CHAPTER THREE

PHILOSOPHICAL AND MYSTICAL POSSIBILITIES OF METEMPSYCHOSIS: ISAAC ABARBANEL

The intention of the Rabbi [ Nahmanides] is that the soul that transmi- grates does not apply to any matter that it happens upon; and that the Holy One, blessed is He, wanted to exonerate the soul of the deceased, that it will return to the land as it was.1 Don Isaac Abarbanel was a rather fl uxional figure who lived in con- stant motion between disparate worlds. This is the case not only with his spatial biography of constant exile and relocation and his temporal existence between the medieval and the early-modern periods,2 but with his thought as well. As a sharp critic of philosophy who himself resorted to speculative language, and as a self-avowed non-kabbalist who nev- ertheless supported kabbalistic ideas and enlisted kabbalistic works as proof-texts, Abarbanel is difficult to locate on the map of Jewish thought. Indeed, scholars have characterized him in many different ways, as an anti-rationalist thinker in the line of Rabbi Sa’adia Gaon and Rabbi Hasdai Crescas,3 as a fundamentally medieval Aristotelian thinker with occasional Neoplatonic seeds that erupt out of his medieval soil,4 and as a Jewish philosopher with an extreme sense of respect for certain kabbalistic notions.5 Recently, Eric Lawee has offered a more nuanced picture of Abarbanel as an erudite thinker whose modes of thought cut through vast cultural and intellectual boundaries, thereby representing a wide cross-range of diverse, sometimes seemingly confl icting, religious and theoretical themes.6 This last characterization most certainly ensues

כונת הרב, שהנפש“ .Isaac Abarbanel, Commentary on Deuteronomy 25:5, p. 384 1 המתגלגלת, לא תחול באיזה חמר שיזדמן. ושרצה הקדוש ברוך הוא לזכות נפש המת, כשישוב אל הארץ כשהיה.“ 2 For the best biography to date, see Benzion Netanyahu, Don Isaac Abravanel: Statesman and Philosopher. 3 Isaac Barzilay, Between Reason and Faith, pp. 72–79, and Netanyahu, Don Isaac Abravanel, pp. 96–99. 4 Seymour Feldman, Philosophy in a Time of Crisis, p. 184. 5 Moshe Hallamish, An Introduction to the kabbalah, p. 282. 6 Eric Lawee, Isaac Abarbanel’s Stance Toward Tradition, pp. 2–4, and pp. 45–48. philosophical and mystical possibilities of metempsychosis 103 in regard to Abarbanel’s thought concerning the transmigration of souls. In regard to this topic, Abarbanel expresses an inclination toward a Neoplatonically “rationalized” kabbalah, characteristic of the Italian Renaissance milieu in which he wrote the bulk of his works on this topic, while maintaining a sense of esteem for and even deference to the more arcane Nahmanidean kabbalah of his prior Iberian environs. Within this one illustrious thinker, the “exoteric” and the “esoteric” trends meet in a synthetic attempt to safeguard and to expound upon the kabbalistic notion of gilgul neshamot. Though he exhibits an inclination toward philosophical speculation, as a proponent of the kabbalah, Abarbanel takes strong issue with “Aristotle and the interpreters of his books . . . and also the Christian wise men . . . both of whom sought ways to deny”7 the real possibility of transmigration. According to Abarbanel, such attempts at denial are fundamentally mistaken. “Those who deny it,” he writes, “they are the people who walk in darkness.”8 Not only is the idea philosophically possible despite the false claims of Aristotle and his interpreters and the wise men among the Christians, as a received tradition9 from the mouths of the prophets who saw the light of Torah, it is Truth and must be accepted. As a direct tenet of the Jewish kabbalistic tradition, Abarbanel has no need to be careful or to conceal his support for transmigration, and can argue forcefully in its favor. This, in fact, is what he does, attempting to moor the doctrine as expressed within the writings of Plato and other ancient thinkers in his own understanding of the prisca theologia tradition as based upon the Jewish kabbalah. Abarbanel’s longest and most definitive treatment of transmigra- tion, which specifically deals with the idea of human reincarnation, lies within his commentary on Deuteronomy 25:5–6. This is the com- mandment appertaining to the institution of levirate marriage, and there the Torah states: When brothers dwell together and one of them dies and leaves no son, the wife of the deceased shall not be married to a stranger, outside the family. Her husband’s brother shall unite with her: take her as his wife and perform the levir’s duty. The first son that she bears shall be accounted to the dead brother, that his name may not be blotted out in Israel.10

7 Commentary on Deuteronomy 25:5, p. 385. 8 Ibid., p. 386. 9 Here, the idea of “received tradition of the prophets,” kabbalat ha-nevi’im, seems to refer directly to the Jewish mystical tradition of kabbalah. 10 Deuteronomy 25:5–6.