry of Aaron Zeitlin is very different from that of his contemporaries. His is a unique voice in the Yiddish poetry written in the wake of the Holocaust. His unusual situation as a Polish Jew who escaped the Holocaust through a quirk of fate also affected his perspective. He was not, like his fellow poets in America, someone who had left the old world voluntarily and had made his peace with the loss of that part of his life. On the other hand, he did not live through the Holocaust and did not share the experience of his nation. The result was a tremendous sense of guilt, an unusual form of survivor guilt. He asks himself why did he not share the fate of his people.
    [Show full text]
  • “Where Two Or Three . . .”: Shekhinah and Matthew 18:20
    literature. It originates from the idea of God’s dwelling in a sanctuary, especially the Jerusalem Temple, and is based on longstanding bibli- cal traditions, but the term itself is perhaps first attested in the Greek text of 2 Maccabees 14:35. God’s dwelling, however, was not imag- ined as limited to the Temple, particularly at times when there was no “Where Two or Three . .”: functioning temple. The Divine presence was attributed also to other contexts, such as a gathering of judges or of small groups of people, not Shekhinah and Matthew 18:20: necessarily in a liturgical setting. One of the best- known expressions of Foundations for Jewish- Christian Dialogue this idea is found in Mishnah tractate Avot (3:2), which reads, “But two who are sitting together and there are words of Torah [spoken] and Beyond?1 between them, the Divine Presence [Shekhinah] rests with them.” Joseph Sievers This and similar sayings find an interesting analogy in the New Tes- Pontifical Biblical Institute, Rome tament: “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Mt 18:20). Despite the differences, there seem to be profound connections between the different sayings, beyond a common basis in the Hebrew Bible. The Jewish and Christian Abstract: The term shekhinta, in Hebrew Shekhinah (“dwell- idea that God may be present among those who gather for his sake may ing,” “[Divine] presence”), is quite common in the Aramaic transla- have important implications for the renewed encounter of Jews and tions of the Hebrew Bible (Targumim) and in other parts of rabbinic Christians, and indeed for interreligious relations in general, without any attempt to downplay differences.
    [Show full text]
  • Scanning of Gershom Scholem's Milon Hazohar Card Index Yehuda Liebes the Zohar Is Among the Preeminent Spiritual Works of All Time
    1 Scanning of Gershom Scholem's Milon HaZohar Card Index Yehuda Liebes The Zohar is among the preeminent spiritual works of all time. Its history attests to its importance: within three hundred years of its creation (at the end of the 13th century) it had become the central text Kabbalistic text. The Kabbalists regarded it as an authoritative source, a model to be emulated, and an interpretive subject. One might venture to say that the most important Kabbalistic traditions, such as those of Moses ben Jacob Cordovero (the Ramak), Rabbi Isaac Luria (the Ari) and the Vilna Gaon, were nothing if not interpretations of the Zohar, from whence they derived their vitality. Gershom Scholem (1897-1982), the father of Kabbala scholarship, followed suit and made the Zohar the focus of his endeavors, both because of its critical importance in the history of Kabbala, and in deference to its essential attributes. This much is evident from Scholem's seminal work, his treatise in English on the major trends in Jewish mysticism.1 In this book Scholem describes seven major streams of Jewish mysticism, among them the Zohar. However, while the other six streams of mysticism each have a chapter devoted to them, the Zohar has two. The first of these deals with the Zohar and its authorship, the second with its theosophy. The titles of these chapters also indicate Scholem's primary interests as a researcher. On the one hand there is the book's theosophy, which he saw as the most important feature of the Zohar and of Kabbalistic doctrine in general.2 On the other
    [Show full text]
  • 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.
    [Show full text]
  • Bronstein: Kaballah and Art
    Studies in Visual Communication Volume 7 Issue 2 Spring 1981 Article 8 1981 Bronstein: Kaballah and Art Laurin Raiken New York University School of the Arts and the Gallatin Division Recommended Citation Raiken, L. (1981). Bronstein: Kaballah and Art. 7 (2), 89-93. Retrieved from https://repository.upenn.edu/ svc/vol7/iss2/8 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/svc/vol7/iss2/8 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Bronstein: Kaballah and Art This reviews and discussion is available in Studies in Visual Communication: https://repository.upenn.edu/svc/vol7/ iss2/8 Reviews and Discussion 89 to history; his writing, a pathway to a new set of doors into a living , visual history of ideas. Leo Bronstein. Kaballah and Art. Kabbalah and Art is an achievement of Leo Bron­ Distributed for Brandeis University Press by the stein's maturity. Earlier he had written: University Press of New England, Box 979, Hanover, Maturity is the discovery of childhood 's prophecy. History is N.H. 03755, 1980. 144 pp. , 49 illustrations (one in the discovery of prehistory's prophecy. Freedom or integrity color). $20.00 (cloth). of expression in maturity depends upon the degree of loyalty to this prophecy. [ibid .:ix] Reviewed by Laurin Raiken Kabbalah and Art begins with Leo Bronstein's invit­ New York University School of the Arts and the Gallatin ing the reader to recognize that our rare meetings with Division "an object of life and creation" are our meeting with friendship. Such an encounter is "the meeting with ...as ibn Latif, the Spanish poet-Kabbalist of the early your spirituality" (p.
    [Show full text]
  • The New Israeli Jungian Society
    A Mytho-Psychological Study of the Biblical Legacy Based on Parallels between Jewish Mysticism and Alchemic Art (published in: Journal of Jungian Theory and Practice, New York, 2005, 1) Micha Ankori Dr' Micha Ankori studied physics and mathematics at the Haifa Technion, and studied psychology at Tel Aviv University. He is a member of the New Israeli Jungian Association. His books on Jewish mysticism and analytical psychology were published by Ramot, the Tel Aviv University Press. His book The Psychology of the Dream (in Hebrew) was published by Prologue. He translated into Hebrew C. G. Jung‟s Memories, Dreams, Reflections (Tel-Aviv: Ramot, 1993). He is the chairman of the School of Jungian Psychotherapy at the Tel Aviv Kibbutzim Seminar. This paper was translated by Batya Stein. Abstruct: Both C.G. Jung and Gerschom Scholem thought that the symbol is a garb for deep truths inaccessible to the conscious mind, which can only be discovered through symbolic language. Symbolic language is the vehicle through which the soul expresses itself in dreams and esoteric doctrines convey their messages. Although both Scholem and Jung used almost identical formulations about the essence and contents of the occult, their paths never crossed. Scholem denied any connection between Kabbalah or Hasidism and psychology. Whenever Scholem mentions depth psychology in his writings, he is highly critical and distant, and largely misconstrues it. For his part, Jung acknowledged the value of Jewish mysticism and even suggested to his students they should delve into the study of the Jewish myth, although he himself never pursued this topic deeply.
    [Show full text]
  • FIRST CUP of WINE the Following Sentence Is a Kabbalistic "Kavanah
    FIRST CUP OF WINE The following sentence is a kabbalistic "kavanah" or intention, aimed at encouraging us to sanctify and drink our wine with the holy intention of connecting transcendence and immanence, God far above with God deep within. ם ׁשה ְה ת סּכ ֹֹוּכ ע ַּה הִ ֹֹוה ָה ִ ּוְה ֹֹוׁשּכ הִ ס ֹֹוּכ ת ַה ְה ָה ם ֵּה ַה ְה ן ָּ מּוה ָה ן ּוָ כה י ְה ְה ִה .יי ֵּה יְה כה הׁש ִ ֹֹו יך הִ ַּה ֹֹו ּוׁשה ַ הח ד ח יה Hin'hi muchan u-m'zuman l'kayem mitzvat kos rishonah m'arbah cosot l'shem yichud kudsha brich hu u-schinteh. I take upon myself the mitzvah (connective-commandment) of this first of four cups of wine, in the name of the unification of the Holy Blessed One with Shekhinah! Tonight we drink four cups of wine. Why four? The cups can represent our matriarchs—Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah—whose virtue caused God to liberate us from slavery. The cups can represent the Four Worlds: physicality, emotions, thought, and essence. The cups can represent the four promises of liberation God makes in the Torah: I will bring you out, I will deliver you, I will redeem you, I will take you to be my people (Exodus 6:6-7.) And the four promises, in turn, can hint at four stages on the path of liberation: becoming aware of oppression, opposing oppression, imagining alternatives, and accepting responsibility to act. This first cup of wine reminds us of God’s first declaration: “I will bring you out from the oppression...” 1 YACHATZ: BREAK THE MIDDLE MATZOT, BREAD OF AFFLICTION י דה הַ This is the bread of affliction which our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt.
    [Show full text]
  • Final Copy of Dissertation
    The Talmudic Zohar: Rabbinic Interdisciplinarity in Midrash ha-Ne’lam ​ by Joseph Dov Rosen A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Joint Doctor of Philosophy with Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley in Jewish Studies in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in Charge: Professor Daniel Boyarin, Chair Professor Deena Aranoff Professor Niklaus Largier Summer 2017 © Joseph Dov Rosen All Rights Reserved, 2017 Abstract The Talmudic Zohar: Rabbinic Interdisciplinarity in Midrash ha-Ne’lam ​ By Joseph Dov Rosen Joint Doctor of Philosophy in Jewish Studies with the Graduate Theological Union University of California, Berkeley Professor Daniel Boyarin, Chair This study uncovers the heretofore ignored prominence of talmudic features in Midrash ​ ​ ha-Ne’lam on Genesis, the earliest stratum of the zoharic corpus. It demonstrates that Midrash ​ ​ ha-Ne’lam, more often thought of as a mystical midrash, incorporates both rhetorical ​ components from the Babylonian Talmud and practices of cognitive creativity from the medieval discipline of talmudic study into its esoteric midrash. By mapping these intersections of Midrash, Talmud, and Esotericism, this dissertation introduces a new framework for studying rabbinic interdisciplinarity—the ways that different rabbinic disciplines impact and transform each other. The first half of this dissertation examines medieval and modern attempts to connect or disconnect the disciplines of talmudic study and Jewish esotericism. Spanning from Maimonides’ reliance on Islamic models of Aristotelian dialectic to conjoin Pardes (Jewish ​ ​ esotericism) and talmudic logic, to Gershom Scholem’s juvenile fascination with the Babylonian Talmud, to contemporary endeavours to remedy the disciplinary schisms generated by Scholem’s founding models of Kabbalah (as a form of Judaism that is in tension with “rabbinic Judaism”), these two chapters tell a series of overlapping histories of Jewish inter/disciplinary projects.
    [Show full text]