What is Jewish Mysticism? (Kabbalah)

now that we've explored both Sufism which is often referred to as Islamic mysticism and Christian mysticism extensively I suppose it is only natural that we should move on to the third of the major abrahamic religions Judaism and explore its mystical tradition needless to say there is a whole lot to explore here and is a daunting undertaking now when most people think of Jewish mysticism they will automatically think of kabalah and kabalah is indeed an important part of this story and will show up later on but that's precisely the point it is a part of the story while many simply equate the terms cabala and Jewish mysticism things are more complicated than that cabala could be seen as a certain kind of Jewish mysticism but there are other expressions and types within this wider category across history so what is this wider General category of Jewish mysticism and how can we understand its history and characteristics that is precis what we're going to talk about in this [Applause] episode this video is a kind of collaboration with two of my dear colleagues and Friends Justin Sledge and zie slavin from Seekers of unity and esoterica not respectively the other way around I messed it up but still uh I'm doing this together with them not in the usual way of us doing separate videos but they will both be showing up in this video to tackle topics that that they are particular ly um well versed in to really give give you a proper introduction to some of these very complex aspects of Jewish mysticism so what do we mean when we say Jewish mysticism I don't really think we have to define the term Jewish or Judaism here so what about the second term we discussed the term mysticism its problems and possible definitions in the last episode about Christianity where we pointed out that the term often denotes experiences of reactions to and preparations for or quote unquote Union with God but in that video we settled on a more nuanced and careful working definition based on Bernard mcin who said that it is in the Christian context at least quote belief and practices that concerns the preparation for the consciousness of and the reaction to What can be described as the immediate or direct presence of God we might generalize that even more by adding that it is a direct encounter with the presence of the absolute which is often equated with God usually in the traditions and context but mysticism and Jewish mysticism is more than that too it's a whole tendency within Judaism that includes certain features and characteristics a leading scholar of Jewish mysticism Elliot wolson puts it really well when he says quote it is possible to isolate two distinct concerns running through all the major texts that Scholars include in the Corpus of Jewish mysticism on the one hand there is the claim to an esoteric knowledge whose content will naturally vary from one period to another that is not readily available to the masses through the more common Avenues of religious worship ritual or study the second major element identifiable in Jewish mystical literature is the emphasis placed on intense religious experience the particular form of this experience varies but it usually includes one or more of the following Heavenly Ascent vision of the Divine form angel ification or mystical Union the word mysticism will be used here to refer to those trends of thought in Judaism that lay claim to either an esoteric knowledge of the godhead theosophy or to an intense religious experience of a Visionary or unitive sort ecstasy though I do not think these two can always be separated in a clear and distinct manner these points should be kept in mind as we move through the episode in fact with all this in mind mysticism can be found all over the history of Judaism in different ways expressing itself in different ways and taking on different forms but arguably always being there in some way or another as early as we can possibly go into the very days of the Israelite biblical prophets we have clear indications that the very prophetic experience itself is in some way mystical in ancient Israel with its cult centered in Jerusalem there were as we all know several prophets that appeared from time to time to relay messages from God often involving criticisms of the way the Israelites lived and worshiped and these prophets seem to have had very powerful experiences as part of the revelatory process which could even be induced by things like music and dancing this becomes even more apparent in the later medieval Jewish thinkers such as myones who conceives of a theory of Prophecy that is decidedly mystical the person gradually perfects his intellect of faculty and spirit until it is so perfect that it receives an overflow of Revelation from God directly to the intellect he says quote know that the true reality and quiddity of Prophecy consists in its being an over flow overflowing from God may he be cherished and honored through the intermediation of the active intellect toward the rational faculty in the first place and thereafter towards the imaginative faculty this is the highest degree of man and the ultimate term of perfection that can exist for his species and this state is the ultimate term of perfection for the imaginative faculty the mysticism of biblical prophecy is perhaps most clear and striking in one particular account the famous vision of his Ezekiel in the very opening to The Book of Ezekiel in the Hebrew Bible we are presented with a positively shocking and almost psychedelic experience where the Prophet has a vision of the throne Chariot of God surrounded by fire and strange frightening creatures with several heads Wheels inside Wheels covered with eyes it's an absolutely mindbending account of a direct encounter with the Divine that can certainly be called mystical and would continue to be an important inspiration for later expressions of mysticism ISM too moving just a little bit ahead in history we also should mention the literature and intellectual movement in Judaism often called apocalypticism which give us some of the most long-lasting features not only of later Judaism but also of Christianity and Islam in this literature there are certainly mystical elements such as in the books of Enoch which describes how the titular character ascends on a kind of heavenly Journey being taken up by God quote unquote and eventually being transformed into the angel Metatron making it some of the earliest examples of ascent literature which would be so important to mysticism of course and in the earliest forms of Jewish philosophy we also find features that many would certainly conceive as mystical the ever important and fascinating Pho of Alexandria a middle platonist Jewish philosopher who often read the Bible esoterically according to platonic philosophy introduced many ideas that would be recurring in the history of mysticism despite being Jewish he would become more influential arguably in Christian ity but his impact in Jewish thought is not insignificant either for example he talks about the fact that the human being can have mystical experiences of the vision of God and even achieve Union with God or an aspect of God a theme that we will definitely return to perhaps the first kind of mystical movement within Judaism especially after the uh biblical prophetic period um is a movement that appears in the first few centuries ad so just after the U uh um the fall of the second temple um and it's the period of course when Rabin Judaism as we know it really started to to develop and this is a kind of mysticism that is often referred to as Mera and heot mysticism which means uh chariots and palaces respectively and this is a really really fascinating type of mysticism that often involves uh Ascent or rather sometimes descent as we will see and visions of this Chariot throne of God which is of course as you probably have guessed directly related to this vision of Ezekiel that we mentioned earlier to give you an overview of this incredible kind of early Jewish mysticism here is Dr Justin Sledge from the channel esoterica to tell you more since the early modern period Jewish mysticism has become basically synonymous with the cabala the speculative theosophy centered around the Divine dynamism of the spote or Divine emanation however for nearly 800 years prior to the rise of the cabala it appears that the mystical Ascent literature known as Mera or Chariot heot or Palace mysticism was the primary form of Jewish mysticism perhaps from roughly the period of the destruction of the second temple maybe even back earlier to the people like the prophet Ezekiel until the rise of the cabala in the 13th century so what was Mera or Chariot mysticism I'm Dr Justin Sledge from the channel esoterica Mira mysticism takes as its Central aim a journey into the Divine realm to ultimately bear witness to the presence of God anchored in the visions of Ezekiel chapter 1 and Isaiah chap 6 there the prophets make the mystical Journey to the Divine throne room where in in ezekiel's Vision at least God's Throne is imagined as a kind of Chariot composed of Quasi Angelic beings positively psychedelic quasi Angelic beings and in Isaiah Isaiah the prophet is gifted with a vision of the Divine worship the glory of God by the seraphim Angelic beings of fire Scholars debate to what degree those narratives are purely literary or the result of actual mystical phenomenology I suspect the latter just as much as the former and to to what degree those experiences were idiosyncratic to those specific priest prophets or representative of a larger Priestly prophetic mystical tradition frankly we're never going to know however with the rise of apocalyptic Judaism through the and following the Babylonian exile numerous a veritable library of texts were composed detailing mystical Journeys through the cosmos and into the Divine Realms in some of those texts these Journey culminate with the transformation of the mystical Pilgrim into Angelic beings themselves after beholding or even sitting on the Divine Throne the most famous of these texts being the three books of Enoch even early in the days of the Jesus movement what will come Christianity the Apostle Paul claims himself in the book of second Corinthians to have been taken up into the third heaven and given a vision of the Divine Glory as nothing less than the resurrected Jesus as Christ as Messiah further early such mystical Visions were also reported among the generation of the rabbis those known as the tanim the what would become the comp compositors of the mishna in those narratives were told of four rabbis who journeyed to the mystical Garden Of Heaven however the journey is fraught with Peril there are illusion tests to test their worthiness to enter the divine realm and all but one of these rabbis failed the test one becoming insane one dying and one becoming a heretic after seeing the angel Metatron sitting on the throne of God only the Rabbi Akiva descends and ascends and peace elsewhere in the talmudic literature there are even very strict prohibitions on talking about these topics to the point where it says it's better not to have even been born than to publicly speak on these topics while Scholars aren't quite sure how it does appear that in parabanic circles of this period and later there emerged a school of Mystic descent they're usually referred to themselves as y de Mera descenders to The Chariot wherein certain rabinal Hebrews typically Rabbi AKA and Rabbi Ishmael make their way through the Palaces or heot of the Heavenly Realms they bypass terrifying Angelic Guardians with quasy magical codes and symbols to eventually enter nothing less than the throne room of God sometimes being personally transformed into beings of fire a bit like angels and or joining in the Divine service with the seraphim the Divine avoda the worship of God what has survived down to us from this form of mysticism is basically a small library of Amer V literature composed over several Centuries with mystical narratives of these Journeys magical codes apparently used to bypass these Fierce Angelic Guardians of the Divine Realms in this literature the angels are much more like Cosmic Marines frankly and the ecstatic hymns and songs uttered in those heavenly palaces some of which have actually made their way down to this day in Jewish litery a particularly shocking text in this literature is the shoroma or the measure of the vastness wherein the physical dimensions the physical dimensions of God's body the measured in a unit of Persian unit called the parasang along with the secret names of the literal body of God are given Scholars have even argued that the rationalism of myones theology may very well be a kind of indirect assault on this very type of divine mystical anthropomorphism otherwise unprecedented in Judaism sadly we know very little basically nothing about how this mysticism was performed the only sustained discussion and I mean by sustained I mean a couple of sentences is mentioned by the Haan at the turn of the first Millennium of the Common Era he writes you may perhaps know that many of the sages hold that when a man is worthy and blessed with certain qualities and he wishes to gaze at the Heavenly Chariot and the Halls the heot of the angels on high he must follow certain exercises he must fast for a number of days he must place his head between his knees and he must whisper incantations to himself certain Praises of God with his face toward the ground as a result he will gaze into his innermost recesses of his own heart and it will seem as if he saw the seven halls with his own eyes moving from Hall to Hall to observe that which is found therein another related text the sarur literature in which an angel is actually summoned down from heaven to teach rapidly the secrets of the Torah to these par rabinal figures includes even stricter impositions of ritual piety fasting study and prayer truly athletic spiritual aestheticism it's very likely that these techniques varied from teacher to teacher and were primarily transmitted orally but seem to have been able to induce a kind of trance-like hallucinatory state wherein one traveled down descended into the Chariot thus the amova literature including the shorma and the sarur literature constitute a form of Jewish mysticism that endured for centuries maybe even over a millennium these mystical texts and traditions are found throughout the ancient Jewish world and at times resemble the magical practices similar to those found in the Greek magical papy and the various mystical forms of ascent literature found among the gnostics and in those of the Hermetic schools of philosophical spirituality the the America V literature and perhaps its practice would also eventually make its way into Central Europe among the German pietists in the Early Middle Ages a center of Jewish medieval occultism more generally however with the development of the theosophical speculation around the Divine emanations are theot in Spain and France in the 12th and 13th centuries Mera mysticism in general would become to be assimilated into the emerging School of cabala indeed Mera text can also be found in the foundational text of the cabala the book of Radiance or the safer Zohar this would simply Mark a new period in the history of Jewish mysticism and an evolution an evolution of Jewish mysticism of ascent to the Divine however the merav himim El Adon continues to survive in the weekly Jewish liturgy and is one of the many instances of profound mystical esotericism making its way into the everyday world of the prayer life of Judaism if you're interested in learning more about America V mysticism are actually reading some of the texts of this tradition there is several scholarly book recommendations over in the description Bo I have to warn you with much academic publishing comes much expense these books are not cheap unfortunately and if you're interested in learning more about esotericism both Jewish and non-jewish esotericism check out my channel esoterica but now back to my colleague and dear friend Phillip thank you so much Justin and for anyone who is interested um Justin's channel esoterica is truly a gem of religious studies YouTube and philosophy YouTube he's just he's just amazing in so many ways so check out uh that channel especially if you're interested in topics like esotericism the occult this fascinating merkava and heot mysticism was very prominent and popular during the first Millennium ad it was practiced by rabbis and prominent figures of Judaism at the time and was essentially the main form of Jewish mysticism for most of History until the proper birth of kabalah in the 13th century but with that said Jewish mysticism was much more complex than this too and there were many different mystical movements and developments during the first Millennium among them were the composition of books that would become fundamental for the development of cabala the most important of these are probably the safer Ys and the safer habah here the safer Ys or book of creation is an absolutely baffling work it's quite famous around the world and has shown up in pop culture like in that episode of the xfiles and usually in connection to stories about the Golem but what this book actually is as the title suggests is an exploration of how God created the world through the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet and a mysterious concept which it calls the spot belly ma and you may recognize this concept as the spot would become perhaps the most central part of cabala later on representing the emanations of God in the safer Ys however which came out long before works like the Zohar it's highly unclear what the SPO bellima actually is supposed to be other than that they are that there are 10 of them Scholars really disagree and there is no consensus on the details of this system although some have argued that the author of The saer yats was influenced by neop pythagoreanism and that these spot are some kind of mathematical geometric concept that is Central to reality whatever the case this work explores how God uses the spot along with the letters of the Hebrew alphabet combining them to create the world thus establishing some of the core and most lasting themes in Jewish mysticism albeit in A Primitive form namely the spot at least in name and the importance of the Hebrew letters and their mystical powers as for who wrote the book and when the scholars are just as perplexed here too um there have been some suggestions that it was probably written during the talm modic period so maybe around the year 500 give or take a few centuries um it really is a baffling text that we know surprisingly little about uh given how important it has been for the history of Jewish mysticism and just Judaism in general but it's a truly fascinating and very significant and important mystical text the second book The saer habah here or Book of Illumination is equally important if not even more in some ways it is also of Highly uncertain and debated authorship but was probably composed sometime in the 9th century ad or perhaps slightly earlier with that said though there have been various and widely different claims some Jewish Traditions dating it to the 1 Century ad but other academics dating it to as late as the 13th century so needless to say it's an open question in any case this book is significant for various reasons among them because many consider it the first proper work of what would become kabalah now to be clear kabala as we know it didn't exist yet at this time but in the sa Raba here we see some of the key Concepts and claims of cabala formulated for the first time essentially the book is a kind of midrashic commentary on the Bible and particularly on the Book of Genesis and the creation account and what's so significant about this book is that it takes many elements of mystical lit lature and philosophical speculation at that time and sort of combines it so for example it takes this idea from The Seer yet of the spot the spot bellima but also sort of combines that with philosophical speculation probably neoplatonic in origin about the relationship between the infinite God infinite absolute and creation um to create a kind of synthesis between these two where this relationship is explained in some way through these spot so in the saer bah here the way that God that that is the infinite creates the finite world is through emanations in stages going from the absolute infinite apophatic divine all the way down to the world and these energies or stages of God's emanation are the spot in other words here the spot take on the form that we all know in love and we'll go into further details about this system later on so in this environment we see a diversity of different kinds of Jewish mysticism some kinds that are very particular and prominent at that time such as meraba mysticism but also the earliest whisperings of things to come AR Klan who has written a popular translation of the work says about it quote until the publication of the Zohar the bahir was the most influential and widely quoted primary source of cabalistic teachings it is quoted in virtually every major book on kabala and it is cited numerous times by Rabbi Moshe benma ran in his commentary on the Torah it is also paraphrased and quoted many times in the Zohar and it is indeed at this point well into the Middle Ages that some significant things really start to happen particularly in Southwestern Europe in southern France and Spain we see over the course of the 12th to 13th century the development of what will become widely known as cabala later essentially becoming synonymous with Jewish mysticism now we must be clear right from the start that there isn't a kabalah but rather many different kinds of kabalah even in this early period this was a highly active and flourishing intellectual environment Spain had been a place where Jews Muslims and Christians had lived together for centuries under Islamic Rule and while this situation of course wasn't without its conflicts and tensions it had been a time and place of unusual levels of cross-pollination and inspiration across religious lines philosophers like IB bajah IB T and IB Rush on the Muslim side worked alongside Jewish thinkers and inspired many of them such a the massively important Moses myones on the Jewish side furthermore Sufism often called Islamic mysticism had also become quite popular and widespread in the region and already by the 12th century we see Jewish writers clearly being influenced by Sufi piety and practice such as the duties of the heart a book essentially on ethics and spiritual SL mystical practice in other words this was a very vibrant time with a lot of intellectual debate on various sides myones and his rationalistic writings which interpreted Jewish scripture and religion according to philosophical Aristotelian principles became very controversial and there was a kind of division although we shouldn't overemphasize this dichotomy necessarily between pro-an rationalists and anti- Myans what was the place of reason and philosophy in Jewish life these topics are quite complicated and the categories between reason and mysticism aren't really clear at all many have even claimed that myones himself the arch rationalist had a mystical side to him my friend zevi from the channeled Seekers of unity has made a whole series on the topic of my monod's mysticism or not mysticism that's that's the question right so if you're interested in that topic then go check out those wonderful videos whatever the case it is in this vibrant environment that kabalah is born of course most likely as a result of this chaotic and and really just very eventful intellectual and mystical climate many would say even that cabala kind of emerges as a response to myON and rationalism as a way of sort of saying you know identifying themselves as the opposite of that you know we are not my monans so that instead we present this new this other way of interpreting Judaism which becomes kabala and while there might be some truth to this certainly I think a lot of cabala is in response to the What was seen as the extreme rationalism the radical rationalism of someone like mes we should be careful about making two simplistic claims about such things um this dichotomy between cabala or mysticism and philosophy U doesn't always hold and one very good example of why that is is a single man and that is Abraham abulafia but before we jump into the details of people like abulafia and others like him what is kabala to begin with well as you have hopefully picked up on at this point it isn't a single thing but several schools of thought and practice usually connected by certain key features but often also very distinct from each other the word cabala essentially means something deceived and is often therefore translated as tradition indeed the cabalists themselves view their tradition as one that stretches back to the Bible itself a kind of esoteric dimension of the Jewish religion that is restricted to certain kinds of people a common idea in cabala and Jewish mysticism as it is in so many other Traditions is that there are different levels or Dimensions to scripture scripture such as the Bible may say one thing on the surface but there's a whole o of meaning hiding beneath the plain words indeed it is common within Judaism and cabala particularly to divide biblical reading into four levels literal the surface level elusive allegorical and lastly the mystical level and although cabalistic reading of scripture is often very literal almost hyper literal it can be said that they sometimes through this hyper literalism actually are concerned with these hidden mystical dimensions of what is said in Scripture and preserved in the Jewish tradition as a whole there are specific techniques of discovering these true meanings and often spiritual practices aimed at things like you know purifying the soul or the intellect and approaching or interacting with the Divine realm but what this means on a more specific level can differ depending on which school of cabala we're talking about and to return then to our narrative the 13th century Mystic philosopher Abraham abolafia is one of the earliest C who developed a kind of system and practice that is very different from the cabala that most people know by combining the rationalist philosophy of myones with the mystical teachings found in books like the saur and probably other sources um including probably Sufism and the athetic ashiism in northern Europe at that time he started something that has come to be known as either prophetic cabala or ecstatic kabalah I've already made a full episode on abolafia and his teacher teachings which honestly is probably one of my favorite videos that I've made um ABA is just such an incredibly fascinating figure so uh go check out that episode if you're interested in learning more about him but as a shorter overview abulafia cabala is one that is primarily focused on what you could call different kinds of meditative practice and the employment and speculation about the mystical powers of the Hebrew letters abolafia describes different often complex forms of meditation which often include vocalizing Hebrew words and letters uh moving the head in certain ways and other involved techniques with the aim of thus having a mystical experience in different stages where one's intellect becomes somehow separated from the body until one reaches the ultimate goal of the path which is known as deot or cleaving to God where one is united with the active intellect and ultimately at least According to some interpretations United with God himself abulafia says quote the ultimate composite which is man who comprises all the spot and whose intellect is the active intellect and when you will untie its knots you will be United with it the active intellect in a unique Union this cleaving or Union is described occasionally by abolafia in pretty radical ways quote for now he is no longer separated from his master and behold he is his master and his master is he for he is so intimately United with him that he cannot by any means be separated from him for he is he abolafia depictions of the mystical experiences that can be had while practicing his prophetic cabala can be very colorful involving visions of Light Spirit doubles and many other things in terms of his philosophical language as we can see from his uses of Concepts like the active intellect is essentially directly taken from myones which is a good example to show that this dichotomy between rationalism and mysticism often becomes quite inaccurate unless we we significantly Nuance that discussion as well what can also be interpreted as quite radical in abulafia kabala is that he considers the person who have reached this experience of full deot the utmost mystical experience to essentially be prophets this is something that he also gets pretty directly from myones the highest mystical experience is a prophetic experience making prophecy in a way the goal of his whole system this is indeed why it is called prophetic kabalah abulafia says again quote he prophesies according to the entity which causes him to pass from potentiality into the final and perfect actuality and he and he become one entity Inseparable during the ACT but abulafia was quite controversial too as you can imagine and his quote unquote school so to say didn't really survive in any concrete way especially not in the cabalistic heartlands of Spain and France although the ideas of prophetic cabala would survive in places like the Middle East and be revived occasionally as well as influencing some significant later developments in Jewish mysticism which we will get to but at the same time that abolafia was active in Spain and Italy other significant things were happening in the same place and frankly in connection with him namely a movement where famous and prominent scholars in Spain and Southern France would develop a quite different kind of cabala one that was much more speculative and metaphysically oriented this early movement is associated with figures like Isaac the Blind and provance the circles in gerona and Castile and major Rabin and cabalistic figures like nak manes taking their cue from earlier works like these saer Haba here this led to an absolute explosion of mystical development and speculation and in some ways all of this culminated in a single work an absolutely Monumental and massive piece of literature entitled The Zohar I'm sure many of you have heard of this book book and for good reason it has come to be the main representative of kabalah in many ways it cannot be overstated just how important this work is with many Jews essentially considering its scripture especially earlier on in history this book was essentially canonized as part of Jewish scripture for I would say most of of of Jews around the world the Zohar is a work that kind of defies any simple explanation it's a massive work as we said um I think in the recent um translation in the uh by by Daniel Matt um it comes out I think to 12 volumes of text which is quite significant right so it's a very big text it's a very difficult text um incredibly dense and and hard to understand sometimes but so so fascinating and so significant and important for Jewish mysticism and cabala in particular The Narrative of the book follows the second century Jewish Sage Shimon bokai as he's St ring with his friends in the hills of Judea but through the conversations meetings and events that occur to them the work explores all conceivable aspects of Jewish life and religion from law and practice to Theology and of course esoteric cabalistic speculation it is the Zohar that serves as the gold standard for cabala for most of history there is some disagreement on who wrote this work the traditional account within Judaism and cabala is that it was actually written by shiman Bay himself in the 2 Century remaining basically secret to all but a few until the late 13th century when it was revealed to the public so to say and the book is indeed written kind of ancient Aramaic albeit a very flawed and unusual Aramaic which sort of adds to this image that it is trying to present of itself however most Scholars today are pretty sure that the work was actually composed in the 13th century by the Spanish Rabbi and cabalist Moshe Deon at least a significant chunk of the book seems to come from the pen of mha De Leon but it is possible that the authorship is more diverse since the work is essentially a collection of different very strange and difficult text from Bible commentaries to baffling stories so even though most attributed to M Deon and he probably wrote at least a significant chunk of the text um it might have been a sort of group project with with a group centered around mosha de Leon who sort of wrote it collectively we we don't know for sure but certainly it seems to come from this this uh group or this cabalistic environment in Castile in particular it is thus a direct result of the environment in Northern Spain and Southern France and like I said represents a kind of culmination of that whole development a work that would come to Define Jewish mysticism going forward the kind of cabala that the Zohar comes from and helped Define in shape is widely known as theosophical cabala and it is this kind of cabala that most of us are familiar with so what is it well unlike ecstatic cabala which is a lot more anthropocentric concerned with the mystical experience of the individual person theosophical cabala is more theocentric concerned primarily with mapping out the Divine world its relationship to this world and how the everyday Jewish religious practices and Commandments the mitzvot are connected to the vast Divine realities and Concepts The Scholar of Jewish mysticism Moshe idel said about theosophical cabal that it quote encompasses two Central subjects theosophy a theory of the elaborate structure of the Divine world and the ritualistic and experiential way of relating to the Divinity in order to induce a state of Harmony this is a highly theocentric form of religiousness that while not ignoring the needs of the human being tends to conceive of religious Perfection as instrumental for exerting effective influence on high and that quot the topics dealt with by this lore are the nature of the tense F wrote and the mystical meaning of The Commandments this I think captures it pretty well theosophical cabala is an incredibly complex and diverse intellectual tradition that sort of tries to map out the relationship between the Divine World which is represented primarily by the tens fot that we mentioned earlier and the human world that we live in and what the best human response is to that relationship although there are of course different schools and you know diverse array of interpretations and nuances within this tradition but generally theosophical cabala can kind of be defined as being concerned with with that topic in particular so the relationship between the Divine world the T fot relationship within the Divine World between the t f but also the relationship between that Divine world and our world and how the the Commandments the mitzvot of the Jewish law um is the way to establish the the proper relationship ship between those two worlds this is what the cabalists and the cabalistic literature is primarily concerned with and many would argue that there's significant influence here from the philosophical School of neoplatonism but in a way the issue that the cabalists are dealing with is essentially the same as that of the neoplatonist how do we go from an infinite God an absolutely Eternal infinite and perfect principle Beyond any limitation and conception to a created world full of limitation and flaws they seem pretty mutually exclusive so how does one come from the other how do we Bridge the two the neoplatonists as you will know conceived of different hypostases or realities that emanated and in steps eventually became the physical world from the one or God Comes The Noose or intellect or mind after which comes soul and then we get the sensible world even though these realities are interconnected and according to many interpretations they all sort of take place within each other the cabalists had a very similar solution and were perhaps of course we could argue influenced by the neoplatonists in cabalistic terminology God in his absolute form is referred to with the term a aof means the infinite and is a term that denotes the absolutely ineffable Divine as it is in itself before self- manifestation this is a completely Transcendent principle beyond the grasp of human reason or understanding nothing can be said about it but this principle is the source or Creator you could say of the phenomenal world and here we have that problem right how does one come from the other well we already have the answer God emanates God self God's light in stages and these emanations and stages are the 10 spot each spot represents a kind of attribute of God as God becomes particularized and in a kind of descending order from Top Which is closest to the ins to the bottom the names of the tens fot are ker meaning Crown HMA meaning wisdom Bina understanding loving kindness G power or judgment tiet Beauty n trium for endurance Majesty yod foundation and malut Kingdom that last SP malut is very important not only for being identified with this world in a sense or at least the the the stage before this world but also for being identified with the the sh is indeed another one of the key Concepts in cabala and key to understanding their vision of God the had been a part of Jewish thought for a long time and denoted God's presence in the world God as we said is utterly transcendant in the form of a but according to Judaism God is also imminent in the world God God interacts with the world inspires prophets and Visionaries in kabalah this is how that is explained the is the last SP which is present in the world and very interestingly the sh is understood as being female in nature in other words the is the divine feminine identified as God's presence in the world and identical to the last of malut so this is the Divine structure in theosophical cabala an infinite Divine principle which emanates itself in stages the spot to create the world and is present in the world through the feminine side of God or the what is known as the and while there are many different thinkers who have modified details or aspects this is the basic features of theosophical cabala expounded in works like the important Zohar but what does this mean for the human being how do we interact with this Divine realm and what's the purpose of all this well this is where it gets a little complicated as if it wasn't already complicated clearly there is a relationship between the Divine world of the spot and the human world some conceive the idea that the attributes of the spot are mirrored or can be found in this world and even that there's a kind of mirror of the T fot inside the human being the microcosm and macrocosm idea again as such these SPO need to be balanced and United within the human person in his mind and actions and and behavior in different ways through religious observ es and spiritual practices in terms of the theosophical cabala there's a certain theurgic element to it meaning that we somehow interact and even affect the Divine World in some way theosophical cabala as expressed in works like the Zohar is primarily concerned on the Practical level with the observance of the Jewish Commandments in the Bible the so-called mitzvot now this doesn't just mean the famous Ten Commandments that Moses received on Mount Si but all the Jewish Commandments ments included in the Bible which make up Jewish law and practice the the cabalist speculated about the fot and the Divine world but also conceived of the importance of the mitzvot in terms of its relationship with the spot in other words the deeper mystical meanings and purposes behind Jewish practices like prayer for instance a kind of deepening of one's consciousness of the significance of practice and the idea of the correspondence between the Divine and human world also becomes important as the cabalist emphasize different ways of unification or unifying the different spher both within oneself and outside so to say this is a complicated idea but it hints at one of the more radical aspects of this system of the spal the idea that us as human beings can somehow affect the Divine world now we should remember that God the aor is perfect and utterly Beyond any change or imperfection in Jewish theology but there is still an openness to the idea that our actions affect and interact with the spot in different ways this becomes perhaps most apparent with developments in the 16th century when there appeared a cabalistic circle in the city of svat or safed in which we can see an explosion of cabalistic activity and Innovation these activities are primarily associated with figures in safed like mosha Cordo ysf Caro Yak Lua and his student Bal mosha Cordo the first one mentioned is to my mind one of the most interesting Jewish Mystics in history and it's sad that he isn't known and studied more than he is outside the Jewish World of course famous primarily for composing a massive work entitled The pares rimonim or Orchard of pomegranates Cordo systematized the teachings of the Zohar and cabala in very impressive ways while also reincorporating certain aspects of ecstatic cabala associated with Abraham abolafia such as the mystical gold of deot or Union cleaving to God and the more meditative practices that came with it but his most widely popular work is probably a book entitled The Tom dor the palmre of d'vorah which is essentially a book of Ethics that connects to the essential ideas of philosophical cabala this is an absolutely beautiful book which at its core explores the idea of imito day imitation of God and this is where it connects to the themes we have been discussing previously the goal in life is to imitate God by embodying and manifesting the attributes of the Divine spot this means not only observing the mitzvot and the Jewish law in a sort of particular way but generally also thinks like being a kind loving and caring person that gives and cares for their fellow human beings and creatures explaining how to embody the attributes of ker he says quote no reason whatsoever should prevent him from doing good to others always and at every moment and no transgressions or misdeeds of unworthy people should stop him from bestowing good on those in need and just as God sustains all creatures from the highest to the lowest despising none of them for if he despised any creatures because of their insignificance they would not exist even for a moment watching over them and showing compassion to all so too should man do good to all not despising any creature even the lowliest being should be very important in his eyes and he should show concern for them doing good to all who require his goodness by mirroring and embodying the spot through these principles and behaviors we become more quote unquote like God and by becoming more like God we are connecting ourselves to the Divine world and in a way accomplishing God's creation by performing the essence of God's attributes on Earth completing its very purpose we are active participants in the purpose and aim of creation and play our role fully by imitating God this is an idea that stretches back further in history and myones himself saw it as key to ethics he said quote the chief aim of man should be to make himself as far as possible similar to God that is to say to make his acts similar to the acts of God but covo of course takes this a step further by implementing the cabalistic ideas of the spot as a key aspect of this teaching in an truly ingenious way Cordova's younger contemporary insaf however y GLA is more famous and influential in the history of kabalah passing away at the young age of 38 he had in a short few years absolutely transformed kabalah and given it the form that most of us know today indeed when you are taught about kabalah and its teachings today it's usually the so-called lurianic cabala that is taught as Laura's ideas became so influential and the innovations that Laura made to the system is perhaps the most striking example of the idea that our actions can affect the Divine world first of all Lura is significant for introducing the idea of timum or contraction remember when we talked about the a s and how it creates the world by limiting its light into the emanations of the spot well there's still the question of how an infinite absolute principle can even become or create something Limited in itself doesn't that kind of limit the ano by introducing the creation of limits within it well Lura solved this problem by introducing the idea of contraction or symtom when the inso creates quote unquote the world it has to contract from itself to create a kind of void or empty space within its itself into which it can then pour its light into the vessels of the spot and eventually create the world this is of course a really fascinating and interesting way to solve this issue and when it's become very famous and popular since then if you studied cabala again you've probably heard about this concept of the symtom it's become a kind of standard way of explaining the creation of the World by the an but this was actually introduced by Lura in the 17th or 16th century furthermore in the process of this emanation something goes wrong according to Lua as the SPO are created he imagines them almost as vessels into which the Anor pours his light or his being as if you poured water into glass vessels for instance but the light of the ins is so strong and powerful that the vessels can't contain it as a result the vessels shatter and as they shatter the shards of these vessels descend down into our world and very significantly these shards are the cause of all evil in the world in other words this is a very unique explanation for the problem of theodicy or the problem of evil in the world and it is through this that Lura also introduces his strongly participatory cabalistic theosophy what happens when we perform the mitzvot and embody the attributes of this fot when we pray or give to the poor in a striking way Lura explains that through these practices we are helping these shards of the broken vessels Ascend back into the Divine world and gradually heal the Sparro again in other words human actions can literally affect and even heal the Divine World in some way and by healing the Divine we also Heal the World a famous concept known as tikun which literally means healing the world thus here theosophical kabala is given a very clear and obvious practical side and purpose not only does it explain the Divine world and the deeper mytical meanings behind their Commandments for instance it also explains how the performance of those Commandments directly participates in the healing of the Divine and the world in a way to express it in a radical way we complete God and again this lurana cabala since then has become the kind of cabala that most of us are taught this becomes cabala um the ideas of Laura become the way that most theosophical cabalists since then understand this system and how it works right but this should not be confused with um or or should not be taken to the extreme we must still remember of course that um there have been other interpretations right before lria like even Cordo who was his contemporary in the same city in the same he had a different reading of these things he interpreted the Zohar in different ways Lura was very Innovative he was very unique and and and those ideas that he presents is not present before him in cabala and even after him of course not every cabalist agrees with him so before and after there is a diversity in cabala right even within the so-called theosophical cabala um there are different thinkers both then and now that that innovate that see things in from different perspectives that that don't agree with lri and have different interpretations of these things so that should be kept in mind on top of the fact that things like ecstatic or prophetic kabalah has also been a thing you know for most of History um and and that's also what's significant about this circle in safed with people like Cordo and laua is that they sort of incorporate both um the theosophical strands of cabala associated with the Zohar with the ecstatic teachings and practices of of abolafia for instance and this synthesis that happens in safed is one of the reasons why it's so significant because this circle in safed cord and especially Laura as we see uh just completely changes the face of kabalah it it really is a very significant moment but again we must point out the fact that there isn't one cabala but many different kinds of cabala there is the theosophical one which has diversity within it there is ecstatic cabala or prophetic cabala and there are even other forms of Jewish mysticism still happening across that whole history that is neither of these two there was also for example the ptic mystical movement in Egypt in the 13th century headed by Abraham the son of myones which took major inspiration from the Islamic sufis and introduced Innovations in prayer practice that looked a lot like Muslim prayer and introduced mystical and aesthetic practices also clearly influenced by Sufism and I've explored this group in a previous episode too and the most recent major form of Jewish mysticism is also arguably a unique case and that is of course hassidism appearing in the 18th century ISM has become incredibly popular and in many ways introduced ideas of Jewish mysticism which were previously the exclusive concern of the elite the intellectual Elite to the general masses to introduce us to kism orid here is my friend and colleague zevi from the channel Seekers of Unity thank you Phillip kism is a religious revivalistic movement which emerged in mid 18th century Eastern Europe under the inspiration of Y the balov of literally the master of the good name the bmov was orphaned at a young age and at least according to one version of The Narrative was taken in by a secretive Brotherhood of Jewish Mystics and under that tutelage developed his own unique form of Jewish mysticism which placed a heavy emphasis on Simplicity and authenticity in the worship of God and service to once's fellow the bmov would go into to teach this way of life to his students most notably to do be the Magid the preacher of mezrich the maged the architect of kism would go and to propagate his M's teachings by formalizing and teaching them to a select Inner Circle of disciples who would go to spread these teachings across Eastern Europe effectively creating a mass movement to spread his master of the bm's teachings the first of its kind in the history of Jewish mysticism throughout Jewish history mysticism had been restricted to a narrow CAD of elite Scholars kism was the first time when the teachings and practices of Jewish mysticism reached a sustained Mass audience spreading rapidly across the landscape of Eastern European jewry but not without its detractors with the memory of the devastating failure of the Satine movement still fresh in their minds members of The urbin Establishment launched a fierce oppositional movement against the young fledgling cassic movement which culminated in an excommunication of the cic movement in 1781 this firm opposition however had the opposite of its intended effect instead of shutting down the movement it ended up bolstering it and helped cement its folk identity as a spiritual Revival of the common folk against the elite by the time the maged the student of the bamv passed away in 1772 20 or so of his handpicked disciples had been dispersed to see the movement all over Eastern Europe and further field within a few short Generations the kasic movement transitioned from a ragtag band of rural Mystics to a well-established movement with major dynasties courts and centers of pilgrimage across Lithuania white Russia Ukraine Galia and Poland with the onset of World War II the cidic world suffered a major blow the Holocaust eradicated large swaths of theic world tragically wiping out entire dynasties and decimating others many historians believed that the history of kism had come to an end but following the war kism picked itself Back Up From the Ashes rebuilt its communities and flourished in new lands both in the United States Israel and elsewhere kism lives on today not merely as a relic of a rich past but as a vibrant living Force into the the future adding to the rich tapestry of the Jewish World with its unique flavor of religious spiritual cultural lurgical artistic and human expression part of the challenge of defining classtic thought is the sheer diversity of expression and articulation which emerges even within the very first generations of kism with each of the early masses expressing their own spiritual voice in unique ways among the early Masters we find those who practiced ticism negating the material world While others preached against aestheticism and embraced the Divinity hidden within the world some advocate for a static Union with God While others prefer a contemplative approach to the Divine we find some preaching a explicitly Messianic Doctrine While others negating it we find some teaching pantheistic and acosmic theologies While others choose to emphasize God's Transcendence and radical otherness some are stonch haks and theorists of Jewish law While others flirt with antinomianism some highlight the centrality of kabala in their thinking While others shun it and the same goes for Jewish philosophy some Embrace and engage with it deeply While others outright forbid it despite this diversity however there are some common themes which we can try and Trace out that might unite cic thought into a cohesive H without forgetting the above mentioned disclaimer as opposed to an aesthetic semity that had dominated religious practice prior to kism theic movement in large placed an emphasis on worshiping god with joy and happiness song and dance love and ecstasy cidic thought and practice at its finest is marked by an intoxication with divinity authenticity and humility worshiping God for theic master is as it is for many Mystics seen as an opportunity to approach be in the presence of and to even perhaps couple and Unite with the Divine through the inner work the aod ofm particularly in the act of devotional prayer theic Mystic strives to strip away their ego to nullify and integrate the self in an act of B like a seed which is placed into the dirt shedding its protective layering disintegrating into the ground so that it can be reborn again into the form of a tree the soul which inic thought is literally a part of God likewise needs to strip itself of it shell of the ego which keeps it trapped in its own identity so that it can break down in exstasy and find itself reborn in God in what the Masters call this is the central aim of kism to unite the true self the soul with true being namely God this Union allows the human to see reality clearly as a manifestation of divinity to recognize God in all things not just in moments of sanctioned Holiness but even and particularly in the ordinary and the mundane this was the Messianic realization and the state of being that the bmov strove to impart to his students and they to the Jewish masses by spreading his Wellsprings and teaching all how to unite themselves in God how to unite with reality the Theology and metaphysics of kism orbit around the attempt to reconcile Divine Transcendence and divine imminence they represent a persistent attempt to answer the age-old question of how God can both be infinitely and categorically above and beyond our reality and yet deeply invested and present in every moment of it the cidic discourse on this age old challenge joins a global choir of voices explicating mystical theologies of the one and the many from platinus to iban Ari from pseudo dianis to Simon Way kism picked up the conversation where cabala had left off dovetailing their cosmological analysis directly into the cabalistic discussions of Tsum Divine self-contraction shim the cosmic cataclysmic shattering that preceded our present iteration of reality and the work of aim the work to recollect and raise the Fallen Sparks of divinity back up to be reintegrated into their Source in the fiery ploma of the Divine parallel to this macrocosmic work of restoring Divinity to its original form and form of Glory is the work of theid upon themselves the microcosmic the work to reorient all of ones mid dos emotional intellectual and ethical character traits towards love and kindness towards God reintegrating the disperate parts of ourselves back into our true self there's no doubt that all of these ideas place Central roles in the formation and function of kism perhaps between the dance of all of these doctrines something of the essence of kism can be glimpsed if you'd like to learn more about kism check out Philip's brilliant video on the subject and now back to you philli thank you so much seie for the beautiful explanation for anyone out there who hasn't yet go check out his channel seers of unity subscribe to that channel it's it's truly some beautiful content especially if you're interested in these kinds of topic that we're talking about today zevi is your guy so check out his channel hasidism is really interesting because it combines many different aspects of Jewish mysticism from over the centuries into a new and fascinating movement cism is still very popular around the world while the role of kabala generally was somewhat negatively affected by the reform movements within Judaism in the 18th and 19th century and the rise of a more exclusionary rationalism and of course the the very dramatic events of the uh the figure of shabti the so-called false Messiah who in the 17th century convinced most of the Jewish world that he was indeed the Messiah and then one day converts to Islam uh and and his sort of claim to be the Messiah is very much connected to cabala and mysticism and lanic cabala in particular that was a huge disaster in many ways and also kind of in some ways gave cabala a bit of a bad name in certain circles that certainly helped this process of cabala being a less prominent in many movements of Judaism today works like the Zohar lost its status as scripture to many and just like in other context like the Islamic World mysticism was increasingly seen as superstitious and detrimental to a pure rational religion but with hassidism which was born at the same time we see a new kind of Jewish mysticism which combines many of the different currents and movements in history and a kind of democratization of mysticism itself it was no longer just a concern for the intellectual Elite but for everyone kism is a deeply mystical tradition that has grown immensely popular across the Jewish world even today the 20th century also saw the increased interest in the academic study of Jewish mysticism and one of the most heated debates regarding Jewish mysticism in modern scholarship has been the question of the mystical Union or Union mystica in the vast world of quote unquote mysticism one of the most recurring themes is indeed this idea of achieving some kind of Union with higher realities and often even the conception of a union with God God s we find this in Sufism in Christian mysticism in platonism but does this idea exist in Judaism indeed Judaism puts a great emphasis on the idea of God's Transcendence and the clear boundary between God and the created world so does this even allow for the idea of Union in this way the most prominent scholar of Jewish mysticism of the 20th century gersam sholam argued that it doesn't to him and those who followed him the Jewish Mystics with very rare exceptions never went as far as saying that there could be any sort of direct Union with God and this was the prevailing idea for a long time and can be found in a lot of literature about mysticism and Judaism generally but in the last few decades Scholars like MOSI idel have gone against this idea and instead argued that not only does it exist in Jewish mysticism the idea of the mystical Union is indeed quite prominent and common and this stance is gaining more and more popularity we've seen in this episode many examples of a kind of unitive language from the earliest writers such as Pho of Alexandria we find the idea that the human can Ascend to God and even unite in some way Pho writes that quote he bids them to cleave to him bringing out by the use of this word how constant and continuous and unbroken is the Concord and Union that comes through making God our our own in the case of Philo though it doesn't seem like a full Union with God but with an aspect of God namely the logos but later in history we get more clear expressions of the mystical Union perhaps most prominently in the ecstatic cabala and writings of people like abolafia who talk about the goal of davot or cleaving precisely as a kind of Union where in abolafia words quote he and he become one entity Inseparable during the ACT slightly later the fascinating but relatively little alone cabalist Rabbi Isaac of acre wrote about mystical Union using the language of water which definitely mirrors the thought and earlier quote of abolafia quote she the soul will cleave to the Divine intellect and it will cleave to her and she and the intellect become one entity as if somebody pours out a jug of water into a running well that all becomes one this idea further shows up in safan cabala and also quite prominently in hassidism which has a quite outright monistic or even pantheistic adjacent theology sometimes where God is everywhere and where realizing this Unity becomes an important feature do of Metar one of the foundational figures of early kism wrote that quote a man must separate himself from any corporeal things to such an extent that he will Ascend through all the worlds and be in Union with God until his existence will be annihilated with all that said all this of course also comes down to interpretation and how we choose to read some of these passages but I think with all this in mind it at least to me it becomes hard to defend a kind of hard anti- UN mystica in Judaism I think Scholars like idel and many others um by studying people like this and and looking at some of these writings that we've explored um have shown clearly enough that the idea of the mystical Union with God in some way seems certainly pretty common across the history of Jewish mysticism and different ways today the situation is of course quite complex as it has always been there has been a Resurgence of interest in cabala in the last couple of decades and kabah is taught in various places around the world sometimes deeply connected to traditional Judaism sometimes with a more Universalist and maybe even New Age interpretation we've seen several celebrities show interest in cabala and bring it to a wider audience such as perhaps most notably Madonna at the same time kism continues to be one of the most prominent mov movements within Judaism embodying Traditions that are centuries old in other words while Jewish mysticism has evolved over the centuries and taken on many different forms it remains a very significant and important part of one of the most significant and largest religions in the world thank you to zevi and Justin for being part of this video um really appreciate and always love it's an honor working together with with such talented and and beautiful human beings so go check out their channels esoterica and SE speakers of unity and you will not regret it uh also don't forget that I just released my new song ismus with my project zeni if you're interested in the music that I make which is the music of the majority of the videos on this channel the music is made by me and I just put out a new song two weeks ago depending on when this comes out recently I put on a new song so uh there will be links to that in the description as well if you're interested and lastly of course I want to extend a special thank you to all my patrons who as I always say they keep this channel going and none of this would be possible possible without you so thank you from the depths of my heart for all the support thank you again to the patrons thank you for everyone who likes who watches who comments and who engages with these videos and in this wonderful beautiful Community uh that I'm very proud to to be a part of so thank you all so much for watching and I will see you next [Music] time [Music]

Channel: Let's Talk Religion

Views: 155,200

Keywords: jewish mysticism, what is jewish mysticism, kabbalah, what is kabbalah, kabbalah explained, mysticism, mystical, philosophy, religion, abrahamic religions, spiritual judaism, merkavah, hekhalot, zohar, abraham abulafia, ecstatic kabbalah, prophetic kabbalah, maimonides, safed, moshe cordovero, hasidism, justin sledge, esoterica, zevi slavin, seekers of unity, filip holm, lets talk religion, sefirot, mystical books, sefer yetzirah

Id: XzbNq_kfLKU

Length: 70min 0sec (4200 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 05 2024