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Inner Dimension Audio
Study-Aid |
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Introduction to the Study of Kabbalah
Kabbalah: The Union of Wisdom and Prophecy The numerical value of the word “kabbalah”1 in Hebrew, is 137. Surprisingly this is one of the most important numbers today in modern physics. As a pure (dimensionless2) number it is known as the “inverse of the fine structure constant” and expresses an important property of space related to creation. 137 is also the value of the sum of two very important words that relate to Kabbalah: “wisdom”3 = 73 and “prophecy”4 = 64. Kabbalah can therefore be understood as the union (or “marriage”) of wisdom and prophecy. Historically, Kabbalah developed out of the prophetic tradition that existed in Judaism up to the second Temple period (beginning in the 4 th century BCE). Though the prophetic spirit that had dwelt in the prophets continued to “hover” above the Jewish people, it was no longer manifest directly. Instead, the spirit of wisdom manifested the Divine in the form of the Oral Torah (the oral tradition), the body of Rabbinic knowledge that began developing in the second Temple period and continues to this day. The meeting of wisdom (the mind, intellect) and prophecy (the spirit which still remains) and their union is what produces and defines the essence of Kabbalah. In the Kabbalistic conceptual scheme, “wisdom” corresponds to the sefirah of wisdom, otherwise known as the “Father” principle (Abba) and “prophecy” corresponds to the sefirah of understanding or the “Mother” principle (Ima). Wisdom and understanding are described in the Zohar as “two companions that never part.” Thus, Kabbalah represents the union of wisdom and prophecy in the collective Jewish soul; whenever we study Kabbalah, the inner wisdom of the Torah, we reveal this union. It is important to clarify that Kabbalah is not a separate discipline from the traditional study of the Torah, it is rather the Torah’s inner soul (nishmata de’orayta, in the language of the Zohar and the Arizal). Oftentimes a union of two things is represented in Kabbalah as an acronym composed of their initial letters. In this case, “wisdom” in Hebrew starts with the letter chet “prophecy” begins with the letter nun; so their acronym spells the Hebrew word “chen,” which means “grace,” in the sense of beauty. Grace in particular refers to symmetric beauty, i.e., the type of beauty that we perceive in symmetry. This observation ties in with the fact that the inner wisdom of the Torah, Kabbalah is referred to as “chochmat ha’chen,” which we would literally translate as the wisdom of chen. Chen here is an acronym for another two words: concealed wisdom (chochmah nistara). But, following our analysis here, Kabbalah is called chen because it is the union of wisdom and prophecy. Because it comrpises both wisdom and prophecy, Kabbalah, the inner soul of the Torah is best suited to provide us with a vision of the perfected, utopian future that the world will enjoy once the Mashiach is revealed. Studying Kabbalah provides us both at the individual and the collective levels with the consciousness and strength of character needed to envision this future, and work towards it even during the greatest hours of darkness. In general there are 5 stages in the revelation of the wisdom of Kabbalah, each stage appearing (one might say, even encoded) within a particular text. Kabbalah analyzes everything in our world, especially those things that explicitly relate to the Torah, according to pre-figured basic models that derive from an in-depth study of the Torah. Naturally, these five stages are significant and should be analyzed based on the five ascending levels of the soul.
One: The Book of Formation The text revealing the first stage that corresponds to the vital level of the soul is The Book of Formation (Sefer Yetzirah). According to Jewish tradition, the wisdom in this text is attributed to the first Jew, Abraham. In length, it is a relatively short text, and most of its content appears in enigmatic phrases, and it appears clear from its language that it indeed has very ancient roots. Explicitly, this means that the wisdom contained in The Book of Formation antedates the giving of the Torah at Mt. Sinai . Nonetheless, traditionally, the final edition of the book as we have it before us, was compiled in the generation before the destruction of the Second Temple (1 st century CE) by the greatest sage of the Tannaic (Mishnah) period, Rabbi Akiva. Rabbi Akiva was also the master and teacher of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, the author of the Zohar, literally The Book of Brilliance. Two: The Zohar Unlike The Book of Formation, the Zohar, the text revealing the second stage of Kabbalah, is a very large one. Its content is primarily structured as an interpretation of the Bible in general and the Five Books of Moses, in particular. The Zohar, though it speaks in a usually less enigmatic language than the Book of Formation, is structurally varied. Some of the content appears as story-telling, some of it as an in-depth analysis of “higher worlds,” the reality of sefirot, the way in which the sefirot develop into “figures” (partzufim)5 —spiritual personas6 of the higher worlds, and so on. There are some parts of the Zohar (like the Idra Rabbah and Idra Zuta), which remained almost completely incomprehensible until the Arizal (16 th century CE) shed light shed on them (more on the Arizal in the fourth stage). In the complete corpus of the many writings that make up the Torah, the Zohar is considered a midrash—a homiletic or hermeneutic discourse on the Torah.7 Sometimes the Zohar is even referred to as Midrash Rashbi, Rashbi being the acronym of its author’s name: Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. Though originally composed by Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai in the 2 nd century CE, the Zohar was not openly published for another 1200 years. During the interim, it was passed from mentor to disciple. “A thing in its [proper] time is good,”8 and such was the public revelation of the Zohar. Immediately upon its revelation, the Zohar spread throughout the Jewish world of learning, and many of the Kabbalistic scholars began to try to unlock its secrets, by properly interpreting its myriad of allusions and metaphors. This went on for almost 200 years, until this process reached its zenith with the work of Rabbi Moshe Cordovero (1522-1570), known by his acronym, the Ramak. Three: The Pomegranate Orchard The Ramak’s work represents the third stage of the evolution of Kabbalah. His interpretation of the Zohar was based on a rational mindset (not very different from the mindset used in explaining other Midrashic literature; see note 3) and a wide and circumspect knowledge of the entire Torah in all its strata exoteric (revealed) and esoteric (hidden) alike. The Ramak’s commentary on the Zohar, titled Or Yakar, is tremendous in its scope, spanning dozens of large volumes. But, his magnum opus was the volume titled The Pomegranate Orchard (Pardes Rimonim), based on what is perhaps one of the most enigmatic verses in the entire Bible: “Your shoots are an orchard of pomegranates with pleasant fruits, henna and nard.” This verse is from the Song of Songs, a poetic and metaphoric description of the love between a bride and her groom. Even though all the sages of the Talmudic period knew about and were involved in the study of Kabbalah, the Talmud does not openly delve into its mysteries. However, there is one chapter dedicated to this topic: the second chapter of the tractate of Chagigah. There, the sages who were initiated into the study of Kabbalah are described as having entered the Pardes, the “orchard.” The Hebrew word pardes is also understood in Kabbalah to be an acronym for the four parts of the Torah: literal, allusive, homiletic/hermeneutic, and secret.9 That the “orchard” contains all four parts of the Torah implies that it is impossible to truly be initiated into its secrets without studying the three other strata.10 Four: The Tree of Life By the work of the Ramak and others on the Zohar many of its mysteries were revealed. Nonetheless, the deepest teachings and concepts could not be fathomed by the human mind alone if it were not inspired from above by the Almighty. The Holy Ari, the acronym for Rabbi Isaac ben Shlomo Luria, was the new soul11 sent from above and chosen to reveal these. The Ari arrived in the Ramak’s hometown, the holy city of Safed , on the same day that the Ramak passed away and was being buried.12 Beyond having the intellectual skills and knowledge of his predecessors, the Ari merited to receive a completely new revelation of wisdom from Heaven. Though this new wisdom could be taught independently, the Ari chose to “enclothe” it as an interpretation of the Zohar, that is, to teach it in context of the language and style of the Zohar. The Ari’s teachings were then compiled into the text titled The Tree of Life (EitzChayim). So all-inclusive and penetrating were the Ari’s teachings, that a student of Kabbalah who has not yet learnt the fifth level of Kabbalah, will tell you that the classic work for the study of Kabbalah in our generations is The Tree of Life. The Arizal explains that as we approach the Messianic era it becomes critical that the study of Kabbalah be taught. In his words: “it is a mitzvah [a commandment] to reveal this wisdom now” (mitzvah legalot zot hachochmah). This is based on the statement of the Zohar that “with this book [i.e., the Zohar], we will come out of their exile with mercy” (Zohar III:124b). Meaning, that the study of the inner dimension of the Torah, as revealed in the Zohar, has the power to prevent the difficult traumatic events otherwise required for us to make the transition from our present state of consciousness to the consciousness of the Messianic era. Even though the Arizal was the first to say that the time has come for Kabbalah to be taught openly, nonetheless, there are still conditions placed upon those who desire to study the esoteric dimension of the Torah. On the part of the teacher it is indeed a mitzvah to reveal the hidden teachings, but only to those who are already worthy to integrate them into their lives. The description of what is required of an appropriate student is even outlined in the introduction to Eitz Chayim, The Tree of Life, the most basic text of the Arizal’s Kabbalah. The Fifth Stage of Kabbalah: Chassidut More than a century and a half after the Arizal’s statement that the time has come for Kabbalah to be revealed, the Ba’al Shem Tov (1698-1760) founded the Chassidic movement. As explained in length by one of the greatest Chassidic scholars, Rabbi Isaac of Homil (who was a disciple of Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the founder of the Chabad branch of Chassidut, his son, Rabbi Dov Ber, and his grandson, the Tzemach Tzedek), the Ba’al Shem Tov’s teachings in particular and Chassidut in general are a final tier of Kabbalah. They are a unique revelation of the Divine wisdom of Kabbalah in the sense that they form a new corpus of teachings that as a whole provide a deeper insight and a more advanced conceptual scheme than ever revealed before with which to understand and internalize the teachings of the Zohar and the Arizal. Chassidut is thus the fifth stage of the revelation of Kabbalah. But, the Ba’al Shem Tov’s Kabbalah is not different only in its breadth of explanation; it is also wider in its scope. Whereas the Arizal still imposed limitations on who is worthy to study Kabbalah, the Ba’al Shem Tov advocated a radically new approach. The Ba’al Shem Tov experienced an elevation of his soul to the dwelling place of the Mashiach in heaven, where the Mashiach revealed to him, that the redemption would occur once his [the Ba’al Shem Tov’s] wellsprings of teaching would spread forth to the most remote extremes (yafutzu ma’ayanotecha chutza). Subsequently, the Ba’al Shem Tov explained that the “most remote extremes” specifically refers to those Jews who until now could not have been considered sanctified enough to study Kabbalah. Obviously, spreading the wellsprings of Kabbalah to these extremes means specifically addressing every single Jew, regardless of level of observance or commitment to the Torah. Not only that, but even non-Jews, who also require the wisdom of Kabbalah in order to participate in the redemption in a compassionate and merciful manner, should also be addressed and taught those parts of the wisdom that pertain to them. This implies there really are no longer any conditions placed on the study of Kabbalah. Since all souls require this wisdom to rectify themselves, there is also no difference between genders. Until the coming of the Mashiach it is our task to do all in our power to spread the wellsprings of Chassidut, the fifth level of Kabbalah. Revealing the Concealed It is important to mention that whenever we speak of “new teachings” we of course mean not that some new Torah has been given from God through someone, but rather that some righteous individual has merited revealing hidden parts of the Torah that were always present but remained concealed until that point in time (for reasons known only to God, in His providence to bring creation and history to the utopian state for which the world was created). Those unique souls sent from Heaven at certain critical moments in history to reveal new dimensions of the Torah will of course never contradict or nullify any of the Torah's laws or teachings that had been revealed until that point in time. Rabbi Shneur Zalman, the found of Chabad, stated that “there will not be a second giving of the Torah,” meaning that all new teachings must always truly be founded on the Torah as it has been transmitted and developed from generation to generation. The Torah that was given by G-d at Mt. Sinai already contains all the new teachings and understandings of all the generations up to and including even the deepest revelations that will be taught by the Mashiach. In fact, the prophets clearly stated that just before the final revelations of the Torah by the Mashiach, prophecy will return to the Jewish people. The purpose of this prophecy is, again, not to reveal a “new” Torah, but rather to prepare the soul so that it can integrate the depth of the revelation of the Torah’s hidden teachings as they will be revealed by the Mashiach. Let us now see how the 5 stages of the development of Kabbalah relate to the 5 aspects of the soul:
As mentioned, the 5 stages of Kabbalah constitute an unfolding of the Jewish consciousness. We find in the prophets that real prophecy will return to the Jewish people just before the final redemption. Essentially this is not only a sign of the coming redemption, it is also a prerequisite. As we mentioned in the beginning, Kabbalah is actually the unification of wisdom with prophecy and is what prepares the Jewish people for the return of prophecy. The first text, Sefer Yetzirah, talks about the different phenomena of nature (the seasons, the days of the week, the planets, the human body, etc.) and corresponds them with the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, thus it corresponds with the revelation of the natural, vital (nefesh) aspect of the soul. The second text, the Zohar, when stripped of the deep contemplative explanations offered on this text by the later stages and read at face value, has the special power to arouse the spirit (ruach) of the soul. As stated by one of the Rebbe’s of Chabad, as a text, there is nothing like the Zohar to arouse a person’s emotions. Of course, the spirit aspect of the soul includes the emotional faculties. The Kabbalists of the third stage, epitomized by the Ramak and his work, sought to use their mental faculties to comprehend the inner mysteries of the Zohar. This stage was continually underscored by Judaism’s greatest philosophical text, Maimonides’ Guide to the Perplexed (Moreh Hanevochim). The ideal was to unify the Zohar’s esoteric wisdom with the Jewish philosophical tradition; to unite Kabbalah with Chakirah (Jewish philosophy). The neshamah aspect of the soul13 contains its mental faculties, which unfolded and reached an apex during this stage. The new revelation of the Arizal taxes the mind’s faculties to the limit, but more importantly it challenges the soul to go beyond the mind’s rational approach. Its essence is super-rational, though the Arizal did present this essence in intellectual terms. Unlike reading the Zohar which leads to an emotional experience, reading the Eitz Chayim requires a deep intellectual endeavor, which still leaves a sense of being something beyond the intellect. Thus the Arizal’s Kabbalah serves to unfold the level of soul’s aspect of chayah. The chayah is described as having the quality of “touching/not-touching” (noge’a v’eino noge’a); it hovers ever so closely to our mind, yet always eludes it. The final revelation is known in Chassidic tradition as the “soul of the Kabbalah of the Arizal,” or the “soul of the soul of the Torah” (nishmeta lenishmeta de’orayta). The classic text of Chassidut is the Tanya, written by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi. One of the most important teachings in the Tanya is that the Jewish soul is an actual part of G-d (cheilek elokah mima’al mamash).14 Though this thought appears in earlier Kabbalistic texts (in various formulations),15 it was never stated so unequivocally and had not yet formed the basis for an entire conceptual scheme as it does in the Tanya. What this statement says is that we have an eternal continual connection with G-d, and that every action that we do reflects the essence of the Divine. Chassidut thus reveals the level of Divinity before the initial contraction of G-d’s infinite light that allowed the creation of finite reality; Chassidut thus reveals the infinite capacity of the Jewish soul. In order to understand how novel a revelation this is, the Arizal did not expound regarding the stages that came before the initial contraction. It was left to Chassidut to reveal and unfold these stages, in virtue of the fact that the essence of our Divine soul was indeed there. Chassidut is revealing a pristine, unconscious memory of the soul before creation. When a new disciple would come to the Ba’al Shem Tov, the first question he was asked was “what do you remember?” The Ba’al Shem Tov was jingling the deepest levels of the new disciple’s soul preparing him for the study of Chassidut. In the Arizal’s Kabbalah there was also “memory triggering” but it involved “recollecting” one’s previous incarnations, which of course do not reveal the soul’s existence as it was before the creation of the world, when it was still an actual part of G-d, the yechidah, the singularity aspect of the soul.
Seeing the Future A well-known Chassidic story illustrates this point well:
Everything that a person has done in his lifetime up to the present moment, in deed, word, and thought, corresponds to the first three levels of the soul: nefesh, ruach and neshamah. These were apparent to the Kabbalists before the Arizal. Past incarnations, which the Arizal focused on, correspond to the chayah aspect of the soul. But, in order to see a soul’s destiny in the future, it is necessary to see the soul as it is an actual part of G-d, for whom past, present, and future all exist at once. The ability of Rebbe Menachem Mendel to see a person’s yechidah was what convinced Rebbe Shneur Zalman to seek his guidance.
Notes 1. kuf = 100; bet = 2; lamed = 30; hei = 5. 2. “dimensionless” means that this number is not a measure of any quantity, for example: distance (meters) or time (seconds) or energy (joules), etc., or ratio between units (like speed: meters per second, etc.). 3. chet = 8; kaf = 20; mem = 40; hei = 5. 4. nun = 50; bet = 2; vav = 6; alef = 1; hei = 5 5. as above (previous part *link*), where we spoke of the father (Abba) and mother (Ima) principles/figures. 6. Of course, all of these figures/personas are created entities emanated by G-d during creation; they are not a part of G-d Himself. 7. other Midrashic texts include the Halachic (legal) midrashim like the Mechilta (on the book of Exodus), Torat Cohanim or Sifra (on the book of Leviticus), Sifri (on the books of Numbers and Deuteronomy). Among the homiletic midrashim (some containing content similar to the Zohar) are Tanchumah, Rabbah, PirkeiDerabbiEliezer, ShocherTov and others. 8. Proverbs 15:23. See also Job 3:11: “G-d has made everything in its proper time….” 9. Pardes in Hebrew is spelled: pei reish dalet samech. Pei stands for p’shat (literal); reish stands for remez (allusive); dalet stands for drush (homiletic/hermeneutic); and samech stands for sod. 10. It is just as important to note that if the “secret” part of the Torah is missing from one’s study, then the acronym becomes the Hebrew word pered, which means “separate.” Without the inner soul of the Torah, even the most dedicated student may remain separate from G-d, the giver and the source of the Torah. 11. In Kabbalah, a new soul is one that was not contained within Adam and therefore did not partake of the primordial sin of eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Because every human being is actually a mosaic of souls, and most if not all of these were contained within Adam, the Ari, like all human beings cursed with death, eventually did pass away. For a more in-depth explanation, see “Tzadik Yesod Olam” in Rabbi Ginsburgh’s Hebrew volume Leiv Lada’at, p. 136. 12. The Ari later reported that he had seen the pillar of fire that rose above the Ramak’s body during the funeral. In each generation, there is one individual who merits seeing the pillar of fire rising above the body of the demised leader of the previous generation. In seeing it, that individual is appointed by Heaven to become the leader of his generation. The Jewish leader of every generation is called the Moshe Rabbeinu (Our Teacher, Moshe) of the generation (Moshe shebador). 13. When studying the Torah, it is not rare to find that a particular aspect of a composite entity is named for the entity as a whole. In this case, neshamah, the third aspect of the soul, is normally translated into English as “soul.” Neshamah can also be translated as “breath” (neshimah) based on the verse “G-d breathed into him the breath (nishmat) of life” (Genesis 2:), which can also be translated as “G-d breathed into him the soul (nishmat) of life.” 14. Beginning of chapter 2. 15. Most notably by the author of the Kabbalistic work Shefa Tal, Rabbi Shabtai Sheftel Horowitz who lived before the Ba’al Shem Tov.
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