Mor Altshuler
"Tikkun Leil Shavuot of R. Joseph Karo and the Epistle of Solomon ha-Levi Elkabetz"
The tradition of tikkun leil Shavuot, of studying all night on Shavuot, comes from the Zohar where the practice is associated with the Rashbi circle. In essence playing out the revelation of Moses at Sinai. The first historic tikkun that we have evidence of was practiced by R. Joseph Karo, R. Solomon Elkabetz and their circle in Salonika. According to Elkabetz, the voice of the Torah came out of Karo. The voice identified itself as the Shechina in exile; God had left her and her children had abandoned her for idols. The revelation of the Shechina takes them from Moses at Sinai to Joshua conquering the land of Israel. Soon afterwards there was a plague in Salonika. Karo lost his wife. This eventually led Karo and Elkabetz to moving to Safed and establishing the golden age of Safed Kabbalah.
Zohar Raviv (University of Michigan)
"Rabbi Moses Cordovero's Sefer Gerushin: Contemplation, Devotion, and the Negotiation of Landscapes"
R. Moses Cordovero's Sefer Gerushin has not been heavily studied. Lawrence Fine has done the most extensive study of it to date and he only gives it a page and a half. The main theme of the book is the exilic existence of the Shechina and how one relates to it. The book advocates the practice voluntary exile in order to enact the exile of the Shechina. By doing it specifically in the Galilee one is literally following in the footsteps of the Rashbi. One should do what was done in the Zohar in the specfic place done there. Codovero advocated a practice in which a living mystic would lie on the grave of an ancient sage whereby the person would become the Shechina and the ancient sage would take on the persona of Yesod. Underlying all this was the premise that if one understands the divine structure once can force God to do certain things.
Eitan P. Fishbane (Jewish Theological Seminary)
"Identity, Reincarnation, and Rebirth in the Writings of R. Hayyim Vital"
Belief in the afterlife and ressurection is a basic part of many religions. R. Hayyim Vital's Shar ha-Gilgulim is about the search for ones place and function in the redemptive restoration of the primal cosmic order. The identity of the person is the soul that travels from body to body. Isaac Luria's great ability was that he could identify the identity of his students' souls and understand their purpose. (See Lawrence Fine's Physician of the Soul) The actions of a person can have a cosmic affect. The intentions of a person, while having sex can affect the children born. A father's energy can make a child wild or lazy.
Lawrence B. Fine (Mount Holyoke College)
"Spiritual Friendship in Jewish Mystical Tradition: The Bet El Contracts"
There is a difficulty in studying the history of friendship. Friendship is something so universal that it is easy to ignore. One has to recognize that the concept of friendship differs from place to place. Friendship also has to be distinguished from other social realities. There is the prescriptive (what friendship should be) and the descriptive (what friendship is).
The Bet El circle is an example of community friendship. Bet El did not go the way of Hasidism; it remained an elitist and not a popular movement. They signed a pact as a group to love one another and to share in each other's merits. Members of the group were not to praise another too highly and everyone was to treat each other as equals. This pact has its precedent in the circle of David ibn Zimra. Among the people included in this pact was Isaac Luria. To go further back one can point to this model as being rooted in early Christian and early rabbinic thought.
Showing posts with label Hayyim Vital. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hayyim Vital. Show all posts
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
AJS Conference Day Two Session One (Studies in Mystical Experience and Identity)
Pinchas Giller (American Jewish University)
"Kabbalah and Meditation"
Can we speak of a Kabbalistic meditation? This concept seems to be rooted more in modern interests than in traditional source material. When we speak of meditation we mean something very specific. It involves specific uses of the body and mental states. Contemplation is not the same thing as meditation. Kabbalistic prayer is not easily reconciled with meditation. Cleaving to God is not becoming one with him. Jews tend to work with a transitive model of prayer, engaging in rites directed at a given object, in this case a monotheistic God. The closest thing to meditation in the Kabbalistic tradition is Abraham Abulafia. Abulafia's teaching do involve breathing exercises and body positions in order to achieve a spiritual result. But Kabbalah never developed a methodological school with a living tradition. Abulafia's tradition was lost and failed to achieve any wide influence. Where meditation does come into play in Judaism is the Sufi inspired tradition of Bahya ibn Pakuda and Abraham Maimonides.
(Giller and Menachem Kallus got into a debate about certain technical issues involving Hindu-Buddhist meditation traditions, which went completely over my head. I did recognize one of the terms they were using, chakra, from having watched Naruto. I take it as a bad sign if I am getting my knowledge of Eastern meditation from Japanese anime.
It struck me as interesting how important Eastern thought has become for Kabbalah studies. I recognize that this is a legitimate line of scholarly inquiry. As a historian, though, I am more inclined to focus on narrative questions such as who, what, when, where any why as opposed to methodological questions; I am not concerned with defining the nature of mysticism as something spanning time, space and cultures. I know that medieval and early modern Kabbalists were not talking to Hindus and Buddhists. Muslim Sufis, and Christian mystics is another story entirely and therefore of interest. In this respect I guess I come down into the camp of Gershom Scholem and not Moshe Idel.)
Menachem Emanuel Kallus (Haifa University)
"On a Purported Copy of the Cosmographic Diagrams of R. Hayim Vital"
(Dr. Goldish had me read some of Kallus' work so I had become a fan and was really looking foward to hear him speak. Unfortunately his presention went right over me. Therefore I am not going to even make the attempt to summerize what he said. )
Igor Victor Turov (National University, Kievo Mogilyanska Akademiya)
"Attitude of the Founders of Hasidism to Gentiles"
In general Hasidic attitutudes toward gentiles are quite negative. Gentiles are physically and spiritually dangerous. That being said you do have certain streams of Hasidic thought that, in a strange sense, are positive. For example, Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk talks about admiring the beauty of the gentiles. The Besht makes a treaty with Carpathian bandits; he would pray for them and in return they would not attack Jews. At the root of this "positive" view of gentiles is the notion that God concealed himself amongst the gentiles and that by interacting with gentiles one released the divine sparks trapped within them.
(This brought to mind an essay my Kallus which talks about a sort of "parasitic" Kabbalism where you can have someone so wicked that there is no hope of saving him. The Kabbalist sage would therefore take the little merit that this person had, leaving him completely with nothing, in order that some good should come of this merit.)
"Kabbalah and Meditation"
Can we speak of a Kabbalistic meditation? This concept seems to be rooted more in modern interests than in traditional source material. When we speak of meditation we mean something very specific. It involves specific uses of the body and mental states. Contemplation is not the same thing as meditation. Kabbalistic prayer is not easily reconciled with meditation. Cleaving to God is not becoming one with him. Jews tend to work with a transitive model of prayer, engaging in rites directed at a given object, in this case a monotheistic God. The closest thing to meditation in the Kabbalistic tradition is Abraham Abulafia. Abulafia's teaching do involve breathing exercises and body positions in order to achieve a spiritual result. But Kabbalah never developed a methodological school with a living tradition. Abulafia's tradition was lost and failed to achieve any wide influence. Where meditation does come into play in Judaism is the Sufi inspired tradition of Bahya ibn Pakuda and Abraham Maimonides.
(Giller and Menachem Kallus got into a debate about certain technical issues involving Hindu-Buddhist meditation traditions, which went completely over my head. I did recognize one of the terms they were using, chakra, from having watched Naruto. I take it as a bad sign if I am getting my knowledge of Eastern meditation from Japanese anime.
It struck me as interesting how important Eastern thought has become for Kabbalah studies. I recognize that this is a legitimate line of scholarly inquiry. As a historian, though, I am more inclined to focus on narrative questions such as who, what, when, where any why as opposed to methodological questions; I am not concerned with defining the nature of mysticism as something spanning time, space and cultures. I know that medieval and early modern Kabbalists were not talking to Hindus and Buddhists. Muslim Sufis, and Christian mystics is another story entirely and therefore of interest. In this respect I guess I come down into the camp of Gershom Scholem and not Moshe Idel.)
Menachem Emanuel Kallus (Haifa University)
"On a Purported Copy of the Cosmographic Diagrams of R. Hayim Vital"
(Dr. Goldish had me read some of Kallus' work so I had become a fan and was really looking foward to hear him speak. Unfortunately his presention went right over me. Therefore I am not going to even make the attempt to summerize what he said. )
Igor Victor Turov (National University, Kievo Mogilyanska Akademiya)
"Attitude of the Founders of Hasidism to Gentiles"
In general Hasidic attitutudes toward gentiles are quite negative. Gentiles are physically and spiritually dangerous. That being said you do have certain streams of Hasidic thought that, in a strange sense, are positive. For example, Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk talks about admiring the beauty of the gentiles. The Besht makes a treaty with Carpathian bandits; he would pray for them and in return they would not attack Jews. At the root of this "positive" view of gentiles is the notion that God concealed himself amongst the gentiles and that by interacting with gentiles one released the divine sparks trapped within them.
(This brought to mind an essay my Kallus which talks about a sort of "parasitic" Kabbalism where you can have someone so wicked that there is no hope of saving him. The Kabbalist sage would therefore take the little merit that this person had, leaving him completely with nothing, in order that some good should come of this merit.)
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Sin, Safed and Lurianic Kabbalah.
Lawrence Fine’s Physician of the Soul Healer of the Cosmos: Isaac Luria and His Kabbalistic Fellowship is a sociological analysis of Isaac Luria (1534-72), the central figure of sixteenth century Kabbalah, and the circle that surrounded him. Fine is not particularly interested in the theology of Luria per se, that ground having already been thoroughly covered by Gershom Scholem. Instead Fine approaches Luria from the perspective of Luria’s distinct practices. Fine is less interested in Luria theology of exile and redemption than the sort of rituals that Luria and his followers engaged in order to bring about redemption. This sort of prax based approach is important when dealing with the Jewish History. Judaism is a highly prax based religion; everything has to make itself relevant in terms of ritual practice, halacha. Any discussion of Judaism that remains solely in the theoretical realm of theology is missing something. Fine is following Moshe Idel’s criticism of Scholem’ treatment of Kabbalah, as primarily a theology and as something separate from rabbinic Judaism. Fine’s treatment of Luria keeps him within the framework of rabbinic Judaism and of halacha.
What I found most interesting about this book was Fine’s discussion of the penances that Luria proscribed for various sins. Figuring prominently within the list of sins, we have from his student, Hayyim Vital, are drinking gentile wine, committing sins which require one of the four types of capital punishment, sexual relations with a menstruant, relations with an animal, sleeping with gentile women, adultery, sodomy and masturbation. According to Vital, he learned of Luria’s proscribed penance for homosexuality from three people who actually carried it out. Luria’s remedy was that a person should fast for 233 days, which is the numerical equivalent of the Hebrew word regel, foot. This denotes the part of the Ze’ir that the sin displaced the saphira of Yesod into
The fact that such emphasis was placed on how to repent from sexual transgressions raises some questions as to nature of the people living in Safed in the sixteenth century. If you read Haredi “history” books, all you will hear about sixteenth century Safed is that it was a holy city, full of holy people. In truth Safed was a much more interesting and dynamic place. Clearly the city contained people who had a lot more weighing on their consciousness then missing morning prayers every once in awhile. For one thing many of the people, who migrated to Safed, were ex-conversos, who had lived as Christians for significant parts of their lives. Many of them had left behind non Jewish wives and children. To say nothing of the sins that people committed while living in Safed. Safed was not Lakewood or the Mir; it was an openly dysfunctional place and that was the point of it.
This sinful side of Safed is important for understanding the community and Luria. More than any other movement within traditional Judaism, Lurianic Kabbalah confronted the reality of sin in this world. The goal of Lurianic Kabbalah was to bring about the redemption of the world by redeeming the divine sparks that trapped by the forces of darkness, which in the terminology of Lurianic Kabbalah is referred to as the qelippot, the shells. It is not enough to simply remove oneself from the world and be holy; one has to confront the forces of sin. In effect one tries to redeem even sin. This is not the theology of people convinced of their utter righteousness; this is the theology of people confronting their own sinfulness.
What I found most interesting about this book was Fine’s discussion of the penances that Luria proscribed for various sins. Figuring prominently within the list of sins, we have from his student, Hayyim Vital, are drinking gentile wine, committing sins which require one of the four types of capital punishment, sexual relations with a menstruant, relations with an animal, sleeping with gentile women, adultery, sodomy and masturbation. According to Vital, he learned of Luria’s proscribed penance for homosexuality from three people who actually carried it out. Luria’s remedy was that a person should fast for 233 days, which is the numerical equivalent of the Hebrew word regel, foot. This denotes the part of the Ze’ir that the sin displaced the saphira of Yesod into
The fact that such emphasis was placed on how to repent from sexual transgressions raises some questions as to nature of the people living in Safed in the sixteenth century. If you read Haredi “history” books, all you will hear about sixteenth century Safed is that it was a holy city, full of holy people. In truth Safed was a much more interesting and dynamic place. Clearly the city contained people who had a lot more weighing on their consciousness then missing morning prayers every once in awhile. For one thing many of the people, who migrated to Safed, were ex-conversos, who had lived as Christians for significant parts of their lives. Many of them had left behind non Jewish wives and children. To say nothing of the sins that people committed while living in Safed. Safed was not Lakewood or the Mir; it was an openly dysfunctional place and that was the point of it.
This sinful side of Safed is important for understanding the community and Luria. More than any other movement within traditional Judaism, Lurianic Kabbalah confronted the reality of sin in this world. The goal of Lurianic Kabbalah was to bring about the redemption of the world by redeeming the divine sparks that trapped by the forces of darkness, which in the terminology of Lurianic Kabbalah is referred to as the qelippot, the shells. It is not enough to simply remove oneself from the world and be holy; one has to confront the forces of sin. In effect one tries to redeem even sin. This is not the theology of people convinced of their utter righteousness; this is the theology of people confronting their own sinfulness.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
R’ Hayyim Vital and his Female Visionaries
In previous posts I have discussed the situation of female visionaries within Christian thought. I wish therefore to say something about the situation of female visionaries within Judaism. This tradition of female visionaries is noticeably lacking with Judaism. Why is an interesting question, one that does not have any clear cut answers. One is hard pressed to even talk about the existence of female visionaries. Gershom Scholem denied that there was such a thing as female mysticism within Kabblah. According to Scholem, Kabbalah is a masculine doctrine; it lacks Islam’s Rabia or Christianity’s Mechthild of Magdeburg, Julian of Norwich or Theresa de Avila. The reason why Scholem dismisses the notion of female Kabbalists is that there are no Kabbalistic texts written by women.
J. H. Chajes devotes a chapter in his book on Dybbuks to bringing women into the history Kabbalistic thought by considering a wider range of information beyond simple source texts, which formed the basis for Scholem’s work. While we do not have Kabbalistic works written by women, women do play a major role in Hayyim Vital’s mystical diary, Sefer ha-Hezyonot, book of visions. In this work we find Jewish women who operated in ways that closely parallel the cases of Christian female mystics.
Vital consulted various women for their skills in divination and contacting the dead. Early in his career he consulted with a woman named Sanadora. She, through her technique of gazing into droplets of olive oil, predicted that Vital would become a great Kabbalist. We find a reference to Francesa Sarah of Safed and the daughter of R’ Shlomo Alkabetz being present in the house of study while Vital lectured. It would seem that that rabbinate in Safed held Francesa’s powers in high regard and that she has a certain amount of power over them. When she predicted that a plague was going to strike Safed, the rabbis decreed a public fast.
The two most important female visionaries in Vital’s writing are the daughter of Raphael Anav and Rachel Aberlin. The Daughter of Raphael Anav, we do not even know her name, was originally possessed by a good spirit, which took on the name Hakham Piso, who entered her while he was doing penance on earth. This spirit was expelled but later this girl gained a reputation of being able to serve as a medium for all sorts of good angels and spirits. Because of this various rabbis came to consult with her. She denounced various prominent figures such as the poet R’ Israel Najara and R’ Jacob Abulafia, the head of the Spanish congregation in Damascus.
Rachel Aberlin was a wealthy widow, who operated together with the Anav girl for quite a number of years and mentored her; they show up in many of the same places. Rachel was a visionary in her own right. For example she had a vision of Vital with a pillar of fire over his head and being supported by Elijah the prophet. There was another vision in which she sees him eating lettuce and radishes. Chajes sees this as a mixture of praise and criticism.
Matt Goldish pointed out to me that the major difference between the women that Vital talks about and the women we find Christian mystical literature is that, while there are numerous examples of women in Christian mystical literature who take on very active roles and are treated as figures of authority in their own right, Vitals treats his women as passive ciphers. They have little intrinsic value in of themselves; they are vessels into which spirits used in order to aid Vital and other rabbis. One can easily imagine taking Vital’s narrative and turning it around to a feminine perspective. These women could be viewed as bearers of such tremendous spiritual power that holy spirits came to rest within them, something that even most great rabbis never merited. Even R’ Hayyim Vital had to go to these women and place himself under their authority in order to receive the instructions from heaven.
While there is such a thing, within traditional Jewish thought, as a female visionary, the fact that it does not play a major role within Jewish mysticism, nothing to compare with what we find in Christianity, means that we still have not gotten around the issue of the male centricity of Jewish mysticism. Why do we not hear more about female visionaries?
J. H. Chajes devotes a chapter in his book on Dybbuks to bringing women into the history Kabbalistic thought by considering a wider range of information beyond simple source texts, which formed the basis for Scholem’s work. While we do not have Kabbalistic works written by women, women do play a major role in Hayyim Vital’s mystical diary, Sefer ha-Hezyonot, book of visions. In this work we find Jewish women who operated in ways that closely parallel the cases of Christian female mystics.
Vital consulted various women for their skills in divination and contacting the dead. Early in his career he consulted with a woman named Sanadora. She, through her technique of gazing into droplets of olive oil, predicted that Vital would become a great Kabbalist. We find a reference to Francesa Sarah of Safed and the daughter of R’ Shlomo Alkabetz being present in the house of study while Vital lectured. It would seem that that rabbinate in Safed held Francesa’s powers in high regard and that she has a certain amount of power over them. When she predicted that a plague was going to strike Safed, the rabbis decreed a public fast.
The two most important female visionaries in Vital’s writing are the daughter of Raphael Anav and Rachel Aberlin. The Daughter of Raphael Anav, we do not even know her name, was originally possessed by a good spirit, which took on the name Hakham Piso, who entered her while he was doing penance on earth. This spirit was expelled but later this girl gained a reputation of being able to serve as a medium for all sorts of good angels and spirits. Because of this various rabbis came to consult with her. She denounced various prominent figures such as the poet R’ Israel Najara and R’ Jacob Abulafia, the head of the Spanish congregation in Damascus.
Rachel Aberlin was a wealthy widow, who operated together with the Anav girl for quite a number of years and mentored her; they show up in many of the same places. Rachel was a visionary in her own right. For example she had a vision of Vital with a pillar of fire over his head and being supported by Elijah the prophet. There was another vision in which she sees him eating lettuce and radishes. Chajes sees this as a mixture of praise and criticism.
Matt Goldish pointed out to me that the major difference between the women that Vital talks about and the women we find Christian mystical literature is that, while there are numerous examples of women in Christian mystical literature who take on very active roles and are treated as figures of authority in their own right, Vitals treats his women as passive ciphers. They have little intrinsic value in of themselves; they are vessels into which spirits used in order to aid Vital and other rabbis. One can easily imagine taking Vital’s narrative and turning it around to a feminine perspective. These women could be viewed as bearers of such tremendous spiritual power that holy spirits came to rest within them, something that even most great rabbis never merited. Even R’ Hayyim Vital had to go to these women and place himself under their authority in order to receive the instructions from heaven.
While there is such a thing, within traditional Jewish thought, as a female visionary, the fact that it does not play a major role within Jewish mysticism, nothing to compare with what we find in Christianity, means that we still have not gotten around the issue of the male centricity of Jewish mysticism. Why do we not hear more about female visionaries?
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