Abraham Abulafia--Kabbalist and Prophet: Hermeneutics, Theosophy, and Theurgy 0964097273, 9780964097278

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Abraham Abulafia - Kabbalist and Prophet Hermeneutics, Theosophy, and Theurgy

Sources and Studies in the Literature o f Jewish Mysticism edited by Daniel Abrams 7

Abraham Abulafia - Kabbalist and Prophet Hermeneutics, Theosophy, and Theurgy

Elliot R. Wolfson

Cherub Press

Los Angeles 2000

Abraham Abulafia - Kabbalist and Prophet Hermeneutics, Theosophy, and Theurgy © Copyright 2000 by Cherub Press All rights reserved. No part o f this book may be used ör reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the written permission o f Cherub Press, except in the case o f brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book may be purchased directly from the publisher. For information and price lists write to Cherub Press, 9323 Venice Boulevard, Los Angeles, California, 90232, USA. ISBN 0-9640972-7-3

To Peter For helping me see the glimmer underground

“Erkenntis als eine in Gott gegründete Frage, die keiner Antwort entspricht.” G. Scholem

Contents Introduction I.

Abraham Abulafia’s Hermeneutic: Secrecy and the Disclosure of W ithholding

Preservation Of The Secret Through Its Disclosure 9 Philosophical Esotericism: The Secret That There Is No Secret 38 Esotericism In The Prophetic Kabbalah: The Secret That Cannot Be Kept 52 II. The Doctrine o f Sefirot in the Prophetic Kabbalah of Abraham Abulafia Typological Classification Of Theosophic And Ecstatic Kabbalah In Modem Scholarship 94 Typological Classification Of Two Kinds Of Kabbalah In Abulafia’s Writings 99 Abulafia’s Appropriation Of Symbols, Concepts And Terms From Works Of Theosophic Kabbalah 114 The Doctrine Of Sefirot In Abulafia’s Writings 134 Abulafia’s Interpretation Of Sefirot And The Maimonidean Doctrine Of Separate Intellects 152 III. Mystical Rationalization o f the Commandments in the Prophetic Kabbalah of Abraham Abulafia Exoteric And Esoteric Approaches To The Commandments 186 Letter-Combination And The Mystique Of The Miswot 197 Hypemomianism And The Prophetic Kabbalah 204 Bibliography 229 Index 242

Abbreviations MS London-BM: London, British Museum MS Milan-BA: Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana MS Moscow, Russain State Library: MS Moscow-RSL MS Munich-BS: Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek MS NY-JTSA: New York, Jewish Theological Seminary of America MS Oxford-BL: Oxford, Bodleian Library (Neubauer) MS Paris-BN: Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale MS Vatican-BA : Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica

Introduction There is little doubt that one of the most colorful figures in the landscape of Jewish mysticism was Abraham Abulafia, the self-proclaimed prophet with messianic pretenses who was active in the second half of the thirteenth century, the precise moment in medieval Jewish history that witnessed an impressive proliferation of mystical activity in several geographical settings both within the land of Israel and the Diaspora communities, especially on the European continent. In contrast to most other kabbalists from this period, about whom we know more of their literary productions than their biographies, in the case of Abulafia, we have a relative wealth of information concerning his personal life, largely due to the meticulous fashion that he demonstrated in his compositions. There is an intricate connection between Abulafia’s writings and his peregrinations in the world. Although it is probably wise to exercise a measure of doubt regarding the veracity of some of Abulafia’s claims, given his fanciful imagination, there is much of historical validity that we can glean from his works. As the information we have about his personal life attests, Abulafia was a man of contradictions, an impression that is corroborated by the style of thinking and argumentation employed in his voluminous corpus. Although he seems to have been a dedicated and charismatic teacher who sought the company of others and desired to have an impact in the socio-political arena (attested most emphatically by his defiant attempt to see Pope Nicholas in in 1280), he also advocated a path of meditation based on solitude and withdrawal. His biography suggests that he was an unusually restless man, yet the goal of his teaching was the attainment of a state of equanimity and detachment. Abulafia’s kabbalah provides the means for one to attain the spiritual state of the world-to-come, which for him is the untying of the knots that chain the rational soul to the body. The pursuits of the physical world are obstacles on the path towards mystical enlightenment that need to be removed by an ascetic discipline before one engages in the meditational practice that leads to the union with the divine. Nevertheless, Abulafia does not preach the absolute nullification of the body. He recognizes not only that the psychological well-being of the individual depends upon the

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reintegration into the physical world, but that the mystical union itself is experienced in somatic, even erotic, terms. The equally puzzling and contradictory nature of his intellectual profile is perhaps best exemplified by the synthesis he sought between the philosophical ideas of Maimonides and the doctrines of ancient Jewish esotericism, especially as they were filtered through the prism of the German Pietists. Abulafia had no reservations about accepting the ideal of conjunction with the Active Intellection the one hand, and the techniques of letter-permutation and combination of the letters of the divine names, on the other. Indeed, the latter, in his opinion, was a superior means to achieve the former than the philosophical path of cognition. Here is a man who could constantly extol the superiority of Hebrew as the natural language by means of which God created the world, and yet affirm that one could practice the letter-permutations in any language since all the languages are contained in Hebrew even though they are conventional. In response to the attack against him led by Solomon ben Abraham ibn Adret in the 1280’s, Abulafia created a typological distinction between his own form of prophetic kabbalah and the kabbalah based on a theosophic understanding of the sefirot. Yet, as I suggest in the essays included in this volume, Abulafia was deeply influenced by the language and symbolism of what is today called the theosophic kabbalah. Just as he both appropriated and rejected the philosophical orientation of Maimonides, so, too, he appropriated and rejected the theosophic perspective of the kabbalists. The ability to appropriate and reject does not bespeak an inconsistency or instability in Abulafia’s cognitive abilities. On the contrary, it indicates a mind that could assimilate complex and conflicting conceptual schemes. Where we see clashing polarities, Abulafia saw truth doubling itself in ambiguity. The power of Abulafia’s intellect is evident in the manner that he anchors difficult theological ideas through the exegetical techniques of numerology (gematriyyah), letter-transposition (temurah), and acrostics (notariqori). Anyone who has tried to read Abulafia knows it is impossible to get through one page without a pen and pad ready at hand to decode the many mathematical and linguistic associations that he establishes in an effort to link together disparate expressions and concepts. If logical consistency is the mark of brilliance, then Abulafia may prove to be a disappointment. In order to appreciate his genius, it is necessary to adopt an approach that sees beyond polar dichotomies. Abulafia’s mind constantly

Introduction

3

pushes at the limits of reason’s reach, taking away with one hand what he has given with the other. One of the greatest indications of Abulafia’s deviation from Maimonides is his acceptance of a logic that is illogical, which is expressed in the concurrent affirmation of opposites. This coincidence is a repeated emphasis in Abulafia’s writings, but it is perhaps best captured in his notion of the inversion of opposites by means of which the contrasting qualities are identified. Thus, for Abulafia, the head is the tail, right is left, the merciful one is the judge, the angel is Satan, and so on. There is never a point of stasis in his thinking inasmuch as the thing can become its contrary. Every thought is thus a waystation on the path that will carry us further on the journey after a temporary respite. It has been commonplace in modem scholarship to distinguish sharply between two kinds of kabbalah, the theosophic and the ecstatic. Whereas Gershom Scholem limited these types to thirteenth-century Spain, Moshe Idel has expanded the historical categories and argued that these are the two phenomenological trends in Jewish mysticism more generally. As I remarked above, Abulafia himself is the kabbalist most responsible for this typological classification. While it is helpful to use this typology in the study of Jewish mysticism, and Idel’s critique of a relatively monolithic presentation of the history of kabbalah that has ensued from a neglect of the writings of Abulafia and his disciples is certainly justified, it is also necessary to avoid a rigid reification of these divisions. The studies that have been assembled in this volume illustrate a somewhat more fluid and elastic exposition of Abulafia’s prophetic kabbalah in relation to the theosophic kabbalah of his generation. Indeed, even though Abulafia is to be credited with formulating the typological distinction, he is constantly transgressing the boundaries he set out to establish. These essays attempt to articulate this transgression of boundaries, and thus they have been written (as all writing inevitably must) from the space of rupture, the place where the word is fractured and the ray of reason is bent by the shimmer of mystical insight. In the first essay, “Abraham Abulafia’s Hermeneutic: Secrecy and the Disclosure of Withholding,” I argue that the hermeneutics of esotericism in Abulafia’s prophetic kabbalah is in an essential way similar to what one finds in the theosophic kabbalah. Abulafia is surely influenced by Maimoinides’ notion of secrecy. Indeed, the Maimonidean resolution to the tension between the mandate to conceal secrets, on the one hand, and the need to reveal them, on the other, was widely held by kabbalists of the

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various schools in the thirteenth century. With respect to this critical issue, it would be prudent on the part of intellectual historians of this period to recognize the shared assumptions of the philosophical and mystical traditions. Maimonides was not simply a negative catalyst in the evolution of Jewish esotericism. Yet, in the end, Abulafia’s concept of language and the understanding of mystical experience based thereon necessitates that his formulation of the esoteric departs from Maimonides and is closer in orientation to the theosophic kabbalists. That is, the secret is not only a potentially problematic theological idea that must be concealed from the ignorant masses even as it is revealed to the intellectual elite; the secret is a secret because it relates to the divine name, which is the mystical essence of the Torah, and thus comprises the convergence of the hidden and the revealed. The disclosure of the secret is predicated on its concealment even from the one to whom it has been disclosed. Orality is the only valid form of transmission of this secret; in writing one can only allude to this secret in such a way that the enlightened individual will apply his own power of supposition to discern the allusions. With respect to this interplay of passive reception and creative exegesis as well there is a common element in the theosophic and the prophetic trends of kabbalah, although there were some kabbalists (Nahmanides comes to mind) who ostensibly denied the efficacy of human reason altogether as a means to comprehend the secrets of the kabbalah. In some passages, Abulafia expresses a position similar to that of Nahmanides, for in his mind the truth of the kabbalah exceeds the categories of human reason even though in the very same passages he depicts the mystical experience in terms that resonate with the philosophical ideal of conjunction. The analysis of Abulafia’s hermeneutics and the notion of secrecy yields the conclusion that he cannot be described as exclusively conservative or innovative. He occupies a site between these two poles; indeed, the constant movement from one pole to the other suggests that for Abulafia, as for other kabbalists of his generation, there is no contradiction in the view that what is innovatively proposed is the ancient tradition that has been transmitted through the ages. Kabbalists would see no logical problem with the claim that revelation is an uncovering of the older truth. The very same kabbalist who insists on the restricted dissemination of limited secrets from master to disciple (which is often linked as well to the preference for orality over writing) expands the boundaries of the tradition by creatively explicating (through oral and written channels) secrets and reinterpreting earlier texts

Introduction

5

in a new way. Instead of positing the conservative and innovative dispositions in oppositional terms, therefore, it is necessary to look upon them as two tendencies that converge in the mind of one person. The propensity to maintain orientations that appear to be antithetical bespeaks the complex nature of the effort on the part of the human spirit in the Middle Ages to grasp the ultimate truth both in terms of what has been received and what can be innovated. The stance I am taking with respect to the notion of tradition in mystical texts resonates with the idea of tradition more generally in the history of Judaism. As a number of scholars have noted, tradition in Judaism embraces the paradox of presenting the novel as ancient. What becomes traditional is constructed on the basis of textual expansion by way of creative hermeneutics, which in many occasions entails the misreading of previous sources. Millin hadetin 'atiqin, “new ancient words,” according to the locution of the zoharic authorship (Zohar 3:166b), succinctly captures the paradox of esotericism affirmed by the kabbalists, which is predicated on the confluence of ostensible antinomies. One would be inclined to argue that if the matter is new, then it cannot be old, and if it is old, then it cannot be new. However, the kabbalists push the mind to its limit by using language that points beyond itself: What is new is new because it is old, but it is old because it is new. An appreciation of this insight is basic to undertsanding the kabbalistic approach to the transmission of secrets that by nature must be withheld, an attitude adopted by Abulafia as well. In the second essay, “The Doctrine of Sefirot in the Prophetic Kabbalah of Abraham Abulafia,” I explore the role accorded the sefirot in Abulafia’s prophetic kabbalah. As I briefly noted above, Abulafia is to be credited with presenting the typological distinction between what is called in contemporary scholarship the theosophic and the ecstatic trends of kabbalah. This taxonomy, however, must be seen in its proper historical and literary context. When viewed in this light it is apparent that Abulafia articulated matters in this way as part of his response to the criticism directed towards him by one of the most powerful rabbinic leaders of the Spanish Jewish community, Solomon ibn Adret, who was himself a master of the kabbalistic lore. A closer examination of his writings, including the epistle he wrote to Judah Salomon in which he specifically mentions the “two types of kabbalah,” reveals that he was influenced by theosophic terms and symbols in more than just a peripheral manner. I have argued, moreover, that the term “theosophy” may even be applied to Abulafia’s

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own conception of hokhmat ha- ’elohut, which denotes divine wisdom that stands in contrast to divine science as understood by Maimonides. The divine wisdom consists of the esoteric gnosis of the name, which cannot be attained by the discursive metaphysics of the philosophers. Indeed, on numerous occasions in his writings, Abulafia emphasizes that the knowledge of the name cannot be apprehended by the philosophers; it is unique to the prophets of Israel who have received and transmitted this knowledge as an oral tradition. By suggesting that the term “theosophy” can be applied to Abulafia’s own kabbalah, I do not intend to deny the obvious distinction that he makes between the kabbalists who place primary emphasis on the sefirot as the potencies of God and those who focus on the divine names. My point is rather that, for Abulafia himself, the kabbalah embraces both the knowledge of the sefirot and the knowledge of the letters, an idea that he traces back to thirty-two paths of wisdom mentioned in Sefer Yeçirah, which consists of the ten sefirot and twenty-two letters. Both branches of the kabbalah are related to the names of God, which are contained in the one unique name, YHWH. Cleaving to the latter, which is presented in terms of the philosophical ideal of intellectual conjunction, is the ultimate focus of Abulafia’s kabbalah. Insofar as the self is unified with the Active Intellect in the experience of conjunction, and the latter comprises the ten separate intellects, which are identified as the ten sefirot of the Jewish esoteric tradition, it follows that, for Abulafia, the sefirotic entities play an instrumental role in the mystical experience of union. In that experience, the ontological distinction between self and other is erased, for the realization of the former depends on merging with the last of the separate intellects, which is identified with the first of the intellects, a confluence symbolically portrayed by the figure of Metatron, the angel who is both an elder (zaqen) and a youth (na'ar), Israel and Jacob. To the degree that the self and the intellect are unified in the moment of conjunction, it is possible, even necessary, to speak of the sefirot as internal states of consciousness. But the psychological cannot be separated from the ontological, which is to say, these internal states correspond to the external intelligences that govern the movement of the celestial spheres. The sefirot, which Abulafia also identifies as the attributes {middot) of God, are the channels by means of which the intellectual overflow is drawn upon the mystic and thereby facilitate his cleaving to the divine name. According to Abulafia, the ideal intelligible forms of the sefirot are distinct

Introduction

7

from God, yet they are not found apart from him as they are expressive of his power. Abulafia describes the containment of the ten sefirot within the divine as a great secret. In language that he borrows from Eleazar of Worms, he links the ten sefirot to the ineffable name, decoding YHWH as yod hawwayot, the ten essences that are the separate intellects. The name is thus intrinsically connected to the sefirotic gradations. Abulafia’s psychological interpretation of the sefirot as internal states of mind is predicated on this ontological assumption. In the third essay, “Mystical Rationalization of the Commandments in the Prophetic Kabbalah of Abraham Abulafia,” I argue that ritual observance was imbued with new significance in Abulafia’s writings by its being transformed into a means to occasion a mystical experience, the contours of which in great measure were shaped by philosophical concepts and modes of discourse. The reasons for the commandments have both an exoteric and an esoteric sense. The latter relates to the mysteries of the Torah, which consist of the divine names that are disclosed to the enlightened kabbalists. A similar structuring of experience is attested in theosophic kabbalah, and thus we are justified in speaking of a shared phenomenological element in these two kabbalistic trends with respect to the specific issue of the mystical valorization of ritual. The gap dividing the theosophic and the ecstatic streams of kabbalah should be narrowed insofar as in both there is a mystical spiritualization of traditional ritual. Moreover, in both streams, this spiritualization involves the experience of union (or conjunction) with the divine, an experience that was shaped by philosophical assumptions. The transfiguration of ritual into a sacrament that facilitates psychic ascent and the ontic reintegration into the divine is an experience that theosophic and ecstatic kabbalists alike considered to be on a par with prophecy. From this vantage point it is somewhat misleading to call Abulafia’s kabbalah “prophetic” in contradistinction to the other form of kabbalah. The term “prophetic” applies equally well to the theosophic kabbalah as is attested by the fact that several of the theosophic kabbalists explicitly identified themselves as prophets, a point that is made emphatically by Abulafia himself. To be sure, Abulafia would have contrasted his own understanding of prophecy from that of the theosophic kabbalists. In my judgment, this contrast is valid only up to a certain point, for there is much that is shared by the two streams of kabbalah with respect to the understanding of prophecy as the mystical conjunction of the soul

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with the divine name, which is understood as the inner essence of the Torah. There seems to me sufficient reason to call into question the designation of theosophic kabbalah as theurgic in contradistinction to the prophetic kabbalah of Abulafia. While it is certainly true that Abulafia rejects the theurgical understanding of the theosophic kabbalists, and even when he appropriates their language (as in his discussion of the mystical intent of the sacrifices) he tends to emphasize the mystical over the theurgical valence, it is nevertheless the case that he does affirm a type of theurgy related to the unification of the divine attributes. As I have already noted, Abulafia categorically rejects the theosophic understanding of the sefirot as hypostatic potencies, but he does insist that the divine unity is expressed within and through the ten sefirot, which he identifies as the ten separate intellects. His frequent warning against the danger of separating the sefirot, an act that he calls (in a manner analogous to the theosophic kabbalists) by the rabbinic idiom for heresy, “cutting the shoots,” must not be seen as mere rhetoric. On the contrary, according to Abulafia, the human intellect plays an active role in unifying God through the ten separate intellects as a consequence of the intellectual conjunction, which is presented as the paramount mystical rationale for the commandments. Collectively, then, these studies set out to cast Abulafia in a somewhat different light. It is the hope of the author that the vision that will appear within this light will not be viewed as a seeing against previous scholarship, but a seeing beyond where we have been hithertofore, a vision that may help others see beyond my own necessarily limited perspective.

Abraham Abulafia’s Hermeneutic: Secrecy and the Disclosure of Withholding

P r e s e r v a t io n O f T h e S e c r e t T h r o u g h It s D is c l o s u r e

Perhaps the most appropriate term to characterize the body of literature that scholars have heuristically referred to as medieval Jewish mysticism is esotericism, hokhmat ha-nistar, a gnosis (encompassing both doctrine and practice, belief and ritual) that is deemed secretive and that must therefore be transmitted only to a small circle of initiates.1 In his essay “Das Verhältnis Maimunis zur jüdischen Mystik,” published in 1936, Alexander Altmann noted that the “esoteric nature of mystical teachings in Judaism is expressed by the terms sod (‘secret’), sithrey Torah (‘mysteries of the Law’), and their equivalents. Obscure though the historical origins of Jewish mysticism are, and especially its connections with the various schools of prophecy, apocalyptic literature, and Gnosis, a definite esoteric posture, setting down a precise form of transmission, had evolved as early as the tannaitic period.”2 Altmann went so far as to suggest that the exclusive transmission of mystical knowledge from master to disciple attested already in rabbinic sources may have been due to the influence of Hellenistic mystery religions. Bracketing the historical veracity of 1 The extreme form of secrecy affirmed by Jewish mystics when compared to other religious traditions has been noted by W. Stace, Mysticism and Philosophy (London, 1960), p. 57. Helpful surveys on the nature of esotericism may be found in A. Faivre, “Ancient and Medieval Sources of Modem Esoteric Movements,” in Modem Esoteric Spirituality, edited by A. Faivre and J. Needleman (New York, 1992), pp. 1-70, and idem. Access to Western Esotericism (Albany, 1994), pp. 3-110; A. Faivre and K.-C. Voss, “Esotericism and the Science of Religion,” Numen 42 (1995): 48-77; and A. Faivre, “Renaissance Hermeticism and the Concept of Western Esotericism,” in Gnosis and Hermeticism From Antiquity to Modern Times, edited by R. van der Broek and W. J. Hanegraaff (Albany, 1998), pp. 109-123. 2 A. Altmann, “Maimonides’ Attitude Toward Jewish Mysticism,” in Studies in Jewish Thought, edited by A. Jospe (Detroit, 1981), pp. 201-202.

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Altmann’s surmise, it is noteworthy that he discerned that in Jewish mysticism, beginning in its early stages, the notion of secrecy is essential. Indeed, Altmann’s remarks suggest that in his opinion the mystical phenomenon must be circumscribed within the framework of esotericism, a perspective to which I readily assent when the focus is set in a more limited way upon the mystical trends of Jewish thought and practice that converged in the High Middle Ages, especially in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, which witnessed an intense proliferation of literary activity in various occult fraternities spread throughout the Jewish Diaspora. Gershom Scholem, as we may surmise from certain passages in his scholarly oeuvre, distinguished sharply between mysticism and esotericism. It is evident from other passages that he also appreciated the singular importance of the notion of the secret in the kabbalistic orientation, and on occasion he was even prepared to identify esotericism and mysticism when the terms were applied specifically to the history of kabbalah. As an example of the former tendency, I note that in one publication Scholem maintained that mysticism “means a kind of knowledge which is by its very nature incommunicable,” insofar as the object of mystical experience is inexpressible id human language, whereas esotericism involves a “kind of knowledge that may be communicable and might be communicated, but whose communication is forbidden.”3 In another work, Scholem readily acknowledged that kabbalah “became to a large extent an esoteric doctrine,” but even in that context he reiterated the distinction between the mystical and the esoteric elements in the kabbalah on the epistemological basis that the former, unlike the latter, embraces a knowledge that lies beyond communication: By its very nature, mysticism is know ledge that cannot be com m unicated directly but may be expressed only through symbol and m etaphor. Esoteric know ledge, however, in theory can be transm itted, but those who possess it are either forbidden to pass it on or do not wish to do so. The kabbalists

3 G. Scholem, “Jewish Mysticism in the Middle Ages,” The 1964 Allan Bronfman Lecture (New York, 1964), pp. 3-4. Compare the characterization of A. Faivre, in The Encyclopedia o f Religion, edited by M. Eliade (New York, 1987), 5: 158, s.v., Esotericism: “Strictly speaking, gnosis should be distinguished from mysticism, even though they are usually found together. Mysticism, which is more ‘feminine,’ more nocturnal, voluntarily cultivates renunciation, although this does not exclude a taste for symbolism. Gnosis, more ‘masculine,’ more solar, cultivates detachment and is more attentive to structures.”

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stressed this esoteric aspect by imposing all kinds of limitations on the propagation of their teachings, either with regard to the age of the initiates, the ethical qualities required of them, or the number of students before whom these teachings could be expounded.4 Scholem’s attempt to contrast esotericism and mysticism on the grounds that the former involves a knowledge that is communicable by nature whereas the latter is characterized as knowledge that is incommunicable is questionable. The conception of secrecy operative in this distinction is more appropriate for medieval Jewish philosophical sources, epitomized by the great figure of Maimonides, than it is for the corresponding medieval kabbalistic texts. Subsequently, I shall explore in more detail the philosophical esotericism espoused by Maimonides, which doubtless exerted a major influence on the notion of secrecy operative in the prophetic kabbalah of Abraham Abulafia and his disciples.5 What is essential to repeat at this juncture is that Scholem’s depiction of esoteric knowledge is far closer in spirit to the viewpoint articulated in medieval Jewish philosophy, which is centered on the notion of a secret that potentially can be communicated but whose communication is withheld from those who do not possess the requisite intellectual and moral perfection to comprehend it. Consider Scholem’s observation that Jewish mysticism is a “secret doctrine” in a “double sense”, for, on the one hand, “it treats of the most deeply hidden and fundamental matters of human life” and, on the other, “it is confined to a small élite of the chosen who impart the knowledge to their disciples”.6 Scholem clearly recognized that the secrets expounded by the Kabbalists involved the deepest mysteries of our existence, but one gets the impression that what is really secretive about those secrets from Scholem’s vantage point is the fact that their dissemination is restricted. Scholem is quick to note that in certain historical periods one finds an orientation in kabbalistic literature to have a manifest impact on Jewish society. Still, this impact rarely impinged upon the fact that the innermost gnosis was limited to the initiates who are always few in number. The double sense of the term collapses into a single sense, for the understanding of the “most deeply

4 G. Scholem, Kabbalah (Jerusalem, 1974), p. 4. 5 Altmann, “Maimonides’ Attitude,” pp. 201, 203, 207-209. For other references, see below, n. 239. 6 G. Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (New York, 1954), p. 21.

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hidden and fundamental matters of human life” is limited to the “small élite of the chosen who impart the knowledge to their disciples”. The issue of secrecy as delineated in this manner resonates, moreover, with the understanding of esotericism proffered in the formative rabbinic literature, which is also invariably related to the limits imposed on publicly disseminating knowledge of certain subjects that were deemed best restricted to a limited audience.7 The very notion of “mysteries of Torah” (sitrei torah or razei torah), a highly significant albeit infrequently mentioned motif in classical rabbinic sources,8 appears to be linked to the

7 See M. N. A. Bockmuehl, Revelation and Mystery in Ancient Judaism and Pauline Christianity (Tübingen, 1990), p. 122. Regarding the adoption on the part of Maimonides of the rabbinic elitist principle of select transmission o f nonmystical secrets, see Altmann, “Maimonides’ Attitude,” pp. 203-204. On the influence of both philosophical esotericism (indebted to Greek and Arabic sources) and rabbinic esotericism on Maimonides, see S. Klein-Braslavy, King Solomon and the Philosophical Esotericism in the Thought o f Maimonides (Jerusalem, 1996), pp. 15-105 (in Hebrew). 8 Mishnah, ’Avot 6:1; Midrash Wayyikra' Rabbah, edited by M. Margulies (New York and Jerusalem, 1993), 3:7, p. 74; Babylonian Talmud, Pesahim 119a; Qiddushin 10b (in that context the reading is hadrei torah, “chambers of Torah,” rather than sitrei torah, “secrets of Torah;” on the use of this expression, cf. Palestinian Talmud, Ketubot 5:4 [ed. Venice, 29d]; Tosefta, Ketubot 5:1; Siphre ad Numeros, edited by H. S. Horovitz [Leipzig, 1917], 117, p. 137); Hagigah 13a; Shir ha-Shirim Rabbah 1:2. Mention should also be made of the expression sodah shel torah, the “secret o f Torah,” in Shir ha-Shirim Rabbah 1:8, where it is employed to refer to the figurative or non-literal sense of Scripture derived through an apparently non-mystical, exoteric method of exegesis. For a comprehensive philological analysis of the relevant rabbinic texts that espouse a form of secrecy, see G. A. Wewers, Geheimnis und Geheimhaitug im rabbinischen Judentum (Berlin and New York, 1975); and the briefer but equally insightful discussion in Bockmuehl, Revelation and Mystery, pp. 115-123. On the rabbinic notion of transmitting a secretive matter through a whisper, see Midrash Bere'shit Rabba’, edited by J. Theodor and Ch. Albeck (Jerusalem, 1965), pp. 19-20, and the many parallel sources mentioned on p. 19 n. 10; Midrash Wayyikra’ Rabbah, 31:7, p. 726; Midrash Tehillim, edited by S. Buber (Vilna, 1891), 104:4, p. 440; Midrash Tanhuma’, edited by S. Buber (Vilna, 1885), Bere’shit, 10, p. 6; Pesikta’ de-Rav Kahana’, edited by B. Mandelbaum (New York, 1962), 21:5, p. 324; Babylonian Talmud, Hagigah 14a. See G. Scholem, Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism, and Talmudic Tradition (New York, 1965), p. 58; A. Altmann, Studies in Religious Philosophy and Mysticism (Ithaca, 1969), pp. 128-139. See the interesting comment on this rabbinic theme in Nathan ben Yehiel, Aruch Completum, edited by A. Kohut, 5:34, s.v. lahash: “The Torah was given in secrecy because o f Satan.” In

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intentional hiding of information, which clearly sets apart those who know the secret from those who do not; the power that ensues from knowing the secret or the concomitant weakness that derives from the lack of such knowledge are thus factors in establishing social boundaries.9 One talmudic passage is particularly noteworthy: The words we-limekhaseh ‘atiq in Isa. 23:18 are interpreted as a reference to one who conceals the secrets of Torah that the Ancient of Days ( ‘atiqyomin) concealed.10*Hiding the secret, therefore, is a form of imitatio dei, a notion that is confirmed by the appellation hakham ha-razim, the one “wise in the secrets,” applied to God, which is preserved in a liturgical formula in rabbinic literature." To hide the secrets from those unworthy to receive them is a noble form of behavior that bestows upon the individual a divine quality.12 With respect to this matter, then, rabbinic and philosophic esotericism converge even if in content there is a substantial difference between the two modes of thinking: The secret potentially can be articulated, but it is not due to either the intellectual or the moral limitations of the recipients. It is surely no small irony that Scholem’s own taxonomy of esotericism in the history of kabbalah is indebted to this rabbinic conception, which was reinscribed in the medieval philosophical literature. With all of his efforts, on the one hand, to contrast kabbalistic spirituality and rabbinic piety on the emulation o f the Sinaitic event, words of Torah in general (and not only secrets) must be given in a whisper. 9 The point is well made in S. Bok, Secrets: On the Ethics o f Concealment and Revelation (New York, 1983), pp. 5-7, 19-20, 34, 105-107, 281-282. For a recent analysis o f esotericism from the vantage point of discursive strategy, which involves the issue o f social power and authority, rather than that of symbolic content, see H. Urban, “The Torment of Secrecy: Ethical and Epistemological Problems in the Study of Esoteric Traditions,” History o f Religions 37 (1998): 209-248. 10 Babylonian Talmud, Pesahim 119a. " Tosefta ', Berakhot 7:2; Palestinian Talmud, Berakhot 9:1 (12c); Babylonian Talmud, Berakhot 58a; Bemidbar Rabbah 21.2. The expression hakham ha-razim is applied to God as well in some of the Hekhalot texts. See Synopse zur Hekhalot-Literatur, edited by P. Schäfer with M. Schlüter and H. G. von Mutius (Tübingen, 1981), §§ 237, 268, 277, 310, 321, 336, 512, 676, 687, 820. For a comprehensive analysis of these passages, see M. Schlüter, “The Eulogy Hakham ha-Razim we- 'Adon ha-Setarim in Hekhalot Literature,” Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 6:1-2 (1987): 95-115 (English section). 12 The rabbinic association of God and secrecy has its biblical precedent. Perhaps the most important verse with respect to this matter is Prov. 25:1 where the glory of God, in contrast to the glory of mortal kings, is to keep things hidden.

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basis that the former represents a mythical reconfiguration of the emotionless and demythicized legalism of the latter,13 and, on the other, to distinguish between the allegorical approach to mysteries of the Torah in the medieval Jewish philosophical literature and the symbolic approach in the corresponding kabbalistic material,14 his own understanding of esotericism in the history of kabbalah as it was expressed in the aforecited passages is informed in great measure by the rabbinic-philosophic standpoint.151 would argue, by contrast, that the distinctive view of secrecy that emerges from kabbalistic sources is that the inability to communicate 13 Scholem’s presentation of rabbinic material and its relationship to Jewish mysticism, in general, and to kabbalah, in particular, is a very complex issue that cannot be dealt with adequately in this footnote. Let me simply state that Scholem equivocates on this question, sometimes speaking of a very sharp contrast between the two and other times presenting a more fluid and ambivalent picture even entertaining the idea that preserved in rabbinic texts are fragments of a “theosophic aggadah” o f a gnostic-mythic nature. See Scholem, Major Trends, pp. 22-23, 29-32, 35; idem, On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism, translated by R. Manheim (New York, 1965), pp. 94-95, 104-105, 120-121, 132-133; idem, Origins o f the Kabbalah, translated by A. Arkush and edited by R. J. Zwi Werblowsky (Princeton, 1987), pp. 82, 86-97, 123, 197, 234, 238; idem, On the Mystical Shape o f the Godhead: Basic Concepts in the Kabbalah, translated by J. Neugroschel and edited by J. Chipman (New York, 1991), pp. 158, 170-171; idem, On the Possibility o f Jewish Mysticism in Our Time and Other Essays, edited with an introduction by A. Shapira, translated by J. Chipman (Philadelphia and Jerusalem, 1997), pp. 122-123, 138-139. For a different presentation of Scholem, see M. Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives (New Haven and London, 1988), pp. 156-157; idem, “Rabbinism Versus Kabbalism: On G. Scholem’s Phenomenology o f Judaism,” Modern Judaism 11 (1991): 281-296; idem, “Subversive Katalysatoren: Gnosis und Messianismus in Gershom Scholems Verständnis der jüdischen Mystik,” Gershom Scholem: Zwischen den Disziplinen, edited by P. Schäfer and G. Smith (Frankfurt am Main, 1995), pp. 80-121, esp. 86-90. Idel and a number o f other scholars have independently emphasized the mythical component o f rabbinic sources in a manner that narrows the conceptual and semiotic gap separating classical rabbinism and medieval kabbalism. For some o f the pertinent references, see J. L. Rubenstein, “From Mythic Motifs to Sustained Myth: The Revision of Rabbinic Traditions in Medieval Midrashim,” Harvard Theological Review 89 (1996): 132 n. 4. 14 Major Trends, pp. 25-28. 15 The linkage of the rabbinic approach and that of medieval philosophy is not uncommon in Scholem’s thinking. See, for instance, On the Kabbalah, p. 88, where Scholem argues that the tendency of the “classical Jewish tradition,“ which is traced back to the “ethical monotheism” of the Prophets, to “liquidate myth as a central spiritual power” is “accentuated by the rationalist thinking o f medieval Rabbinical Judaism.”

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the secret is not due simply to the unworthiness of a particular recipient, but it is associated rather with the inherent ineffability of the truth that must be kept secret. This is not to suggest that kabbalists through the ages have not also embraced the rhetoric of rabbinic esotericism based on the presumption that secrets must be withheld from those unworthy to receive them. The hermeneutic of esotericism displayed in many kabbalistic sources does indeed consistently attest to this elitist posture, but it certainly goes beyond it as well. The concealment of the secret is dialectically related to its disclosure. Simply put, the utterance of the mystery is possible because of the inherent impossibility of its being uttered. Even for the adept, who demonstrates unequivocally that he deserves to be a recipient of the esoteric tradition, there is something of the secret that remains in the very act of transmission. The secret has an ontological referent that is separate from the phenomenal realm and thus transcends the limits of human understanding and modes of conventional discourse.16 As an illustration of the point let me mention a secret that many scholars have signaled as one of the characteristic doctrines of medieval kabbalah, the sod du-parsufin, the mystery of the androgyne in the Godhead. To receive the secret about the androgynous nature of the divine is not to solve the problem of the mystery; on the contrary, this gnosis is precisely what opens the mystery to its deeper depths, for what is it to say that the oneness of the God of Judaism is predicated on the comprehension of and experiential participation in the sacred union between the King and the Matrona, the bridegroom and the bride? From the one example we may generalize: In kabbalistic texts, apprehension of the secret does not resolve the apparent conflict between external and internal meaning, peshaf and sod, which correspond respectively to the poles of revelation and reason, but it forges

16 The idea of separateness as essential to the nature of the secret is explored rather deftly by P. Boutang, Ontologie du Secret (Paris, 1973). See also G. L. Bruns, Inventions: Writing, Textuality, and Understanding in Literary History (New Haven and London, 1982), pp. 17-43. The distinction I have made is expressed by K. W. Bolle, “Secrecy in Religion,” in Secrecy in Religions, edited by K. W. Bolle (Leiden, 1987), pp. 11-24, as the difference between actual mysteries and the social concealment of information. In my analysis, the former depicts the kabbalistic understanding o f secrecy as opposed to the latter, which accounts for the philosophic approach, although I readily admit that the latter is sometimes appropriated by kabbalists as well. The typological distinction cannot be applied in an inflexible manner.

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the paradoxical awareness that the external veil and the internal face are identical because they are different.1718 When this paradox is fully comprehended, then even the distinction between speech and silence is transcended. That is, the esoteric nature of the secret is predicated on the ultimate ineffability to which the secret refers, but the ineffability itself is the measure of what is spoken. That the kabbalists bestow a positive valence on language as the medium by which the enlightened mystic can participate in the creative process (especially through scriptural exegesis) does not mean that they oppose in principle the restraint on speech that is often associated with the strict code of esotericism.'* On the contrary, it is precisely the affirmation of language as inherently symbolic that facilitates their acceptance of that which inevitably exceeds the boundary of language. The phenomenon to which I refer has been expressed by Michel de Certeau in his telling reference to the “split structure” of mystical language by which he intends that the “only way to establish a ‘symbolic’ expression is to separate two terms that are necessary, but contrary to each other.” From that perspective mystical speech is always a “manifestation of a cut,” and consequently the ineffable is “not so much an object of discourse as a marker of the status of language.”19 I am prepared, therefore, to grant Scholem’s identification of incommunicability as a distinguishing feature of the mystical phenomenon, a quality that a host of other scholars have marked as typical of mysticism,20 17 See E. R. Wolfson, “Beautiful Maiden Without Eyes: Peshat and Sod in Zoharic Hermeneutics,” in The Midrashic Imagination: Jewish Exegesis, Thought and History, edited by M. Fishbane (Albany, 1993), pp. 155-203; D. Matt, ‘“ New-Ancient Words’: The Aura of Secrecy in the Zohar,” in Gershom Scholem 's Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, 50 Years After: Proceedings o f the Sixth International Conference on the History o f Jewish Mysticism, edited by J. Dan and P. Schäfer (Tübingen, 1993), pp. 200-206. 18 Such an argument is made by Y. Liebes, “Zohar and Eros,” Alpayyim 9 (1994): 71-72 (in Hebrew). 19 M. de Certeau, “History and Mysticism,” translated by A. Goldhammer, in Histories: French Constructions o f the Past, edited by J. Revel and L. Hunt (New York, 1995), p. 443. 20 In many of the classical treatments of mysticism, the criterion o f ineffability has been singled out as one of the distinguishing phenomenological marks. For example, see W. James, The Varieties o f Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature (New York, 1902), p. 371; E. Underhill, Mysticism: The Development o f Humankind’s Spiritual Consciousness (London, 1911), pp. 79-80. For some more recent analyses of

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but I cannot accept his distinction between mysticism and esotericism as these terms apply specifically to the kabbalistio material, for in this case esotericism, too, is based on the notion of truth that can only be articulated in its utter ineffability. The secret cannot be fully disclosed because it is in the nature of the secret to express that which cannot be expressed (indeed, even my expressipn of the inexpressibility of the secret is not adequately expressed). The distinguishing characteristic that Scholem applied to mysticism applies equally well to esotericism. As it happens, on occasion Scholem himself acknowledged this fact and thus he merged the two together into a singular entity. For instance, in the essay he wrote for a volume honoring Mircea Eliade,21 he spoke of the “Judaic esoteric teachings or secret doctrine, regardless of whether we want to call it Jewish Gnosis or Mysticism, as it is expressed in the literature of

this phenomenon, see S. T. Katz, “Mystical Speech and Mystical Meaning,” in Mysticism and Language, edited by S. T. Katz (New York and Oxford, 1992), pp. 3-41; B. Krishna, ’Mysticism and Ineffability: Some Issues o f Logic and Language’, Mysticism and Language, pp. 143-157; B.-A. Scharfstein, Ineffability: The Failure o f Words in Philosophy and Religion (Albany, 1993); M. A. Sells, Mystical Languages o f Unsaying (Chicago and London, 1994); G. Kalamaras, Reclaiming the Tacit Dimension: Symbolic Form in the Rhetoric o f Silence (Albany, 1994). 21 It is hardly coincidental that in a collection of studies honoring Eliade Scholem decided to articulate his position in this manner, for Eliade himself placed great emphasis on the notion of secrecy in his understanding o f the religious phenomenon in general. For example, see M. Eliade, Journal 11, 1957-1969, translated by F. H. Johnson, Jr. (Chicago and London, 1989), p. 268 (entry o f 1 October 1965): “When something manifests itself (hierophany), at the same time something ’occults’ itself, becomes cryptic. Therein is the true dialectic of the sacred: by the mere fact o f showing itself, the sacred hides itself We can never claim that we definitively understand a religious phenomenon: something - perhaps even the essential - will be understood by us later, or by others immediately” (author’s emphasis). On the distinction between a “cryptic” and “clear” hierophany, see M. Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion, translated by R. Sheed (New York, 1958), pp. 8-9. On the paradoxical coming-together o f the sacred and the profane underlying each hierophany, which entails the concealment of the former in the disclosure of the latter, see ibid., pp. 29-30. For an explication and adaptation of Eliade’s view, see W. L. Brenneman, Jr. and S. O. Yarian, in association with A. M. Olson, The Seeing Eye: Hermeneutical Phenomenology in the Study o f Religion (University Park and London, 1982), pp. 8-9, 59-60,165-166; see also B. S. Rennie, Reconstructing Eliade: Making Sense o f Religion, foreword by M. L. Ricketts (Albany, 1996), pp. 7-40. Scholem similarly embraces the dialectic of disclosure and concealment in his understanding o f the religious phenomenon.

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the Kabbalists.”22 With this formulation Scholem seems much closer to the mark, for in the history of classical kabbalah, as we may ascertain from the written record of teachings that may have been transmitted originally in an oral manner, the aspect of mysticism must be contextualized in the framework of secrecy, far the ultimate datum of mystical experience is the secret.23 Philologically, the words for secret, primarily the Hebrew sod and its Aramaic equivalent raza ’, are employed by kabbalists in an ontological sense to refer to the hidden aspect of God’s being that is manifest in the theosophic structure of the sefirotic emanations.24 Even the exegetical application of these terms to the esoteric sense of a scriptural passage has as its underpinning the ontological implication. That is, the inner meaning of the verse relates to the unveiling of the potencies of the divine,25 but the 22 G. Scholem, “On Sin and Punishment: Some Remarks Concerning Biblical and Rabbinical Ethics,” in Myths and Symbols: Studies in Honor o f Mircea Eliade, edited by J. M. Kitagawa and Ch. H. Long, with the collaboration o f J. C. Brauer and M. G. S. Hodgson (Chicago and London, 1969), p. 163. This point has been expressed as well by Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives, p. 253: “Kabbalah is by definition an esoteric body of speculation; whether in its theosophical-theurgical explanation of the rationales for the commandments, or in the ecstatic trend dealing with techniques o f using divine names, esotericism is deeply built into this lore.” 23 The point was made by A. K. Coomaraswamy, Figures o f Speech and Figures o f Thought (London, 1946), p. 169: “This has too often been misinterpreted to mean that something is deliberately withheld from those who ask for a sort o f universal compulsory education in the mysteries, supposing that the mystery is nothing but a communicable, although hitherto uncommunicated, secret.... So far from this, it is of the essence of a mystery ... that it cannot be communicated, but only realized; all that can be communicated are its external supports or symbolic expressions.” The emphasis on the realization of the mystery, as opposed to its mere symbolic expression, is helpful for grasping the intent o f the notion of the secret operative in kabbalistic thought, for the secret relates to a form of ritual enactment reminiscent of the ancient mysteries. 24 The technical theosophic connotation of the word sod is already apparent in one passage in Sefer ha-Bahir. See D. Abrams, The Book Bahir: An Edition Based on the Earliest Manuscripts (Los Angeles, 1994), § 14, p. 125. Needless to say, in the literary evolution of the medieval kabbalistic material, this usage is considerably augmented. 25 In Kabbalah, p. 4, Scholem notes that the kabbalah is characterized by two main elements: the “dual and apparently contradictory experience o f the self-concealing and self-revealing God,” which “determines the essential sphere of mysticism,” and theosophy, “which seeks to reveal the mysteries of the hidden life of God and the relationship between the divine life on the one hand and the life o f man and creation on the other.” From my vantage point both parts of Scholem’s remark are problematic. Firstly, in the history of kabbalah, there is no justification to speak o f the experience o f

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infinite Godhead remains concealed in the very act of self-manifestation. The secret, therefore, is not merely cognitive or epistemological in nature; it is decidedly ontological insofar as it signifies an aspect of the divine that is most appropriately referred to in paradoxical terms as the disclosed concealment. Ontological, in my understanding, implies an experiential component, for access to being comes by way of intimate experience, which in the case of the medieval kabbalist involved primarily contemplative study, prayer, and fulfillment of traditional rituals. These are the major paths that lead the kabbalist to the goal of devequt, communion with the sefirotic potencies of the divine.26 The secretive nature of that which is deemed a secret is thus allied with the potential experience of that grade of being to which the secret is related. Such a conclusion is inevitable if one begins, as one must, from the premise that God and the Torah are ontologically equivalent, a principle that is often expressed as well in terms of the mystical identification of the Torah as the Tetragrammaton.27 To gain knowledge of the mystery is an act of ultimate

the self-concealing and self-revealing God as contradictory; on the contrary, the distinctive phenomenological pattern of the experience entails a paradoxical coincidence of opposites, for the very God who is revealed is the concealed God; indeed, the full force of the dialectic is that the manifestation preserves the concealment. * The recognition of this point underlies much of my previous work on the nature o f mystical experience in the kabbalistic sources, including, most especially, my monographic study Through a Speculum That Shines: Vision and Imagination in Medieval Jewish Mysticism (Princeton, 1994); see also studies referred to below in n. 29. Secondly, I see no justification to separate the mystical and the theosophical elements in the manner that Scholem has done. For a more extensive discussion of this aspect of Scholem’s interpretative stance, see Through a Speculum That Shines, pp. 278-280. 26 See G. Scholem, The Messianic Idea in Judaism and Other Essays on Jewish Spirituality (New York, 1971), pp. 203-227; Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives, pp. 35-58. 27 Regarding this foundational concept in kabbalistic thinking, see Scholem, On the Kabbalah, pp. 37-44; idem, Messianic Idea, pp. 293-294; idem, “The Name of God and the Linguistic Theory of the Kabbala,” Diogenes 79 (1972): 77-80, and Diogenes 80 (1972): 178-179; I. Tishby, The Wisdom o f the Zohar, translated by D. Goldstein (Oxford, 1989), pp. 283-284,292-295, 1079-1082; and M. Idel, “The Concept o f Torah in Hekhalot Literature and Its Metamorphosis in Kabbalah,” Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 1 (1981): 23-84, esp. 49-58 (in Hebrew). On a possible source for this motif in Ashkenazi esotericism, see E. R. Wolfson, “The Mystical Significance of Torah Study in German Pietism,” Jewish Quarterly Review 84 (1993): 43-77, esp. 50-62.

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empowerment, for through such an acquisition one contemplatively visualizes the imaginai form of God, which is rendered possible on the basis of the assimilation of the soul into the divine nature through the hermeneutical penetration to the sign that is hid beneath the veil of the text.2* The sefirot are the luminous emanations that constitute the multiple faces of the singular and unique faceless Godhead, which are disclosed in the letters of the Torah contemplated by the enlightened mystic (maskit) through the imaginative faculty. From this vantage point the interpretation of the hidden secret is a revelatory moment in which the ancient word is heard and seen anew.2829 Nothing is more important for understanding the mentality of the kabbalist than the emphasis on esotericism cast in this way. Theosophical symbols and mystical rituals together (any effort to treat them separately bespeaks a fundamental lack of understanding of the kabbalistic orientation) lend expression to this inexpressible secret that reflects the dialectical manifestation of the concealed aspect of the divine. In the final analysis, such a conception underlies Scholem’s understanding of the symbol as that which “signifies nothing and communicates nothing, but

28 On the correlation o f interpretation and the notion o f the secretive meaning latent in the text, see F. Kermode, The Genesis o f Secrecy: On the Interpretation o f Narrative (Cambridge, Mass, and London, 1979). I am not convinced, however, that this is the implicit sense of the rabbinic midrashic approach, as Kermode suggests (p. x). See also the reservation regarding this interpretation in D. Stem, Parables in Midrash: Narrative and Exegesis in Rabbinic Literature (Cambridge, Mass, and London, 1991), pp. 49-50. 29 See E. R. Wolfson, “The Hermeneutics of Visionary Experience: Revelation and Interpretation in the Zohar,” Religion 18 (1988): 311-345, and the greatly expanded version of that essay in Through a Speculum That Shines, pp. 326-392; idem, “Forms of Visionary Ascent as Ecstatic Experience in Zoharic Literature,” in Gershom Scholem ’s Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, 50 Years After, edited by J. Dan and P. Schäfer (Tübingen, 1993), pp. 209-235. On the revelatory nature o f kabbalistic exegesis, see also M. Idel, “Infinities of Torah in Kabbalah,” in Midrash and Literature, edited by G. H. Hartman and S. Budick (New Haven and London, 1986), p. 144; idem. Kabbalah: New Perspectives, pp. 234-249; Matt, ‘“ New-Ancient Words;” M. Hellner-Eshed, ‘“ A River Issues Forth From Eden’: The Language of Mystical Invocation in the Zohar," Kabbalah: Journal fo r the Study o f Jewish Mystical Texts 2 (1997): 287-310 (in Hebrew). On the prophetic status of the zoharic circle, see the words of C. Mopsik in the introduction to his critical edition of R. Moses de Leon ’s Sefer Sheqel ha-Qodesh (Los Angeles, 1996), pp. 6-8 (in Hebrew); idem, “Moïse de Leôn, le Sheqel ha-Qodesh et la rédaction du Zohar: Une réponse à Yehuda Liebes,” Kabbalah: Journal fo r the Study o f Jewish Mystical Texts 3 (1998): 216-217.

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makes something transparent which is beyond all expression.”30 Elsewhere Scholem describes the “secret dimension of language” in the following way: “The mystic discovers in language ... something pertaining to its structure which is not adjusted to a communication of what is communicable, but rather - and all symbolism is founded on this paradox to a communication of what is non-communicable, of that which exists within it for which there is no expression; and even if it could be expressed, it would in no way have any meaning, or any communicable ‘sense.’”31 The “inexpressible mystery” of the Godhead becomes visible in the phenomenal reality of creation as well as through the religious acts commanded by the Torah.32 The transparency of the symbol to which Scholem consistently refers in his work relates to the paradoxical necessity of expressing the inexpressible by means of the self-disclosure of that which is concealed.33 The display itself is an act of veiling, for the word is never sufficient to express the mystical experience except as that which cannot be expressed.34 The very notion of an esoteric tradition understood in this manner entails that one cannot truly understand, let alone communicate, the conception of a tradition that is secretive. In the specific case of kabbalistic fraternities, the esotericism cultivated by various groups of Jewish men in diverse historical periods and geographical localities has not simply involved the hiding of information from those who are outside the relevant group. I would certainly acknowledge that an important aspect of secrecy in the teaching of the kabbalists is the investiture of power to those who seek 30 Major Trends, p. 27. 31 Scholem, “Name of God,” p. 61. 32 Scholem, op. cit., pp. 62-63, expresses this matter by stating that creation and revelation “are both principally and essentially auto-representations o f God himself, in which, as a consequence and in accordance with the infinite nature of the divinity, certain instants of the divine are introduced, which can only be communicated in terms of symbols in the finite and determined realm of all that is created. A directly associated factor with this is the further conception that language is the essence o f the universe.” 33 See, for example, Scholem, “Name of God,” p. 165: “Everything is transparent, and in this state of transparency everything takes on a symbolic character.” See D. Biale, Gershom Scholem: Kabbalah and Counter-History (Cambridge, Mass, and London, 1979), pp. 90-92. 34 A similar paradox is prominent in medieval Sufism, expressed particularly by the identity of the face and the veil, the act of concealing and that of self-disclosure. See A. Schimmel, “Secrecy in Sufism,” in Secrecy in Religions, pp. 81-102; W. C. Chittick, The Self-Disclosure o f God: Principles o f Ibn al-'Arabi's Cosmology (Albany, 1998), pp. 104-108, 120-121, 128-132.

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to disseminate the secrets they possess, but the dissemination invariably occurs in such a way that the hidden nature of the secret is preserved. To state the obvious, a secret presupposes the concomitant transmission and withholding on the part of the one in possession of the secret. If I possess a secret and transmit it to no one, the secret has no relevance.35 By the same token, if I readily divulge that secret without discretion, the secrecy of that secret is rendered ineffectual. What empowers me as keeper of a secret is not only that I transmit it to some and* hot to others, but that in the very transmission I maintain the secret, holding back in the advancing forward. From that vantage point the secret is a secret only to the extent that it is concealed in its disclosure, but it may be concealed in its disclosure only if it is disclosed in its concealment.36 The secret as such cannot be transmitted, for in the act of transmission it is betrayed. To be itself the secret must be withheld; it is precisely in the holding back that the power of disclosure lies. The more one attempts to express the secret the further one is from it. Something of the secret endures even as the secret is disclosed, and thus in the most exact sense there can be no tradition of secrecy. The secret that the secret cannot be transmitted, which may be referred to as the apophatic secret, plays a part in securing hope in the expectation of a genuinely open future, a hope that indeed may lie at the core of the apocalyptic messianism that has informed both Judaism and Christianity in varying degrees.37 If, however, the secret that 35 This obvious point is made by J.-F. Lyotard, The Inhuman: Reflections on Time, translated by G. Bennington and R. Bowlby (Stanford, 1991), p. 27: “A secret would not be a ‘real’ secret if no-one knew it was a secret.” See ibid., p. 2 0 1 .1 am grateful to Guy Matalon, presently a graduate student in the Department o f Hebrew and Judaic Studies, New York University, for drawing my attention to the remark of Lyotard. 36 Consider George Simmel’s notion of the triadic structure o f secrecy discussed by H. G. Kippenberg and G. G. Stroumsa, “Introduction: Secrecy and Its Benefits,” in Secrecy and Concealment: Studies in the History o f Mediterranean and Near Eastern Religions, edited by H. G. Kippenberg and G. G. Stroumsa (Leiden, 1995), pp. xiii-xiv. 37 J. D. Caputo, The Prayers and Tears o f Jacques Derrida: Religion without Religion (Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1997), pp. 101-112, has argued rather persuasively that this sense of a secret is an integral aspect o f the deconstructionist belief in the future as the tout autre, which may be considered a form o f secular messianic hope. E. Levinas, Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority, translated by A. Lingis (Pittsburgh, 1969), p. 257, also speaks of the secret appearing without appearing, a motif that he connects to the phenomenon of profanation, which is characterized by the simultaneity of the clandestine and the exposed. The play of concealment and exposure is related, moreover, to the nature of femininity, for the

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there is no secret were to be revealed, then there would be no secret to reveal since there would be nothing to conceal. The logic of esotericism is predicated on the dialectical relation that pertains between the secret that is disclosed and the secret that is withheld. For a secret to be genuinely secretive it cannot be divulged, but if it is not divulged in any manner it is hardly a secret. The texture of secrecy, which is exemplified in this interweaving pattern of revelation and concealment, is poetically captured in the words attributed to Simeon ben Yohai in the preamble to the great assembly, ’Idra’ Rabba’, the part of the zoharic corpus that sets a dramatic stage for the disclosure of the most perplexing mysteries about the Godhead, which have been understood by both traditional and contemporary scholars as having an implicit messianic dimension.31*After the members of the fraternity are adorned in their proper attire and have entered the place to thresh out the mysteries to be revealed by R. Simeon, the master sits down, weeps, and utters the words, “Woe if I reveal, and woe if I do not reveal.”39 Analogously, in another zoharic passage that deals with the esoteric meaning of illicit sexual relations, gilluy ‘arayot, which was considered already in the classical rabbinic period as a subject worthy of hiding, we read: “R. Simeon struck his hands and wept, and he said, ‘Woe if I speak and reveal this mystery, and woe if I do not speak such that the fellows will loose the matter.’”40 The tension between revealing and concealing is linked explicitly with the practical concern that if the secret is not transmitted it

feminine is the “untouchable in the very contact o f voluptuosity, future in the present” (p. 258). The “Eternal Feminine” is represented by the virgin, which is “simultaneously uncovered by Eros and refusing Eros - another way of saying: profanation” (p. 259; author’s emphasis). On the correlation of femininity and transcendent alterity, see E. Levinas, Time and the Other, translated by R. A. Cohen (Pittsburgh, 1987), pp. 36, 86-88. For a critique of the position of Levinas, see L. Irigary, “Questions to Emmanuel Levinas: On the Divinity of Love,” in Re-Reading Levinas, edited by R. Bemasconi and S. Britchley (Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1991), pp. 109-118, and in the same volume the essays by C. Chalier, “Ethics and the Feminine,” pp. 119-129, and T. Chanter, “Antigone’s Dilemma,” pp. 130-146. 34 Y. Liebes, Studies in the Zohar, translated by A. Schwartz, S. Nakache, and P. Peli (Albany, 1993), pp. 1-84. 39 Zohar 3 :127b. Regarding the dialectic of disclosure and concealment of secrets in zoharic literature, related particularly to an implicit messianic tension, see Liebes, Studies in the Zohar, pp. 26-34. See also Matt, “‘New-Ancient Words’,” pp. 190-192. 40 Zohar 3:74b.

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will be lost and the members of the mystical fraternity will be at a disadvantage. In a third zoharic context, the dilemma of disclosing versus suppressing the secret - “Woe if I say and woe if I do not say” underscores another concern. The relevant issue in that source is the theurgical act of directing one’s intention in prayer to the Shekhinah, the last of the ten divine potencies, which is called yir ’ah, “fear.” R. Simeon thus expresses his anxiety: “If I speak, then the sinners will know how to worship their master, but if I do not speak, then the fellows will loose the matter.”41 The common denominator of the three passages (although the matter is left implicit in the first text) is that the failure on the part of the master to reveal the secret will result in an obstacle for the members of the mystical fraternity since they will be denied access to the secret, which is indeed the ontological foundation of being. In the words of the zoharic text, “The world does not exist except through the secret.”42 In a fourth passage, the introduction to the smaller assembly, ’Idra’ Zu fa ’, the mystical gathering that culminates with the ecstatic death of Simeon ben Yohai, the failure to reveal secrets on the part of the master is related to the shame that he would experience if he entered the world-to-come without having openly explicated the mysteries that had been concealed in his heart.43 This motif is based on a much older theme traceable to the Shi'ur Qomah material wherein the scope of one’s learning that is to be tested before one gains access to the world-to-come includes the esoteric gnosis of the measurements of the divine body.44 In the zoharic exegesis, this idea is reworked in order to provide a practical justification for the disclosure of secrets by the master before his ecstatic death. In spite of the timely justification for Simeon ben Yohai to reveal what he had kept secret, he nevertheless imposes a strict limit on the disclosure by assigning a specific role to the fellow members of the fraternity: “These holy words that I have not revealed until now I want to reveal before the Shekhinah so that they will not say that I departed from the world in a deficient state, and up until now they were hidden in my heart so that I may enter through them 41 Zohar 1:1 lb. 42 Zohar 3:128b. 43 Zohar 3:287b. 44 See Scholem, Major Trends, p. 71. Regarding the passage to which Scholem refers, see Midrash Mishle, edited by B. L. Visotzky (New York, 1990), ch. 10, pp. 81-84. On being tested upon entry into the hereafter, see Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 31a.

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to the world-to-come. Thus, I will arrange you: R. Abba will write and R. Eleazar, my son, will study, and the rest of the colleagues will mutter in their hearts.”45 Only one colleague has permission to write the mysteries that the master reveals, and only one can engage in a verbal explication of those mysteries;46 the rest must apply an esoteric mode of study that emulates the form, that Simeon ben Yohai himself utilized prior to this propitious moment. The murmuring of the heart conveys the confluence of concealment and disclosure appropriate to the secretive matter: The esoteric truth must be revealed to the enlightened mystic, but it must also be properly concealed. The point is underscored in another zoharic passage that parallels the statement in the introduction to the 'Idra' Zufa\ but in that context the subject of disclosure is the sefirotic emanations, which are referred to as the “arrayments of the king” (tiqqunei malka ’): R. Eleazar said: All of these arrayments I revealed in order not to enter the world-to-come in shame. Why must they be revealed now? R. Abba said to him: That which I have written from the holy light47 I will say48 to the colleagues for they know the matters, and they must know, as it is written “You shall know that I am the Lord” (Exod. 10:2), and it is written “And they shall know that I am the Lord” (ibid. 29:46), in order for the words to be settled in their hearts. From here and onward the words should be concealed within. Praiseworthy is our portion in this world and in the world-to-come, for up to this point the holy light was crowned by the words within.49

45 Zohar 3:287b. On the special status of Abba and Eleazar in the zoharic fraternity, see the comments of Liebes, Studies in the Zohar, pp. 9-10,20-21. 46 Menahem de Lonzano, 'Orner Man (Jerusalem, 1975), p. 1, presumes that the words of the zoharic text imply that both Abba and Eleazar have permission to write the secrets revealed by Simeon ben Yohai: “Permission was not given to any of them to speak or to write except for R. Abba who would write and R. Eleazar who is permitted to speak and to explain, and all the more so to write, for these two knew how to write through allusion and to conceal.” It seems to me that the point o f the zoharic text is actually to limit the writing of the secrets to just one member o f the fraternity. 47 The expression bo$ina ’ qadisha ', the “holy light,” is one o f the honorific titles applied to Simeon ben Yohai in zoharic literature. For discussion o f the background for this term and some o f the relevant sources where it occurs, see Y. Liebes, Sections o f the Zohar Lexicon (Jerusalem, 1976), pp. 139-140 (in Hebrew). 48 An interesting variant appears in the Cremona edition o f the Zohar (1559-1560), p. 55, col. a: “I will say and I will write.” 49 Zohar 2:123b.

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This example well illustrates the trepidation surrounding the conflicting need to conceal and to reveal, which in the mind of the zoharic authorship is essential to the esoteric enterprise. R. Abba is justified in writing down the secrets concerning the divine realm revealed by the master because the colleagues have a religious obligation to know the sefirotic emanations. It is nonetheless incumbent on the recipients of these secrets to keep them guarded within, which was precisely the situation of Simeon ben Yohai prior to his revealing the secrets more publicly to the elite members of his fraternity. In the final analysis, the act of uncovering must yield another form of masking, a paradox that is rendered even more problematic when we consider the fact that what is ostensibly being transmitted is the secret, which forever alludes the grasp of the human intellect. Scholem was profoundly aware of this irony, which he expressed in the first of his ten unhistorical aphorisms on the kabbalah as the dilemma facing the philologist or historian of kabbalah, a dilemma that in a certain sense extends, as David Biale correctly noted,so to all historical disciplines: Inasmuch as the philologist/historian can reach the past only through indirect sources, in what way is the historical truth really attainable? In Scholem’s language, there is indeed a danger that the “essential” (IWesentliche) disappears in the “projection of the historical” {Projektion des Historischen). Inherent in the nature of the “philological enterprise” (philologischen Fragestellung) is the uncertainty in answering this question. This problem is acutely felt in the philological/historical study of kabbalah, for the latter is by its nature concerned with secret truth. To this Scholem alludes when he notes that the “element of irony resides rather in the subject of this kabbalah itself and not only in its history.”5051 The fundamental problem that presents itself is that kabbalists presume that truth is transmitted from generation to generation, but the truth of which they speak is secretive and thus it cannot by nature be fully transmitted. In

50 D. Biale, “Gershom Scholem’s Ten Unhistorical Aphorisms on Kabbalah,” in Gershom Scholem, edited by H. Bloom (New York, 1987), p. 103. My analysis has benefited from that of Biale. For an analysis of Scholem’s aphorisms, see also J. Dan, “Beyond the Kabbalistic Symbol,” Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 5 (1986): 363-385 (in Hebrew); and, most recently, P. Schäfer, ‘“ Die Philologie der Kabbala ist nur eine Projektion auf eine Fläche’: Gershom Scholem über die wharen Absichten seines Kabbalastudiums,” Jewish Studies Quarterly 5 (1998): 1-25, esp. 19-21. 51 Original German text and translation are cited from Biale, “Ten Unhistorical Aphorisms,” p. 103.

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his inimitable style of ironic paradox, which dialectically undermines the assertion of a position in its Very utterance, Scholem wrote, “Authentic tradition {echte Tradition) remains hidden; only the fallen tradition {verfallende Tradition) falls {verfällt) upon an object and only when it is fallen does its greatness become visible.”52 The truly esoteric knowledge cannot be divulged if it is to remain esoteric and thus a secret tradition that is transmitted is by definition a fallen (as opposed to an authentic) tradition.53 In some measure, the insight regarding the necessarily fallen condition of an esoteric tradition that has been transmitted is a specific application of Scholem’s view with respect to the nature of tradition more generally in Judaism, i.e., every experience of the divine requires mediation in order to be apprehensible and realizable.54 The kabbalists, according to Scholem, draw the final consequence of the rabbinic understanding of tradition as the mediated unfolding of the immediate word of revelation. Insofar as the kabbalists presume that the object of revelation is the divine names, which are all contained in the unique name, it follows that the Torah can be pictured as the palimpsest upon which God etched the “secret signatures” {rishumim) that “are as much concealments of His revelation as revelation of His concealment.”55 The word of God encompasses an infinite meaning that is incomprehensible and incommunicable; it becomes communicable only as it is mediated through the unfolding of oral tradition in history.56 The consequence of this inevitable mediation of revelation through tradition, however, is the dialectical paradox that the disclosure is a form of 52 Biale, op. cit., pp. 103-104. See idem, Gershom Scholem: Kabbalah and Counter-History, pp. 101-102. 53 On the possibility that this statement entails the claim that “institutional Judaism” is inauthentic, see H. Bloom, “Scholem: Unhistorical or Jewish Gnosticism,” in Gershom Scholem, p. 208. On the reluctance of kabbalists to write down the esoteric teaching in an effort to preserve the tradition, see Scholem, Messianic Idea, pp. 296-297. The tension between preserving a tradition, on the one hand, and communicating that tradition in writing, on the other, was already expressed by Scholem in the sixteenth o f the ninety-five theses on Judaism and Zionism that he sent to Walter Benjamin in July 1918. “Geschriebene Tradition ist die Paradoxie, in der die jüdische Literatur sich essentiell enfaltet” (printed in Gershom Scholem: Zwischen den Disziplinen, edited by P. Schäfer and G. Smith [Frankfurt am Main, 1995], p. 289). 54 Scholem, Messianic Idea, p. 292. 55 Ibid., p. 293. 56 Ibid., pp. 294-295.

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concealment even as the concealment is a form of disclosure. The absoluteness of the divine word is manifest in the “unending reflections in the contingencies of fulfillment. Only in the mirrorings in which it reflects does revelation become practicable and accessible to human action as something concrete.”5758An immediate application of the divine word would be destructive; only the refraction of the word through the prism of mediation allows for the historical concretization of the tradition in a living community of practitioners. > I note, parenthetically, that there is an interesting parallel to the train of Scholem’s thinking and a view articulated by Martin Heidegger in Sein und Zeit regarding the paradoxical confluence of truth and untruth: to uncover (entdecken) is simultaneously to cover-up (verdecken), to disclose (erchliessen) is to close-over (verschliessen). For Heidegger (at the early stage of his thinking) this process of covering-up by uncovering is related to the ontic necessity of the fall of there-being (da-sein) amongst beings (seiendes), a condition that he refers to as inauthentic everydayness (Alltäglichkeit).™ This very dialectic was retained by Heidegger in the latter stages of his thinking and extended into a more general reflection on the eidetic phenomenological theme regarding the nature of truth as clearing (Lichtung), which is depicted by the double movement of withdrawal and presencing: The presence (Anwesenheit) that is un-covered in the clearing is uncovered through its being covered in the pulling back of the withdrawal (Entzug). The mystery that appears in the clearing is the nearest truth to which one can never draw near because it is that which always withdraws. The deepest sense of secrecy eventuates, therefore, when the mystery hides its hiding and the concealment itself is concealed in its unconcealment so that what is revealed is concealment.59 Naturally, there is much in Heidegger’s early and later thought that does not resonate with Scholem’s thinking, but the main point of similarity to which I wish to draw attention is the notion of uncovering truth as a form of un-truth. What is authentically 57 Ibid., p. 296. 58 For discussion and partial citation of the relevant Heideggerian passages to which I am indebted, see W. J. Richardson, S. J., Heidegger Through Phenomenology to Thought, preface by M. Heidegger, 3rd edition (The Hague, 1974), p. 96. 59 My presentation of Heidegger’s thoughts on the sense of mystery that hides itself by appearing in the clearing is indebted to the “Translators’ Commentary,” in The Piety o f Thinking: Essays by Martin Heidegger, translated by J. G. Hart and J. C. Maraldo with notes and commentary (Bloomington and London, 1976), p. 107.

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true is that which is uncovered in its coveredness, the secret spoken by not being spoken. In Scholem’s mind, this alone constitutes authentic tradition. The disclosedness of truth (the secret withheld in its secrecy) brings about its negation as un-truth (transmitted secret), but as negation it cannot but negate itself so that it becomes what it is by not-being its opposite. Biale is correct when he relates the hermeneutical quandary of which Scholem speaks to the fact that “Kabbalistic theology is caught in the same tension between the knowability and hiddenness of its subject,”60 that is, the God that is manifest in the hypostatic illuminations of the sefirot, which are configured as an anthropomorphic shape in the imagination of the mystic, is the hidden God who, by definition, cannot be known.61 Over and again the paradoxical claim that the sefirotic emanations disclose the infinite hiddenness of the divine by concealing it is affirmed in kabbalistic texts. Just as the ultimate truth of history lies beyond the conceptual grasp of the historian,6263 so the object of kabbalistic knowledge is the Ein-Sof, the infinite Godhead that transcends the realm of human cognition and perception. The supreme secret is related, therefore, to the present absence of God experienced through the absent presence of the sefirotic emanations, and this is so.whether the particular kabbalist accepted the essentialist or the instrumentalist view regarding the ontological nature of the sefirot.6* That is to say, even if a kabbalist identified the sefirot as the instruments (kelim) by means of which the creative potency of the divine is expressed rather than the essence ('asmut) of God in order to avoid the obvious theological problem of introducing multiplicity into the Godhead, his 60 Biale, “Ten Unhistorical Aphorisms,” p. 104. 61 From one perspective it can been said that the paradox in kabbalistic literature of the hidden God disclosed in its concealment is due to the impact o f Neoplatonic ontology regarding the manifestation of the unknowable One in the knowable many. The paradox is well captured by A. Hilary Armstrong, “The Hidden and the Open in Hellenic Thought,” Eranos Jahrbuch 54 (1985): 103: “The hidden stands absolutely open, and is none the less absolutely hidden.” 62 For an illuminating study of this seminal issue in contemporary historiography, see J. Appleby, L. Hunt, and M. Jacob, Telling the Truth About History (New York and London, 1994); and the rich introduction by J. Revel in Histories: French Constructions o f the Past, pp. 1-63. 63 For a useful survey of these two positions, see Scholem, Kabbalah, pp. 101-102. See also Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives, pp. 137-144; and the more recent discussion in idem, R. Menahem Recanati: The Kabbalist (Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv, 1998), pp. 175-214 (in Hebrew).

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assumption would nevertheless be that the sefirot are the apparel that uncover the divine light by covering it. The structure of the secret in kabbalistic symbology thus involves the paradox of unveiling by way of veiling, a paradox that is conveyed by a number of images, but none as centrally as the motif of garbing (hiflabshut). When applied hermeneutically we might say that the body of the text is rendered naked through the activity of clothing the text in multiple garments of interpretation.64 By extension, the form.Qf writing about secrets is itself a secretive enterprise in which dissimulation is the mark of truthfulness, for to be true to the secret, the secret must be concealed, but for the secret to be concealed, it must be revealed. The kabbalist emulates the paradoxical nature of the secret by writing in a manner that duplicates the duplicity of secrecy. The point is succinctly captured by Moses de Leon when he remarks in his Mishkan ha- ‘Edut that his task is “to write and to conceal,” which is to say, to conceal even as — indeed precisely when - he reveals in his writing.65 The concomitant concealment and disclosure of secretive matters is exemplified by the use of the paradoxical expression “hidden and revealed” (setim we-galyya ’) on the part of the zoharic authorship to characterize the Torah.66 From the symbolic perspective that informs much of zoharic literature this claim is not merely epistemological or exegetical in nature, but it is rather ontological insofar as the Torah itself was viewed as the embodiment of the revealed aspect of the divine. It is for this reason that in many of the relevant zoharic passages wherein the Torah is described as “hidden and revealed,” God67 as well as the divine name (i.e., the 64 I have explored this feature of kabbalistic hermeneutics in “Occultation o f the Feminine and the Body o f Secrecy in Medieval Kabbalah,” in Rending the Veil: Concealment and Secrecy in the History o f Religions, edited by E. R. Wolfson (New York and London, 1999), pp. 113-154. For an illuminating discussion o f the paradox of rendering the text naked by clothing the text, see S. Delany, The Naked Text: Chaucer’s Legend o f Good Women (Berkeley, 1994), pp. 115-152. 65 For extensive discussion of this passage, see E. R. Wolfson, “Sefer ha-Rimmon: Critical Edition and Study,” Ph.D. Dissertation, Brandeis University, 1986, pp. 18-27. For a different interpretation of this expression in Moses de Leôn, see Scholem, Major Trends, pp. 201-202. 66 Zohar 2:230b; 3:71b, 72b, 73a, 75a. 67 Zohar 1:64b; 2:227b; 3:73a. In the first two passages mentioned in this list, the expression is used more specifically to contrast Yesod and Malkhut, the former is concealed and the latter revealed. In Zohar 1:232b, it appears that the attributes

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Tetragrammaton)6* are also described by this oxymoron. The justification for this terminological usage lies in the fact that Torah, God, and the Tetragrammaton are theosophically identical in the mind of the zoharic authorship.6869 The dual nature of Torah as hidden and revealed is based on the identification of Torah and God, which is expressed more typically as the identification of Torah and the Tetragrammaton.70 The paradoxical confluence of the invisible and the visible in the hermeneutical process can also be described as the convergence of the ineffable and the audible, for just as YHWH itself is vocalized only through ’Adonai, so the esoteric sense of Torah is manifest through the cloak of its exoteric sense. In the language of one particularly expressive zohafic passage: All that is considered hidden and concealed is not mentioned at all ... and what is more revealed is mentioned in order to cover that which is in hiddenness and concealment. Therefore that which is more revealed is mentioned, and thus the supernal name is the secret in concealment and hiddenness and it is not mentioned except through the name that is revealed. The one is mentioned and the other is hidden, the one is in the open and the other is in secrecy, and that which is exposed is always mentioned. The name that is hidden is YHWH and the name that is disclosed is ’Adonai. Therefore, it is written with hidden letters and it is pronounced by these letters, the one is shrouded by the other so that the supernal glory will always be hidden and concealed, for all the ways of Torah are revealed and concealed, and all worldly matters, whether of this world or of the world above, are hidden and laid bare.71 It follows, therefore, that the hermeneutical intent of the expression “hidden and revealed” is that concealment and disclosure are not mutually exclusive antinomies separable by the power of logical reasoning into concealed and revealed are applied respectively to Binah and Malkhut. By contrast, in Zohar 2:178b (Sifra' di-Seni’uta’), the expression setim we-galyya’ is applied to the father and the son, presumably a reference to the second and the sixth o f the emanations, Hokhmah and Tiferet. 68 Zohar 1:39b; 2:230b; 3:65b, 71b, 72a, 73a, 75a. In 1:145a, the expression setim we-galyya' is applied to the letter h e ’ of the Tetragrammaton, which corresponds symbolically to Binah or the third of the ten emanations. See also 1:240b where the expression is applied to Binah (tiqquna ’ da ’ setim we-galyya ’) in contrast to Malkhut, which is disclosed (tiqquna ’ de- ’itgalyya ’yatir). 69 See Liebes, Studies in the Zohar, p. 27. 70 See references to scholarly articles cited above, n. 27. 71 Zohar 2:230b.

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distinct categories; on the contrary, as one may adduce from any number of zoharic passages, in the lived experience of visionary contemplation, the two overlap such that the concealment is a form of disclosure and the disclosure a form of concealment.72 Indeed, the insight for the kabbalists behind the composition of the zoharic text in its multiple layers is that with respect to the nature of secrecy the process of unveiling is itself a form of concealment. This paradoxical experience is expressed by members of this circle as well as by other kabbalists (as I have already intimated) in terms of the image of the garment (levush or malbush), which is applied to the light by which the divine is manifest in the same manner that the soul was thought to be garbed in the body and the esoteric sense of Torah in the literal words73: From one perspective the garment conceals but from another it reveals. In the mystical gnosis, these are not logical opposites; on the contrary, the garment reveals in the manner that it conceals that which it reveals and it conceals in the manner that it reveals that which it conceals. Consistent with the dominant symbolic approach adopted by kabbalists through the ages, the dialectic of concealment and disclosure can be understood in gendered terms: The hidden, which is linked to the ineffable name YHWH, is the masculine, and the revealed, which is expressed through the pronounceable epithet ’Adonai, is the feminine. In the manner that the concealed masculine is visually disclosed through the veil of the feminine, a complex process that entails in the kabbalistic literature a transformation of the feminine into an aspect of the masculine, one can

72 The articulation of this point has been central to my work on zoharic hermeneutics from the beginning of my scholarly publications. For representative studies, see E. R. Wolfson, “Circumcision, Vision of God, and Textual Interpretation: From Midrashic Trope to Mystical Symbol,” History o f Religions 27 (1987): 189-215, reprinted in E. R. Wolfson, Circle in the Square: Studies in the Use o f Gender in Kabbalistic Symbolism (Albany, 1995), pp. 29-48, and notes on pp. 140-155; idem. Through a Speculum That Shines, pp. 326-392. 73 For discussion of relevant passages corresponding to these three meanings of the image o f the garment in zoharic literature, see D. Cohen-Alloro, The Secret o f the Garment in the Zohar (Jerusalem, 1987; in Hebrew). On the intrinsic relationship between the esoteric (or symbolic) and the exoteric (or literal) senses in zoharic hermeneutics, see Liebes, Studies in the Zohar, p. 45. Liebes duly notes that the “symbolic meaning supplements and deepens the plain meaning, but does not replace it.” In my own assessment, there is a fundamental convergence o f the two layers of meaning such that the sod (the secret) is the deep peshat (the contextual sense). See Wolfson, “Beautiful Maiden Without Eyes.”

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speak of the inexpressible name of the masculine becoming articulate through the verbal guise of the feminine. There is thus no justification in the symbolic world of the kabbalists to distinguish the visual from the auditory, the optic from the semiotic, insofar as the imaginai form, which is the tangible object of visualization, is itself nothing but a hidden manifestation of the divine name, which is the mystical essence of the Torah. The matter was well captured in the following explication of the zoharic claim that the “Torah is entirely hidden and revealed”74: “Just as the name YHWH, blessed be He, is concealed in thought and through the mouth the name ’Adonai is uttered openly in its place ... but the name YHWH remains concealed in thought, so' the Torah in its entirety is revealed and hidden. The Torah is entirely the names of the Holy One, blessed be He; from the concealment of YHWH comes forth the hidden secrets of the Torah and from the disclosure of the name ’Adonai comes forth the Torah that is revealed and garbed in the world of revelation ( ‘alma’ de-’itgalya’), which is the garment of Torah (levusha’ de- 'oraita,).”75 In his typically insightful manner, Scholem alludes to this paradoxical quality of kabbalistic esotericism in the second of the unhistorical aphorisms when he refers to the “mystical-anarchistic policy” (imystisch-anarchischen Politik) that “better guards secrets by enunciating them than by concealing them” (die Geheimnisse durch Aussprechen besser schützt als durch Verschweigeny6 In the continuation of this aphorism, Scholem signals out Lurianic kabbalah as an example that best illustrates this paradox of “enigmatic expressibility” {rätselhaften Aussprechlichkeitj,77 a point that is exemplified even more specifically by the work ‘Emeq ha-Melekh by Naftali Bachrach,78 a dense presentation of the complex Lurianic kabbalah, which is based on the version of Luria’s 74 Zohar 3:73b (the reference in the source, which is cited in the following note, is incorrectly given as 93b). 75 A. S. Maharil, Berurei ha-Middot mishemen zayit zakh sheI Zohar ha-Qadosh (Jerusalem, n.d.), p. 38. 76 Biale, “Ten Unhistorical Aphorisms,” p. 105. 77 Ibid. The English rendering is that of Biale, op. cit., p. 106. 78 Scholem mistakenly refers to the author as Jacob Elchanan Bacharach. Jacob Elchanan was the father of Naftali who was the author of ‘Emeq ha-Melekh. To date, the most comprehensive discussion o f this kabbalist is found in Y. Liebes, “Towards a Study of the Author o f Emek ha-Melekh: His Personality, Writings and Kabbalah,” Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 11 (1993): 101-137 (in Hebrew).

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teaching promulgated by Israel Sarug, published in Frankfurt am Main in 1648. Although the work was attacked on the grounds of exhibiting a popularizing tendency that allegedly betrayed the secrets of Torah by exposing them to the masses, in fact it is hardly a comprehensible presentation of the esoteric wisdom. Biale suggests that Scholem’s depiction of Lurianic kabbalah as an example of “mystical-anarchistic policy”79 may be “an allusion to the nihilistic outgrowth of Luria’s system: the Sabbatian movement of the seventeenth century. For, the very public campaign that spread Luria’s teachings made possible, at least in Scholem’s interpretation, the phenomenon of a mass messianic movement with-an antinomian Kabbalistic theology.”80 Although this is certainly a reasonable explanation, I would suggest that it is somewhat historically overdetermined. That is, the paradox articulated by Scholem is far more symbolical than historical in its orientation, although I readily acknowledge that Scholem’s understanding of the kabbalistic concept of redemption (especially as it is articulated in the Lurianic sources) is such that the former must have a manifestation in the latter.81 My point is that the “enigmatic expressibility” of Lurianic kabbalah is not explicable only in terms of the causal relationship it may have had to the subsequent Sabbatian messianism, but it is related rather to the epistemological presumption that the disclosure of the secret is its most profound concealment. The withholding of secrets dialectically stems from the “mystical-anarchistic policy” to disseminate them publicly: Secrets are better kept when they are revealed. This utterly paradoxical notion is explicable only on the basis of a firm grasp of the locution “mystical-anarchistic policy.” One familiar with Scholem’s theory of mysticism in the history of religions is well aware of his recurring insistence that the ecstasy underlying the mystical experience is essentially amorphous in nature and thus it potentially threatens to transcend the more restrictive forms of the institutionalized religion that provided the matrix wherein it took shape. The historical success of a mystical tradition in a particular religious 79 Biale, “Ten Unhistorical Aphorisms,” p. 106, translates the German Politik as “politics,” but I think “policy” better conveys the sense of the original. 80 Ibid., p. 106. 81 See Scholem, Major Trends, pp. 274, 305; idem, Sabbatai Sevi: The Mystical Messiah 1626-1676, translated by R. J. Zwi Werblowsky (Princeton, 1973), p. 26; idem, Messianic Idea, pp. 17 and 48.

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framework is commensurate to the ability of the mystic to hold the potential anarchy of the ecstatic experience in check, a . process that Scholem designates as the convergence of the conservative and revolutionary aspects in the mystical phenomenon.'2 In Scholem’s locution, the anchoring of mystical ecstasy on the part of the kabbalist in the social sphere of ritual custom results in the “transformation” of rabbinic halakhah into a “sacrament” or “mystery rite.” This “revival of myth in the very heart of Judaism” is precisely what fortifies and preserves normative practice since each religious deed is now imbued with ultimate cosmic significance.8283 But there is always the possibility for the latent lawlessness to break through the external shell of the law. In the sixth of the aphorisms, Scholem refers explicitly to this dynamic: Just as nature, Kabbalistically seen, is nothing but a shadow of the divine name, so one can also speak of a shadow of the law, which it casts longer and longer over the life of the Jew. But in the Kabbalah, the stony wall of the law gradually becomes transparent; a glimpse of the reality surrounded and circumscribed by it breaks through. The alchemy of the law, its transmutation to transparency, is one of the deepest paradoxes of the Kabbalah, for what in principle could be less transparent than this glimpse, this aura of the symbolic that now appears? But along with this ever increasing, if ever more indistinct transparency of the law, the shadows which the law casts over Jewish life dissolve. The end of this process must, logically speaking, be Jewish “Reform:” the shadowless, backgroundless, but no longer irrational, purely abstract humanity of the law as a remnant of its mystical dissolution.84

82 Here I cite only a few places in Scholem’s oeuvre where he discusses his thesis regarding the potentially anarchic aspect of mystical ecstasy and the attempt of mystics to confine that ecstasy within the bounds of a given institutional religion: Major Trends, pp. 8-9; On the Kabbalah, pp. 6-11, 94; Messianic Idea, p. 90; “Der Nihilismus als religiöses Phänomen,” Eranos Jahrbuch 43 (1974): 1-50. For discussion of this aspect o f Scholem’s phenomenology of mystical experience, see Wolfson, Through a Speculum That Shines, pp. 56-57. The contextualist approach to mystical experience based on the notion that the latter is essentially amorphous has been recently adopted by J. B. Hollenback, Mysticism: Experience, Response, and Empowerment (University Park, Pennsylvania, 1996), pp. 75-93. 83 Major Trends, pp. 29-30. 84 Biale, “Ten Unhistorical Aphorisms,” pp. 113-114. One passage from the original German I translated on my own. An important discussion of Scholem’s attitude towards nihilism and antinomianism as categories of the religious phenomenon may be found in

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It is obvious, as Biale duly notes, that Scholem has offered here a succinct encapsulation of his view regarding the dialectical relationship of the pseudo-messianic Sabbatian and Frankist movements in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and the rise of the rationalist enlightenment (haskalah) and Reform Judaism in the nineteenth century.*5 Scholem’s thesis has not been without its detractors.8586 On historical grounds the critique of Scholem may certainly be valid, but I would argue that the tenability of his insight is not to be judged solely on its applicability to the historical process even if he himself presumed otherwise. That is, what is noteworthy in Scholem’s thinking is the recognition of the dialectical process inherent in the kabbalistic sources that extends the law beyond the bounds of its own limit.87 Whether or not we are prepared to accept Scholem’s explanation of the inner dynamic of Jewish history, there seems to me little reason to question the soundness of his understanding of the dialectic operative in any number of kabbalistic texts that tests the center of the tradition at its margins. Specifically, the implicit utopian element embraced by kabbalists (in some cases more boldly than in others) is predicated on an absorption of the antinomian and anarchic tendencies within the Torah itself such that the law most fully expresses its potentiality as law at the point when it exceeds the limits of its prescriptions; the law is the forthcoming study by S. Wasserstrom, Religion after Religion: Gershom Scholem, Henry Corbin, and Mircea Eliade at Eranos, to be published by Princeton University Press. I had the privilege of reading the manuscript prior to its publication and I benefited greatly from Wasserstrom’s analysis. 85 Biale, “Ten Unhistorical Aphorisms”, p. 115. Scholem reiterates his thesis in a number of writings of which I will here mention only a few representative studies. See Scholem, Messianic Idea, pp. 84, 90-91; “Die Metamorphose des häretischen Messianismus der Sabbatianer in religiösen Nihilismus im 18. Jahrhundert,” Zeugnisse. Theodor ff1. Adorno zum sechzigsten Geburtstag (Frankfurt am Main, 1963), pp. 21-32 (French translation in Hérésies et sociétés dans l'Europe préindustrielle [Paris, 1968], pp. 381-395); On the Kabbalah, p. 90. 86 J. Katz, “The Possible Connection of Sabbataeanism, Haskalah and Reform Judaism,” in Studies in Jewish Religious and Intellectual History Presented to Alexander Altmann On the Occasion o f His Seventieth Birthday, edited by S. Stein and R. Loewe (University, Alabama, 1979), pp. 83-100 (Hebrew section); E. Schweid, Judaism and Mysticism According to Gershom Scholem: A Critical Analysis and Programmatic Discussion, translated with an introduction by D. A. Weiner (Atlanta, 1985), pp. 133-140. 87 Scholem, Messianic Idea, pp. 19-24,49-141; idem, “Der Nihilismus als religiöses Phänomen,” pp. 27-35.

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truly affirmed in the negation of its restrictiveness.8®The very impulse to disclose esoteric doctrines, which is so central to the kabbalist worldview, epitomizes the latent breach with the regulative norm that prohibits such a disclosure, but in the absence of the impulse to reveal the secret there is no secret to conceal.889 The alchemical potentiality of the law to breach its own wall by becoming fully transparent in the symbolical transformation provides a key for understanding the more general dynamic of esotericism that Scholem correctly perceived to be a central component of the kabbalistic worldview.90 Just as the shadow of nature dissolves in the luminous splendor of the divine name, which is the mystical essence of the Torah, so the shadow of the law disappears in the symbolic aura that encompasses it. The embodied plight of human consciousness, however, is that the light can only be seen through the shadow that it casts. The precise dynamic is operative in the hermeneutical claim that the secret is revealed only by being concealed. To comprehend this aspect of the kabbalistic hermeneutics of esotericism, moreover, is to grasp the experiential dimension of the symbolic orientation. Indeed, I would venture the following generalization on the basis of submersion in textual details: The experiential aspects of Jewish mysticism are contextualized within a hermeneutical framework

88 See Scholem, Messianic Idea, pp. 58-59. In that context, Scholem draws the explicit analogy between Paulinism and Sabbatianism. See also W. D. Davies, “From Schweitzer to Scholem: Reflections on Sabbatai Svi,” in Gershom Scholem, pp. 77-97.1 have explored the issue of the law exceeding its own boundaries in the second of three lectures that I delivered at the University of Toronto on February 25, March 4 and 18, 1998, on the ethical dimensions of Jewish mysticism. The title o f the second lecture was “Beyond Good and Evil: Law and Morality in the Kabbalistic Tradition.” I am currently preparing these lectures for publication. 89 Regarding the potentially antinomian aspect related to the disclosure o f secrets, which might constitute an affront to the divine glory, see Liebes, Studies in the Zohar, pp. 30,46-47. Remarkably, Liebes does not mention his mentor in this connection even though the link between disclosure of secrets and antinomianism was so basic to Scholem’s thinking. 90 Elsewhere in his writings Scholem uses similar language. For example, in On the Kabbalah, p. 94, Scholem remarks that the kabbalists “looked upon the world o f Judaism as a symbolic transparency, through which the secret of the cosmos could be discerned.” From the continuation of that passage it is evident that Scholem connects this symbolic transparency with the presumed revival o f myth in the kabbalah.

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rooted in some form of esotericism.91 To borrow the formulation of Antoine Faivre, “active esotericism is the privileged form of hermeneutics.”92 Elaborating on this point in another context, Faivre writes: “The etymology of ‘esotericism’ clarifies the idea of secret by suggesting that we can access understanding of a symbol, myth, or reality only by a personal effort of progressive elucidation through several successive levels, i.e., by a form of hermeneutics.”93 The word “esotericism” is thus meant to convey the notion that there is an inner tradition that cannot be conveyed except to select individuals who ascertain or gain access to the secret through hermeneutical means. In the kabbalistic tradition, however, one can never speak of gaining complete access to the secret. On the contrary, possession of secret gnosis, which is exhibited in both the theoretical and the practical realms, empowers the kabbalist precisely because he alone has acquired the knowledge that cannot be communicated. The disabling empowerment can be expressed from an optic and a semiotic standpoint as the seeing of the invisible in its invisibility or the naming of the ineffable in its ineffability. P h il o s o p h ic a l E s o t e r ic is m : T h e S e c r e t T h a t T h e r e I s N o S e c r e t

It is impossible to appreciate the conceptions of secrecy that evolved in the kabbalistic texts of the thirteenth century without heeding the impact that Maimonides had on Jewish esoteric circles. This is especially true in the case of Abulafia who acknowledged his debt to Maimonides, reflected most evidently in the fact that he composed no less than three commentaries on the Guide o f the Perplexed with the stated goal of exposing the mystical secrets latent in the philosopher’s words. It is thus appropriate for me to discuss the approach of Maimonides before delving into the compositions of prophetic kabbalah.

91 Aspects of Jewish esotericism related particularly to exegetical devices have been studied more recently by M. Idel, Derishah,” in Secrecy and Concealment, pp. 310-343 92 Faivre, in The Encyclopedia o f Religion, 5: 158, s.v., definition of theosophy as a form of hermeneutics, see Hermeticism,” p. 116. 93 Access to Western Esotericism, p. 5.

preoccupation with “Secrecy, Binah and Esotericism. On the idem, “Renaissance

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According to one perspective on esoteric ism that comes forth from Maimonides,94 which I assume is a sentiment shared by other philosophically inclined Andalusian rabbinic intellectuals of the High Middle Ages (one here thinks, for instance, of Abraham ibn Ezra95) rather 94 The subject of esotericism in the religious philosophy o f Maimonides has been the focus of much scholarly attention from various methodological perspectives. The following list of representative studies is therefore very selective: L. Strauss, “The Literary Character of the Guide o f the Perplexed," in Essays on Maimonides, edited by S. W. Baron (New York, 1941), pp. 37-91, reprinted in Persecution and the Art o f Writing (Glencoe, 111., 1952), pp. 38-94, and idem, “How To Begin To Study The Guide of the Perplexed,” in The Guide o f the Perplexed, translated by S. Pines (Chicago and London, 1963), pp. xi-lvi; idem. Philosophy and Law: Contributions to the Understanding o f Maimonides and His Predecessors, translated by E. Adler (Albany, 1995), pp. 95-96, 102-103; H. A. Davidson, “Maimonides’ Secret Position on Creation,” in Studies in Medieval Jewish History and Literature, vol. I, edited by I. Twersky (Cambridge, Mass., 1979), pp. 16-40; A. Ravitsky, “Samuel ibn Tibbon and the Esoteric Character of the Guide o f the Perplexed," AJS Review 6 (1981): 87-123; idem, “The Secrets of the Guide o f the Perplexed: Between the Thirteenth and the Twentieth Centuries,” Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 5 (1986): 23-69 (in Hebrew), English version in Studies in Maimonides, edited by I. Twersky (Cambridge, Mass., 1990), pp. 159-207; Z. Levy, “Hermeneutik und Esoterik bei Maimonides und Spinoza,” Internationaler Schleiermacher Kongress, Berlin 1984, edited by K.-V. Selge (Berlin, 1985), pp. 541-560; M. Idel, “Sitre ‘A rayot in Maimonides’ Thought,” in Maimonides and Philosophy: Papers Presented at the Sixth Jerusalem Philosophical Encounter, May 1985, edited by S. Pines and Y. Yovel (Dordrecht, 1986), pp. 79-91; M. Fox, Interpreting Maimonides: Studies in Methodology, Metaphysics, and Moral Philosophy (Chicago and London, 1990), pp. 47-90; S. Harvey, “Maimonides in the Sultan’s Palace,” in Perspectives on Maimonides: Philosophical and Historical Studies, edited by J. L. Kraemer (London, 1996), pp. 47-75; Klein-Braslavy, King Solomon and the Philosophical Esotericism. 95 Particularly instructive in this matter is Abraham ibn Ezra’s use o f the term sod in his comments on the biblical notion of devequt, which for him connotes the philosophical experience of conjunction, an experience that constitutes the authentic form o f immortality (or, in the traditional locution, ‘olam ha-ba ', the world-to-come). In some contexts, the experience of conjunction is presented as the secret meaning of the commandments. See Perushei ha-Torah le- ’A vraham ’Ibn 'Ezra ’, edited by A. Weiser, 2 vols. (Jerusalem, 1977), 1:30 (Gen. 3:24); 2:216 (Exod. 33:21); 3:54 (Lev. 18:4), 234 (Deut. 5:30), 248 (Deut. 11:22), 318 (Deut. 32:39). It is o f interest to note that Yom Tov ben Abraham Ishbili, Sefer ha-Zikkaron, edited by K. Kahana (Jerusalem, 1982), pp. 91-92, defends ibn Ezra’s understanding o f the secret o f devequt expressed in his commentary to Deut. 11:22 against the criticism o f Nahmanides by suggesting that ibn Ezra shares the same viewpoint on this matter as Maimonides. This source is noted by I. Twersky, “Did R. Abraham Ibn Ezra Influence Maimonides?,” in Rabbi Abraham Ibn

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than reflecting an entirely idiosyncratic view, esotericism involves the withholding of a profound idea (or the deeper meaning of a text if the primary focus is exegetical) that may be communicated. What accounts for philosophical esotericism, then, is the philosopher’s restraint in disclosing the secret on account of the difficulty in apprehending the content of the secret, which is compounded by the potential conflict that it might create with what was perceived to be a normative position with regard to a particular theological issue. As A ltmans noted long ago, in the thought of Maimonides, there is an essential link between the phenomenon of contradiction and that of the secret, for to talk about a secret is of necessity to talk in contradictions, or, expressed alternatively, the contradictory statement alone points to the secret. The secret itself only arises if there is a contradiction between the literal sense of the biblical text and what is known to be demonstrably true on the basis of ratiocination. In the absence of such a contradiction, there is no need for esoteric meaning. This “innermost motive” of the concept of sod utilized by Maimonides underscores the difference in orientation between the philosophical esotericism and that embraced by the kabbalists. In Altmann’s felicitous language: “It is not the mystic’s need to grasp what is hidden beneath the veil of the written word, but the unsettling realization that there are contradictions between the literal meaning of the Scripture and philosophical truth which drives Maimonides to develop his theory of the layers of esoteric and exoteric meaning. ... But once the contradiction is resolved, the secret as such has been abolished, for by its very nature the secret is merely logical, whereas the secret of mysticism is ontological.*41

Ezra: Studies in the Writings o f a Twelfth-Century Jewish Polymath, edited by I. Twersky and J. M. Harris (Cambridge, Mass., 1993), p. 26 (Hebrew section). On the use of the term sod in ibn Ezra’s biblical commentaries, see M. Friedländer, Essays on the Writing o f Abraham Ibn Ezra (London, 1877). p. 63; M. Steinschneider, Gesammelte Schriften, edited by H. Malter and A. Marx (Berlin, 1925), p. 436; L. Prijs, Abraham Ibn Ezra's Commentary on Genesis ch. 1-3: Creation and Paradise (London, 1990), p. 41 n. 150 (in Hebrew); J. Cohen, The Philosophical Thought o f Abraham ibn Ezra (Jerusalem, 1996), p. 16 n. 16 (in Hebrew). For an important essay, which does not deal directly with the notion o f secrecy in ibn Ezra but which nevertheless sheds much light on his intellectual orientation that plays a significant part in helping one discern his use of the term sod, see Y. Tzvi Langermann, “Some Astrological Themes in the Thought of Abraham ibn Ezra,” in Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra, pp. 28-85.

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inextricably caught in contradictions that are anchored in the structure of the world itself.”96 Leo Strauss similarly emphasized that the key to deciphering the literary character of Maimonides’ Guide is to comprehend the esoteric character of this work, an insight that is based on appreciating that the author is emulating the most perfect of books, the Bible, which is esoteric in form and content. Just as in the case of the revealed word of God the internal meaning {batin) is disclosed through the covering of the external meaning (zahir), so too in the case of the Guide Maimonides employs the parable to express a secretive matter in such a way that it is exposed to those who know and concealed from those who are ignorant.97 As Strauss reminds the reader, Maimonides himself relates that the proper mode of transmission of the knowledge of secrets, whether orally or in writing, is by disclosing the matter and then quickly hiding it, which is an emulation of the manner in which truth flashes out like lightning and then immediately disappears. The only way to accomplish the twofold act of revealing and concealing is through use of parables and riddles.9* The goal of the esoteric method, then, is not only to reveal truth but to hide it; indeed, to reveal it by hiding it just as (according to the operative metaphor of Prov. 25:11 employed by Maimonides to depict the nature of the parable99) the apples of gold (tapuhei zahav) are encased in the silver setting (maskiyyot kasef). The secret teaching of the Guide thus provides the code to uncover the secret

96 Altmann, “Maimonides’ Attitude,” p. 203. 97 In a sense, Maimonides’ approach to esotericism and, in particular, his linkage of the secret that is to be withheld from those unworthy of comprehending the inner truth to the structure of the parable is reminiscent of the orientation of Jesus as related in Mark 4:11-12. According to that text, the purpose of the parable is to conceal the mystery from those who do not know, which allows for the preservation of two distinct communities, those who possess the true knowledge and those who do not. Maimonides adopts a similar strategy with regard to his interpretation of parables in Scripture as well as with respect to the use of the parabolic method in his own composition. See Kermode, Genesis o f Secrecy, pp. 2-3. The obvious difference between Maimonides and Mark is that for the former true knowledge consists of philosophically demonstrable truth. 98 Guide, Introduction, pp. 7-8. On the ability to communicate by means of flashes, which is considered one of the signs that one is worthy of receiving the secret wisdom connected to the account o f the chariot or the divine science, see 1.34, p. 78. 99 Guide, Introduction, pp. 11-12.

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teaching of Scripture.100 And just as the biblical authorship employed parables “in order to reveal the truth by not revealing it, and not to reveal it by revealing it,”101 so Maimonides employs the method of contradiction in order to reveal his secrets by concealing them and concealing them in order to reveal them. Alternatively expressed, the purpose of the Guide is not simply to identify the esoteric disciplines of the account of the chariot and the account of creation respectively with metaphysics and physics, but it is to show that the content of these philosophical disciplines is identical with the secrets of the Bible.102 The one particular example that is worthy of a sustained discussion is that which serves as the paradigm of esoteric wisdom in general, ma 'aseh merkavah, the account of the chariot,103 which Maimonides identified as divine science or metaphysics, in contrast to ma 'aseh here ’shit, the account of creation, which he identified as natural science or physics.104 The secret 100 Strauss, Persecution and the Art o f Writing, pp. 60-78. Regarding the approach of Strauss to Maimonidean esotericism, see K. H. Green, Jew and Philosopher: The Return to Maimonides in the Jewish Thought o f Leo Strauss (Albany, 1993), pp. 111-134. 101 Strauss, Persecution and the Art o f Writing, p. 66. 102 Ibid., pp. 45-46. 103 The material here is drawn from a still unpublished study, “Maimonides’ Treatment of Ma'aseh Merkabah: Biblical Exegesis in a Philosophic Key,” which I wrote for a graduate seminar on Maimonides’ Guide o f the Perplexed offered by Professor Marvin Fox, Brandeis University, Spring 1983. As it happens, the main thrust o f my argument in that rather lengthy paper has been reiterated independently, and much more succinctly, by Harvey, “Maimonides in the Sultan’s Palace.” Below I have cited only the most important points of convergence between my original study, which is reworked here, and his insightful analysis. 104 Guide, Introduction, pp. 6-7; 1.17, pp. 42-43; II.2, pp. 253-254; 11.29, p. 346; III, Introduction, p. 415. See also Mishnah ‘im Perush Rabbenu Moshe ben Maimon, 3 vols., edited by Y. Kafih (Jerusalem 1965), 2:377 (Hagigah 2:1); Mishneh Torah, Yesodei ha-Torah 2:11, 4:10. In ch. 14 of Millot ha-Higgayon, Maimonides distinguishes between theoretical and practical philosophy; the former is divided into (a) mathematics, which is further divided into the four subjects of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music, (b) physics, and (c) theology, which is then divided into two parts, the study of all incorporeal beings, i.e., God and the separate intelligences (identified in the tradition as angels), and the study o f the remote causes o f the subject matter of the other sciences. Only the second part o f theology is technically identified as metaphysics or the divine science. See Maimonides, Introduction to Logic in the Hebrew Version o f Moses Ibn Tibbon, edited by L. Roth, collated with manuscript fragments of the Arabic original by D. H. Baneth, second edition (Jerusalem, 1965), pp.

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of the chariot, which was already designated in the first mishnah of the second chapter of the tractate Hagigah as a subject worthy of concealment, for Maimonides entails a highly encoded presentation of the metaphysical principles of being, culminating with the apprehension of God.105 However, faithful to his view that human reason is necessarily limited in its ability to attain such a comprehension,106 Maimonides’ intricate exegesis of the 104-108. The twofold classification of theology reflects two of the three definitions of metaphysics found in Aristotle. Initially, we are told that sophia, which is one o f the three names used by Aristotle to refer to metaphysics, the other two being theology and first philosophy, is a “science that investigates the first principles and causes” (Metaphysics 982b 9; cf. 1003a 26). Inasmuch as causes are spoken o f in four senses, i.e., material, efficient, formal, and final, it follows that metaphysics so defined must concern itself with a clarification of these causes (see 983a 24). The four causes, however, belong to the general principles o f physics (see Physics II.3). Hence, it may be said that metaphysics comprises, in part, the subject matter o f physics. It should be noted, moreover, that the greater part of Books VI-IX of the Metaphysics deals with principles that apply to sensible substances, which properly belong to the study o f the natural world or physics, such as the nature of matter or the relation of potentiality to actuality. Furthermore, form, which is one of the principles o f physics, exists in that which is separate from matter as well. It is thus difficult in the case of Aristotle himself to draw a hard and fast line between second philosophy or physics and first philosophy or metaphysics. See W. D. Ross, Aristotle’s Metaphysics, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1924), l:lxxix: “It cannot be said that in practice the distinction between physics and metaphysics is well maintained by Aristotle, and it may be noted that the bulk o f the Physics is what we should call metaphysics.” See below, n. 110. On the influence o f the Aristotelian classification on Maimonides, see H. A. Wolfson, Studies in the History o f Philosophy and Religion, edited by I. Twersky and G. H. Williams, 2 vols. (Cambridge, Mass., 1973-77), 1:518-519. On the elimination of Aristotle’s ontological characterization of metaphysics as the study of being qua being in Maimonides, see Altmann, Studies in Religious Philosophy and Mysticism, p. 126. 105 Guide, 1.34, p. 77. 106 See S. Pines, “The Limitations of Human Knowledge according to Al-Farabi, Ibn Bajja, and Maimonides,” in Studies in Medieval Jewish History and Literature, edited by I. Twersky (Cambridge, Mass., 1979), pp. 82-109; idem, “Les limites de la métaphysique selon al-Farrabi, Ibn Bajja, et Maïmonide: sources et antitheses de ces doctrines chez Alexandre d’Aprodise et chez Themistius,” Miscellanea Mediaevalia 13 (1981): 211-225; idem, “Dieu et l’être selon Maïmonide: Exégèse d’Exode 3, 14 et doctrine connexe,” Celui qui est: Interprétations juives et chrétiennes d'Exode 3, 14, edited by A. de Libera and E. E. Zum Brunn (Paris, 1986), pp. 15-24. All three essays are reprinted in The Collected Works o f Shlomo Pines: Studies in the History o f Jewish Thought, vol. 5, edited by W. Z. Harvey and M. Idel (Jerusalem, 1997), pp. 404-456. For an alternative perspective, see A. Altmann, “Maimonides on the Intellect and the

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chariot vision indicates that at best we can know the chariot (merkavah) and not the one who rides the chariot (rokhev), i.e., the divine is apprehended through the imprint of providential action in the physical world in relation to which it is possible to employ imaginative terms.107 As Maimonides emphatically asserts near the conclusion of his sustained commentary on the vision: “Now the glory of the Lord is not the Lord, as we have made clear several times.108 Accordingly everything to which the parables contained in these apprehensions refer isonly the glory of the Lord, I mean to say the chariot, not the Rider, as He, may He be exalted, may not be presented in a likeness in a parable.”10910From this perspective Maimonides presumes an important overlap of the two major esoteric disciplines, physics (ma'aseh here’shit) and metaphysics (ma'aseh merkavah)"0 As Scope of Metaphysics,” in idem, Von der mittelalterlichen zur modernen Aufklärung: Studien zur jüdischen Geistesgeschichte (Tübingen, 1987), pp. 60-129; H. Kasher, “Self-Cognizing Intellect and Negative Attributes in Maimonides’ Theology,” Harvard Theological Review 87 (1994): 461-472. 107 The Maimonidean perspective is articulated by Abulafia, Mafteah ha-Hokhmot, MS NY-JTSA Mic. 1686, fol. 125b: “This is the matter of the ladder, which is a figurative expression (mashaf) for comprehension of God without doubt from knowledge of the truth of existence.” 108 On the semiotic application of the expression kevodyhwh, “glory o f the Lord” to the light created by God, see Guide 1.64, p. 156. On the identification o f the created light and the Shekhinah, which is connected further to the matter o f divine providence, see 1.25, p. 54. 109 Guide III.7, p. 430. 110 Pines, “Translator’s Introduction,” pp. xciv and cxv, notes that there are two strands of thought in Maimonides, which reflect two distinct attitudes towards the nature of metaphysics and its relation to physics. The first, which may be traced back to Avicenna, is based largely on Maimonides’ attempt to place negative theology at the center o f divine science. Insofar as there is no resemblance between God and the things created by him, there is no relationship either. It would thus follow that physics, or the study of things created by God, should be sharply distinguished from metaphysics whose main object of inquiry is God. Furthermore, the Avicennean definition o f God as the necessary of existence, which did influence Maimonides, implies that for such a being there is no difference between essence and existence; hence the existence of God need not be derived from the physical world (as in the cosmological argument). This again would constitute a break between physics and metaphysics. On the other hand, there is a strand in the thought of Maimonides, which is comparable to Averroes, that insists that the existence and the knowledge of God be derived from the world; indeed, God is considered to be the “principal part” of the cosmos. Insofar as the main object of metaphysics can be proven to exist and can be known only by reference to the main

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Maimonides in one context succinctly puts it, “natural science borders on divine science.”" 1 Indeed, even the doctrine of negative theology, the final stage of metaphysical speculation, has for Maimonides, as Pines has stressed,"2 the unique quality of impelling us to study that which we can know of the natural world. “There is no way to apprehend God,” writes Maimonides, “except through the things He has made.”1" Moreover, “the greatest proof through which one knows the existence of the deity” is the “revolution of the heaven.”"4 That the ultimate being is impenetrable to reason, therefore, does not mean that the irrational is to be elevated above the rational or that the latter be disavowed. On the contrary, Maimonides would have insisted that the rational be pursued within its own boundaries, and, as for that which lies beyond those boundaries, it is again only reason that can point the way. A proper comprehension of physics through the prism of metaphysics indicates that divine providence amounts to the intellectual overflow that sustains the cosmos, and this, in a nutshell, is for Maimonides the essence of the knowledge communicated in the imaginary symbols of the chariot vision. In the last of the equivocal terms discussed in the lexicographic chapters of the first part of the Guide, Maimonides remarked that the figurative meaning of the term rakhav, “to ride,” is to dominate or to govern. Even though there is no likeness between the rider (rokhev) and that which he rides (merkavah), the former term can be applied metaphorically to God to designate the domination (istila *) and governance (itadbir) of the divine over the world."5 By extension, it can be said that the expression merkavah connotes governance."6 In yet another chapter, Maimonides clearly equates knowledge of the ordering of God’s will and*12456 object o f physics, it follows that the two disciplines are interrelated. Maimonides’ detailed exegesis o f Ezekiel’s vision of the chariot, which technically relates to the divine science, underscores the close connection between this esoteric discipline and natural science, which he also considered to be esoteric in nature. '" Guide, Introduction, p. 9. 112 “Translator’s Introduction,” p. xcvi. Guide, 1.34, p. 74. 114 Ibid., 1.70, p. 175. 115 Ibid., 1.70, p. 171. See 1.58, p. 137, where Maimonides simultaneously affirms the same two propositions: God is totally unlike the world, and yet he is related to it as one who governs. In this context, the figurative expression used to depict divine governance is the image o f the captain of a ship. 116 See Strauss, “How To Begin To Study,” p. xxxii.

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apprehension of his governance of that which exists.117 In a similar vein, the leitmotif of the chapters on the chariot is God’s governance of the world, which is explained in an utterly naturalistic way.11® This philosophical conception directly challenges what Maimonides himself would have considered to be the conventional understanding of individual divine providence (al- ‘inaya), an axiological cornerstone of the edifice of medieval rabbinic culture. Support for this interpretation may be gathered from the fact that immediately following the detailed exegesis of Ezekiel’s chariot vision in the opening seven chapters of the third part of the Guide, Maimonides engages over the course of the next seventeen chapters in a lengthy discussion of the problem of evil, culminating with an allegorical exposition of the book of Job. The paramount element in the Maimonidean approach to theodicy is the presumption that divine providence is consequent upon the intellectual overflow and thus it does not watch over all people in an equal manner but it is relative to the perfection of the individual intellect.119 One who actualizes his intellectual potentiality is bound to the intellectual efflux disseminating from God through the separate intellects and onto this sublunar world by means of the Active Intellect. The one conjoined to the Active Intellect comprehends the true nature of providence and the necessary depiction of it in the metaphorical terms of personal reward and punishment related to one’s embodied condition in the world.120 In the parable of the ruler’s palace that Maimonides sets forth towards the end of the Guide in order to establish the 117 Guide, 1.40, p. 90. 118 Harvey, “Maimonides in the Sultan’s Palace,” p. 59. 119 Guide, III. 17-18, pp. 471-472, 474-475. 120 Abulafia demonstrates that he perfectly understood the viewpoint o f Maimonides regarding the fact that providential care is not dependent on corporeal matters at all, but it is limited to the intellectual bond between man and God. See Sitrei Torah, MS Paris-BN héb. 774, fol. 131b. See also 'Or ha-Sekhel, MS Vatican-BA ebr. 233, fol. 27a: “We have no comprehension of Him except through our looking at His actions, which attest to His level.” By contrast, see Mafetah ha-Hokhmot, MS NY-JTSA Mic. 1686, fol. 119b, where Abulafia affirms the traditional view regarding providence and God’s knowledge of individuals. For a listing of the relevant scholarly discussions on this seminal theological issue in Maimonidean scholarship, see I. J. Dienstag, “Maimonides and Providence - Bibliography,” Da ‘at 20 (1988): 5-28 (in Hebrew), and the more recent discussion in D. Schwartz, “The Debate over the Maimonidean Theoiy o f Providence in Thirteenth-Century Jewish Philosophy,” Jewish Studies Quarterly 2 (1995): 185-196.

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various ranks of human achievement, he describes the prophets who are present in the ruler’s council as those who “direct all the acts of their intellect toward an examination of the beings with a view to drawing from them proof with regard to Him, so as to know His governance of them in whatever way is possible.”121 In the continuation of this discussion, Maimonides goes on to describe the intellectual worship of God, which is based on passionately loving and devoting oneself entirely to God through the bond of the intellect. But, consistent with his metaphysical skepticism, Maimonides does not suggest that even such a person actually knows the quiddity of the divine. On the contrary, the only way to reach that final state of felicity is through the positive cognition of divine governance as it is exhibited in the entities of the created world. Thus, at the very end of the Guide, Maimonides reiterates his position in rather unambiguous terms: “It is clear that the perfection of man that may truly be gloried in is the one acquired by him who has achieved, in a measure corresponding to his capacity, apprehension of Him, may He be exalted, and who knows His providence extending over His creatures as manifested in the act of bringing them into being and in their governance as it is.”122 Maimonides thus concludes his treatise with a succinct articulation of his position regarding the substance of metaphysics, which is the quintessential esoteric discipline, indeed the discipline that provides the very paradigm of secrecy: For Maimonides the ultimate secret of ma'aseh merkavah consists of the philosophically informed understanding of divine governance, an interpretation that, in my mind, consciously undermines the traditional esoteric character of doctrines and practices associated with speculation on the chariot.123 This secret has to be concealed from the masses for it lays bare the fact that the traditional notion of individual providence involves 121 Guide, III.51, p.620. 122 Ibid., III.54, p. 638. 123 On Maimonides’ subversion of earlier esoteric traditions, see Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives, p. 252; E. R. Wolfson, “Merkavah Traditions in Philosophical Garb: Judah Halevi Reconsidered,” Proceedings o f the American Academy fo r Jewish Research 57 (1991): 181-183. With regard to this matter I follow my teacher, Alexander Altmann (see reference above, n. 2). For a different approach to this question, see Harvey, “Maimonides in the Sultan’s Palace,” pp. 60-66; I. Gruenwald, “Maimonides’ Quest beyond Prophecy and Philosophy,” in Perspectives on Maimonides, pp. 141-157. I am here deliberately avoiding the question o f whether or not it is appropriate to characterize Maimonides’ thought as a kind of intellectualist or rationalist mysticism, which is separate from the matter of his attitude to ancient Jewish esotericism.

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the anthropomorphic depiction of the supreme rational force of the universe in the image of a heavenly judge.124 In line with his general approach to secrecy, which is reflected in the dual structure of the parable, the inner truth is disclosed through its concealment in the outer garment, the ineffable and nonrepresentable object of metaphysical speculation is expressed and represented in the metaphorical figure of speech. According to this understanding of esotericism the issue of incommunicableness is not itself part of the dynamic of secrecy; on the contrary, the secret is not communicated because it must not to be divulged to one unworthy of receiving it and not because it is inherently incommunicable. One might go so far as to say that the ultimate secret is that there is no secret, for the person who possesses philosophical wisdom discerns the truth in philosophically pertinent terms. For the enlightened intellect there is no secret that has to be concealed; the presumed esoteric matter is rendered perfectly transparent by the light of reason. To refer again to Altmann’s insightful remark, once the ostensible contradiction between the rational truth and the literal meaning of Scripture has been resolved, the secret is abolished.125126 The esoteric character of certain demonstrable truths of reason is related to the duty imposed upon the philosopher to keep these very truths hidden from the multitude who are not qualified to comprehend them.'26 Yet, the notion of esotericism as it may be elicited from some of the cardinal passages in the Guide involves the difficulty of comprehension and the seemingly impossible task of rendering what is ultimately opaque transparent. In his study, Philosophie und Gesetz, Strauss remarked that the adaptation on the part of Maimonides (in contrast to Gersonides) of an esoteric form to communicate metaphysical teachings is due not only to the law’s explicit prohibition of openly imparting the secrets of Torah, but it is also grounded in the insufficiency of human reason to acquire a clear and coherent knowledge of God, the ultimate object of metaphysical inquiry (according to its medieval scholastic character). The subject matters of other sciences can be presented methodically and transparently, but that of 124 Harvey, “Maimonides in the Sultan’s Palace,” p. 58, correctly notes that the “figurative meaning of rakhav [as it emerges from the discussion in Guide I. 70] is dominates or governs, and the Account of the chariot would thus be the teaching o f God’s governance o f the universe.” See ibid., pp. 65-66. 125 Altmann, “Maimonides’ Attitude,” p. 203. 126 Strauss, Philosophy and Law, pp. 102-103.

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metaphysics “sometimes reveals itself and sometimes withdraws from view; for this reason the only suitable way of speaking about God is speech in similitudes and riddles, and for this reason the renunciation of similitudes and riddles, which is necessary for a scientific treatise, has as a consequence that the speech becomes obscure and brief.”127 Strauss observed (correctly in my view) that Maimonides understood that only through parabolic language could one discourse about metaphysical matters; in the domain of metaphysical speculation one comes upon the limit of scientific methodology and the boundary of linear discourse. The encircling dialectic of concealment and disclosure characteristic of the parabolic form of communication mirrors thé very dialectic that is applied to the inevitably unknowable nature of God, the ultimate subject matter of metaphysics. Basic to Maimonides’ via negativa is the presumption that the divine presence is known through its absence since our apprehension of God consists precisely in the inability to attain such an apprehension.128 The divine light is hidden because of the intensity of its manifestation. God is what God is not - therein is the logic of negative theology, which is itself a postulate of the esoteric method of philosophical argumentation. Maimonides’ philosophical exegesis of Ezekiel’s chariot vision leads to the same paradoxical conclusion: Through reflection on the chariot one is brought to the light that is darkness and before which the tongue must fall silent.129 When decoded by the key of philosophical allegory, this prophetic vision amounts to the apprehension of the tripartite cosmological structure. The wheels ( 'ophanim) correspond to the four elements (fire, air, earth, and water), which are arranged as concentric circles, the living creatures (hayyot) to the heavenly spheres, and the glory of the Lord (kevod yhwh), which sits upon the throne in the image of the appearance of a human (idemut ke-mar 'eh 'adam), to the first of the ten separate intellects, which 127 Ibid., p. 95. Strauss is not consistent on the nature o f esotericism in Maimonides, for in the same essay he links the matter to the need to conceal philosophical truths from the unqualified masses. See reference in previous note. 128 Guide 1.59, p. 139. 129 Harvey, “Maimonides in the Sultan’s Palace,” pp. 57-60, offers an interesting Straussian reading that expands the scope o f epistemological skepticism in Maimonides’ thought: Maimonides did not intend the identification of the account of the chariot with metaphysics and the account of creation with physics, but rather the former stands for the part o f the divine science that cannot be demonstrated (God’s governance o f the world) and the latter for the part of natural science that cannot be demonstrated (the question o f the origin o f the world).

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comprises within itself all of the other intellects. Beyond the anthropomorphically represented similitude of the glory of the Lord is the Lord. When translated into the poetic images of the vision, which Maimonides identifies as forms created by God,130 the enthroned glory is itself part of the chariot, but beyond that image lies that which exceeds all images. As I have already noted, for Maimonides the vision of Ezekiel concerns the chariot (merkavah), not the one who rides upon it (rokhev). In a previous discussion, Maimonides argued that God may be called the “rider of the heavens,” rokhev shamayim (Deut. 33:26), for he is the mover of the highest heaven, the all-encompassing sphere by whose motion everything that is in motion in the universe is moved, but he is separate from this heaven and therefore he is not a force subsisting in it.131 There is essentially no similarity between the creator (the rider) and the realm of created beings (the chariot that he rides). There is an apparent contradiction in Maimonides between those passages wherein God is described as the mover of the highest heaven,132on the one hand, and those passages wherein the first of the separate intellects is so described, on the other.133 This 130 Guide 1.46, p. 103. Maimonides offers an interesting interpretation o f the midrashic statement attributed to R. Yudan [Bere'shit Rabba’ 27:1, pp. 255-256], “Great is the power of the prophets, for they liken the form to its creator. For it is said, ‘And upon the likeness of the throne was the likeness as the appearance o f a man’ (Ezek. 1:26)”: “They have thus made clear and manifest that all the forms apprehended by all the prophets in the vision of prophecy are created forms o f which God is the Creator. And this is correct, for every imagined form is created.... They have thus made clear and m anifest... that they were innocent of the belief in the corporeality of God; and furthermore, that all the shapes and figures that are seen in the vision of prophecy are created things.” On the instrumental role of the imaginative faculty in processing the intellectual overflow o f prophecy, see 11.36, pp. 369-370. 131 Ibid., 1.70, p. 172. 132 In addition to the reference in the previous note, see 1.72, pp. 191-192; II. 1, p. 246. See also Mishneh Torah, Yesodei ha-Torah 1:5. 133 Guide, II.4, pp. 258-259. Pines, “Translator’s Introduction,” pp. cxiii-cxiv, traces the view that distinguishes God from the separate intellect that moves the supernal sphere to Avicenna (who follows Alfarabi) and the view that equates the two to Averroes. For an alternative explanation, see H. A. Davidson, Alfarabi, Avicenna, and Averroes, on Intellect: Their Cosmologies, Theories o f the Active Intellect, and Theories o f Human Intellect (New York and Oxford, 1992), pp. 224-225. On the question o f the identity or the non-identity of the first cause and the first mover, see also H. A. Wolfson, Crescas ’ Critique o f Aristotle: Problems o f Aristotle ’s Physics in Jewish and Arabic Philosophy (Cambridge, Mass., 1929), pp. 461-462 n. 93 and 606 n. 5

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contradiction is only apparent,134 however, insofar as God may be called the remote efficient cause of the universe in general,135 whereas the proximate cause of the motion of the first sphere is the first of the separate intellects.136 Perhaps it would be beneficial to employ the distinction suggested by Harry A. Wolfson: God, according to Maimonides, is the First Cause, but not the First Mover.137 The latter still finds its place within the structure of the merkavah; the former, by contrast, lies completely outside it. In the climactic stage of his treatment of ma'aseh merkavah, Maimonides has thus reiterated the main thesis of his negative theology: We cannot comprehend what God is, but only what God is not. The latter comprehension consists of the knowledge of what is other than God, i.e., the cosmos, the threefold structure of which is alluded to in the chariot. The vision of the chariot, therefore, is, to use the image of another context, the seeing of the divine back conferred upon Moses (Exod. 33:23), which entails the apprehension of all things created by God; the seeing of the face, which refers to the comprehension of the essence and true reality of God’s existence, is not granted to any human intellect even in the temporary disembodied state of conjunction.138 The only knowledge vouchsafed to the supreme prophet and the wisest human being is knowledge of God’s back, which consists of an apprehension of the attributes of God that are derived from the actions that proceed from God toward the world.139 Knowledge of the back, therefore, involves knowledge of the divine governance in the natural order; indeed, the order of nature is the divine governance.140Insofar as the component parts of the chariot correspond to the three classes of created existents, it seems fair to say that the vision of the chariot, according to Maimonides, is identical to the vision of the divine back granted to Moses.141 Therein lies the ultimate secret of the most esoteric 134 As noted already by S. Munk in his French translation, Le Guide des égarés, 3 vols. (Paris, 1856), 1:28 n. 1. 135 Guide, 1.69, p. 168; II.4, p. 258. 136 Ibid., II.4, p. 258. On the mediation of the spheres, see II.6, p. 262; 11.11, pp. 274-275, and elsewhere. 137 Wolfson, Crescas’ Critique o f Aristotle, p. 606 n. 5. 138 Guide, 1.37-38, pp. 86-87. 139 Ibid., 1.54, pp. 123-124. 140 See Pines, “Translator’s Introduction,” p. xcvi; idem, “Limitations of Knowledge,” p. 99. 141 It is of interest to note that Abraham ibn Ezra similarly explained that the vision of the divine back granted to Moses consisted of the apprehension o f “how the created

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discipline, indeed the very discipline that marks the measure of esotericism: The vision of the merkavah consists of a complex web of poetic images that depicts in metaphorical terms the philosophic discernment that divine governance consists of the intellectual overflow, which constitutes the natural process. The specific example of the account of the chariot is thus illustrative of the.more general approach adopted by Maimonides with respect to the nature of esotericism, which is an admixture of the rabbinic elitism regarding the selective transmission of complex and potentially problematic doctrines to the unworthy and the philosophically skeptical position that acknowledges the inevitable inability of human reason to discern the ultimate metaphysical truths of being. E s o t e r ic is m In T h e P r o p h e t ic K a b b a l a h : T he Secret T hat C annot B e K ept

The central figures representing the dominant streams of kabbalistic gnosis in the thirteenth century all profess that their respective teaching is a qabbalahy an orally received doctrine that was transmitted in an unbroken chain of authority. Moreover, in the various fraternities of kabbalists, oral teaching was upheld as one of the main media for transmission of esoteric ideas and practices. In spite of the fact that thirteenth-century esotericism (in the Ashkenazic, Provençal, and Spanish environments) should be characterized as a transition from an oral to a written culture, a process that culminates in the composition and dissemination of the zoharic literature in the region of Castile in the 1280’s and 90’s, there is ample evidence that kabbalists adhered to a code of esotericism that prohibited the complete exposure of sensitive theological issues of a theoretical or a practical nature in writing.142 Even Moses de Leon, who expounded freely on esoteric matters in his Hebrew writings and in the Zohar, occasionally adopts a more conservative approach and insists on the need to conceal a matter or

things are conjoined to the creator.” See Perushei ha-Torah, 2:216 (Exod. 33:21); Yesod Mora' (Jerusalem, 1955), ch. 12, p. 20; Altmann, Studies in Religious Philosophy and Mysticism, pp. 185-186; E. R. Wolfson, “God, the Demiurge, and the Intellect: On the Usage of the Word Kol in Abraham ibn Ezra,” Revue des études juives 149 (1990): 93-97. 142 See Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives, pp. 20-22.

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to withhold its full disclosure.143 The typological distinction between conservatism and innovation is problematic if pushed too far to the extreme.144 A subtler and more pliable approach is necessary, one that takes into account the possibility that within one thinker there may be a clash between the two approaches without any definitive resolution. In a manner consonant with other kabbalists of the thirteenth-century, Abraham Abulafia embraced the belief that the innermost truths of Judaism constituted an oral tradition that was transmitted in an uninterrupted line from the most ancient of times. Indeed, the claim to oral transmission was considered by Abulafia to be an essential element in the determination of whether or not a particular teaching or practice was to be considered a genuine secret. Thus, we find the following justification for writing down esoteric matters given by Abulafia in his ’Or ha-Sekhel as a preface to his exposition of the particular secret concerning the motif of the image of Jacob engraved on the throne of glory145: “Verily, at this time that which was hidden has been revealed because forgetfulness has reached its limit, and the end of forgetfulness is the beginning of remembrance.”14*5 Generalizing beyond the specific context, we can assume that Abulafia believed that cultural amnesia was a rationale for disclosing hidden secrets in an open manner, especially in written form, a rationale employed by other figures, including Maimonides and Moses de Leon, for revealing the esoteric traditions.147 It is likely, moreover, as Moshe Idel suggested,148 that 143 See study o f Liebes cited above in n. 38; Wolfson, Circle in the Square, p. 150 n. 61; and consider the comment of Idel referred to in the following note. 144 See M. Idel, “We Have No Kabbalistic Tradition on This,” in Rabbi Moses Nahmanides (Ramban): Explorations in His Literary and Religious Virtuosity, edited by I. Twersky (Cambridge, Mass., 1983), pp. 51-73 (on p. 71 n. 73, Idel acknowledges that in the zoharic text there are allusions to secrets that must be hidden, but he concludes that much more is revealed than is concealed); idem, Kabbalah: New Perspectives, pp. 210-218. 145 Regarding this motif in Abulafia’s writings, see E. R. Wolfson, Along the Path: Studies in Kabbalistic Hermeneutics, Myth, and Symbolism (Albany, 1995), pp. 20-22 and 135-136 nn. 150-158. In that context, I neglected to mention the pertinent discussion in Hayyei ha-Nefesh, MS Munich-BS 408, fols. 69b-70a. 146 MS Vatican-BA ebr. 233, fol. 97b. 147 See Matt, ‘“ New-Ancient Words’,” p. 185, and references to Maimonides and Moses de Leön given in nn. 20-21. 148 Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives, p. 101 (the passage from ‘Or ha-Sekhel mentioned in n. 146 is cited by Idel, op. cit., p. 324 n. 186). See also idem, Studies in Ecstatic Kabbalah (Albany, 1988), p. 16, where it is argued that Abulafia’s motivation

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this concern with rectifying the forgetfulness by revealing the esoteric lore is part of Abulafia’s larger messianic agenda.149 If this surmise is correct, and I believe the texts duly support it, then in the case of Abulafia we have another illustration of the intricate link between disclosure of secrets and the mystical enlightenment associated with the moment of redemption, a theme that is central to several of the early kabbalists and widely repeated through the generations by exponents of the kabbalah.150 According to Abulafia, redemption is characterized specifically as the proliferation of knowledge of the name, which constitutes the “true salvation.”151 As Abulafia expressed the matter in his commentary to Sefer ha-Melip.

for revealing the secrets o f Maimonides’ Guide was his feeling that he was the Messiah and that the period in which he lived was therefore worthy o f the disclosure o f that which was hidden. And see, most recently, idem, ‘“ Le temps de fin’: l’apocalypse et sa spiritualisation dans l’eschatologie d’Abraham Abulafia,” Pardès 24 (1998), pp. 107-137, esp. 125-128. On the spiritual nature of redemption related to Abulafia’s exposure of the secrets of the Guide, which is attested in the name of one o f his commentaries, Sefer ha-Ge ’ulah, or in the Latin translation. Liber Redemptionis, see as well C. Wirzubski, Pico della Mirandola's Encounter with Jewish Mysticism (Cambridge, Mass., 1989), p. 90. 149 On the messianic dimension of Abulafia’s mystical teaching, see A. Berger, “The Messianic Self-Consciousness of Abraham Abulafia,” in Essays on Jewish Life and Thought Presented in Honor o f Salo Wittmayer Baron, edited by J. L. Blau, P. Friedman, A. Hertzberg, and I. Mendelsohn (New York, 1959), pp. 55-61; M. Idel, “Typologies of Messianic Activity in the Middle Ages,” in Messianism and Eschatology: A Collection o f Essays, edited by Z. Baras (Jerusalem, 1983), pp. 259-262 (in Hebrew); idem, Studies in Ecstatic Kabbalah, pp. 45-61, esp. 48-51; idem, Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abraham Abulafia (Albany, 1989), pp. 23-24; idem, Messianism and Mysticism (Tel-Aviv, 1992), pp. 17-24 (in Hebrew); idem, “The Contribution of Abraham Abulafia’s Kabbalah to the Understanding o f Jewish Mysticism,” in Gershom Scholem ’s Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism: 50 Years After, edited by J. Dan and P. Schäfer (Tübingen, 1993), pp. 138-141; idem, Messianic Mystics (New Haven and London, 1998), pp. 58-100, 295-307. Abulafia’s eschatology has to be seen in the larger context of the effort on the part of post-Maimonidean thinkers to interpret traditional messianic motifs in an allegorical manner. See D. Schwartz, “The Neutralization of the Messianic Idea in Medieval Jewish Rationalism,” Hebrew Union College Annual 64 (1993): 37-58 (in Hebrew). 150 On the disclosure of secrets and the messianic era, see Sitrei Torah, MS Paris-BN héb.774,fol. 119a. 151 ’Osar 'Eden Ganuz, MS Oxford-BL 1580, fol. 133a. In that context, the goal (takhlit) of messianic gnosis is presented as the mystical rationale for the blue thread (tekhelet) of the traditional fringe garment.

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Because of our being in this long exile, and may the Lord quickly redeem us for the sake of His great name, this name is hidden from the sages of our nation, all the more so from the masses, to the point that today whenever anyone inquires of the sages of our generation concerning this name or any of the other holy names that are comparable to it, he is like a heretic or an apostate. This is the biggest reason that the knowledge of the name is hidden and removed from the books of Israel, and its utterance is forgotten from their mouths, and its excellence is concealed from their hearts. And now the Lord shall restore our fortunes and He desires to have mercy upon us for the sake of His holy name, and He began to reveal to Raziel some of the knowledge of His names, blessed be He. and He opened the eyes of his heart to them, and He instructed him with regard to them about intelligible and received words, and He commanded him to write something of the wondrous matters, some of them explicit, some of them allusive, and some of them concealed, as it was in the beginning. There is a great advantage to become wise in them and to comprehend on account of them one thing from another thing.152153 Abulafia produced a relatively significant corpus of material that exposed the secrets on both the theoretical and the practical planes. As he himself remarked in 'Imrei Shefer, he had composed from 1279 until 1291, the time of composition of the aforecited work, a number of “books of prophecy” (sifrei nevu ’ah)'51 in order to disseminate the knowledge of the name. He confidently urges the kabbalist who wishes to comprehend this knowledge to study his books. With respect to the disclosure of this esoteric knowledge, Abulafia admits that he has departed from the path of his predecessors: “Indeed, as I have already informed you, the authors who preceded me to write about this matter intended with all their power to conceal this knowledge, and thus they did not make it a major thing that was disclosed in their compositions, but rather it was more like someone who mentioned a thing in passing. However, I have placed it as an essence

152 MS Munich-BS 285, fol. 17a. 153 MS Munich-BS 58, fol. 232b. Abulafia specifically mentions four books, ’Or ha-Sekhel, Gan (I have taken the liberty to correct the reading in the manuscript Gal, even though the same reading is attested in the other manuscript o f this work that I consulted, MS Oxford-BL 696, fol. 57b) Na'ul, Sefer ha-Hesheq, and Sefer Pores ha-Sefer. Regarding the latter work, see Idel, Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics, p. 7 and reference cited on p. 140 n. 38 (MS Oxford-BL 1580, fol. 152b should be corrected to fol. 151a).

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and a main principle in my works.”154 In spite of his prolific literary activity, Abulafia maintained that the kabbalistic tradition in its essence, which involved knowledge of the divine name,155 should not be conveyed in writing.156 Already in his first composition, Get ha-Shemot, written in 1271, Abulafia gave voice to this viewpoint: “However, when I mention something of the roots of the true tradition (ha-qabbalah ha- ’amitit) I shall speak of it through allusion in a place where it is appropriate to conceal it, for I will not disclose the secret.”157 In axdiscussion on the Tetragrammaton through the angelic persona of Raziel in the commentary to Sefer ha-Meli$, Abulafia remarked that “it is impossible to write about it explicitly in any fashion, but it must be transmitted in an oral tradition {qabbalah peh 'el peh) to one who is worthy, the master of permutations (ba'al serufim).”158 Abulafia’s preference for the oral to the written transmission of secret gnosis can, of course, be understood simply in terms of the prevalent belief enunciated in any number of medieval sources regarding the oral nature of esoteric wisdom presumed to be passed along in an unbroken chain of authority through the generations. This is certainly legitimate and appropriate for Abulafia. It is necessary, however, to contextualize Abulafia’s preference for oral communication over writing in his linguistic view. In the first instance, Abulafia privileged the phonetic over the graphic, the spoken utterance of the mouth over the written word in a, book.159This is expressed in his comparison of the letter to the body and the 154 MS Munich-BS 58, fols. 232a-b. 155 See Scholem, Major Trends, pp. 132-133; M. Idel, The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia, translated by J. Chipman (Albany, 1988), pp. 14-24. For the history of this crucial element in the evolution of the kabbalah, see idem, “Defining Kabbalah: The Kabbalah of the Divine Names,” in Mystics o f the Book: Topics, Themes, and Typologies, edited with an introduction by R. A. Herrera (New York, 1993), pp. 97-122. 156 Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives, p. 254; idem, Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics, pp. 48-49. 157 MS Oxford-BL 1658, fol. 88b. 158 MS Munich-BS 285, fols. 1la-b. 159 Idel, “Reification of Language in Jewish Mysticism,” in Mysticism and Language, pp. 52-57. It must be noted that elsewhere Abulafia privileges the contemplation of letters in thought, which is superior to both the written and verbal forms of language. See for instance, Sefer ha-Ge'ulah, MS Leipzig 13, fols. 6b-7a; and discussion of other relevant texts in Idel, Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics, pp. 5-6. The threefold attitude toward language is reflected in the meditational practice of letter-combination, for one is to begin by combining letters in writing, then to do so orally, and finally to conclude by the activity in the mind. On the history o f the inner

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vowel to the soul, a well-known motif in medieval philosophical and mystical texts. For Abulafia, this signifies that the vocalization of the letters is the instrumental factor that facilitates the meditational praxis that leads to unio m y s tic a l Abulafia repeatedly emphasizes that recitation of the names (hazkarat ha-shemot) with the proper intent and vocalization promotes knowledge of the name (yedi'at ha-shem).16' It seems reasonable to assume that Abulafia’s preference for orality is related to his privileging the phonetic dimension of language. It is also necessary to examine this preference in light of a more general skepticism that Abulafia expressed with respect to the possibility of communicating any truth in language, but especially in writing. Thus, for example, in ’Osar 'Eden Gartuz, Abulafia makes the following comment after he states emphatically that the intention of the Torah and the commandments is to promote knowledge of the “great secret” (sod ha-gadot), which facilitates conjunction (devequt) of the rational faculty to the separate intellect: Know that no sage in the world can write in a book the subjects that he forms in his heart nor can he say them, for writing is not sufficient even for the form of bodies. Proof of this is that it is not possible for a man to draw any spherical thing in writing. In its place he forms a circle and says that in the book this will be an allusion and a sign for the sphere. If this happens with respect to physical bodies, how could it not happen with respect to that of which there is no way to make a form of it nor to signify it except by means of mentioning the name? And this is so on account of the fact that the matter is a potency in the body ... how much more removed will it be to depict any soul, for how can a person depict through the image of length, width, and depth that which has no length, width, or depth in itself? ... If this is so, then all the more so one cannot depict a thing that is not a body or a potency in a body. ... Nothing remains of the image except for the word pertaining to it and the image in the intellect. ... It is possible to compose concerning these matters books that will not be investigated at all. Thus, you should not wonder if one of the authors curtailed his speaking about these matters with absolute brevity as is necessary just as I and others like me have done, for my intention was to make known the principles of the160 pronunciation o f letters, which influenced Abulafia’s own ideas, see Idel, Mystical Experience, pp. 30-37. 160 Cf. ’Or ha-Sekhel, MS Vatican-BA ebr. 233, fols. 108b-109a. 161 See, for instance, ’Osar ‘Eden Ganuz, MS Oxford-BL 1580, fol. 150b; Hayyei h a-‘Olam ha-Ba\ MS Oxford-BL 1582, fols. llb-12b; Shomer Miswah, MS Paris-BN héb. 853, fol. 50b.

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From this rather revealing passage we may conclude that the restraint that Abulafia exemplified with respect to disclosing mystical secrets is one specific application of a more general epistemological doubt concerning the efficacy of language as a means to communicate knowledge. Abulafia’s frank admission regarding the inadequacy of language is all the more remarkable given the fact that he is on record as having affirmed the view that the Hebrew language can instruct one about the true nature of things,163 a claim that rests on the further assumption that there is an isomorphic relationship between the structure of Hebrew and reality, a basic tenet of the Jewish mystical tradition to which Scholem has referred as the “mystique of language.”164 Thus, near the conclusion of one of his commentaries on Sefer Yesirah, Abulafia writes, “You should bind together all of the letters with the letters themselves, for they are the roots of all their existence according to what they indicate, for all of the bodies are signs by which to discern through them the name as well.”165 Whereas all the other languages, which are presented in terms of the rabbinic conception of seventy languages corresponding to the seventy nations, are a matter of human convention (leshonot heskemiyyot), Hebrew is signaled out as the natural language (leshon tiv'it) chosen by God.166 In ’Osar ‘Eden Ganuz, Abulafia contrasts Hebrew as the “sacred language” {leshon qodesh) and all 162 MS Oxford-BL 1580, fol. 133b. 163 Scholem, “Name of God,” pp. 185-193; Idel, Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics, pp. 1-3; idem, “Abulafia’s Secrets o f the Guide: A Linguistic Turn,” in Perspectives on Jewish Thought and Mysticism, edited by A. Ivry, E.R. Wolfson, and A. Arkush (Australia, 1998), pp. 289-329, esp. 298-306. 164 Scholem, “Name of God,” p. 72. See also Idel, “Reification,” pp. 45-49. 165 I. Weinstock, Perush Sefer Yesirah 'Almoni mi-Yesodo shel Rabbi 'Avraham 'Abul ‘afiya ’ (Jerusalem, 1984), p. 49. 166 'Or ha-Sekhel, MS Vatican-BA ebr. 233, fols. 30a-b, 59a; Gan N a ’ul, MS Munich-BS 58, fols. 326b, 333b; Shomer Miswah, MS Paris-BN héb. 853, fol. 50b; Sheva‘ Netivot ha-Torah, in A. Jellinek, Philosophie und Kabbala (Leipzig, 1854), Erstes Heft, pp. 16-17; 'Imrei Shefer, MS Munich-BS 40, fol. 237b; Sefer ha-Melammed, MS Paris-BN héb. 680, fols. 291a, 296a-b, 297a; and see discussion in Idelt Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics, pp. 12-14, 16-27.

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the other languages as the “profane language” (leshon hoi). The sacred and profane languages are set respectively in a series of binary oppositions: intellect (sekhel) and imagination (dimyon), angel (m al’akh) and devil (satan), son (ben) and daughter (bat), religion (dat) and blood (dam).'61 The essence of the sacred language is disclosed in the numerical equivalence of the words dat and taga ’, i.e., both words equal 404. Abulafia remarks that the word taga’, the Aramaic for crown, “is the explicit name (shem ha-meforash),'6* for it is the crown of the Torah (keter ha-torah) whose1678

167 MS Oxford-BL 1580, fol. 54b. The passage is cited and analyzed by Idel, Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics, p. 19 (the reference given on p. 153 n. 95, however, to fol. 55b should be corrected to fol. 54b). On the contrast between the religion (dat) of the Jews and the blood (dam) o f the non-Jews, see the interesting comment o f Abulafia in Sitrei Torah, MS Paris-BN héb. 774, fol. 153a: “They are the blood and we are the religion. ‘From his right hand was a fiery law’ (Deut. 33:3). He revealed to us that the attribute of his right is the attribute of his left, and the attribute of his left is the attribute of his right, for there is no left above. ‘Your right hand, O Lord, is glorious in power, Your right hand, O Lord, shatters the enemy’ (Exod. 15:6).” In this passage, Abulafia collapses the binary of right and left on the basis of the rabbinic teaching that there is no left above (Shir ha-Shirim Rabbah 1:13). Abulafia utilizes this midrashic theme to make the point that the dichotomy between Israel and the nations is overcome by a coincidence of opposites such that the left is the right and the right is the left. In a second passage from Sitrei Torah, fol. 124a, Abulafia refers to the transformation o f the rod into the serpent (based on Exod. 7:10-12) as the “secret of the inversion,” sod ha-hippukh. See also the commentary on Sefer ha-Meli$, MS Munich-BS 285, fol. 15a: “And this is the spirit of Samel, and know that its opposite is the angel, and from him you will know that the merciful one is the judge and also that the judge is the merciful one.” In this passage, there is an identification of Samael and Metatron, the principle of matter and the Active Intellect. See ibid., fol. 15a, where Abulafia expresses the same idea through the numerical equivalence of ha-sekhel, “the intellect,” and ’ashmadai, Asmodeus, which is one of the names of the demonic being (both expressions equal 355). On the transposition and ultimate identification o f the attributes of mercy and judgment, see also Sefer ha-Melammed, MS Paris-BN héb. 680, fols. 308a-b; and the interesting remark in Sefer ha-Hesheq, MS NY-JTSA Mic. 1801, fol. 34b: “The secret o f the reception of the divine speech (sod qabbalat ha-dibbur ha- ’elohi) is the common element ( ‘inyan meshutaf) between the attribute of judgment and the attribute o f mercy.” On the “inversion o f the attributes,” hithappekhut ha-middot, in Abulafia’s thinking, see my discussion in the second chapter. On the positive valence of blood, especially the blood of circumcision and the blood o f the paschal sacrifice, see Hayyei ha-'Olam ha-Ba’, MS Oxford-BL 1582, fol. 28b. 168 See ’A vot de-Rabbi Natan, edited by S. Schechter (Vienna, 1887), version A, ch. 12, p. 56.

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secret is twenty-six ( ‘esrim wa-shishah).”'69 Abulafia utilizes the numerical equivalence of the expressions keter ha-torah and ‘esrim wa-shishah, which both equal 1231, to accentuate the identification o f the Tetragrammaton as the crown of the Torah, which in turn consists of the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The sacredness of Hebrew, therefore, is related to the belief that the letters are contained in the Tetragrammaton, the mystical essence of the Torah, the instrument of divine creativity that distinguishes this language in an absolute and definitive manner from all the other profane languages. In Mafteah ha-Ra ‘ayon, Abulafia writes: We have nothing in the sacred language more exalted than the holy name, and thus we must speak in accordance with the capacity of our minds and in accordance with our tradition in this matter so that our secret will be received by those who hear our words.... Every name is a sign for the one who speaks and for the one who hears, and Sefer Yesirah attests to this matter, for it refers to every created entity and every speech by the name, as it says, “It follows that every created entity and every speech comes forth from one name.”16917017It refers to the permutation of the languages, the letters, and their transpositions one with the other in the 231 gates as the one

169 MS Oxford-BL 1580, fol. 54b. Cf. Sefer ha-Melammed, MS Paris-BN héb. 680, fol. 289b; Sitrei Torah, MS Paris BN héb, 774, fol. 136a. 170 Sefer Yesirah (Jerusalem, 1962), 2:5. 171 MS Vatican-BA ebr. 291, fols. 30a. In Sefer ha-Hesheq, MS NY-JTSA Mic. 1801, fol. 19b, Abulafia reiterates the view that the letters o f Hebrew have the extra advantage that signify the “natural matters” ( ‘inyanim tiv ‘iyyim), for the “letters are the reality of the world entirely, and by means of them the Lord governs the world.” And see Sitrei Torah, MS Paris-BN héb. 774, fol. 126a: “He who understands the secret of the creation of the script (sod beri ’at ha-mikhtav) will comprehend the secret o f all the created beings of the world, which are all contained in the script, and he is a master o f the 231 gates mentioned in Sefer Yesirah, for from them we know [the account of] creation and [the account of the] chariot. The head o f every creature is the script and the head o f the script is the creature according to the permutation o f the letters”. See, however, Tmrei Shefer, MS Munich-BS 40, fol. 230b: “Know that after you know this you should immediately know from this the secret o f the explicit name, and know that it is engraved and sealed in the heart of each and every person from the human species according to the fate that fell upon him at three moments.” This passage seemingly embraces a more universalistic conception o f the divine name, an idea probably related to Abulafia’s conception of all seventy languages being comprised in the twenty-two letters of Hebrew. Abulafia’s understanding of the Tetragrammation, which is the

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Insofar as the essence of kabbalah, for Abulafia, is related to knowledge of the Tetragrammaton, which comprises all the names that are made up of Hebrew letters, it follows that kabbalah will be the exclusive possession of the Jewish people. In Sitrei Torah, Abulafia makes this very point in the context of reflecting on the revelation of the divine voice at Sinai: “And you can comprehend this entirely from within the letters, for no nation has a tradition (qabbalah) like this, and even our nation is far from it.”172 The corollary of this linguistic assumption is that the prophetic experience that ensues from the meditational discipline, which is based on the proper knowledge of the name, is restricted to the Jewish people, the only nation to have real access to the sacred language of creation, revelation, and redemption.173 In Sefer ha- ’Ot, the special status of the Jewish people is cast in decidedly visual terms: “The nation of the Lord,174 supernal holy ones, who look upon His name; they look at the source of their intellects, and they see the image of the Lordl7S within the forms of their hearts.”176 The contemplative vision of the image of God, which for Abulafia involves the imaginai seeing of the letters of the Tetragrammaton within the heart, is the role assigned to the Jews in virtue of which they assume the posture of angelic beings. This distinctiveness is tied to the exceptional character of Hebrew, the essence of which is the Tetragrammaton, the object of mystical vision. The interpretation is confirmed by a passage in Hayyei ha-'Olam ha-Ba'\ ‘“ In your mouth and in your heart’ (Deut. 30:14), the mouth to mention with it that which is mentioned in the utterance of the name, the glorious name, and the heart to contemplate the name in the time of the utterance, that is, the letters of the name themselves, for they are the goal of

Torah, as the ontological source of all reality is repeated by Gikatilla. See S. Blickstein, “Between Philosophy and Mysticism: A Study of the Philosophical-Qabbalistic Writings of Joseph Gikatila (1248 - c. 1322),” Ph.D. dissertation, The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1983, pp. 69*70,104-105. 172 MS Paris-BN héb. 774, fol. 162a. 173 On the special status of the Jewish people for Abulafia, see A. Jellinek, “Sefer ha-Ôt: Apokalypse des Pseudo-Propheten und Pseudo-Messias Abraham Abulafia,” in Jubelschrift zum Sibzigsten Geburtstage des Prof. Dr. H. Graetz (Breslau, 1887), p. 77. 174 Num. 11:29, 17:6; Judges 5:11, 13; 1 Sam. 2:24; 2 Sam. 1:12; 2 Kings 9:6; Ezek. 36:20; Zeph. 2:10. 175 Based on Num. 12:8. 176 “Sefer ha-Ôt,” p. 80.

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comprehension (takhlit ha-hassagah) and the secret of speech in its entirety (sod ha-dibbur kulo).”177 Abulafia is not consistent on this matter, however, since he also states repeatedly in his compositions that the seventy languages are all comprised within Hebrew, a point that he demonstrates by means of the numerical equivalence of the expressions shiv ‘im leshonot, “seventy languages,” and seruf ha- 'otiyyot, “permutation of the letters.”17® Underlying this numerology is Abulafia’s belief that aH languages are contained in the original language of God, which is Hebrew.1791802On the basis of his belief that Hebrew is the “first root” (ha-shoresh ha-ri’shon) for every language in both its graphic (ketav) and phonetic (lashon) forms, Abulafia maintains that in the meditational practice one can combine letters in any language, an idea anchored in the numerical equivalence of seruf ha- 'otiyyot and shiv ‘im leshonot, for by so doing “he will restore all the letters by which he speaks to that which produced them, which are our holy letters.”1®0 Insofar as other languages were produced by the combination of twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet in different permutations, it follows that by combining the letters of the different languages one can restore the latter back to their origin in the sacred language, which is the “mother of all languages,”1®1 for it is the “matrix” (homer) out of which all other languages were formed in the manner that all human beings can be traced back to primal Adam.1®2 In Sefer ha-Melammed, Abulafia draws the distinction between Hebrew and other languages by arguing for the supremacy of the former on the grounds that it is the verbal component that is the true essence of all 177 MS Oxford-BL 1582, fol. 49b. 178 See Scholem, “Name of God,” pp. 190-193; idem, Major Trends, p. 381 n. 53; Idel, Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics, p. 9, and for a listing of some representative texts from Abulafia’s corpus wherein this numerology appears, see op. cit., 142 n. 47. 179 Scholem, Major Trends, pp. 134-135. See Perush Sefer Yesirah, pp. 2-3. 180 Shomer Mi$wah, MS Paris-BN héb. 853, fols. 51a-b. See Sheva‘ Netivot ha-Torah, p. 4; ’Osar ‘Eden Ganuz, MS Oxford-BL 1580, fol. 162a. For a more comprehensive discussion of this motif, see M. Idel, “A la recherche de la langue originelle: la témoignage du nourrisson,” Revue de l ’Histoire des Religions 213-4 (1996): 415-442, esp. 423-432. 181 Mafetah ha-Hokhmot, MS NY-JTSA Mic. 1686, fol. 112a. The passage is cited by Idel, Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics, p. 14. 182 jmrei Shefer, MS Munich-BS 40, fol. 237b. See also Sitrei Torah, MS Paris-BN héb. 774, fol. 140a; and Liqqufei Hamis, MS Oxford-BL 2239, fol. 125b, cited by Idel, Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics, p. 14.

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scripted forms of language: “The writing (ha-ketav) is divided into seventy languages, as the rabbis, may their memory be for a blessing, said,1*3 ‘The Holy One, blessed be He, has seventy scripts in His world, and similarly there are seventy languages and seventy scepters of royalty’ ... and the Hebrew script is one of the scripts, but the form that comprises all the writing is the form of natural speech (surat ha-dibbur ha-fiv'it) that cleaves to the mouth, which is engraved on the heart in the time of creation.”1*4 Inasmuch as Hebrew is the “primal script”, katuv ha-ri'short, it is the “divine writing,” mikhtav ’elohim, inscribed on the tablets (Exod. 32:16), which is the only graphic form that adequately signifies natural speech. In Hebrew, therefore, there is a convergence of the written and the verbal, although Abulafia still privileges the latter. According to Abulafia, this is the mystery of Adam’s giving names to the animals: Since he knew the seventy languages contained within the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew script, he was able to call each animal by the proper name that reflected its nature rather than mere convention. Similarly, in the act of creation, God is described as having given names to different entities. “There are wondrous secrets to them, and they are not [to be understood] according to their literal sense in any manner, and they are mentioned to inform us about the truth of the mysteries of language and its secrets, and this is that the Lord, blessed be He, did not call these entities by the aforementioned names according to the convention (left ha-haskamah) but according to the nature (left ha-feva *), and this is the writing (ha-ketav).... Thus, according to this view, the writing, the script, and the tablets are natural matters ( ‘inyanim tiv‘iyyim):"iS The inclusion of seventy languages within twenty-two letters of Hebrew expresses the subordinate role of the other languages vis-à-vis Hebrew, but it is not clear how Abulafia can maintain the distinction between Hebrew as the natural language and the other seventy languages as conventional if the18345

183 See Massekhet Hekhalot: Traktat von den himmlischen Palästen, edition, Übersetzung und kommentar herausgegeben von K. Hermann (Tübingen, 1994), pp. 18-20 (Hebrew section). 184 MS Paris-BN héb. 680, fol. 296a. 185 Ibid., fol. 296b. In Perush Sefer Yesirah, p. 38, the distinctiveness o f Hebrew script vis-à-vis other languages is expressed in terms of the square letters o f the former being alone the “prophetic letters” ( ’otiyyot nevu ’iyyot).

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latter are thought to be contained in the former.1® 6 Consider, for example, a passage in 'Imrei Shefer wherein Abulafia contrasts Hebrew and all the other languages by comparing the former to a human being and the latter to an ape. The point of the analogy, as Abulafia makes clear, is that the ape tries to emulate the actions of the human being, but in the end they are discrete and fundamentally dissimilar entities.1*7 Abulafia offers a second image to clarify the disparate nature of the relationship of Hebrew and the other languages: The image of a person in a mirror resembles that person, but it has no real substance of its own.1861788 The conclusion to be drawn is that other languages are ontologically inferior to Hebrew as the ape is in relation to a human or as the image in a mirror is to the object of which it is an image. Abulafia maintains this position even though on occasion he asserts that all languages derive from and can be restored to the mother tongue, which is Hebrew. With respect to the privileged status accorded to Hebrew as the natural language, however, there is no equivocation on the part of Abulafia. As regards this issue, moreover, there is a major difference between philosopher and kabbalist.189 In Sefer ha-Hesheq, Abulafia writes that “the 186 Scholem, “Name of God,” p. 190 n. 78, contrasts the position of Abulafia and that of the Zohar on this score: The zoharic authorship acknowledges the mystical meaning of only Hebrew, whereas Abulafia allows for the mystical potentiality o f the other languages. In part, Scholem is correct, for Abulafia does relate the other languages to Hebrew, for Hebrew is the original language or the matrix whence the other languages emerge. The issue, however, is more complex than the way it is presented by Scholem, for even Abulafia accords a unique status to Hebrew as the one language that is not conventional in either its graphic or phonetic forms. See Idel, Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics, pp. 3-7, 19-21. 187 See the comparison of the human and the ape in Shomer Miswah, MS Paris-BN héb. 853, fol. 72a. See also We-Zo’t li-Yehudah, in A. Jellinek, Auswahl kabbalistischer Mystik (Leipzig, 1853), p. 14. 188 MS Munich-BS 40, fol. 238a. For partial translation of the relevant passage, see Idel, Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics, pp. 3 and 21. 189 Scholem, “Name of God,” pp. 184-185, noted the incongruity between Abulafia’s mysticism of language and the attitude toward language in Maimonides. See, op. cit., p. 187, where Scholem suggests a possible way of explaining this incongruity: The word for “rational,” devari, was transformed by Abulafia into “linguistic.” Hence, all that was said in the philosophical texts about human reason is limited by Abulafia to the linguistic capacity, which he interprets in a decidedly mystical way. Although there is certainly merit in Scholem’s comment, it does not take into account the passages in Abulafia’s works that explicitly contrast the philosophic and kabbalistic approaches to

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proof of the divine tradition (ha-mequbbal ha- ’elohi) is supplementary to the intelligible (muskat) that was mentioned, as it is said, ‘The tablets were God’s work, and the writings were God’s writing, incised upon the tablets’ (Exod. 32:16).”190 In Mafetah ha-Hokhmot, Abulafia articulates the discrepancy from a theological perspective: “According to the way of wisdom, the reality of the intellect is comprehended in every language, but according to the kabbalah His word is not comprehended except through the sacred language alone. However, His existence can be comprehended in every language also according to the opinion of every perfect kabbalist.”191 From the philosophical vantage point the apprehension of the intellect is not limited to any one linguistic field; the kabbaliSts, by contrast, maintain that the word of God can only be understood through Hebrew even if they readily admit that the divine existence is not so limited. The existence of God is not an issue that divides philosophers and kabbalists, for even the latter are willing to admit that the being of God is a rational truth that can be apprehended in any language. Not so with respect to the knowledge of the word of God, a truth that can only be comprehended and expressed in Hebrew.1921 surmise that the word of God is to be identified as the Torah whose mystical essence is identified further as the Tetragrammaton. The unique status that Abulafia accords to Hebrew reflects the distinctive role he assigns to the Jewish people. As he puts the matter in Gan N a ‘ul, “God inscribed the end of the Torah, which is yisra ’el,'93 in its, beginning, which is here ’shit, 194 and an allusion to this matter is found in the saying of the [rabbis], blessed be their memory, ‘The thought of Israel preceded everything,’195 for they are the purpose of all creation (takhlit kol language. In light o f these passages, there is no need to harmonize Abulafia’s indebtedness to Maimonides, on the one hand, and his acceptance of a linguistic mysticism based on older Jewish sources, on the other. See Idel, Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics, pp. 17-18. The incongruity between philosopher and kabbalist was well understood by the anonymous disciple of Abulafia who wrote Ner 'Elohim. See MS Munich-BS 10, fol. 135b, cited by Idel, op. cit., p. 19. 190 MS NY-JTSA Mic. 1801, fol. 19b. 191 MS NY-JTSA Mic. 1686, fol. 112b. 192 Cf. 7mrei Shefer, MS Munich-BS 40, fol. 257a, where the kabbalah is linked exclusively to the sacred language in its three forms, written (nikhtav), oral (nivfa '), and contemplative (nehshav). 193 The last word of the Torah is yisra 'el (Deut. 33:12). 194 The first word o f the Torah is here 'shit (Gen. 1:1). 195 Bere ’shit Rabba ’, 1:4, p. 6.

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ha-yesirah) and the seal of all existence (hotam kol ha-mesi 'ut) jiist as they are the seal of the entire Torah {hotam kol ha-torah).”196 The paradigmatic expression of the ontological attribution of the term “holy seed,” zero' qodesh, 197 to the Jews is the allegorical interpretation of Song of Songs as the dialogue of love between God and the community of Israel, which Abulafia interprets (following Maimonides) in light of the experience of intellectual conjunction (devequt) . l98 That this experience should be linked exclusively to the people of Israel* however, reflects a mystical reinterpretation of the philosophical ideal, which was more universalistic in its application. The same pattern is discernible in Abulafia’s attitude toward Hebrew in relation to other languages. In Sefer ha-Hesheq, Abulafia makes explicit the essentially linguistic nature of the passionate love for God, which is linked specifically to the path of traditional Jewish piety combined with the philosophical ideal of contemplation through intellectual conjunction: “The divine passion (ha-hesheq ha- ’elohi) is that he is desired and comprehended, and worshipped through the Torah and the commandments, which are naught but the forms of the letters and the forms of the veridical thoughts that are thought in the likeness of the letters.”199 The intense love of God is realized through pious forms of behavior and intellectual conjunction, but both are reducible to the form of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. In Hayyei ha- 'Olam ha-Ba ', Abulafia reiterates the point in slightly different terminology: “The difference between the human and the animal is speech, and speech is the letters that are mentioned in the five places of the mouth, and ‘they are engraved in the voice, hewn in the spirit, and set in the mouth.’200 The difference amongst human beings is comprehension of the ways of the matter of the letters, and the one who knows more about their mysteries is greater than his colleague in relation to

196 MS Munich-BS 58, fol. 323a. 197 The origin of the term is Isa. 6:13; and see also Ezra 9:2. 198 Gan Na'ul, MS Munich-BS 58, fol. 323b. On the metaphorical interpretation of the Song in Abulafia, see Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives, p. 206; idem, Mystical Experience, pp. 180-184, 203-205; idem, “Sexual Metaphors and Praxis in the Kabbalah,” in The Jewish Family: Metaphor and Memory, edited by D. Kraemer (Oxford, 1989), pp. 200-201. 199 MS NY-JTSA Mic. 1801, fol. 22b. On the passionate love of the letters, which is related to the account of the chariot, ma'aseh merkavah, or the combination of the names of God, harkavat shem be-shem, see ibid., fol. 4a. 200 Sefer Yesirah, 2:3.

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the Lord, and the Lord causes His wisdom to overflow more upon him by means of the letters and through comprehension of their ways.”201 In ’Or ha-Sekhel, Abulafia expressed the special nature of Hebrew as follows: “The material existents of reality are compared to the matter of the name of God, and these are the letters that are the matter of speech, and just as the matter of reality is found in five places, which are the four elements and heaven, so speech is in the five places of the mouth.”202 One can discern in this comment the influence of the second part of Sefer Yesirah in which the letters are classified in five groups corresponding to five places in the mouth through which they are pronounced. This text is another illustration of Abulafia’s privileging of the phonetic over the graphic to which I have already referred. What is significant for our purposes is the fact that Abulafia utilizes the idea from Sefer Yesirah in order to make the larger point that all reality is comparable to the name of God, which is the material substratum that comprises the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet.203 In 'Imrei Shefer, Abulafia goes so far as to assert that the secret of the “prophetic tradition” (qabbalah nevu ’it) that was revealed orally by God to Moses and then passed on through the generations involves the insight that the world was created by means of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet.204 201 MS Oxford-BL 1582, fols. 46a-b. Cf. 'Osar 'Eden Ganuz, MS Oxford-BL 1582, fol. 41a, where Abulafia again emphasizes that the mysteries of Torah are known through the twenty-two foundational letters of the Hebrew alphabet. 202 MS Vatican-BA ebr. 233, fol. 34a. 203 It is of interest to note the following comment of Abulafia in Gan Na 'ul, MS Munich-BS 58, fol. 324a, regarding the nature of time (zeman): “The secret o f ]OT is [in the letters] ]",u 0 " » ]",T, and this is the supernal, first matter (p’Vvrt |WK*in norm), and its numerical value is [equal to the word] xnai [‘was created’], and this is its secret according to the forms of the sefirot.” When the consonants in the word zeman are spelled out, their numerical value is 253, which is the same sum as the word ha-homer, “the matter,” which is identified more specifically as the prime matter, as well as the word nivra ’, “was created,” which denotes the role of this matter in creation. Although Abulafia mentions the sefirot at the conclusion of the passage, it seems likely that the reference to matter, which is the substance of time, should also be understood in light of his identification of the letters as the material principle by means of which heaven and earth were created. Indeed, in the continuation of the passage (fol. 324b), he explicitly discusses the connection of the Hebrew letters, time, and creation. The association of time and language in Abulafia’s kabbalah, as in kabbalah more generally, is a topic worthy of further exploration. 204 MS Munich-BS 40, fol. 238a.

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Insofar as the letters are all contained in the Tetragrammaton, which is the mystical essence of the Torah, this is an alternative way of asserting that the tradition consists of the oral transmission of the divine name.205 In spite of his affirmation of the ontological status of language, he expresses a sense of the ultimate insufficiency of language in terms of the task of disclosing truth and imparting information. Abulafia, however, did not dissuade individual initiative in the pursuit of esoteric wisdom. On the contrary, the concluding part of the aforecited passage from 'Osar ‘Eden Ganuz indicates that just the opposite is true. That is, Abulafia can feel comfortable having transmitted only chapter headings, for those who desire esoteric gnosis will exert the effort on their own to attain a fuller comprehension, presumably by the exercise of reason. For Abulafia, there is no necessary conflict (as there is ostensibly in a figure like Nahmanides206) between the conservative reception of an oral tradition and the innovative application of the intellect in the further deduction of mystical knowledge. A second passage from this work confirms the point. Abulafia writes, “Now I have told you about the way to the mentioning of the names in its truth by means of chapter headings until my speaking about them is sufficient for you, and you will comprehend from them what is appropriate to see.”207 The critical issue for Abulafia seems to have been the necessity to withhold the full disclosure of what he considered to be esoteric rather than the curtailment of one’s rational faculty in the pursuit of truth and knowledge on the basis of the allusions that reflect the authentic prophetic tradition that has been passed on in an unbroken oral chain.

205 In Perush Sefer Ye sirah, p. 34, Abulafia remarks that this book “revealed to us explicitly the secret of the explicit name, and this is the matter o f the knowledge o f the glorious name in accordance with the ways of prophecy.” From this we can conclude that the twenty-two letters and the ten sefirot both play an instrumental role in the attainment o f the knowledge of the name, which is the essence o f the prophetic kabbalah. 206 See study by Idel cited above, n. 144. 207 MS Oxford-BL 1580, fol. 150b. Cf. Sefer ha-Melammed, MS Paris-BN héb. 680, fol. 301a: “This was my intention, for I wanted to reveal to you the secret in this chapter, and I did reveal it to you. Contemplate it and know it, for ‘This is the gate to the Lord, the righteous shall enter through it’ (Ps. 118:20).” And ibid., fol. 308a: “Thus 1 have revealed the words, and I have hinted at allusions for you, and I have placed in your hand keys with which you will know how to open the gates o f wisdom, understanding, and knowledge. Be enlightened and may your ways be successful.”

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Indeed, on more than one occasion Abulafia adopted the view that what is truly esoteric cannot be written. Thus, for example, in the context of explicating traditions regarding the figure of Enoch-Metatron in Sitrei Torah, one of his commentaries on Maimonides’ Guide, Abulafia reminded the reader, “All these matters, and others that are similar to them, are from the words of the sages of kabbalah; they possess wondrous secrets that are inappropriate to be written.”20* In 7mrei Shefer, Abulafia states that there is no need on his part to disclose anything about the knowledge of the name, yedi ‘at ha-shem, for “there is no way to reveal it except to those who have received its ways and to those who believe that there is this gradation above the one you mentioned, and there is the desire to ascend to it with a strong will and a mighty passion, which is more perfect than any other passion.”208209 And, in a second passage from the same work, we read: “It is already known to every prophet from the prophets of Israel that it is impossible for any person in the world to reach the level of prophecy except if he has received the tradition concerning the knowledge of the name (qibbel qabbalat yedi ‘at ha-shem)”210 In that context, Abulafia follows the path of Maimonides insofar as he emphasizes that the would-be prophet must have achieved both moral and intellectual perfection. The former is expressed in the rabbinic idiom of being “satisfied with one’s lot,”2" which is the mark of true wealth, and “conquering one’s inclination,”212 which is the sign of genuine strength, expressions that Abulafia employs in order to convey an ascetic renunciation, a theme to which I shall return at the conclusion of this chapter. The perfection of the intellect is expressed as mastery over the natural and the divine sciences as well as the propadeutic sciences such as mathematics. These are the “instruments to knowledge” {kelei ha-da ‘at) or the “instruments of thought, wisdom, and understanding” {kelei ha-mahshavah we-ha-hokhmah we-ha-binah) without which one cannot 208 MS Paris-BN héb. 774, fol. 130a. In Sefer ha-Melammed, MS Paris-BN héb. 680, fol. 308b, Abulafia remarks that the verse “You will see my back, but my face will not be seen” (Exod. 33:23) contains a “great secret” (sodgadol) that he cannot write. He assures the reader, however, that if he is a “master of the intellect” {ba ‘al sekhet), he will be able to comprehend the matter. 209 MS Munich-BS 40, fol. 222b. 2.0 Ibid., fol. 226b. 2.1 Mishnah, ’Avot 4:1; ‘A vot de-Rabbi Natan, version A, ch. 23, p. 75; Babylonian Talmud, Tamid 32a. 212 See the sources cited in the previous note to which one might add Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 69b.

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receive the tradition concerning the names and the letter-permutation. That tradition nevertheless is beyond (although not necessarily contradictoiy to) reason, and thus it must be received as an oral tradition.213 Thus, in a third passage from the same work, Abulafia states: “By way of truth the matter of the tradition ( ‘inyan ha-qabbalah), which is-unique to our nation, is not apprehended by any of the philosophers, and it is the secret of the divine attributes (sod ha-middot ha- ’elohiyyot) that guide the human species and our nation214... This was revealed to us «from the giving of the Torah, for it distinguishes us from every nation and every language, and we possess the root and the leaves together with the branches and the best fruit of all the fruits.”215 In Shomer Miswah, Abulafia makes an analogous point, but in that context he contrasts the kabbalists with both the philosophers and those who interpret Scripture exclusively according to its contextual sense: The way of tradition (derekh ha-qabbalah), however, is the way that participates with the contextual meaning (peshat) and with wisdom (hokhmah), and it attests that both are true, and it is necessary that the matter should be like this. But, in the tradition, there is a supplement of ways that are not revealed from the contextual sense nor impossible 213 The curriculum of study for the kabbalist is repeated in a subsequent passage from ’Imrei Shefer, see MS Munich-BS 40, fol. 258b. 2,4 Abulafia’s conception of the divine attributes (middot ’elohiyyot), and the human attributes (middot ’enoshiyyot) that are said to derive therefrom, is a synthesis of the Maimonidean notion of the attributes of action, which relate to divine governance rather than to the essence of God’s nature, and the sefirotic emanations o f the theosophical kabbalah. I discuss this matter in more detail in the second chapter. A succinct expression o f Abulafia’s notion is found in his comment concerning the river that issued from Eden and divided into four branches (Gen. 2:10) in Mafteah ha-Hokhmot, MS NY-JTSA Mic. 1686, fol. 110a: “According to the hidden tradition (ha-qabbalah ha-ne ‘elemet), this is also an allegory for the four divine attributes that are comprised in one general attribute, which is the principle of the governance and providence, and they are known from the verse, as it says ‘Yours, Lord, are greatness, might, splendor, triumph, and majesty’ (1 Chron. 29:11), for the four of them are comprised in the attribute of greatness to the one who understands, and the human attributes emanate from the divine ones, and they are also known in the soul.” 215 MS Munich-BS 40, fols. 274b-275a. In Sefer ha-Melammed, MS Paris-BN héb. 680, fol. 304a, Abulafia remarks that the “traditional belief’ ( 'emunat qabbalah) has been transmitted uniquely to the Jewish people through the generations, and it is distinguished from both the intelligible (muskat) and the sensible (murgash) forms of knowing, which are shared universally by all rational and sentient human beings.

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together with wisdom. They are, however, revealed upon forms that are separate from these two ways, and they are very far from the two of them in the absolute distance, that is to say, they are remote from the belief of those concerned with the contextual sense and from the masters of wisdom since it is a truth they cannot bear in their intellects on account of their ignorance of the received truths ( 'amittiyyot ha-m equbbalot ). Therefore, the kabbalist (ha-m equbbat) is not permitted to reveal them and to explain them in his composition. Rather he should reveal a measure and conceal twice as much (yegalleh tefah wi-yekhasseh tifhayim), and when he finds a man who is prepared and worthy to reveal to him orally (peh ’el p eh ) in the beginning of his receiving, he216 should reveal to him two measures and conceal half as much (yegallu lo tifhayim w i-yekhassu tefah). If he receives and truly desires to complete his introduction, he should reveal to him the subjects in accordance with his capacity to receive them, and he should not hide them from him, for they are themselves hidden, concealed in their nature, and covered in their truth. The end towards which the ways of the tradition (idarkhei ha-qabbalah) should bring him is the reception of the intellectual, divine, prophetic overflow (qabbalat ha-shefa ‘ ha-sikhli ha- ’elohi ha-nevu 7) from God, blessed be He, by means of the Active Intellect, and the drawing down of the blessing and the protection217 through the name of God on the particular and on the general.21* Abulafia depicts the hierarchical relationship of three groups, the literalists, the philosophers, and the kabbalists in a number of striking images, which are meant to underscore as well the indispensability of each group in the attainment of ultimate perfection219: The literalists are like 216 The text here switches from the third person singular to the third person plural. In my translation, I have retained the singular voice, which makes better sense in rendering the author’s intent. 217 The “blessing” (berakhah) and the “protection” (shemirah) correspond to the first and the last o f the intellects, which are the two manifestations of Metatron, according to Abulafia (see reference below, n. 264). In another passage in Shomer Miswah, MS Paris-BN héb. 853, fol. 55a, Abulafia expresses the matter in language that resonates with the symbolism of theosophical kabbalah: “The blessing precedes all the attributes, for it is the supernal emanation ( ’aplut ‘elyon) and the exalted overflow, and the protection together with the blessing is the completion of the blessing.” 2,8 MS Paris-BN héb. 853, fols. 48a-b. 219 Abulafia expresses this matter in the following way in Gan N a ’ul, MS Munich-BS 40, fol. 323b: “Human love only participates with the divine [love] after much study of Torah, and after much comprehension of wisdom, and after the reception o f prophecy, and this is the secret of [the word] ]nn (“bridegroom”), the [letter] taw (n)

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matter in relation to the philosophers who are like matter in relation to the kabbalists;220 alternatively, the three groups are compared to the three divisions of the ancient Israelite nation: the literalists correspond to the Israelites, the philosophers to the Levites, and the kabbalists to the Priests, although Abulafia also remarks that the kabbalists comprise all three divisions within themselves;221 the literalists are compared to that which is intellectually apprehended (musical), the philosophers to the subject of intellection (maskil), and the kabbalists to the intellect (sekhel), although Abulafia again points out that the kabbalists comprise the unity of sekhel, maskil, and muskal.222 The tripartite division of the Jews into the Israelites, Levites, and Priests is related, in turn, to a number of other triads, which can be applied respectively to the literalists, philosophers, and kabbalists: The Priests are compared to the brain, intellect, sun, intelligible realm, and the Torah; the Levites are compared to the heart, soul, moon, heavenly realm, and the Prophets; and the Israelites are compared to the liver, body, stars, terrestrial realm, and the Writings.223 Abulafia perceptively notes, moreover, that reliance on the teacher’s oral instruction, which is technically a form of kabbalah, is operative in the pursuit of both the contextual sense and philosophical wisdom, but it is qualitatively different in the case of the kabbalah proper.224 Insofar as esoteric gnosis can only be imparted orally to one worthy of receiving it, the kabbalist is advised not to elaborate on the oral tradition in writing. Even though the content of the experience associated with this gnosis is influenced decidedly by the philosophical ideal of conjunction with the Active Intellect, Abulafia distinguishes clearly between philosophical wisdom and the kabbalah. The distinctive feature of the latter is linked to the oral nature of its transmission.

refers to Torah (m in) in between het-nun (]n), wisdom (nnsn) from the right and prophecy (m ou) from the left.” I surmise that the study o f Torah in this passage corresponds to the pursuit o f peshaf. If this surmise is correct, then we have the threefold classification mentioned by Abulafia in Shomer Mipvah and in other writings, for clearly wisdom corresponds to the way of philosophy and prophecy to the way of kabbalah. 220 MS Paris-BN hdb 853, fol. 48b. 221 Ibid., fols. 49a-b. 222 Ibid., fol. 49b. 223 Ibid., fols. 49b-50a. 224 Ibid., fols. 48b-49a.

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Along similar lines, Abulafia emphasized in a number of his works that the esoteric reasons for the commandments, which he considered to be a matter of kabbalah in contrast to their literal explanation, must be transmitted orally. To cite two examples: In 'Imrei Shefer, Abulafia asserts that he does “not want to speak of the reasons for the commandments according to their literal sense (fa'amei ha-miswot lefi peshutam) as they are [treated] in the Guide o f the Perplexed, but of their reasons according to their mysteries (ta'ameihem lefi sitreihem). They are not allowed to be written, but they are transmitted in a tradition to a person from the mouth of a person (nimsarim ba-qabbalah le- ’ish mi-pi ‘ish) [in a chain] until Moses, our master, who received it from God.”225 The second illustration is taken from Shomer Miswah, a treatise that is an exposition of three commandments, the priestly blessing, the phylacteries, and the fringe garment. After explicating at some length on these matters, Abulafia remarks: “Even though wondrous secrets were revealed from their sum total, it is not permitted to study their mysteries except orally, and only after an abundant exertion for the sake of the truth of the ways of the tradition ... One must first strive with a great and strong effort in the ways of the tradition and in its paths, for these are the ways that open the gates of the heart to comprehend the truths.”226 Abulafia claimed, moreover, that the ecstatic techniques that he reports, principally various permutations of divine names, have been transmitted orally through the generations. Here I will mention one representative text, though many more could have been adduced to prove the point. In Sefer Mafieah ha-Hokhmot, Abulafia distinguishes three levels of meaning in the text that correspond to three levels of religious perfection: the simple or contextual meaning (peshat), which corresponds to the class of the righteous (saddiqim); the mysteries of Torah known through the way of philosophy or science (sitrei torah lal derekh hakhmei ha-mehqar), i.e., the allegorical meaning, which corresponds to the pious {hasidim)\ and the comprehension of the text as an amalgam of divine names, which corresponds to the prophets (nevi ’im).227 The way of reading associated with 225 MS Munich-BS 40, fol. 224b. Sitrei Torah, MS Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale héb. 774, fols. 169a-b; Hayyei ha-Nefesh, MS Munich-BS 408, fol. 10b. I have discussed these and other relevant passages in the third chapter of this volume. See as well Idel, Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics, p. 64. 226 MS Paris-BN héb. 853, fol. 78a. 227 See Idel, Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics, pp. 109-111.

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the attainment of prophecy is presented as the “true tradition” that has been transmitted orally. In Abulafia’s own words: “If you want to reach the level of Torah where you will be prophets, you must follow the way of prophets, for their way was to combine all of the [letters of) Torah, and to grasp it from beginning to end as the way of the holy names, as the true tradition (ha-qabbalah ha- ’amitit) has come to us that the entire Torah is the names of the Holy One, blessed be He, from the bet of bere’shit (Gen. 1:1) to the lamed in le ‘einei kolyisra ’el (Deut. 33: K2).”228 The true tradition of which Abulafia speaks - that the Torah in its entirety is composed of the names of God - is known from other contemporary sources, including the German Pietists,229 theosophic kabbalists,230231and rabbinic figures such as §edeqiah ben Abraham, author of the halakhic compendium, Shibbolei ha-Leqet.m The most important source for Abulafia’s formulation, however, is Nahmanides who likewise refers to the conception of the Torah in its entirety being composed of the names of God as a true tradition (qabbalah shel ’emet).2i2 Following Nahmanides, moreover, Abulafia is of the opinion that the exegetical decoding of the scriptural text as an aggregation of divine names is the true Oral Torah revealed by God to Moses on Mount Sinai that cannot be committed to writing. At best, as we have already seen, for Abulafia written texts can contain allusions, or in the rabbinic idiom “chapter headings,” that the enlightened who has already received something of the oral tradition will understand through the exercise of his own understanding. On occasion Abulafia repeats the rhetoric of Nahmanides regarding the inability of reason to apprehend the kabbalah.233 Thus, in a passage in 'Imrei She/er, 228 MS NY-JTSA Mic. 1686, fol. 96a. 229 J. Dan, The Esoteric Theology o f Ashkenazi Hasidism (Jerusalem, 1968), p. 124 n. 45 (in Hebrew); Idel, “Concept of Torah,” pp. 47-48; idem, “We Have No Kabbalistic Tradition on This,” p. 54 n. 10; Wolfson, “Mystical Significance of Torah-Study.” 230 See references above, n. 27. 231 Idel, “Concept of Torah,” p. 54 n. 10. 232 Scholem, On the Kabbalah, p. 38; Idel, “Concept o f Torah,” pp. 52-55. On many occasions in his writings Abulafia explicitly cites or paraphrases Nahmanides. See Idel, Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics, pp. 46-47, 66, 171 n. 88; Wolfson, ‘“ By Way of Truth,’” p. 117 n. 44. See now Idel, “Abulafia’s Secrets of the Guide,” p. 307. 233 See Get ha-Shemot, MS Oxford-BL 1658, fol. 98b; Perush Sefer Yesirah, p. 8 (in this context, Abulafia states there is no way to disprove the kabbalah since it is based neither on what is intelligible nor on what is sensible). In Shomer Miswah, MS Paris-BN héb. 853, fols. 50a-b, Abulafia writes that when the enlightened sage (hakham

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after he explicitly cites the dictum of Nahmanides that the entire Torah consists of the names of God, Abulafia cautions the reader: This cannot be comprehended by the human intellect. Therefore this received knowledge (ha-yedi'ah ha-mequbbelet) has been concealed from every sage who has not received it from a prophet or from a sage who received it from a prophet even after many generations. Since we have reached this glorious and deep place ... a full disclosure that is discernible to every perfectly enlightened kabbalist (mequbbal maskil shalem) must be revealed, and place your heart to comprehend my words.234 Prima facie, it might seem as though •there were an irresolvable contradiction in Abulafia’s thought. Closer inspection, however, reveals that this not so, for the core of the prophetic tradition exceeds the bound of reason, but the latter faculty can be applied by one who has received the chapter headings of the tradition. Abulafia has thus forged a synthesis between the positions of Maimonides and Nahmanides.235 In Sitrei Torah, a book that is dedicated to an exposition of the secrets alluded to in Maimonides’ Guide, Abulafia remarks that proofs based on revelation (moftim torayyim) are related to the “ways of the permutation of the letters” (darkhei seruf ha-'otiyyot) whose mystery is not grasped by the philosophers.236 The enlightened kabbalists (maskilei ha-qabbalah) are the ones whose intellects have been perfected by the Active Intellect to the point that they comprehend the limit of true knowledge (takhlit yedi'ah ’amitit). In contrast to the prophetic kabbalah, philosophical reasoning is restricted, for logical argumentation can only prove truth and falsity, whereas the path of letter-permutation allows one to distinguish clearly between the two.237 Elsewhere in this treatise Abulafia identifies three types maskil) first hears a kabbalistic teaching, it appears as false and laughable. Although in that context he does not specifically mention the fact that the kabbalistic truth is not apprehended by the faculty of reason, it seems implicit in his argument. 234 MS Munich-BS 40, fol. 235b. Cf. Sefer ha-Ge ’ulah, MS. Leipzig 13, fol. 8a. 23$ In light of this discussion, it is of interest to consider the passage in Shomer Miswah, MS Paris-BN héb. 853, fol. 62b, where Abulafia cites Maimonides’ view (Guide, 1:61) regarding the divine names and the attributes o f action, with the one exception being the essential name. It appears that, according to Abulafia, the esoteric reading o f this discussion harmonizes the views o f Maimonides and Nahmanides. See ibid., fols. 71b-72a. 236 MS Paris-BN héb. 774, fol. 117b. 237 Ibid., fols. 117b-118a.

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of sages: the prophets (nevi’im) who are forced by the divine influx to speak or to write, the wise of heart (hakhmei lev) who speak through the holy spirit and who write books on the divine wisdom according to what they have received orally from the prophets or indirectly from their compositions, and the philosophers (hoqrei mada1) who attempt to understand the hidden matters through their own understanding and reason.238 Despite the obvious influence of Maimonides on Abulafia,239 the notion of kabbalah that he proffers is that the mystical truth is based on an oral, prophetic tradition that transcends the bounds of human reason and is unique to the Jewish people.240 In the epistle that delineates the seven paths of exegesis, Sheva ‘ Netivot ha-Torah, Abulafia states that all the nations participate in the first four paths (literal, halakhic, homiletical, and allegorical layers of meaning), whereas the last three (letter-permutation, restitution of the letters to their primary matter, and prophecy or the way of the divine names) are apprehended exclusively by the “sages of the Jewish tradition” (hakhmei

238 Ibid., fol. 143a. 239 A variety o f scholars have discussed the influence of Maimonides on Abulafia. See the study of Altmann cited above, n. 5; Scholem, Major Trends, pp. 126, 138-139, and 383 n. 76; idem, The Kabbalah ofSefer ha-Temunah and Abraham Abulafia, edited by J. Ben-Shlomo (Jerusalem, 1965), pp. 107, 127-129, 151-152 (in Hebrew); idem, Kabbalah, p. 54; Idel, Mystical Experience, pp. 32, 73-74, 89, 138-139, 179-182, 187; idem, Studies in the Ecstatic Kabbalah (Albany, 1988), pp. 13-14, 16-17, 21 n. 8, 38, 52; idem, Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics, pp. 16-17, 30-31, 42, 45, 106, 120, 167-168 n. 69, 177 n. 134, 189 n. 13, 191 n. 46; idem, “Maimonides and Kabbalah,” in Studies in Maimonides, edited by I. Twersky (Cambridge, Mass., 1990), pp. 54-79; idem, “Abulafia’s Secrets o f the Guide.” See also Wirszubski, Pico della Mirandola 's Encounter with Jewish Mysticism, pp. 84-99, and the study of Magid referred to in ch. 2, n. 202. 240 Cf. the description of kabbalah as knowledge o f the name in Sheva ‘ Netivot ha-Torah, p. 9. See also Abulafia’s account of the superiority of the kabbalistic path of letter-permuatation (derekh gilgul ha- 'otiyyot 'im nequddam) to philosophical speculation in Sefer ha-Ge’ulah, MS Leipzig 13, fol. 8b. The influence of Abulafia is discernible in Joseph Gikatilia, Ginnat Egoz (Jerusalem, 1989), pp. 343-344. Gikatilla identifies the “wisdom of Torah” as the “inner wisdom,” which is compared to the nucleus of the circle apprehended only by Israel. The Torah is identified further as the twenty-two letters, which are comprised in AHW"Y, the letters of the divine name that add up to twenty-two. On the superiority of Torah to philosophy, see ibid., pp. 260-264.

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ha-qabbalah ha-yisra W/m).241 Abulafia obviously did not intend to say that non-Jews are actively involved in all of the first four paths of exegesis. What he meant rather is that potentially they could be so involved since the faculty of mind necessary to undertake these forms of interpretation is reason, which is common to all humanity without exception. The complex synthesis of the Maimonidean perspective and the acceptance of an oral tradition that transcends the philosophical orientation242 is underscored in Abulafia’s depiction of the seven path: The seventh path is a special path, and it comprises all the paths, and it is the holy of holies.243 It is exclusively appropriate for the prophets, and it is the sphere that encompasses everything. By means of comprehending it the word that comes forth from the Active Intellect onto the rational faculty is comprehended, for this is the influx that overflows from God, blessed be He, by means of the Active Intellect onto the rational faculty, as the Rabbi said in the Guide, part II, chapter thirty-six. This path is the truth and the essence of prophecy, and it is the matter of the knowledge of the comprehension of the essence of the unique name in accordance with what is possible for the one who is distinguished in the human species, which is the prophet, to comprehend of i t .... It is not appropriate to write in a book the content of this path, which is called holy and sanctified, and it is not possible to transmit any tradition, even by means of chapter headings, except if the one who desires it has at first orally received knowledge of the forty-two letter name and the seventy-two letter name.244

241 Jellinek, Philosophie und Kabbala, p. 3. The seven exegetical paths are discussed in detail by Idel, Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics, pp. 82-109. 242 Not only is it the case that the prophetic kabbalah exceeds the rational bounds of philosophy, but the latter can contradict the former. As Abulafia states in Sitrei Torah, MS Paris-BN héb. 774, fol. 140b: “It is known by the kabbalists from amongst our colleagues, who received from the prophets who spoke with God and God spoke with them, that the philosophers erred in their minds with respect to many matters o f faith.” To cite one illustration of the difference in orientation in doctrinal issues between the kabbalist and the philosopher: In Mafteah ha-Hokhmot, MS NY-JTSA Mic. 1686, fol. 177b, Abulafia remarks that the kabbalists believe in the possibility o f physical resurrection, which is denied by the philosophers. 243 For a similar description of the seventh path, see ’Osar ‘Eden Ganuz, MS Oxford-BL 1580, fol. 171a. 244 Philosophie und Kabbala, pp. 4-5, partially corrected according to MS NY-JTSA Mic. 1686, fol. 134a.

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Encapsulated here is Abulafia’s ambivalent attitude towards Maimonides in particular and towards philosophy in general. On the one hand, he describes the experiential component associated with the seventh path in terms of the Maimonidean conception of prophecy as the reception on the part of the rational faculty of the divine overflow mediated through the Active Intellect. On the other hand, the essential content of this path is depicted as a form of gnosis of the Tetragrammaton (the unique name, shem ha-meyuhad), which is not available' to all human beings in an equal measure; on the contrary, it is a gnosis that is exclusive to those amongst the Jews who attain the level of prophecy, which is the highest human attainment. The substance of the seventh path is transmitted in an oral tradition and is not deducible simply on the basis of ratiocination. Hence, it cannot be written in a book; it can only be transmitted in a cryptic fashion to one who has already received orally knowledge of the mystical names of God. This does not mean, however, that Abulafia rejected completely the role of reason in the discernment of esoteric truth. On the contrary, as I have already noted, for Abulafia, in writing the secrets of kabbalah are to be transmitted only by allusions that will be comprehended by one who has knowledge, but the fuller explication of these secrets is dependent on the rational faculty of this individual. There is nevertheless a critical discrepancy between philosophers and kabbalists on this point, which is made even more sharply by Abulafia in Sitrei Torah: The line, the point, and the letter instruct us about the secrets of all the names that are indicative of existence. We know that just as existence instructs philosophers with ease about the truth of matters, so the letters instruct us about the truth of matters more easily. Accordingly, we possess traditions that instruct us with ease about the attributes of the Lord, blessed be He, and about His governance. His providence, His overflow, and the existence of His actions. What you can heed from this is that which the philosophers cannot reach even after great effort and after long periods of time and after much learning, for the matter concerning the holy names that you will hear ... is a comprehension that is known to us, masters of the tradition, which is called the knowledge of the Lord.245 On the one hand, in this passage, Abulafia clearly distinguishes between philosopher and kabbalist. For the former the natural world is the object of 245 MS Paris-BN héb. 774, fol. 163a. The text is partially translated and discussed in Idel, Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics, pp. 1-2.

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contemplation, whereas for the latter the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, each of which constitutes a name of God,246 are the focus of the contemplative gaze. Consequently, the philosopher knows the natural phenomena and the kabbalist the attributes of God. On the other hand, the mystical praxis and the gnosis that results therefrom are described in the same text in language that is thoroughly saturated with the philosophical orientation, especially that of Maimonides: Contemplate the wondrous secrets for from them you will know the names of the essence (shemot ha- ‘esem), that is, the essence of the names ( ‘e$em ha-shemot). Know that all of them are inscribed upon the Torah scroll, which is your praise and your God, and it is without doubt the supernal courthouse, and it is the one who heeds prayer. It is the one that informs you how the essential name is comprehended (shem ha- ‘asmi muskat) and also about the intelligible name itself (shem ha-muskal ’a$mi). Know that the intellect cognizes the entire world (sekhel maskil kol ha- ’olam), for the intellectualizing intellect is eternal (sekhel maskil ’olamim), and it intellectualizes the world of intellects (maskil ‘olam ha-sekhalim). The secret is that he contemplates the light of His garment (maskil ’or levusho), and he contemplates the Active Intellect (maskil ha-sekhel ha-po 'el), for he is of the gradation of the enlightened ones of Israel (maskilei yisra ’el), and it is all from the potency of the scroll of the Torah, and know it.247 The tension between these two positions, the contrast of the philosophers and the kabbalists, on the one hand, and the philosophical depiction of the kabbalists, on the other, is a basic feature of Abulafia’s writings. It is inadequate and ultimately misconceived to figure out a solution that removes this inconsistency in his thought. On the contrary, to appreciate the complex synthesis in Abulafia’s prophetic kabbalah, one must accept this confluence of antithetical claims. As I have previously remarked, in spite of the unmistakable philosophical character of the mystical experience described by Abulafia, he insists on the unique character of kabbalah vis-à-vis philosophy. Thus, in the epistle We-Zo’t li-Yehudah, Abulafia writes that he will not be concerned with the sensible (murgash), intelligible (muskat), or conventional (mefursam) forms of 246 See Scholem, Major Trends, p. 134; Idel, Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics, p. xv. On the history of this “monadic” conception of the Hebrew letters, see Idel, “Reification of Language,” pp. 59-66. 247 MS Paris-BN héb. 774, fol. 137b. See Idel, Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics, pp. 32-33.

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language, but only with the traditional (mequbbal).248249The essence of Jewish faith is rooted in the kabbalah: “The name of the matter that is called ‘tradition’ (qabbalah) in general resembles the name of that which is called ‘hearing’ (shemu'ah) and the name of that which is called ‘comprehension’ (havanah) ... for the kabbalists of our faith alone have received it, and on account of this reception (qibbul) they are called masters of the tradition (ba ‘alei ha-qabbalah)”w The tradition entails hearing and comprehension, the passive receiving of what has been transmitted and the active interpretation. In Sheva' Netivot ha-Torah, Abulafia describes the requisite combination of oral reception and hermeneutical creativity: “The kabbalah brings forth the hidden from these matters, from potentiality to actuality, and it reveals the mysteries in them to each recipient {mequbbal). And the recipient, in accordance with his capacity, his receptivity, and his effort, brings forth what is in potentiality into actuality, for even though the kabbalah is transmitted to every enlightened person in general, not every one who hears it and receives it can bring it into actuality.”250 In the continuation of that passage, Abulafia cites the relevant rabbinic sources (as well as Maimonides’ use of them) that enumerate the specifications required for an individual to receive esoteric knowledge. The only esoteric writing that is justified is one in which the secrets are alluded to in such a way that he who has received the oral tradition will be able to interpret and expand the written allusions. Thus, in ’Or ha-Sekhel, Abulafia concludes a rather detailed discussion on the phonetic and graphic aspects of language with the following caveat: “Each of these requires a lengthy consideration, but I will only abbreviate them in the transmission of the tradition, even though I could have given an explanation for each of the letters that was mentioned. ... The form of the tradition, however, is satisfied by the mere mentioning {hazkarah), for the one who is wise will comprehend from his own mind.”251 In Hayyei ha- ‘Olam ha-Ba \ Abulafia asserts that if one finds a student worthy of receiving the techniques of meditation, he must not 24S On three types o f proof, “sensible” (murgashim), “intelligible” (muskalim), and “traditional” (mequbbalim), see Sitrei Torah, MS Paris-BN héb. 774, fol. 118a. 249 Jellinek, Auswahl, p. 15. On the passive receiving, see Abulafia’s use o f the image of the gift to depict the nature of kabbalah in Perush Sefer Yeprah, p. 17. 250 Philosophie und Kabbala, p. 12. 251 MS Vatican-BA ebr. 233, fol. 109a. The passage was transcribed by Jellinek, Philosophie und Kabbala, p. 40.

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conceal anything.252*There are, however, suggested steps in the process of disclosure ranging from allusive writing to candid verbal exposition: “If he can receive, then he should write them out for him in allusions that will be sufficient for his comprehension, and then he should transmit them to him in chapter headings, and then he should explain them to him explicitly.”251 In a passage from Sitrei Torah, Abulafia elaborates on this point: There is no doubt that the enlightened can comprehend one thing from another.254 Therefore, the one who composes a book on a matter as deep as this can rely on the knowledge of those who understand, for the book cannot adequately reveal the mysteries.... The rational faculty is obligated to speak of it and to assist him in comprehending what he has heard. ... The intention is to reveal the hidden matter according to its need, to arouse the intellect to draw forth until it comprehends it with an enduring comprehension that will not be forgotten or obliterated.255256 The approach adopted by Abulafia is summed up in his description of Maimonides’ orientation in the beginning of Hayyei ha-Nefesh, another one of his commentaries on the Guide. Abulafia notes that Maimonides revealed what he had to reveal so that the enlightened reader would understand, but at the same time he concealed matters so that the unworthy would not understand. The two extremes of revealing what must be concealed and concealing what is appropriate to reveal must be avoided. The recommended middle path involves “making allusions that are proximate to one’s knowledge.”254 The esoteric method requires the concurrent concealment and disclosure of the secret. Accordingly, Abulafia describes the task of the sage, which he applies as well to his angelic mentor, Raziel, and to himself) in his commentary to Sefer ha-Meliç in these terms: “It is necessary for him to reveal and to conceal ... as Raziel 252 Similarly, in Shomer Mifwah, MS Paris-BN héb. 853, fol. 50a, Abulafia writes: “From here I will begin to draw your attention to that which is necessary, and it is appropriate to reveal to you its mystery, secret, foundation, and depth as it is without any concealment or hiding at all.” 251 MS Oxford-BL 1582, fol. 33b. 254 Comprehension o f one matter from another, havanat davor mi-tokh davor, is an idiom found in classical rabbinic literature, which denotes a sophisticated level of intellectual acuity. See Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 31a, Hagigah 14a, Sanhedrin 93b, Zevahim 53a. Bere ’shit Rabba ’ 26:1, p. 244; Bemidbar Rabbah 13:10. 255 MS Paris-BN héb. 774, fol. 121a. 256 MS Munich-BS 408, fols. 4a-b.

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did ... and so I will do, his student who explains his words, I will conceal and I will reveal.”257 Similarly, in Shomer Miswah, after explicating the secret of the divine name associated with the priestly blessing, Abulafia writes: “I have hinted through hidden allusions according to the need and according to what is appropriate in every matter until this treatise revealed and concealed, concealed and revealed, in order not to conflict with the views of the masses or with their beliefs entirely, and in order to remove the enlightened one who chooses kabbalah- (Jia-maskil ha-boher ba-qabbalah) from the obstacle.”258 Following the esoteric method laid out by Maimonides, Abulafia adopts a style that allows him to conceal and to disclose simultaneously so that the beliefs of the masses will not be challenged and the one who seeks the enlightenment of kabbalah will be provided with requisite knowledge.259 To satisfy both of these goals it is necessary to reveal in the gesture of concealing and to conceal in the gesture of revealing. In the concluding part of the composition, Abulafia repeats his literary goal and the code of esotericism he used to attain it: “In this treatise, my intention was only to arouse your intellect concerning the comprehension of truth in accordance with your capacity, and also to assist some others with a few allusions. I know that the testimony to which I have alluded will be beneficial to those who are perfect and it will not hurt the others. ... That which is verified by me is the truth without any doubt, and even though I have not mentioned it except through allusion, I have spoken about it a little so that our faith will not be lost because of the fools.”260 That Abulafia opted for the middle position, which embraces the concomitant divulgence and obfuscation, is also attested by the following passage from 'Imrei Shefer: However, there is a secret in this. If I reveal it, it will be difficult in the eyes of every sage, and if I do not reveal it the one listening will think I do not know it and that it was not revealed to us, but we know that we know and that it has already been revealed to us. Thus, we must resolve the two opinions by revealing it through allusion (remez) so that it will be disclosed 257 Munich-BS 285, fol. 17a. 258 MS Paris-BN héb. 853, fol. 56a. 259 It is important to bear in mind that this work was written in 1287 by Abulafia (designated as “Abraham the prophet”) for a single individual, Solomon ben Moses ha-Kohen, who is referred to as a student in the conclusion of the treatise (fol. 79a). See Idel, Studies in Ecstatic Kabbalah, pp. 91-92. 260 MS Paris-BN héb. 853, fol. 77b.

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to one who understands it and hidden from others. This is the way of the masters of secrets (derekh ba ‘alei sodot), and in this matter they follow the attributes of God, blessed be He, for He acts in this way in all of reality, and thus are the ways of Torah entirely (darkhei ha-torah kulah) .261 The proper esoteric approach to revealing secrets by way of allusion is linked in Abulafia’s mind to the attributes of God as they are manifest in reality as well as to the pattern of Torah. There is an interesting merging here of the ontological and hermeneutical: The duality of the inner and outer meaning of Scripture is parallel to the polarity in the manifestation of divine attributes in the cosmos.262 In a similar manner, in Sefer ha-'Ot, Abulafia links the dialectic of hidden and revealed to the ontological structure of reality, but in that context it is related more specifically to the first and the last of the ten separate intellects, which are described as “the closed head and the open tail, the crown of Torah on the head and the diadem of royalty on the tail.”263264In this poetically coded manner, Abulafia is referring in this passage to a central idea in his metaphysical scheme: There is a symmetry between the first and the tenth intellect, both of which are assigned to the Active Intellect in Abulafia’s writings and related to the twofold nature of Metatron as elder (zaqen) and youth (na'ar).2