Eitan P. Fishbane

Mystical Contemplation and the Limits of the Mind: The Case of Sheqel ha-Qodesh

As was the case with medieval Jewish philosophy, the kabbalah of 13th-century Spain was profoundly concerned with the status of the human mind in its quest to comprehend and experience divine reality. Building on the legacy of Maimonides, the kabbalists were caught between the desire to achieve full theosophical gnosis and the conflicting assumption that God is utterly unknowable. This article studies the problem of epistemology in the thought of Rabbi Moses de Leon, one of the greatest Jewish mystics of the Middle Ages. My central conclusion is that de Leon advocated a paradoxical approach to theological knowledge-one which sought to dialectically balance the contemplative ideal with a radically negative mode of apophasis. In agreement with the general scholarly consensus that experiential elements underlie the metaphysical discourse of kabbalah, this study seeks to further demonstrate the manner in which epistemological concerns shape ontological discussions in medieval kabbalistic literature.

Jewish Mystical Hermeneutics: On the Work of Moshe Idel*

For almost thirty years now, the study of Jewish mysticism has continually been shaped by the highly creative scholarship of Moshe Idel. From his early work on Abraham Abulaf ia through a long stream of groundbreaking articles and monographs, Idel has consistently set the standard for originality in Kabbalah research, frequently employing new methodological lenses inspired by broader developments in the phenomenology of religions. As such, Idel’s work has had a profound impact both on specialists in the field of Jewish mystical literature and on scholars interested in questions of comparative mysticism more generally. Best known for his seminal work, Kabbalah: New Perspectives (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1988)—a book that reset the agenda of Kabbalah scholarship and proposed daring new approaches to a wide range of ideas and sources—Moshe Idel has offered powerful revisions and rethinking of numerous classic problems in the study of Jewish mysticism. To the English-reading world, these contributions have included monographs such as Hasidism: Between Ecstasy and Magic (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995), Messianic Mystics (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1998), and most recently, Absorbing Perfections: Kabbalah and Interpretation, the subject of the present review article. There can be no doubt that Idel’s Absorbing Perfections is a landmark study in the terrain of Kabbalah research, and many insights from the broader field of hermeneutics and literary theory are brought to bear upon the kabbalistic material in a most fruitful manner. It is a book of encyclopedic scope and learning, covering a vast array of topics and subtopics pertaining to Jewish mystical conceptions and practices of scriptural interpretation. Indeed, if there is a flaw to be noted at the most general level, it is that the book covers too much ground; it is not always clear to the reader how the myriad subthemes and examples

The Speech of Being, the Voice of God: Phonetic Mysticism in the Kabbalah of Asher ben David and His Contemporaries

These words only came into the world after difficult birth-pangs . . . They flashed suddenly like lightning, and with a single flight they illumined an entire world.Harm Nahman Bialik1THE PLACE OF R. ASHER IN THE EARLY KABBALAHTHE LITERARY EMERGENCE of Provencal Kabbalah was bound up in the transformation from extreme esotericism, with an emphasis on orality in the transmission of theological secrets, to a more exoteric and systematic written exposition of kabbalistic symbology.2 Integral to this transition was R. Asher ben David, grandson of the Rabad of Posquieres3 and nephew of R. Isaac the Blind, the first Provencal kabbalist who sought to explain and clarify the theosophical doctrine of the sefirot in an unhindered and uncryptic manner.4 While his uncle and master R. Isaac was opposed to public discussion and exposition of the mystical doctrines, R. Asher devoted himself fully to the exotericization of kabbalistic teachings through the composition of his magnum opus, Sefer ha-yihud. This book constitutes a major break in the literary history of the early Kabbalah, serving as a virtual primer of sefirotic symbolism blended with more traditional modes of ethical teaching and discourse.5 The project of writing Sefer ha-yihud opened the hermetically concealed symbolism of prior generations of kabbalists and inaugurated an entirely new form of kabbalistic discourse in southwestern France. When compared to other early Provencal sources, such as R. Isaac the Blinds Commentary to Sefer yetsirah, R. Ashers work appears to be a model of clarity and systematic thought. While R. Isaacs Commentary is extremely dense, laconic, and obscure, Sefer ha-yihud provides complete definitions of the emerging kabbalistic symbols.This transformation from secrecy to public exposition seems to have been stimulated by external forces as well. We know from the sources collected by Gershom Scholem that students of R. Isaac the Blind in the Spanish towns of Gerona and Burgos had already been far freer in their exposition of kabbalistic rhetoric and had consequently caused much confusion among uninitiated authences in those locales. It was apparently the exposition by these disciples of R. Isaacs teaching that engendered R. Meir b. Simon of Narbonnes vehement response preserved in the exchange of letters published by Scholem.6 It is evident from the sources that R. Isaac was greatly displeased with the degree of exotericization practiced by his students in Gerona, and he seems to have first asked R. Asher ben David to serve as his diplomatic envoy to the Spanish kabbalists. The Geronese scholars had requested that R. Isaac himself make the journey, in order to clarify ambiguous matters of doctrine and heal the ideological rifts, but this proved to be impossible. Instead, R. Isaac appears to have selected R. Asher as his spokesman in Spam. As R. Isaac wrote to Gerona:I cannot perceive any decree of heaven according to which I would now have to leave my place of residence and come to you. But when R. Asher, the son of my esteemed brother, the learned R. David, may his memory be blessed, comes to you, follow every counsel that he gives you, for I will let you know my will through him. He also knows my position and he saw throughout my life how I conducted myself with regard to my companions.7This passage from R. Isaacs letter to Gerona reveals the extent to which R. Asher enjoyed a privileged and prominent place in the kabbalistic school of his uncle and master. R. Isaac testifies here that R. Asher was an intimate witness to the inner workings of R. Isaacs circle of mystics, and that he was privy to discussions and events that Avere presumably not shared with the mystics outside of the family of the Rabad of Posquieres. The implication of the passage quoted above is that R. Asher grew up in the shadow of R. Isaacs dominant model, witnessed the concrete praxis of his uncles theoretical kabbalistic system, and therefore is a credible spokesman for R. …

Joel Hecker. Mystical Bodies, Mystical Meals: Eating and Embodiment in Medieval Kabbalah . Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2005. x, 282 pp.

In the literature of Jewish mysticism, the Zohar remains the undisputed masterpiece—the gem of kabbalistic imagination whose allure and depth have attracted the sustained study of academics and traditional mystics alike. For modern scholarship, this extraordinary text has proven to be an unendingwellspring of insights into kabbalistic theology, devotional experience, exegetical technique, and many other topics. In a manner unique to the history of Jewish mystical creativity, the Zohar has even shown itself to be the great convergence of literary artistry and symbolic homiletics, a weave of the poetic-fictional imagination and that of a theological hermeneutics. It would be no exaggeration to view the Zohar as one of those classic texts that each generation is drawn to interpret and reinterpret anew. It is just this creativity and nuance that is evident in Joel Hecker’s first book, Mystical Bodies, Mystical Meals—a work of scholarship that makes a significant contribution to the field in the intersecting realms of ritual studies, performance theory, gender construction, conceptions of embodiment, and historical religious anthropology. Hecker’s monograph is very well written, and the prose of scholarship unfolds through an engaging typology of ritual practice and religious experience. The working frame for Hecker’s study is the representation of eating as a spiritual practice in the Zohar and related works—a problematic that is used as a lens through which the interpreter of cultures may better understand the kabbalistic perceptions of prescribed sacred behavior and the deeper meaning of such ritual practice. For as Hecker conceives of it, Kabbalah studies will benefit from a localization within the terrain of ritual studies—particularly within the dimension of performative ritual. This emerges as a central category insofar as the ritual dimension is rooted in an embodied and gender-structured matrix; as such, the enactment through the body (and with a particular attitude toward the body) serves as an axial point for the symbolic discourse. By way of zoharic reflections on the nature and meaning of holy eating, the researcher as exegete may view a religious anthropology in (textual) action, and the contours of ritual instruction, behavior, and interpreted meaning emerge in disclosure. Book Reviews