Kabbalah

Kabbalah (late Hebrew ḳabbālah, qabbālah), the technical name for the system of Jewish theosophy which played an important part in the Christian Church in the middle ages. The term primarily denotes “reception” and then “doctrines received by tradition.” In the older Jewish literature the name is applied to the whole body of received religious doctrine with the exception of the Pentateuch, thus including the Prophets and Hagiographa as well as the oral traditions ultimately embodied in the Mishnah.1 It is only since the 11th or 12th century that Kabbalah has become the exclusive appellation for the renowned system of theosophy which claims to have been transmitted uninterruptedly by the mouths of the patriarchs and prophets ever since the creation of the first man.

The cardinal doctrines of the Kabbalah embrace the nature of the Deity, the Divine emanations or Sĕphīrōth, the cosmogony, the creation of angels and man, their destiny, and the import of the revealed law. According to this Doctrine of the Sephiroth. esoteric doctrine, God, who is boundless, and above everything, even above being and thinking, is called Ēn Sōph (ἄπειρος); He is the space of the universe containing τὸ πᾶν, but the universe is not his space. In this boundlessness He could not be comprehended by the intellect or described in words, and as such the Ēn Sōph was in a certain sense Ăyĭn, non-existent (Zōhar, iii. 283).2 To make his existence known and comprehensible, the Ēn Sōph had to become active and creative. As creation involves intention, desire, thought and work, and as these are properties which imply limit and belong to a finite being, and moreover as the imperfect and circumscribed nature of this creation precludes the idea of its being the direct work of the infinite and perfect, the Ēn Sōph had to become creative, through the medium of ten Sephiroth or intelligences, which emanated from him like rays proceeding from a luminary.

Now the wish to become manifest and known, and hence the idea of creation, is co-eternal with the inscrutable Deity, and the first manifestation of this primordial will is called the first Sephirah or emanation. This first Sephirah, this spiritual substance which existed in the Ēn Sōph from all eternity, contained nine other intelligences or Sephiroth. These again emanated one from the other, the second from the first, the third from the second, and so on up to ten.

In their totality and unity the ten Sephiroth are not only denominated the World of Sephiroth, or the World of Emanations, but, owing to the above representation, are called the primordial or archetypal man (= πρωτόγονος) and the heavenly man. It is this form which, as we are assured, the prophet Ezekiel saw in the mysterious chariot (Ezek. i. 1-28), and of which the earthly man is a faint copy.

As the three triads respectively represent intellectual, moral and physical qualities, the first is called the Intellectual, the second the Moral or Sensuous, and the third the Material World. According to this theory of the archetypal man the three Sephiroth on the right-hand side are masculine and represent the principle of rigour, the three on the left are feminine and represent the principle of mercy, and the four central or uniting Sephiroth represent the principle of mildness. Hence the right is called “the Pillar of Judgment,” the left “the Pillar of Mercy,” and the centre “the Middle Pillar.” The middle Sephiroth are synecdochically used to represent the worlds or triads of which they are the uniting potencies. Hence the Crown, the first Sephirah, which unites Wisdom and Intelligence to constitute the first triad, is by itself denominated the Intellectual World. So Beauty is by itself described as the Sensuous World, and in this capacity is called the Sacred King or simply the King, whilst Kingdom, the tenth Sephirah, which unites all the nine Sephiroth, is used to denote the Material World, and as such is denominated the Queen or the Matron. Thus a trinity of units, viz. the Crown, Beauty and Kingdom, is obtained within the trinity of triads. But further, each Sephirah is as it were a trinity in itself. It (1) has its own absolute character, (2) receives from above, and (3) communicates to what is below. “Just as the Sacred Aged is represented by the number three, so are all the other lights (Sephiroth) of a threefold nature” (Zohar, iii. 288). In this all-important doctrine of the Sephiroth, the Kabbalah insists upon the fact that these potencies are not creations of the Ēn Sōph, which would be a diminution of strength; that they form among themselves and with the Ēn Sōph a strict unity, and simply represent different aspects of the same being, just as the different rays which proceed from the light, and which appear different things to the eye, are only different manifestations of one and the same light; that for this reason they all alike partake of the perfections of the Ēn Sōph; and that as emanations from the Infinite, the Sephiroth are infinite and perfect like the Ēn Sōph, and yet constitute the first finite things. They are infinite and perfect when the Ēn Sōph imparts his fullness to them, and finite and imperfect when that fullness is withdrawn from them.

The conjunction of the Sephiroth, or, according to the language of the Kabbalah, the union of the crowned King and Queen, produced the universe in their own image. Worlds came into existence before the Ēn Sōph manifested The Universe. himself in the human form of emanations, but they could not continue, and necessarily perished because the conditions of development which obtained with the sexual opposites of the Sephiroth did not exist. These worlds which perished are compared to sparks which fly out from a red-hot iron beaten by a hammer, and which are extinguished according to the distance they are removed from the burning mass. Creation is not ex nihilo; it is simply a further expansion or evolution of the Sephiroth.3 The world reveals and makes visible the Boundless and the concealed of the concealed. And, though it exhibits the Deity in less splendour than its Sephiric parents exhibit the Ēn Sōph, because it is farther removed from the primordial source of light than the Sephiroth, still, as it is God manifested, all the multifarious forms in the world point out the unity which they represent. Hence nothing in the whole universe can be annihilated. Everything, spirit as well as body, must return to the source whence it emanated (Zohar, ii. 218). The universe consists of four different worlds, each of which forms a separate Sephiric system of a decade of emanations.

The whole universe, however, was incomplete, and did not receive its finishing stroke till man was formed, who is the acme of the creation and the microcosm. “The heavenly Adam (i.e. the ten Sephiroth) who emanated Doctrine of Man. from the highest primordial obscurity (i.e. the Ēn Sōph) created the earthly Adam” (Zohar, ii. 70). “Man is both the import and the highest degree of creation, for which reason he was formed on the sixth day. As soon as man was created everything was complete, including the upper and nether worlds, for everything is comprised in man. He unites in himself all forms” (Zohar, iii. 48). Each member of his body corresponds to a part of the visible universe. “Just as we see in the firmament above, covering all things, different signs which are formed of the stars and the planets, and which contain secret things and profound mysteries studied by those who are wise and expert in these things; so there are in the skin, which is the cover of the body of the son of man, and which is like the sky that covers all things above, signs and features which are the stars and planets of the skin, indicating secret things and profound mysteries whereby the wise are attracted who understand the reading of the mysteries in the human face” (Zohar, ii. 76). The human form is shaped after the four letters which constitute the Jewish Tetragrammaton (q.v.; see also Jehovah). The head is in the shape of י, the arms and the shoulders are like ה, the breast like ו, and the two legs with the back again resemble ה (Zohar, ii. 72). The souls of the whole human race pre-exist in the World of Emanations, and are all destined to inhabit human bodies. Like the Sephiroth from which it emanates, every soul has ten potencies, consisting of a trinity of triads. (1) The Spirit (nĕshāmah), which is the highest degree of being, corresponds to and is operated upon by the Crown, which is the highest triad in the Sephiroth, and is called the Intellectual World; (2) the Soul (rūăḥ), which is the seat of the moral qualities, corresponds to and is operated upon by Beauty, which is the second triad in the Sephiroth, and is called the Moral World; and (3) the Cruder Soul (nephesh), which is immediately connected with the body, and is the cause of its lower instincts and the animal life, corresponds to and is operated upon by Foundation, the third triad in the Sephiroth, called the Material World. Each soul prior to its entering into this world consists of male and female united into one being. When it descends on this earth the two parts are separated and animate two different bodies. “At the time of marriage the Holy One, blessed be he, who knows all souls and spirits, unites them again as they were before; and they again constitute one body and one soul, forming as it were the right and the left of the individual.... This union, however, is influenced by the deeds of the man and by the ways in which he walks. If the man is pure and his conduct is pleasing in the sight of God, he is united with that female part of the soul which was his component part prior to his birth” (Zohar, i. 91). The soul’s destiny upon earth is to develop those perfections the germs of which are eternally implanted in it, and it ultimately must return to the infinite source from which it emanated. Hence, if, after assuming a body and sojourning upon earth, it becomes polluted by sin and fails to acquire the experience for which it descends from heaven, it must three times reinhabit a body, till it is able to ascend in a purified state through repeated trials. If, after its third residence in a human body, it is still too weak to withstand the contamination of sin, it is united with another soul, in order that by their combined efforts it may resist the pollution which by itself it was unable to conquer. When the whole pleroma of pre-existent souls in the world of the Sephiroth shall have descended and occupied human bodies and have passed their period of probation and have returned purified to the bosom of the infinite Source, then the soul of Messiah will descend from the region of souls; then the great Jubilee will commence. There shall be no more sin, no more temptation, no more suffering. Universal restoration will take place. Satan himself, “the venomous Beast,” will be restored to his angelic nature. Life will be an everlasting feast, a Sabbath without end. All souls will be united with the Highest Soul, and will supplement each other in the Holy of Holies of the Seven Halls (Zohar, i. 45, 168; ii. 97).

According to the Kabbalah all these esoteric doctrines are contained in the Hebrew Scriptures. The uninitiated cannot perceive them; but they are plainly revealed to the spiritually minded, who discern the profound import Antiquity and Influence of Kabbalah. of this theosophy beneath the surface of the letters and words of Holy Writ. “If the law simply consists of ordinary expressions and narratives, such as the words of Esau, Hagar, Laban, the ass of Balaam or Balaam himself, why should it be called the law of truth, the perfect law, the true witness of God? Each word contains a sublime source, each narrative points not only to the single instance in question, but also to generals” (Zohar, iii. 149, cf. 152).

Exegesis of this sort is not the characteristic of any single circle, people or century; unscientific methods of biblical interpretation have prevailed from Philo’s treatment of the Pentateuch to modern apologetic interpretations of Genesis, ch. i.5 The Kabbalah itself is but an extreme and remarkable development of certain forms of thought which had never been absent from Judaism; it is bound up with earlier tendencies to mysticism, with man’s inherent striving to enter into communion with the Deity. To seek its sources would be futile. The Pythagorean theory of numbers, Neoplatonic ideas of emanation, the Logos, the personified Wisdom, Gnosticism—these and many other features combine to show the antiquity of tendencies which, clad in other shapes, are already found in the old pre-Christian Oriental religions.6 In its more mature form the Kabbalah belongs to the period when medieval Christian mysticism was beginning to manifest itself (viz. in Eckhart, towards end of 13th century); it is an age which also produced the rationalism of Maimonides (q.v.). Although some of its foremost exponents were famous Talmudists, it was a protest against excessive intellectualism and Aristotelian scholasticism. It laid stress, not on external authority, as did the Jewish law, but on individual experience and inward meditation. “The mystics accorded the first place to prayer, which was considered as a mystical progress towards God, demanding a state of ecstasy.”7 As a result, some of the finest specimens of Jewish devotional literature and some of the best types of Jewish individual character have been Kabbalist.8 On the other hand, the Kabbalah has been condemned, and nowhere more strongly than among the Jews themselves. Jewish orthodoxy found itself attacked by the more revolutionary aspects of mysticism and its tendencies to alter established customs. While the medieval scholasticism denied the possibility of knowing anything unattainable by reason, the spirit of the Kabbalah held that the Deity could be realized, and it sought to bridge the gulf. Thus it encouraged an unrestrained emotionalism, rank superstition, an unhealthy asceticism, and the employment of artificial means to induce the ecstatic state. That this brought moral laxity was a stronger reason for condemning the Kabbalah, and the evil effects of nervous degeneration find a more recent illustration in the mysticism of the Chasidim (Ḥăsīdīm, “saints”), a Jewish sect in eastern Europe which started from a movement in the 18th century against the exaggerated casuistry of contemporary rabbis, and combined much that was spiritual and beautiful with extreme emotionalism and degradation.9 The appearance of the Kabbalah and of other forms of mysticism in Judaism may seem contrary to ordinary and narrow conceptions of orthodox Jewish legalism. Its interest lies, not in its doctrines, which have often been absurdly over-estimated (particularly among Christians), but in its contribution to the study of human thought. It supplied a want which has always been felt by certain types, and it became a movement which had mischievous effects upon ill-balanced minds. As usual, the excessive self-introspection was not checked by a rational criticism; the individual was guided by his own reason, the limitations of which he did not realize; and in becoming a law unto himself he ignored the accumulated experiences of civilized humanity.10

A feature of greater interest is the extraordinary part which this theosophy played in the Christian Church, especially at the time of the Renaissance. We have already seen that the Sephiric decade or the archetypal man, like Christ, is considered to be of a double nature, both infinite and finite, perfect and imperfect. More distinct, however, is the doctrine of the Trinity. In Deut. vi. 43, where Yahweh occurs first, then Ĕlōhēnū, and then again Yahweh, we are told “The voice though one, consists of three elements, fire (i.e. warmth), air (i.e. breath), and water (i.e. humidity), yet all three are one in the mystery of the voice and can only be one. Thus also Yahweh, Ĕlōhēnū, Yahweh, constitute one—three forms which are one” (Zohar, ii. 43; compare iii. 65). Discussing the thrice holy in Isaiah vi. 3, one codex of the Zohar had the following remark: “The first holy denotes the Holy Father, the second the Holy Son, and the third the Holy Ghost” (cf. Galatinus, De arcanis cathol. lib. ii. c. 3, p. 31; Wolf, Bibliotheca hebraica, i. 1136). Still more distinct is the doctrine of the atonement. “The Messiah invokes all the sufferings, pain, and afflictions of Israel to come upon Him. Now if He did not remove them thus and take them upon Himself, no man could endure the sufferings of Israel, due as their punishment for transgressing the law; as it is written (Isa. liii. 4), Surely He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows” (Zohar, ii. 12). These and similar statements favouring the doctrines of the New Testament made many Kabbalists of the highest position in the synagogue embrace the Christian faith and write elaborate books to win their Jewish brethren over to Christ. As early as 1450 a company of Jewish converts in Spain, at the head of which were Paul de Heredia, Vidal de Saragossa de Aragon, and Davila, published compilations of Kabbalistic treatises to prove from them the doctrines of Christianity. They were followed by Paul Rici, professor at Pavia, and physician to the emperor Maximilian I. Among the best-known non-Jewish exponents of the Kabbalah were the Italian count Pico di Mirandola (1463-1494), the renowned Johann Reuchlin (1455-1522), Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa of Nettesheim (1487-1535), Theophrastus Paracelsus (1493-1541), and, later, the Englishman Robert Fludd (1574-1637). Prominent among the “nine hundred theses” which Mirandola had placarded in Rome, and which he undertook to defend in the presence of all European scholars, whom he invited to the Eternal City, promising to defray their travelling expenses, was the following: “No science yields greater proof of the divinity of Christ than magic and the Kabbalah.” Mirandola so convinced Pope Sixtus of the paramount importance of the Kabbalah as an auxiliary to Christianity that his holiness exerted himself to have Kabbalistic writings translated into Latin for the use of divinity students. With equal zeal did Reuchlin act as the apostle of the Kabbalah. His treatises exercised an almost magic influence upon the greatest thinkers of the time. Pope Leo X. and the early Reformers were alike captivated by the charms of the Kabbalah as propounded by Reuchlin, and not only divines, but statesmen and warriors, began to study the Oriental languages in order to be able to fathom the mysteries of Jewish theosophy. The Zohar, that farrago of absurdity and spiritual devotion, was the weapon with which these Christians defended Jewish literature against hostile ecclesiastic bodies (Abrahams, Jew. Lit. p. 106). Thus the Kabbalah linked the old scholasticism with the new and independent inquiries in learning and philosophy after the Renaissance, and although it had evolved a remarkably bizarre conception of the universe, it partly anticipated, in its own way, the scientific study of natural philosophy.11 Jewish theosophy, then, with its good and evil tendencies, and with its varied results, may thus claim to have played no unimportant part in the history of European scholarship and thought.

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