Readings in Kabbalistic Texts: Prayer
Dr. Alan Brill – Spring 2001
Disclaimer: I am not
responsible for typos or errors, or random tirades.
If however, you do find a
mistake, please e-mail me at jyuter@ymail.yu.edu
There are numerous
references to the sources handed out in class.
Week 1 – January 24
We will be examining a
variety of Ashkenaz texts of all sorts and different schools, and philosophical
texts as well. In the 12th
and 13th centuries, the majoe schools were Provence, Gerona,
Castille, Zohar, and Hug Ha-Iyin, Tikkunei Zohar. We have texts in late 13th, beginning of 14th
which discuss the oral traditions of how one prays. The most important is Yitzhak of Ako who will collect the oral
traditions of how to pray. Have David
Ben Yehuda ha-Hasid. 16th
century (if we get there) Cordovero who in some ways will be used in the method
of Gerona, but content of Zohar, Luria who will use content of Gerona but
method of Tikkunei Zohar among others.
Also Ibn Gabbai who will be straight Zohar. 17th and 18th century, have enthusiasm, and
in 19th, mitnagdut, hassidut, and contemplations.
Not much written on
prayer. In 1933, Friedrich Heiler
wrote “Prayer” which had a strong influence on the study. Heiler has three categories of prayer:
1) Petitionary prayer which is communal, prophetic with everyday needs
2) Mystical – emotional which is alone. Prayer
is an outpouring of the soul, and is always spontaneous. Will look for outpourings of the soul. Heiler talks about how the mystical prayers
are anarchistic, unethical (no justification for the prayer – just a demand of
some sort), and know nothing of this world.
The prophetic prayer seeks fellowship with other people, mystical seeks
fellowship with God.
3) Adoration – what if you were to show love towards God. Heiler calls this secular because all you are doing is expressing
your emotions and your treating God as an icon or image (Keirkegaard) and your
using human emotions to express it.
Adoration leads to contemplation, meditation, and all sorts of mean
nasty horrible things.
Evelin Underhill in “Worship” makes the prime form of prayer to be
Heiler’s adorations. Focus on God, show
love for God, etc. Organized religions
all flow from this reason to adore God – the need to go to something greater
than yourself.
In Van der Leuws will
read both but in “Religion and Essence of Manifistation” will have prayer as a ritual and not
an outpouring of the soul. He holds, prayer
is an incantation – you get power, control, and these words have a
relevatory power. The sequence and
forms are important. It’s a ritual
of words. Praise is confrontation
without asking for the magic, elation is trying for ecstasy, and the importance
of music, sanctuary, etc. sacrament type integration – not random.
J.L. Austin will introduce speech acts.
Intentionality (kavvana)
Locution – intentionality
for what you are saying
Illocution – what you’re
thinking about while you’re doing it
Perlocution – the effect
you want it to have on a person. – Symbols
Most medievals deal with
the Illocution – when you actually are praying. If intentionality means when you pray you are magnifying God’s
name, that is specific illocution.
Stanley Tembia, has an
article about this which we will get later.
More categories of
prayer:
Focusing
the mind and attention includes meditation, contemplation etc. Any thought of concentration and having a
special effect from this concentration.
A model of focusing the mind, not like Heiler.
Specific
form of attention, but involves a clear act of filling your mind with
something, either of God or emptiness.
Something beyond the attention act.
Meditation leads to enlightenment or illumination which comes from
this.
This
is not used much in English. The
assumption that we create a realm of imagination, and that imagination takes on
a life of their own. Within that realm
we think in symbolic turns, and generate its own realms like Jung. Corbin will use this to explain Islamic
prayer – once you enter the Imaginal, this is where God makes himself manifest
and man receives revelation.
Someplace
between attention and meditation which is a hypnotic state. Creating a sense of calm.
I.
Orientation –
Preparing yourself
a. Beit Kenesset
b. Talit Tefillin
c. Ethical purity
II.
Maintining Steady
Icon as a tether – Attention
a. Visualizing the divine name
III.
Static Image of an
Expanse – meditation/hypnosis
a. Create a visual screen for range
b. This could be all 10 sephirot
IV.
Dynamic
visualizations – contemplations
a. Possibility of Visions
b. Further focused on the Static Image
c. Theosophy and Theurgy (e.g. combinig tiferet and
malchut)
d. Repair or Tikkun – go in, fix, come out
e. Transformational – meditate on the sechina as a
dove which gets killed by the eagle and comes back and kills the eagle
V.
Emotions
a. Ahava and Yirah
b. Bitul Hayesh
c. Chanting as Deautomation
VI.
Effect
a. Ecstasy
b. Bringing sown blessing
c. Physical sensation
d. Something magical
1-6 would be a ritual
approach to prayer. Adoration is 2-5
because the effect doesn’t play a role.
3-5 is a meditation of some form.
Mysticism is generally only 4-5.
Back to speech acts.
Gerona will expect all of
this (1-5) to occur during prayer, while the Zohar will expect 1-4 before
prayer and only 5 during.
Scholem written post-Heiler on kavanah in early kabbalah
will start by saying kabbalah valued theosophy over mysticism and is reticent
of how to do these things. Scholem will
give a rabbinic kavannah and connect it directly to the Zohar. Zohar has nothing original regarding prayer,
but Ahava and Yirah. However, he notes
Gerona has a system of mysticism of deveikut.
Scholem has devotion, a little of mahashava, and doesn’t touch out
chart.
Idel originally separated
the 1) neoplatonic ascent of soul and bring down blessing 2) Aristolelian of
conjunction and 3) hermetic of bringing down ruhaniyut. Now it’s 1) magic or 2) theosophy and
theurgy i.e. you believe in sephirot and you do an act which effects the
sephirot. The neo-platonic
disappears. Idel will use the term meso-cosmos
– the middle realm between the divine and the human for this whole realm you
create. All the kabbalist will have kavannah on a sephira and hamshacha where
you bring down shefa from it.
Idel won’t ask question about the different sephirot. He won’t distinguish between the movements. All of this will be a process of kavanna. Idel’s meso-cosmos as what it means for the imaginal. What is this whole mental realm? He will not distinguish the prerequisites and will leave out the preparations. He will also not distinguish between the parts of prayer. A kavannah for aleinu can’t be brought over to shema.
Wolfson
Wolfson has clear pieces of the Kuzari where prayer is the active imagination of the heart. He will talk about how the letters ascend even without kavanah. However, he also does not differentiate between the kavanot of different prayer.
And now…
Rabbinic
Heineman will find petitionary non-liturgical prayers in hazal and Moshe Greenberg will find it in the Bible e.g. Boaz in the field. We will look at prayer more like Ethanan. Non-spontaneous Moshe and God, but also non-conversational. Kabbalists will have as a model of prayers “may something happen” (jussive form) a fixed vision of what prayer is. Kabbalists will view it as a relationship or future vision. Heineman will praise the spontaneous bayit sheni prayers which were fluid before they were fixed, and how wonderful piyut is for keeping the spirit of prayer open. All petitionary and only the rabbis formulated one fixed version. Ezra Fleischer put out an article on the history of the amida and claims it was fixed post hurban. The ideal texts of yeshaya and yirmiya – the tzedek and mishpat, the ideal worlds. None of it is petitionary, but apocalyptic. The kabbalists like this as well as the rabbis with ruach ha-kodesh putting all of this together.
Greek Prayer Simon Poulian differences between Greek prayer and the rabbis. His claim is that the rabbis don’t have petitionary prayer. In Greek parts, have praise, what your asking for and why you want it to be. There is never a quid pro quo in classic rabbinic prayer. (Note: He’s wrong. See the chapter of Heineman on law-court patterns, and Judith Newman’s book on Scriptualization which shows a similar form in Bayit Sheni literature.)
Solomon Schechter – assumes that Judaism is not theological, but has an idea that prayer is entering into a relationship with the king. Ol machut shamayim is what all philosophers and kabbalists were talking about. He will deal with the Rosh Hashana service as we are the kingdom worshipping the king on a public place. He will talk about zechut avot – that we are born into the servants of the king.
E.J. Articles of Ginsberg – emphasizes forms of adoration, clear icon representation of a king.
Uri Erlich deals with the non-verbal gestures and shows how there is a presence which should be invoked, not the spontaneous, but the set of halachot don’t make sense without this iconography. E.g. taking three steps back, bowing, etc. There is a clear sense of the shekhina before you pray. He will limit himself to rabbinic texts.
Shlomo Naeh holds of prayer as “speaking through you” Shagur bepiv means talking in toungues – a form ecstatic speaking. He proves this from the Syriac and other texts.
In the text in the Yerushalmi where you have the amoraim who ask what are you thinking about during prayer, one person says I never had kavanah. The question is what does that mean? Others have as their kavanah staring at a brick wall or the clouds. Some will interpret these as special concentrations.
How to view Berachot as a Kabbalist
Kabbalists will understand the gemara Berachot 3 R. Yishmael talking to Akatriel and the final blessing as moving from midat hadin to midat harahamim. Tosafot there talks about the meaning of yehei shmei rabba. Debbei Rashi say this means an increase in the divine name. When you come to a phrase like “tefila rahame ninhu” in the hands of the kabbalist means middat hadin à middat harahamim not an emotional outpouring of the texts. Throughout berachot, these words are seen as having power.
Week 2 – January 31
|
|
Activity |
Locution |
Illocution |
Prelocution |
Ideal |
Hindrances |
Role of
Liturgy |
|
Bahya Ibn Pakuda |
Inner State |
Love and Devotion |
Dependence upon the divine |
All is dependent on God |
Hasid |
No Trust in God, no Philosophy to
appreciate God’s unity, this world |
Downplayed. |
|
Yehuda Haleivi (Kuzari) |
Active Imagination of Presence |
Ain Sichli of Words – meaning of the words
in the mind’s eye |
Actualize Inyan Eloki – where your mind’s
eye becomes the divine. |
Active Restoration of World |
Hasid à Navi |
Body, not doing mitzvoth or not having the
right sense of the mitzvoth |
1) Pro-liturgy, 2) Words have power 3) Emphasizes role of tzibbur |
|
Rambam |
Contemplation |
Comprehension, abstraction, heshek |
Presence of God as Hochma |
To Actualize self as Ish Ha-Elokinm since
you aren’t affecting the cosmos |
Hacham à Hasid à Navi |
Sickness, education, wealth, body as a
whole |
Getting inner
comprehension as to what it truly means. |
Shmuel Bar Hofni holds all mitzvoth and tefillah need kavvanah without any question – he just assumes it. R. Saadiah Gaon has prayer as an entreatment to the divine – a gesture to the divine like ethanan. You get a sense that kavvanat halev is having a sense of the divine.
Bahya (see handout) will hold there are two types of mitzvoth 1) of the limbs and 2) of the heart. You have to know the words of what your saying, but the goal is the act of submission in prayer. The liturgy is downplayed. The prayer is the words. The words require the idea, the idea doesn’t require the words. You have a seder and invoke submission through this seder. Not about the recitation of the liturgy, but what it invokes in the internal states. You go about praying by:
1) make sure mind isn’t elsewhere
2) body is absolutely still – contemplative state and
3) still feelings and thoughts of outside mind. Attention and meditation here. Think about nothing except God.
Importance of trust, faithfulness – see everything in your life, not just the prayer is one of giving yourself over to the divine. All about the inner piety and not about getting anything in this world. His view minimizing the significance of the liturgy is probably from Sufi influence.
Yehuda Ha-Levi (see handout): he rejects the mortification tradition of the Sufis and reject the need to run off on your own. Even though you don’t need the mortification, the model is Eliyahu or Enoch because your company is with angels and not people. If anything suffering would take part in this world and you wouldn’t mind death. There is a level called benei hanevieim. They do go off in the desert and help each other. This is seen as a lower level. But once there are no more neveiim, there is no point to this anymore since we don’t have the divine light anymore. Instead, we now have tefillah betzibbur which has the same function. Ramban will cite Eliyahu and Enoch as current models for himself. The hasid is defined as someone with complete control of your body and your life. The true way to be pious is to have a complete conceptual control over your imagination and over your desires. The intellect must decide what’s good and what’s bad. The ultimate goal is to invoke imagery of Har Sinai, the Akeida, the mikdash. You actively construct images of these ideas. This active imagination is called memory – brining on clear ideas from your mind and controlling these ideas in a fixed way and don’t let imagination/illusion, or desires to interfere. Remove from gestures of 3 steps to having a complete mastery of control – it shows control over all parts of the self. Ultimately life should be for those moments of prayer and that is ultimately what we are striving for in this world.
The locution is knowing the intention of the rabbinic statements. Use controlled memory, ain sichli, to understand what the words mean and visualize what you are saying. E.g. when mention the meorot, think of yourself in the cosmos. During Ahavt Olam, you see how the divine light shines on all of the community of Israel (the collective) as a clear mirror. This whole goal is for God’s kingdom to be on earth. You’re picturing the divine light, the goal is to bring God’s glory to some restored reality from people who understand the role of mitzvoth. Shema becomes a kabbalah of Torah. You can do bakashot if you want in shomeia tefilla. He should envision the divine presence for hamachazir scheninato, you treat the divine presence as if it’s there.(457) Ose shalom is taking leave of this divine presence. The entire liturgy is comprised of ideas which can be referred to by imagination. God comes down like rain to the community.
Rambam (see handout): Rambam clearly against all piyutim and any changes to the nusach. This is the biggest reason people don’t have kavanah and that’s why people talk during davening. Rambam will do away with the hazara in Egypt because there is no reason if the people are talking. He will have teshuvot about the purpose of the kavanah – better to have less with kavanah than more without it. Rambam will hold there is no benefit to pray quickly. Do contemplation with recitation – without contemplation, there is no purpose. Originally, people would say their own prayers, but now there is a fixed liturgy. Kavanah during tefillah is an absolute in Mishah Torah chapter 4, in 10, just shema and amida is sufficient. In The Guide, Rambam says we are limited to the words used in the mikra and we can’t use our own language. Any praise not done with the language of anshe kenesset hagedola is unacceptable. Your intellect should be completely to God. Divine presence is complete conceptual apprehension which is called the divine. There is never and image, it’s always your apprehension. Your internal stream of consciousness is receiving from God. Rambam is anti-physicality unlike R. Yehuda Ha-Levi. If you think about the wrong conception of God, it isn’t God. You can only worship God after intellectual apprehension. One can only pour out the heshek proportional to one’s knowledge. After you have abstraction, and love, you have contemplating the first sechel hapoel – the first level of universal knowledge. Things which come into your mind is not considered knowledge. Rambam holds isolationism is a virtue for contemplation. Like Bayha, you need kavanah.
Practically, Rambam holds you fix your mind on the divine unity on the divine name, understand not just that God is one, but make sure your body doesn’t get in the way. You are identifying your internal narrative in the divine. Regarding sacrifices, the nature of man is to do what it is accustomed. The second intention are rituals which bring you to the first intention of knowing God.
The Provence school will say this means if you have the appropriate intention, you don’t need the liturgy. You have this method in Talmidei Bet Yonah where he says you should remove neshama from guf. The Mabit (non-kabbalist in 16th century tzefat) in beit elokim has a Maimonidean approach to tefillah. (on suggested reading). Radbaz has Maimonidean teshuvot as well emphasizing the kavanah.
Avraham Ben Ha-Rambam will abolish piyut and all talking. You have to wash your feet in additional to your hands like the Muslims. No lighting of candles for the dead, no petitions for refuah or parnasa. Everyone has to sit perfectly in rows. This didn’t go over well. In terms of his doctrine, there are 5 levels of avoda. 1) Esoteric worship in which tefillah is entirely kavanah and mahshava – only for the elite, not even the neviim could reach this level 2) lev and evarim – also for the elite – make sure 3) everybody – work together to have kavanah through the evarim and will introduce full prostration like the Muslims at the end of every mizmor of hallel and pesukei d’zimra, and singin shmei rabba in kadish, kedusha… When you pray you must do full raising of the hands like Gemara megillah – biblical modeling. 4) For those who stick to normal gestures – bow when hazal tell you to bow. 5) The amida of the mikdash – just the awe you get from being in the mikdash without liturgy or gestures. He will advocate going into the desert. His son Ovadia will continue this method and tell you what to do in the desert. Since all about the kavanah, just saying the words without the gestures is not an legitimate option.
Week 3 – February 7
Get the Meirat Enayim from the sefarim sale, Cordovero, all Scholem, Tishby, Zohar, Tiqquinei Zohar, Siddurim of the Rishonim, Reishit Hochma for Tzefat.
See Daniel Falk’s book on Bayit Sheni Prayer. Heichalot is a literature parallel to rabbinic literature which tells you how to ascend to heaven. In telling you how to get to higher levels, the protagonists sing hymns and the angels sing hymns. They will sing Qeddusha, aleinu, aderet veemuna, etc. Philip Bloch wrote in German proving all of these prayers originated from the heichalot. Scholem accepted it. People are rejecting it now although no one is reading the original German. The current trends are that some of these prayers come from Qumran, some from rabbinic literature, some from the original heichalot, some from apocrypha, priestly traditions.
Scholem categorizes them as numinous – evoking a sense of awe, dependence before this great otherness of God. Current trends reject that. Halpern and Schafer hold that the heichalot is about magic and not about God. Peter Schafer would say that you are saying these prayers to get the power the rabbis had in the heichalot. Moved from locution to perlocution. For Scholem, you didn’t care what they meant, the prayers had an effect on you but didn’t have meaning. You are just rattling off the attributes of God. The reason you are doing this is that the words of the prayers have an effect on you. The others hold that it is a magical formula.
These prayers already assume some binary structure to God in the sense that there is a higher and a lower part of God. In Aleinu, you first praise the adon hakol and then give gedula to the demiurge underneath – the yotzer bereishit. This lower demiurge will be associated with metatron and anapheal. In some of these texts, you will find responsive reading, animals singing, etc. Baruch sheamar had originally followed the formulistic criteria – it had a fixed number of verses corresponding to sephirot etc. Idel will find theurgy – that we find the divine.
See the handout “Ritual Practices to Gain Power.” The perlocution is clearly magical. The first part, has anapheal the demiurge speaking. There is an illocution of meditating on the deeds of the creator while simultaneously have a locution of one letter at a time even though it’s magic. There is a split consciousness in kavannah and you are mentioning the letters while doing it. See Nishmat handout 105: The original phrase hai olam was when you used God’s name when you shouldn’t have. You are using the texts for magical or theurgic reasons. Idel will set everything up as theurgy. Idel will avoid the heichalot literature and will look to the pesikta de’rav kahana and look for gevura as a hypostatic quality. Through prayer you are increasing God’s powers. Idel’s model is that your hands and words add something to the divine.
We will have many groups in Ashkenaz.
1) Ashkenaz which applies to everybody
2) Debei Rashi
3) Rokeach – exoteric
4) Rokeach – esoteric
5) Keruv Hameyuhad
6) Proto-kabbalistic texts – Eliezer Ha-Darshan
7) Tosafot – not very mystical
General Ashkenaz will have a great deal of body postures during tefillah e.g. shukelling. The statement in the gemara that your eyes should be down is taken as a directive. The raising 3 times at kadosh will be generated in Ashkenaz. The general tradition is to pray slowly without extraneous thoughts. Prayer will have preconditions e.g. men going to the mikvah regularly is assumed as is keeping women out of the temple or holding sifre torah.
Tosafot is responsible for tefillah ein tzericha kavannah, but they still expect you to have some iconic representation of the shekhinah. God is only on the East-West meridian not North-South. Clear spatial sense of which way to look. God is literally in the East for the Tosafot. They do not have a full cosmology to go along with this.
Debei Rashi: no good research done on them. From Sanhedrin, we see Rashi accepting angelic prayers. There is a certain amount of accepting general piety in Rashi. When you say kaddish, you are combining God’s broken name into one. When the gemara says you should go through two doors before you daven, it means you should settle in your minds first before you pray. This is taken as a given and will be important because the kabbalists will later use this line of going through two doors.
Exoteric Ashkenaz: Unlike England and France, the German Jews assume that every letter was sacrosanct and not be altered. Each letter will have significance. See Ashkenazic Pietism handout. Even into modernity, Emden, Aibshitz, and Hatam Sofer still thought in these terms. Their whole conception of reality was different which accounts for their perception of the sacredness of every letter. Even if the bore is everywhere, we still look up at the divine kavod which is God’s clear manifestation which is a clear image we look at even though we are thinking of the borei. We think about the absolute even though we visualize something else. The general Ashkenaz trend is you know what you say and pour out your heart to that you understand. You have a simple explanation to what you say. God desires the heart. Recall the shepherd story on Yom Kippur. There is no resolution between the personal kavannah and the significance of the letters.
Esoteric Ashkenaz: Three movements within this world
1) Keruv Hameyuhad – figures like Elkana of London and various French texts.
a. Have Borei à kavod à kruv hameyuhad - don’t think of the apprehension when you pray. Think of the Kavod but pray to the kruv
2) Rokeach, Eleizer of Worms
a. Emphasizes the Borei which is everywhere à regular kavod à melachim. Think Borei – God’s infiniteness and being everywhere, look at the kavod and don’t pray to the melachim
3) Proto-Kabbalah
a. Borei à Kavod à Shechina – another ontic part of God below.
The Kruv Hameyuhad See Emergence of Mystical Prayer reading: Even though the keruv hameyuhad appears, you should only think of the kavod which is formless, but it does have sound and speech. Ignore the Borei since it’s too great to comprehend. Holiness is another name for the middle kavod. The Kruv will work on the East West axis. It will be called gedulah, malchut, and it’s in the East. You keep your mind on the true kisei hakavod even as you look to that Eastern meridian. According to the kruv hameyuhad circle, it is the vision of akatriel from the gemara – Shemuel didn’t see God, but bumped into the kruv. That kruv have a light blue partition. West (Kavod) à East Blue. You don’t pray to the kruv, but to the source of its energy.
Yosef Dan frames this as in opposition to the philosophers. This is in response to the anthropomorphism. Danny Abrams says the problem isn’t the anthopomorphism which wasn’t an issue, but if God is incomprehensible, what are you seeing? It must be this kruv. The idiom kruv hameyuha for Dan means special. For Abrams, this mean yahid – the part of the angel which reflects the divine light. These texts are not talking about human worship, but what the melachim serve. He will point out that you have a binary structure to the divine – you have the infinite and the down below.
Rokeach: Most of Rokeach’s thoughts on prayers are written in siddurim. Dan looks at the arbitrary writings. Wolfson brings a little material of visualizing shem hashem as the borei, you keep your eyes down and think of the borei. Abrams (in Daat 94) points out that according to Eliezer of worms there are two parts: physical and spiritual. The Hasidim are worried about techniques. If the borei is infinite and mental, that’s where you think. If the kavod is physical, that to what you move – all gesture are addressed to the kavod. Since mental in infinite and not inherent to the body, it goes to the borei. We will find in the prayer texts a separate kavod below. The Borei is everywhere in every place. If he’s everywhere, there is one kavod up and one kavod on earth. When we say God is one, keep your mind on the borei despite the other levels. Ashkenaz will hold the shul is a minor mikdash. The prayer image is that of the anthropomorphic God, there is an image of yaakov, a female image, rahamim and din, and there will be a personified God and when you say keddusha, God will kiss Yaakov on the kavod. As a prayer, your recitation, thinking about the borei has the effect automatically if you are saying these things properly. The amida will save you from gehenom because the image of God is as large as gehenom. It will save you from eating tereifot (still following Eretz Yisrael and 18 tereifot) and the 18 vertebrae, etc. Just as God fills everything above, God fills everything below. When you pray with kavannat halev – devotion and simple intention, Sandalphon comes and clarifies the words of your heart. If they are correct, he brings them up to keter i.e. God. Sandalphon takes your breath as an object (visible in the winter) and calls these breaths stones. He will take these prayers through the celetial hierarchy from the oneness of Israel to the oneness of God. Sandalphon crowns God with these tefillot and is therefore called keter. The angels do keddusah after this and it reaches its climax at baruch shem when these words are placed on keter. If you are praying properly with simha, then you are increasing the light of this kavod and you are storing up this light which you will receive in the atid lavo.
No one has written on these passages this yet. They are using a divine drama. For the humans, you are storing up light for the world to come. Light mysticism, but eschatological. Not the vision of the blue electrum. You are not seeing anything, just praying properly. Idel will take as the meaning of all this is that the atara is placed on God by the 42 letter name – akatriel is God personified not a separate entity. Idel brings out the piece where the shechina is personified and is crowned as the consort of God and is called “daughter” and sits besides the king. This is called prayer itself – the theurgic act of uniting and completing God. This is theurgic and what we’ve see until now has either been to see the light or to store up light for the future.
At the turn of the 12th
century, R. Yaakov Hanazir will teach kabbalah and have a student R. Asher who
writes Sefer Haminhagot connected to the baalei hamaor.
The other school is
Raavad whose father-in-law is the Ravi.
1220
The main one is R.
Yitzhak Sagi Nahor. His students are R.
Azariya, and R. Azriel. In the 1230’s
have R. Yaakov Bar Sheshet. Ramban is
related to this school but has his own system.
Ramban’s student is R. Sheshet in the 1260’s and the Rashba, R.
Behaya.
In Castille have R.
Turdis Abulafia
Shaat Hakavanot is
written post Ibn Tibbon in the 1260’s.
There was a really cool
chart which I can’t transcribe.
The issue is what happens
when Ashkenaz meets the newly translated Islamic tradition of Rambam and
Kuzari.
Week 4 – February 14
We last left off with the
cool chart. We are in a region which
was not Arabic speaking. Provence,
Spain, etc. are becoming under one rule.
At the end of the 12th century they will translate works from
Arabic into Hebrew. They will know
Ashkenaz traditions and Judeo-Arabic traditions. The same way in halacha they will know Tosafot and not use their
method, the Rambam, the Provence scholars will try to sort everything out and
resolve contradictions. They will do
the same thing for kabbalah. Those from
Ashkenaz will see Ashkenaz in Provence, those from Spain will see Arabic
thought. We start seeing the prayer
techniques in the halakhic writings like the eshkol. The two people who are now credited with the birth of kabbalah –
the revealing of the secrets – are the Raavad and R. Yaakov Hanazir
(1190-1200). The question is how to
they relate to their antecedents in Ashkenaz and their antecedents in
philosophy like the Ramban, R. Yehuda, and R. Bahya (see above table). 1220’s have R. Yitzhak Sagi Nahor and the
Ramban. We will jump today to the
prayer method presented by they thought and then work backwards to the
antecedents and then go forward. Both
Scholem and Idel will simply use the word kavannah. Brill will present his typology and then we will analyze Idel and
how he picks and chooses. Instead of a
simple kavannah, we will see:
1) Attention – Shem Hashem continuous
2) Static – 10 sefirot – start
3) Dynamic image – specific sefirah for a specific
verse – constantly changing
4) Dynamic image – divine name with vowels – specific
on divine name.
Idel will assume Shem
Hashem = 10 sefitot = 1 sefirah. It’s
all about the same process.
Levels 1-3 will be
“revealed” i.e. accessible to the masses by the 1220’s, level 4 will remain a
secret in the kabbalah.
We will be looking at
full practices actually in use.
Meirat Eynaim p 278 (Yitzhak from Acco see handout): We are
dealing with the continuous attention.
This is for individuals and the masses.
This is a general directive from Y. Sagi Nahor – that everyone has to do
this to bind your soul to the above. We
have closer to the Maimonidean focus on God here. Your mahshava is continuous (attention) on putting the letters of
shem hashem as they are written in ktav ashuri. This is the basic point that you are keeping in your mind, no
matter what you do. First, each letter
of the divine name should be so great in your eyes, they should fill your
entire mental screen. It fills your
whole vision. Note: But if you are
thinking of something totally, how do you think of something else? This will be a point of debate – do you
shrink the previous image, superimpose a new one, clear the slate etc. The Meirat Eynaim changes from going from
the mental screen, you have a split consciousness with your heart being pointed
to the ein sof. You have a dual
consciousness, visionary (what you are seeing) and thought (what you are
thinking about – in this case, the ein sof).
Which means, does this undercut the first sentence or not? In other words, what is the nature of this
shift? Does this mean the mental screen
is more important, or the divine name has the infinite behind it? You will find both interpretations. Possibly based on different girsaot. At any rate, while a person’s soul is in the
state of cleaving to the divine name, you will have complete intellectual
conjunction, no accidents or mistakes will occur since your reality is above
the world of accidents (similar to Rambam).
This attention will be used
in Tzefat and they will apply colors.
You will start in black – the world of asiyah. Once you see other colors, you move up to yetziah. If you see a shining white light you are in
azilut. This meditation continues, but
depending where you are, your mind will take different directions e.g. knowing
what level you have reached. The
traditions will use this meditation on all the parts of the body e.g. for
healing – it will be used as your channel to read almost anything.
Back to Meirat Einayim:
Yitzhak, though blind, was able to know what was going on in the outside
realm. Why visualize the divine
name? The divine name stands for ilot
haillot (Ashkenaz phrase), the sibot hasibot (philosophy phrase), the sephirot,
and the ein sof. They assumed kabbalah
interacted with the natural order at this time – sefirot went down to gnats as
one divine being. The name is the
ultimate reality of everything. Meirat
Einayim will drop the use of illot haillot and call it tiferet, the central of
all sefirot, which gets its energy from gedulah/hessed. If you have this continuous attention,
before you have tefillah, you are now moving from tiferet à bina or tiferet à hessed depending on your system. What is the static image you now need during
tefillah? The mental screen will be the
divine name with a source behind it or above it.
Preparations: If you have the secret of cleaving to the
divine name, you have the secret of equanimity which enables the secret of
meditation which will lead to ruach hakodesh and the ability to tell the
future. Someone came to R. Avner who
wanted to join the meditation circle.
His response was you need equanimity to join. So long as you don’t have the stilling of emotions, you can’t get
ruach hakodesh.
How do you now pray? Preface: Clear traditions of Yitzhak Sagi
Nahor and Ramban. R. Yitzhak Sagi Nahor
will hold tefillah goes up to bina while Ramban will hold it is totally in
tiferet. From the Ramban’s point of
view, before you pray you need an image of hessed and gevurah from tiferet. Ultimately you are engaged in something
coming down from the ein sof. For R.
Yitzhak Sagi Nahor you have to raise or see the higher place of hochma and
keter with the ein sof coming into keter.
Yitzhak from Acco will have another approach where you have bina but
hessed and gevurah before it. It is not
static, but you have a mental range where tifillah happens. If your mind (the hamon) thinks of the
tiferet, you are now going though hessed and gevurah to get to bina. The external gesture of walking back,
parallels the stepping back of the mental image of going back to the shem
hashem in your mind. God now refers to
your mental icon. This then means that
God is praying – God himself needs to be raised in this vision when you
praise. You want to bless shem hashem
and not want to stand outside. You have
a certain mental space for you to enter.
He will have a picture of the 10 galgalim – not a subjective image, but
an objective realm to enter the space when you pray. There is some cosmic reality as to why everything is linked. If you received an understanding about this
circle as reality, good. You need the
tradition to get this picture because this is reality. This is the static image of the 10
sefirot. Their reality was that you are
distant from the sephirot like viewing planets. They lived in a closed interconnected reality. Provence will be reading Ashkenaz texts with
now reality around them. Ashkenaz texts
can be seen in the mind. Even if you
aren’t thinking about the steps, you know you pass the moon to get there
(before television corrupted our minds so now we can invoke any image without
thinking of transversing space, but by clicking on our mental remote control to
go from image to image). This is
cosmic imagery not Islamic centering imagery.
You open up at the bottom
of the chart, you then have two doorways to go through before you’ve even
started the formal berachot of the amida.
We’re now at level 3. You’re already
setting up your realm and your goal to bring shefa down from bina. If you have already set up from malchut to
keter, what is the level of setting up a kavannah for each word? (switch to Idel article 28) Once you have the image of the 10 sefira,
each word will have a specific kavannah.
Idel will make all the things the same.
The shem hashem from before is placed on the back burner. When it comes to the higher divine name shem
hashem, you will concentrate on correct nikkud. When you use it in tefillah, it has vowels, normally it does
not. Think of bina as it absorbs hessed
and gevurah. You are bringing it down
before you. The question for him is how
far down is “before you” (i.e. is it directly in front of you or further back). After you bring it down, you bring it back
up. You’re visualizing the divine name
at the end of the hatima and at the same time you are bringing down the beracha
to tiferet. According to R. Yitzhak
Sagi Nahor tefilla is bringing from bina to sod every day. During the aseret yemei teshuva, you never
leave sod. The Ramban will never let you get past tiferet. Tiferet becomes a chattel for hessed and
gevurah. For R. Yitzhak Sagi Nahor, you
are making a mental ascent and you are in the process, for Ramban, it’s a fixed
reality and your connection to tiferet.
When you do tahanunim, you don’t get any further than malchut.
Continuing the debate
between R. Yitzhak Sagi Nahor and Ramban, at night you can go up to bina. For Ramban, you stay there for R. Yitzhak
Sagi Nahor, there is more going on. For
the Ramban, the first and last 3 are to bina, the middle is to tiferet and you
go back up, but a blessing which has a blessing at the end, the beginning is
for bina and the end for all 10 sefirot – you go back to the cosmic
vision. For the Meirat Einayim, you
can’t skip around – you have to chose which method you are using to pray.
Week 5 – February 21
Mechilta Beshalach on Zeh
Keili Vanveuhu
Last class we were
discussing the position of R. Yitzhak Sagi Nahor, we dealt with the mental
focus, going through two doors about which Brill made a big deal, the dynamic
of thinking about different sefirot. This is a slower process of being
revealed. We will go back today and do
the shema and then back in time to Raavad and R. Yaakov Hanazir and compare what
we are doing with them with Idel.
Page 114 in the Meirat
Einayim – finishing off the shemot
Yitzhak from Acre will
quote from many different sources
He gives the rabbinic
warning (Sanhedrin 90a) that you can’t pronounce the name according to its
letters. We live in a lowly fallen
world because of our sins so we of course can’t pronounce the divine name. But what you do is to imagine it internally
as if the nikkud is in front of you.
What this means will be debated – what does yahshov belibo mean? What are you doing? Are you just visualizing
it as one icon or are you saying it – how much do you mentally pronounce
it? The Ari holds this is only graphic
and he breaks it up into different units (i.e. breaks up the letters into
various patterns). There are a myriad
of varieties of the nikkud – there are different versions, so we have a dynamic
sequence. There is a koach to the
divine name – it has a great power to it.
You find this point in Ashkenaz and in the Kuzari and Ibn Ezra. Ultimately, this will be accepted by all
post-13th century. The
Gerona school assumes this is all part of Torah Shebeal Peh. In the same way you only know safrut through
kabbalah, you need a masorah for kabbalah.
They are not kabbalists here, but they are teaching hochmei
yisrael. Meirat Einayim – You can use
this for your own purposes. There is an
element of magic i.e. the petitionary prayer.
You visualize the divine name.
According to Cordovero, you just vision the hessed in your mind in white
to invoke hessed. Meirat Einayim –
there is a real need for Penthos – the cry.
Crying isn’t for expressionistic purposes, you have to cry to open up
the gates of mercy or the shaarei hatefillah.
For them, even crying without emotion, or fake tears works – crying is a
ritual act until the 19th century.
116
13th century
figures did not write out the divine name, they used verbs instead. The first word is all kamatz (Keter for
Cordovero), then mixed packages. There
are 10 discrete sefirot which are all together in the ein sof. Idel in the R. Yitzhak Sagi Nahor article
will say Hashem = 1 sefira = 10 sefirot.
Therefore a text which says 1, will be equated with texts with 10. This is all kabbalah, you can’t do any sort
of sevara. The process of recording
these things on paper will necessitate sevara though. If it’s your own pilpul and you understand it by analogy or
implications, its permitted to write, but you can understand davar mitoch davar
from this.
117
Moral and ethical
prerequisites – you can’t do things unless your on the right level. The order of the vowels are: Kamatz, Sheva,
Kamatz, Hirik. How you now relate to
the divine names to the ein sof? You
just visualize the divine name in this form.
This is less the illocution but are the sefirot the mental screen or are
they dynamic? Or are they part of the
ever expanding icon at that moment or it remains the same but is not the focus
at that point – a difference in illocution.
If you try all
combinations, you will have 10. it’s
not that you don’t have to do it for the other ones, but at least you will do
the divine name with three nekudot. You
have to do 10 permutation for the berachot and the amida, for the rest, you can
do one image of 3 nekkudot. You suspend
the sefirot long enough for you to have the divine name. The only question is are you now expanding
the mental screen or is it that you have the mental screen but the name
flashes. Meirat Einayim will break up
the divine name into sephirot.
The divine name is the
continuous focus in your mind, but the two doors is only for tefillah. Do you have that vision yet or do you
not? Moshe said to Yisrael and used
eloheinu not elohecha because Moshe unified God in front of the Jewish
people. You just said shema which is to
God. What does the Atara – the lower
level get? She smelled your offering,
but how does she get some of what is being offered? You then say baruch shem
for that lower level. We don’t want to
show she is lacking and jealous and therefore we say it quietly. What is the secret of shema? You have a shema to the higher oneness of
the divine, there is a lower hypostasy which isn’t getting its due, we
recognize this, and we say to whatever this ontic element is, you say another
verse to that lower state. Ultimately,
this isn’t about yihud like Castille or the Zohar, but about Ashkenaz dealing
with the higher level first followed by the lower level. We’ve already seen this to the rabbinic
heichalot patterns in Aleinu. Idel does
this nicely in sefirot meal hasefirot from Tarbitz – roads into kabbalah not
through the Bahir. You don’t do Bahir à Zohar or the creation of kabbalah.
They are conscious that
it is not a petitionary prayer, but an affirmation.
Shema Yisrael Hashem =
The top three levels
Eloheinu = Hesed and
Gevura
Hashem = Tiferet, Nezach,
Yesod, and Hod
Ehad = Unification of all
9
The final Daled stands
for the loneliness of Malchut and repository of the final 9. She is the beit david, the Kallah. This is post-Calstillian and how he sees the
unity.
The second verse is:
Baruch
Shem = name – you raise
the kavod to the tiferet.
Kevodo = tiferet which is
the teshuva
Malchuto = go up to
teshuva
Leolam = Descend from
bina to tiferet
Vaed = Back to malchut and you brought down the
shefa from bina to tiferet to malchut.
You have two separate
addresses. The first verse is bringing
everything down from the top 3 sefirot to malchut and the second verse, you are
now going up and back down to bring down the beracha. Are you flashing them individually or creating a new mental
screen (Brill’s choice). You are
clearly going up and coming back down.
Ultimately he realizes that everything is now unified in the ein
sof.
Until now, we have been
reading 1220. We’ve had Ashkenaz, and
the philosophy. How do we get there?
Someplace around 1190, we
have a change.
For Scholem, R. Yaakov
Hanazir held tiferet and higher than that you have keter. Raavad held yotzer
bereishot and illot haillot higher. You
now have a system of sefirot. Raavad
uses the Ashkenaz names, R. Yaakov Hanazir use the names we know now. Most manuscripts back up Scholem. For Scholem, these levels correspond – it’s
part of the same Gnostic theme.
For Idel: Based on
another manuscript, For R. Yaakov Hanazir, Yoezer bereishit and a higher ilot
hailot i.e. he’s still following Ashkenaz.
Rather than automatically being new, ultimately, he is still doing the
form of Ashkenaz. The Raavad invented
something new – i.e. the father gets the credit for the theosophy and theurgy.
Sefer Haminhagot
(Last page of Emergence
of Prayer packet)
What are people thinking
in 1170-1180 to see how people are thinking.
Everyone has picked up
the Ashkenaz custom of adding el melech neeman to have 248 words when you do
not have a minyan. Almost all of these
Ashkenaz customs will have the hint of kabbalah. For Ta-Shema most of this is Ashkenaz – kabbalah is not picking
up the letter counting. You go from a
cosmic recognition of the divine to realizing Torah represents a natural order
an ultimately on the unity of God. Two
very different ways ofsaying what the shema means. 1) Public demonstrative statement and you are affirming that God
rests on the keruvim – but in some way, this act of affirming the kavod takes
you back up to keter which is the bore olam.
Ultimately, the ehad takes you up to the infinite while your concerned
with the kavod and keruvim. 2) There is
another school which says the secret of shema is tiferet. This one has a deep secret – everyone knows
the Ashkenaz traditions, but he can’t tell you about tiferet. Why is tiferet not just another icon who
sits on a keruv, but something
else. The first approach assumed that there
was something you could visualize. It
can’t mean Reishit Ha-kabbalah is the that you are going through the two doors. It will be stage 3, assuming there is a
mental space, assuming that there is something there besides what you are
imaging. You are not merely visualizing
the image, but creating something beyond the image. There is something deeper to the tiferet.
Eshkol – The Shema Texts
(last 3 pages in unique cherub reading)
According to Berachot is
to acknowledge God in 6 directions around you.
In Ashkenaz, the six directions will be connected to the seraphim – the
angelic realm. In Provence (the author
of the Eshkol – the Ra’bi, father of Raavad) will time the length. Het = 3,
daled = 6. You rotate your head while
doing the shema. He uses sefer yezira
for permutations of the divine name to do with the head rotation. Notice the sense of space is the cube around
you. What went on between 1170 and 1220
which created this text. R. Ezra of
Gerona (student of Isaac the Blind) – We now have the tree imagery, everything
is unified into the ein sof. You don’t
see the prior texts having the raising and lowering, but they have separate
levels. The sense of space is also no
longer around your body, but the sephirotic realm. At that point, the shema is about creating that realm. You are moving from the body to the mental
screen.
Next class: Gerona
Week 6 – February 28
Idel clearly thinks the
Ashkenazi material became the Provencal material. Keter and bina are the same as illot haillot which equals all ten
sephirot and therefore the unification.
R. Yitzhak Sagi Nahor is theurgy because you are thinking of a sefira
and you are bringing down the shefa.
It’s a two-step up and down process.
None of these texts use the word kavannah but remez or negged. Idel leaves out anything which deals with
the mental screen. 13th
century Gerona texts – some talk about the ein sof or the tetragrameton as a
choice i.e. you have one or the other.
Brill sees you have both – actually a process. Idel will say rikuz mahshava, yihud hasephirot, meshihat hashefa,
kavannah lesifiot, and deveikut hamahshava are all the same. He will point out in general that Zohar and
Geketilla will use R. Yitzhak Sagi Nahor’s approach, while Rashba will use
Ramban’s approach.
Each person has different
personalities. We have Azriel of Gerona
who will be more philosophic than the others.
He will say there is no difference between the philosophers (Andalusian
neo-platonists) and the kabbalists – the same world of Giketilla. R. Ezra and R. Azriel will cite Ibn
Tibbon. Bar Sheshet in the next
generation will reject them. This world
is not the privation of the one and the good.
Rather, the more richer the set, the more good it can send below – the
one is the one because it has enough blessing to permeate the entire world. The quick version of Azriel is that you go
all the way up to keter and hochma where R. Yitzhak Sagi Nahor says you only
get up to bina. He also wrote a full
page of aggadot. R. Azriel is bothered
by the gemara problems and works through how this thought fits the gemara.
Back to Avicenna…
Ibn Sina – Avicenna à will be developed by Suhawarbi à Ibn Arabi (don’t know connection in Jewish
world). Henri Corbin in Alone with
the Alone presents a certain world view that R. Azriel will be apart of. In
Corbin’s modern terms, you are starting with an Aristotillean position of abstraction
– you find God in your heart. You have
a process of abstraction which gets you into a realm which from Corbin’s
perspective, a realm in which God an man meet a sympathy of emotions which
become one in this realm. Theophatic
imagination – what you’re thinking is God’s manifestation. God binds his will his ratzon to you to the
extent that you bind your ratzon to him.
When you see God, God sees you.
Prayer is something which is a revelation of the divine. God is revealing itself to you. In Avicenna, it’s filled with angels and
images, but they are seen as objective.
Corbin will point out to continuous creation – it’s dependent on divine
will and continuously created the world – you are entering a place where the
world is coming to be. R. Azriel will
be doing a version of this in Avicenna.
Idel’s Meso-cosmos
replaces Scholem’s Gnostic. He doesn’t
differentiate between all the different variations of this meso-cosmos.
R. Azriel 1220
Fountain of blessing is
the spirit of hochma. As much as keter
is found through hochma, this is not a label of an attribute, but there is a
whole fountain which defines the divine.
When you say “amen,” you bring down blessing, but you have to do it
correctly so you don’t get flooded.
Your actions do have this effect – even just saying amen releases these
fountains and bring down the blessing or divine energy into everything you
do. Different than R. Yitzhak Sagi
Nahor in that you expand the source of the blessing itself. R. Yitzhak Sagi Nahor will have the mental
screen of what you are visualizing.
Also, it’s all about bringing down the blessing, not about the focus or
the power of the divine name. Rather,
R. Azriel talks about the conduit.
Keter ein sof flows through hochma which is manifested (makes itself known)
in bina. Rather than having a chart, R.
Azriel makes this into an energy region where bina contains the energy of the
keter ein sof, and the hochma to which you direct your concentration. Sense of three which function as one. He plays simultaneously on amen – saying God
is infinite, God is manifest, and God is established and all are one in one
unified activity. Brill thinks this is
dynamic since you’re getting into the flow of beracha. The same way we have intelligence, concept,
and thinker (Aristolelean) thought and thinker are one in abstraction. R. Azriel will come back to these
philosophic terms which we won’t see in R. Yitzhak Sagi Nahor. He associates wisdom with wisdom which is
dynamic. When it’s kodesh, you don’t
need to mention 10 sephirot since it’s implicit – you assume it’s coming down
in the mikdash. Koach requires the yod
as it is a human concept. (See Birkat Kohanim on Behaalotcha and Ramban.) You have Kadosh at the top – the pure energy
and beracha. A 5-6 middle level for the
hitpashtut, the sovev, coming down. One
of the more extreme statements is that you bind yourself to wisdom – you bind
your mind up above, more than a mental focus.
You’re going up to hochma and bring it down to its sister bina since she
is now called kol – the entire process of creation is in bina. This mental binding doesn’t happen
automatically, you need to have the kavannah.
There are 3 levels in
tefilla 1) Needs of body 2) needs of soul 3) needs of olam haba. He said the middle level is called the
nefesh, the lower is then the guf and the upper one is olam haba. Everything in the world is matter, form, and
efes. Homer and Tzura – everything has
matter and form, and efes. Scholem says
this is a quote from the Moreh Nevuchim III:17. But Scholem makes a point that an Aristotelian concept of
privation becomes a mystical symbol.
For Scholem, Efes means cosmic nothingness – the world is created yeash
meain which is God according to the kabbalists since God was
auto-generated. Idel uses this line to
say that we see kabbalah is not symbolic but philosophic as privation. If you have a plotinus world, the further
you are from the source, the less you get.
Danny Matt puts this in Buddhist terms that Ayin is the oriental
nothingness – kabbalah is like the Buddhists, and he shows that homer and tzura
is the relative divine, the ayin is the absolute divine. Brill’s read is that this middle theophanic
world is the world of tzurot, but efes is clearly your coordinate on this
world. Efes says how far down you are,
how much manifest you are. It is your
privation from your pure forms to your lower forms. Efes is a degree term – that’s what it means in avicenna. Azriel continues that there is a
continuation of homer where if homer changes, it changes the tzura. This quality of image change is called efes
because it is an implicit quality which is always there. No matter how it appears, that quality that
the energy takes on lots of forms is called efes. That quality of continuous creation is called efes. The fact that God sustains this world is
because of goodness. The forms of this
overflowing – that the form just flow down on it. If you have tahanunim, you didn’t have that on R. Yitzhak Sagi
Nahor who wasn’t focused on the names, you give yourself up to this
energy. You see that everything in this
world is fluid. If you realize that
human needs go back up to the bubbling fountain then that is proper prayer. When you pray, you have to everything to
this quality of efes – that everything is transitory. Tefillah is petitionary, but not going back to Greek models of
quid pro quo, but you offer yourself up to the transitory. If God is creating the world, he is
sufficient for all of your needs. First
you make this body contingent, then you make your mental contingent, finally
you bring yourself up to bina. What is
the yihud of shema? We say it morning
and evening. We see in our world that
hashem ehad – everything is one. In the
night you go from below up, you have to set up the emtal screen and then bring
it down, by the morning it’s assumed it’s there for you. Ramban will always think you are standing
below. Hochmei hamechcar are (Paul
Fenton article shows the Proclean verbs).
When you go up the ladder you remove forms, when you go down, you add forms. /\ form of tzurot. He has the sephirotic stream of R. Yitzhak Sagi Nahor, but R.
Yitzhak Sagi Nahor has the dynamic process of Ashkenaz. R. Azriel’s screen is now a whole energy
cloud.
(P. 172 in Scholem’s
concept of kavannah).
Scholem says this text is
1280, but others say it’s post Ibn-Tibbon.
It’s from the school of R. Azriel, but will shift from telling you to do
these things, but will have more light imagery and will have meditation.
Anyone who establishes in
their mind, the principle matter will return.
Therefore if you want prayer, or bless or something in truth, you should
imagine in your mind that you are light and light surrounds you on all side and
that light is cascading you into. This
is a practical method of what to do.
Light is a clear technique – no pesukim and is easy to tell over. In the
middle of this light, there is a throne of light. You have nogah in one direction and tov in the other. These will stand for good and bad. Scholem points out that beiyun doesn’t turn
this into prayer, and that noga becomes bad either because it’s the lowest
thing in yehezkel’s vision or because of the Spanish noche. You turn to the right for tov for good, left
for bad. Therefore you direct the words
you want to the throne that you want.
You are sitting on a ball of light.
Light is all over you. Tov on the right, nogah on the left, above that
you have bahir on the right and mazhir on the left. Above all this you have a big cloud of kavod and above that you
have hayim. The goal is to reach
yourself up to the true reality of this which according to R. Azriel is
bina. Above this is keter (which R.
Azriel calls hochma). Keter fountains
forth into the life of the hayyim and the kavod. You can’t fathom or reach the end of it. If you have yihud, you have everything. Is this yihud the going up, or is it
everything coming down into out heads.
It’s not mutually contradictory.
Is it the realization that it’s one single light or that all meorot are
one source. Therefore everything goes
into this light which is based on keter.
Therefore you bind yourself to keter in thought and volition (Corbin’s
sympathy or our ratzon) and it will come in a dream-like state and you can
investigate the realm. The dimayon is
changing – you are entering this realm and the images keep bubbling up – it’s
happening automatically from being in this realm. As opposed to R. Yehuda Halevi where you control the images. According to how strongly you bind your
ratzon to the divine, you are drawing down from the ein sof. If you are able to trim off the boundaries
from this world to keep a pure image of your mind, now dealing with the
intensity not just the directions, you are raising up all power with your
kavannah. Ikkaro is this world and you
move from there to hiddush or creation when you are up in keter. You are completely binding yourself to the
infinite. You are raising yourself up
to the ein sof. When you are up there,
you need to have proper and complete kavannah so that the divine will will bind
itself to your will. This doesn’t
happen automatically, it’s only happening when you bind your will, your
thought, all your personalities to this union do you get all of this coming
down. The goal that you go up there is
not for your own volition, but to clothe yourself in the volition of will that
it nullifies this world and there is nothing but this pure hidden infinite –
you go up to a place which transcends all our categories. If you do this properly, this will increase
your strength you will have your worldly needs through this process. When you are up there, nothing else
matters. When you come back down, you
take the beracha with you. The hassidim
harishonim would wait an hour before tefillah to set this properly. With a Maimonidean ending, this is how you
raise your path to nevuah.
Week 7 – March 7
Yaakov Bar Sheshet –
1230’s in Provence. Most of the materil
from Gerona and Provence are circulating
Yaakov Bar Sheshet is from the school of Gerona, but is no longer
assimilating the same texts, but is drawing the lines against the Ibn Tibbons
and starts the Maimonidean controversies.
Where the philosophers see the importance of prayer as the mental state,
Yaakov Bar Sheshet will be defending the actual recitation of the words as
opposed to merely the kavannah. Towards
the precision of action and not lost in the mystical realm. He will not be telling the previous class,
but he will change the orientation of kabbalah without teaching you exactly how
to pray. From the school of R. Azriel
we have light and levels of light. The
dynamism is no longer between sefirot but channeled between light. The dynamic itself is within the light. The starting focus point is towards a
Maimonidean mahshava, but the binding meditation is that of ratzon, volition of
various sorts.
369 in the Ramban Haemuna
Vehabitachon reading
R. Ezra: When it says you
should think south, you should think to the “or bahir” and this is to what you
are attached. “Shem” is a quality of
the mahshava to which you are turning.
R. Ezra has less Ashkenaz than R. Yitzhak Sagi Nahor who has the
requests for thinking about shemot.
Where the last generation was creating, in Provence, they will disagree
and be more concerned whether or not something appears correct. There is a strong quality of being in galut,
and you don’t have direct access to the shem unless you are in Eretz Yisrael. In the1230’s there was an ideal of an Eretz
Yisrael temple way of doing something and we are in a fallen state. Not given a prayer technique. We can’t bring the end of days like R. Hiyya
could have because he had a special power.
Eliyahu got do things because of the time. These are the exceptions not the rules. Nevertheless, there is power in tefillah and our prayers can be
answered. He talks about theory to
explain theology rather than telling you what to do while you pray. The ones who know how to create the binyanim
of the words will have their prayers heard.
R. Ezra was caught up in the meditiation, but he is converted into a
correct sequence or formula. It’s not
just a question of space or a spatial element.
You have a formulaic form. It’s
not that people did not know the shemot, but people did the correct formula and
without the correct formula, you won’t be answered. Ramban’s read of R. Ezra is not formulaic. Ramban shows a shift from the previous
generation. This is still the need for
shem with tefillah.
366
You will reach the level
of hochma. His tefillah starts with the
idea that you go through 2 petachim – static and the goal is to get up to
hochma, but doesn’t tell you how to get there.
We have the bringing down of the razon from the emanation from fountain
to fountain. This is the static point
where you are starting. After you have
the static kavannah of the two doors to hochma, you begin to pray. You pray by going up even further to the yod
– to the peaks, pushing further to the depths of hochma which is keter. You have the whole mental screen up to
hochma, but the point of prayer is to push forward. Through yod and vav, this is called hakadosh baruch hu. He avoids sefirot but you focus on the hey,
and the bringing down the power through the yod. Ultimately, the lower parts of the divine energy is looking up at
the higher ones. In Bereishit rabba,
there is a primordial aleph and a question as who created the bet. Ramban says there are all these elements
which are looking at each other. Aleph
has a quality of all 10 sefirot. He reads
the bahir as Bayit = bet and is another term for hochma – what you get up
to. The higher source is from where you
draw water and refresh your soul and it comes cascading down to the left – the
yabasha. You are on the shore of the
sea looking to go into it and that is what you’re going into for the amida – to
merge with the ocean. Not that tefillah
will give you any redemption, you have just reached the end of all things. You nullify this world and now you start
tefillah which is ein sof – you have redemption already in the shema. Know that all ends have to come to the
beginning. All of your tefillah is a
way for you to unify to the ein sof.
For R. Azriel, you don’t need this because you’ve already bound your
will to its will. For Ezra, this is a way
to make sure you’re in the correct mental state. He tells us that razon, the height of divinity is hidden and
secluded in the
1) Muvan mitoch davar aher – going from one thing to
another, you infer it
2) Pastetet mimennu – some manifestation from it and therefore you recognize that you have hasaga. You infer it and there is something coming forth
3) Hochma hamevareret – you have a clarified mind – awareness.
4) Purified volition – you know something else happened.
Different from R. Azriel
in that with him you know you reach a state of oneness and there is a positive
imagery. This is more apophatic, a
negative approach, you know be inference, by your mind being enlightened. Sometimes volition is intentionality
sometimes, it’s the object that you are reaching. You come down at the end of tefillah. The first two is to unto the two openings, you’ve undone the
hochma-keter, and you’re back down to where you were with the shekhina in front
of you. You bow right and left to still
bring down the shekhina into this world.
360
We have two pesukim, one
says God is light, the other says God is darkness. There is an image that there is darkness and you have God’s
hiddenness which is pure light.
If we’re doing this up
down, then the first shem hashem is the unknown essence of the divine, and the
second is saying it’s the middah – an attribute, the tiferet, hakadosh baruch
hu as a revealed entity. According to
the one that goes top down…???
Have yisrael as a
horrific being praising God in a firey way.
This is a heichalot type imagery not coming from Provence/Gerona. We see a variant of this in R. Ezra. Aleph
is oneness, Het is hochma, Daled is dimensionality or everything else. Infinite, hochma (mental focus), and all the
spatialness. Not dealing with 10 sefirot. On Yaakov Bar Sheshet you have to spend your
time on the het. The aleph is forever
receding.
The het is hochma, the
aleph is shill the infinite, but there is a tradition of R. Yitzhak Sagi Nahor
of sefirot and therefore you’re bringing it down to sod, and don’t worry about
the rest.
Unlike R. Yitzhak Sagi
Nahor, there is no 10fold cosmos, and unlike R. Ezriel where you are sitting in
light, we are on the shore of this higher source or koach and it has fourness,
angels, fire, and whatnot. Above it you
have an empty energy range called the kav.
Above that, is the static icon of the hochma. Behind that is a receding infinite quality. Here, there is the current mental shore,
above that you have the kav going all the way up to hochma which occupies the
mental screen and keter isn’t really seen be it’s receding. Have binary pair of Ashkenaz, there is a
meso-cosmos, but Idel didn’t have the tenfold level of R. Yitzhak Sagi Nahor,
and doesn’t have the hochma going down to sod.
14th century
student of Ramban school. It knows no
Castile or Zohar and thus keeps Ramban pure.
The commentary is from Yehuda Hayat – wild Castile commentary neo
Lurianic. When you say a beracha, you
think about the highest level as it is the source of the beracha. No 2 gates, but you are just going up and
down. All berachot go to bina and all
tehinot go to atara. Most tefillot are
only to tiferet, therefore you have to vary the correct for of how to have
kavannah. Quotes Hasidei Ashkenaz as if
it’s part of the Ramban’s approach.
They can translate the binaryism of Ashkenaz into their binary of bina
and tiferet as opposed to illot and illot or kavod as opposed to Yaakov Bar
Sheshet who has hochma and some sort of malchut down below. By the 14th century, Ashkenaz
looks the same.
Week 8 – March 14
Tefilla is tiferet atara
is geula which is also called hamalach hagoel.
Therefore you have samuch geula litfilla.
306 – Morechet Elokut on
Shema
He doesn’t give
names. There is a hanhaga and tells you
that Shema means kibbutz an hibbur, yisrael is tiferet. The first name you think about tiferet with
nekudot. It’s assumed there is an oral
tradition of how to do it. You then
make the ascent to elokeinu through hessed and gevura. He says pahad first – a vertical column, not
just a binary pair. Pahad is under
gevura or hessed. At the end, you think
about keter and hochma, but not too much because it’s not revealed. Therefore don’t think about all 8 at once –
don’t just flash a sefira chart because everything has to be included from
everything down from bina and sod. You
still have to go somewhere and do something and not make it as one single
imprint. Finally, in the daled you
think about the divine, this missing thing which he doesn’t tell you comes and
goes. Ultimately, the 8 is revealing
the ratzon of above. The daled is large
to show that it includes everything up above from ein sof. She (atara) is the kabbalt ol malchot
shamayim which gets the tiferet from the ein sof. This unity within malchut is alluded to, but we don’t mention it
except for the fact that it’s in the letter.
The first verse is ratzon à malchut, the second is malchut à this world. Most kabbalists follow
a Castilian path. This is basically the
path of R. Yitzhak Sagi Nahor.
First, we’ll look at
Moshe de Leon’s general statements and then his specific statements on
tefilla. Moshe de Leon will have the
mussar, the importance of doing mitzvoth with the full hanhagot of Ashkenaz. His cosmology has God as the necessary
existent, the cause of everything in the world. He creates havayot, existence which come down and control the
world for him. They control the world
for him. They emanate down and effect
the olam haemtzai. He’s using an
Aristotelian cosmology that you have a higher world which will be sefirotic,
and the fixed stars and under that, we have this world. God works the planetary spheres, which
control the world. We have a more
astronomical cosmology. The causality
within the cosmology is the existence of the divine names. Even though this world is a separate
existence, this world is completely feeding back into the divine. Scholem and Tishby will say this is polytheistic. Luria will take these statements in that you
are in a dynamic energy cloud. There is
a dynamism of things that are coming up and down. All movements are created by this. There is a continuous up and down movement. The Zohar will make this water and oil
imageries. You are in some way
partaking of these imageries. An oleh
veyored. Unlike our Gerona where
there is a clear vision, here you’re sitting in an ever changing reality. The part that is changing is not teva
itself, but something within sechel itself.
It’s a vertical transience. We
have a pulsating divine realm above us and a lowly earth realm below. Man is between the two and human actions are
what is important. We are maintaining
this energy through our actions. Tzelem
will be the volitional aspect unlike Gikatilla where tzelem is a mental state
of being able to receive nevuah. Here
it’s because we maintain the cosmos. We
maintain the cosmos through maintaining a triad of
Yezirah (vaeshel, din, ruach,
yizhak) Beriah (mayim, hessed,
neshama, avraham)
Asiah(ruach(wind), rachamim, nefesh,
yaakov)
Make sure right and left
are balanced and come into the middle.
We are the tzelem, our actions mediate the pulsating energy in the world
though the alchemetical process of balancing these things in the world. This triad comes down into and gets unified
into Atara. Asiah, the third
layer holds things together – the process of the above two and is then brought
down to David hamelech in atara below.
Atara is the moon, the rest is the sun, the result is the sun and moon
combined.
10 sefirot are the
rituals. Moshe de Leon defends the
practice of raising your hands after netillat yadaim. You are raising your hands to be like what goes on up above. You are inviking powers when you do
this. If you don’t raise your hands,
you are destroying your dugma up above.
It’s not about the kavannah, but about the actions which will
automatically invoke these powers.
79 in Wolfson Readings
The term is to be
konen. Understand why something is
fixed a way. Tefilla is silent because
you are completely in the olam haelyon.
It’s if you are offering up our own self as a korban. The hassidim harishonim who would meditate
would assume their prayers are outpouring, entreatments in order to have a
correct arrangements of what’s up above.
Ultimately, everything will be arranged up above. The hassidim were calling out for the sake
of their own souls to have this connection to the divine – not through this own
action, but to first see yourself as a tzelem elokim. You have to know how important what you have to do. You have to know the correct procedure of
the actions which is the main kavannah.
You need ahava, but the
way you express ahava by the gestures – the physical actions. Therefore you need to stand with your feet
together like the egel to remember how lowly you are. Without the gestures, the ahava is meaningless. The thee berachot have the perfect unity of
the tirad. Magen avraham show a triad
harmony up above. You are maintaining
the harmony more than merging with the divine.
The gestures are not to bring kavannah to the prayer. Once you have the triad at the beginning,
you don’t need to do more. What’s
important isn’t the middle berachot, but the bowing. By you prostrating yourself, your action below of prostration has
an effect up above of bringing bina to tiferet to malchut. That is how oleh veyored works – we are the
cosmic priests. You are not making an
ascent, you are busy prostrating.
The last three berachot
repeats the triad and ultimately you bring it down to shalom. Everything rests now in sod. By tahanun, we have a light imagery of the
divine and we will grasp it above and below.
Moshe de Leon likes candle imagery.
He will say the top part is a white flame with a dark flame on the
bottom. Whatever is being consumed is
being consumed by the dark flame. We
are sitting after tefillah the blue light ready to be consumed after having sat
in the light of the amida. There will
be two qualities of day and night, yom and layla. Night is when we taste death and we should be ready for it by
giving ourselves up for the divine as moser nefesh, so that we should be
consumed during nefillat apayim.
Scholem and Katz assume these are the new rituals of kabbalah. Ta-Shema holds all rituals are behavioristic
from Ashkenaz.
There is a secret of a
higher level of elokeinu. You will
reach this higher vision. This could be
like an Ashkenaz kavod theory. The sod
of shema is that it’s elokeinu not just the kavod. The secret of hashem elokeinu hashem is the triad. Moshe de Leon sees them nestled within each
other. While the nestling of the divine
energy is Provencal, the triad is Moshe de Leon. Moshe de Leon understood that right and left are mediated by the
third and those three are mediated by the bottom. See ION in Jung’s collected writings. Everything comes down to the fourth pole. There is a promirdial cosmic dragon which
you are bringing down into this world.
From a Castilian point of view which assumes a sitra ahra, we say baruch
shem quietly not to give it too much power.
The sephirot are
attributes – there is nothing but the divine name. When we show God with midah harahamim or din it’s just the
attribute. We never get passed our own
mind – the malchut serving as a sechel hapoel. The kavannah for him is mental.
Idel’s argument fits Gekitilla.
You have kavannah – you will think about hessed, but hessed = the divine
name since the sefirot = the divine name and it = any given sephira. If you have the correct kavannah, you have
the correct hamshacha, so unlike Moshe de Leon which has a big performance,
there, the simple act of thinking about it all within your mind works fro
Gikatilla. He assumes you must have
kavannah for God for tefillah closer to the Maimonidean philosophers – If you
can’t, you don’t pray. It’s an act of
mental kavannah. It’s not an ascent,
but contemplation. When you want hesed,
remember that hesed is connected down to malchut – there is unity. Each attribute really have all 10 behind
it. The secret of the sefirot is that
of the yod – the 10 sefirot. You have
the energy of all the sefirot behind it.
Hashem elokeinu hashem is seen as a unification of bina and tiferet. Shema is an affirmation of 10 sefirot
unity. Each line pauses you to think –
they happen automatically that you have all levels come together at shema. Ultimately all blessing is coming into
adnut. You’re not contemplating it, but
your mind is on malchut. You think
about adnut which is the bottom point.
There in automatic hydraulic system.
Adnut has the power of 10.
Combination of Maimonidean and the Gerona school.
Week 9 – March 21
Zohar
The Zohar on vayahkel
pekudei is similar to Hassidei Ashkenaz.
Sandelphon takes these letters, and polishes them up, and gives them to
God. Tishby pick out all passages which
deal with yihud, harmonies, and didn’t really translate the angelic ones.
Page numbers from
Tishby’s Wisdom of the Zohar
1046-1047
Midrash Haneelam is the
first piece of the Zohar corpus and is the most philosophic part. Current thinking (Ronit Meroz) is that
midrash haneelam is a separate early part of the Zohar, with an anachronistic
midrashic style which served as a model for the Zohar itself. The Zohar doesn’t take the philosophy, but
the style. God responds parallel to
what God does. We have an example of
higher than petition being offered.
Ultimately, zaaka and tzaaka is related. It’s an outpouring of the soul.
The locution here is a move from plea to cry, the illocution is the
trust in God, the sincerity, or the emotionality. Tishby makes a lot of the connection between Bahya and
Zohar. Crying is a gesture like all
other gestures. Crying might even be
the locution at one point. The
perlocution is the redemption, or the world to come. Very rabbinic, not kabbalistic.
1017
We’re not entering a
meditative state, but modeling the divine realm, and we are creating this model
down below. The Zohar will give lots of
gestures like architects of the shul.
It’s how to arrange the shul.
All will follow a model. You
should do a tikkun through your prayers.
The way the tikkun function works is that you have model down below and
if you perfect it down below, you will perfect it up above by doing the right
activities. Tikkun will occur through
the windows, in some way, the higher realm needs to be perfected and you have
to look up to what you are fixing. This
is closer to a magical thinking or a harmony as opposed to a theurgy. Isaac represnting gevura went into the
field, but he was already different.
His goal was to fight the evil side.
If the shekhina be both an open field and a closed beit kenesset at the
same time? Luria will split hairs and
say that we are talking about two different things. The modeling is not enough without a prayer. Ultimately you are not walking into a shul,
but into the divine: the synagogue is an incarnation of the divine. If you are the first 10 in the shul, those
10 become parallel to the sepfirot and therefore a parallel of the sepfirotic realm. Ultimately, on the popular level, there is a
desire to become Lurianic priests.
There is no intentionality in this texts. The gesture with the performance automatically does the action. The people who come there are adam kadmon
corresponding to the limbs of adam kadmon up above. When the shekina comes without the minyan, she is looking for
this adam kadmon. You’re not pulling
strings, but tryiong to achieve a harmony from above and below. The adam kadmon is all 10 sefirot – what you
do fills the higher adam.
1020
Regarding the prayers:
shaharit does a yihud, but all you need to do is the gladness and singing. As long as you do these two qualities it
takes effect. You just show that
your happy, a lay devotional revivalist type of prayer. The shekhina is automatically giving sustenance
below. R. Hizkiyah expands on the
blessings, the evening prayers are still essential because it perfoms the
function of bringing down the divine energies to defeat the evil side. We add a little more that the incense is not
for the lower lever, but creates a knot for all the sefirot. It’s an automatic function. You need to have kavannah because kavannah
gives you a greater magical force to your actions. It’s another pietistic quality your adding to your
performance.
1023
When you recite the
keriat shema you have a perfect will, a perfect volition, you are announceing
the acceptance of ol malchot shamayim.
You have the light keter imagery like you have by creation, matan torah,
and mashiach. This light splits into 70
and into a tree of light in a wonderful cosmic vision. We then switch metaphors from light to
garden of eden to wedding canopy and the bridal imagery. The question is what is the experience? The answer is nothing. The 10 sephirot all have to come together
and from there you have the yihud of tiferet and malchut. The second stage is coming together. Keriat shema becomes tied into the mythic
image of the Zohar. Shma yisrael is a
call that the wedding is about to begin.
Hashem Ehad is the coming of one body of the divine – you are now
unifying the divine. We go back into
divine name imagery, the four letters, the four names, the four keys, and we
have this parallel down below. This
time, it’s keys into a garden. We have
a three plus one, hochma bina and tiferet combined with malchut. Hochma – the fountain, the idra – bina –
move from fountain imagery to father and mother. We have 6 words in each sentence playing out the “theme with
variations.” Almost every paragraph has
the fighting of the sitra ahra. We have
a play between Yaakov and the six sefirot around it vs. the human form around
it simultaneously. There is the unity
of the higher realm, the wedding unity, the getting rid of the evil forces
unity, and there is the unity for the magic keys of the archangel.
We have a whole different
imagery of the sun and the moon. Here
we have tiferet going up to ein sof in a higher unity. We say it in a whisper because we say it at
the time of prayer that the tiferet with the shekina is going up to ein sof, but
since we’re not really allowed to be there.
You seek to include yourself there.
Ultimately the image is grabbin to tiferet then you going up.
1033
Most of these have an
opening from the Psalm. Gerona seems to
be more halakhic and quote gemaras to trace them to rabbinic texts. We have the shekhina playing the cosmic
tree. The shekhina is fighting the
sitra ahra at night which is like a state of death. The night is seen of the security of shekhina, but not a real
security because you are not really connected to the ture tree of life. You give your soul over to the true creator
of this darkness. In the morning, you
have to praise tiferet for the return of that relationship. What you’re binding is the order of
tefillah. The liturgy and the worship
service will be an ascent through the worship – you must bind through all of
these. This is new. Now we have a parallel universe between the
world of action and speech. In the
morning, you have to go to the bathroom to separate out the kelipot from the
tov, then the tallit, and then the tefillin.
With the prayer service, you first to korbanot, then a unification, and
then you have the amida having God in the mind. There are three actions and the three parts of the service. If you do not have perfect prepatory acts,
your speech acts will be worthless. The
act of unification was going to the bathroom on, creating the harmonies with
the different triads of action and of the speech of davening. The cleaving of the will, the sincerity is
all in the nefillat apayim not in the amida.
All the intentionality was not with the halakhic keriat shema, but with
the kabbalistic keriat shema of nefillat apayim.
Week 10 – March 28
What is imagination?
R. Yehuda ha-Levi: Active
imagination, meaning you have to do active visualization. Not an autonomous thought, but based on
reason, clear texts. A vision in the mind’s eye – the ein sichli.
R. Yitzhak Sagi Nahor:
This is an “uplifting” image – you are to have a visualization, a clear goal to
uplift you. There is a sub-level of the
shem hashem which are bound and fixed above that.
R. Azriel: Is closer to
Corbin’s actual realm of creative imagination. You are entereing the realm of the Tzurot and in that realm,
there is a certain imagination possible far from ordinary imagination – not a
free poetic, but a specific realm. This
realm seems to be the most autonomous and the most separate realm. Similar to Yaakov Bar Sheshet.
Yaakov Bar Sheshet: Will
also be uplifting, but will be converting shem hashem to spatial
visualization. Also, not any free range
vision.
Moshe de Leon: We now get
the alchemetical groups of four, or triads.
How do you bring together the different entities. It’s about the process, the manipulation of
the pieces not of uplifting.
Zohar: 1) We have the
fours and triads of Moshe de Leon. 2)
We will also have some Gerona influence of uplifting. 3) Spatial 10 sefirot 4)
mythopoesis free associations – you can’t say it’s wrong to shift from water to
space to tree imagery. 1-3 must be done
in a certain way, but 4 could be anything – the poetic element.