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Judaism

 

Review Essays of Academic, Professional & Technical Books in the Humanities & Sciences

 

Jewish Mysticism

Sefer Yesira by A. Peter Hayman (Hardcover, Mohr Siebeck) This the first comprehensive critical edition of a text which was a fundamental influence on Jewish thought in the medieval period and has continued to fascinate scholars and students of Judaism to the present day. It was initially understood to be a philosophical text which had descended by oral tradition from Abraham himself. It purports to tell us how God created the world using the ten sefiroth (the Spirit of the living God, air, water and fire, and the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew Alphabet). With its English translation of the three earliest recensions and its commentary on the variant early texts of the work, this book is essential reading for anyone interested in the growth and emergence of the Jewish mystical movement. There are four appendices setting out what parts of the text are attested in each of the manuscripts and in what order, a hypothetical reconstructed text and the text of the tenth century Vatican scroll of Sefer Yesira with the probable added material underlined.

This edition of the text of Sefer Yesira has been a long time coming. I first conceived the idea of doing it in the early 1980s when I was reading the text with my students in a course on Jewish Mysticism at the University of Edinburgh. The fundamental research for the book was carried out in 1985 in a visit to the Microfilm Institute of the Jewish National and University Library in Jerusalem, funded by a grant from the British Academy. My initial intention was to produce an edition, translation and both a text-critical commentary and a commentary on the content. In the event it turned out that this was too ambitious a project to be accomplished within one book and, in any case, competing priorities, especially from the pressures of university administration, preventing me from producing more than a series of one-off papers and articles on Sefer Yesira. I now plan a series of three books: first, this edition, second, a collected edition of my papers on Sefer Yesira, and third, a commentary on the content of the text. This book, therefore, is concerned solely with the text — with the manuscripts, the recensions, the individual readings within the paragraphs. Issues of introduction, date, place of origin, and what the text might mean, will be reserved for the later books, though I have already dealt with many of these in my published papers. Of course, no rigid dividing line can be drawn between these different approaches to a text and, inevitably, I will stray into discussion of the content from time to time, but I wish to stress that this is not my primary purpose in this book.

Right from the beginning of the emergence of Sefer Yesira' into the light of day in the early tenth century it was recognized that its text had not been transmitted without errors. Saadya Gaon, the earliest commentator whose text has been preserved,2 states at the end of his introduction to SY: "we think (it best) to write down each paragraph from it (i.e. SY) completely, then we will explain it because it is not a book which is widely available and not many people have preserved it from suffering changes or alterations." Writing not much later than Saadya in 955/6 C.E., Dunash ben Tamim says: "mais nous avons déja dit qu'il pouvait y avoir dans ce livre des passages altérés que le patriarche Abraham [n'a jamais enonces], [provenant] des commentaires en hébreu, auxquels des gens ignorants ont ajouté postérieurement un autre commentaire et la vérité se perdait entretemps."4 The most comprehensive of the early commentaries, written by Judah ben Barzillai frequently quotes different versions of the text and discusses variant readings of which he was aware. Like Dunash he attributes the corruption of the text (almost

certainly correctly) to the incorporation into it of marginal notes and commentary material.' By implication Saadya locates this added material in the second half of the work (his chapters 5-8) when he remarks that there is little new in them and he does not intend to devote much effort to expounding them. Dunash explicitly attributes to the work of commentators the material, mostly in the latter part of SY, which details the precise connections between each letter of the alphabet, element, and part of the human body.

These observations by the early commentators are fully vindicated when we come to compare the large number of manuscripts of SY that have been preserved since the Middle Ages. If we just take a word count of the three manuscripts which serve as the base texts for this edition we can see the extent of the problem. Ms A (Vatican Library (Cat. Assemani) 299(8), fols. 66a-71b) has 2737 words, Ms K (Parma 2784.14, De Rossi 1390, fols. 36b-38b) has 1883 words, while Ms C (Cambridge University Library, Taylor-Schechter K21/56 + Glass 32/5 + Glass 12/813) has 2066 words. Some manuscripts have far fewer words than Ms K — as few as 1300, while others range anywhere between this low figure and the full range of material seen in Ms A.

From the tenth century on, then, it has been recognized that SY existed in a number of recensions — some form of standard text, a longer version which contained commentary material, and a version which completely rearranged the material and which was attributed to Saadya Gaon.' Since the nineteenth century it has become conventional to refer to these versions as the Short, the Long and the Saadyan Recensions. The complex textual state in which SY has been handed down is implicitly recognized in the first printed edition (Mantua 1562) in which the Short Recension is printed as the main text (with commentaries) and the Long Recension as an appendix. The fundamental work on delineating the recensions of SY and working out which of them lay before the early commentators was achieved by A. Epstein in his articles in MGWJ. However, his fundamental conclusions that the Saadyan Recension is no older than Saadya himself and that the Long Recension is really only a copy of the text which is embedded in Shabbetai Donnolo's commentary' have been invalidated by manuscript discoveries of which Epstein was unaware at the time. As we shall see, it is more likely that the recensions predate any of the known commentaries on SY.

The Seven Beggars & Other abbalistic Tales Of Rebbe Nachman Of Breslov translated by Aryeh Rabbi Kaplan (Jewish Lights Publishing) Rebbe Nachman was a Kabbalist and a mystic, yet at the same time practical and down-to-earth. He told tales of princes and princesses, beggars and kings, demons and saints, and encouraged those around him to live life with faith, honesty, and simplicity.

In this, the second of two monumental volumes, Rabbi Kaplans translation of Rebbe Nachmans stories is accompanied by masterful commentary drawn from the works of Rebbe Nachmans pupils and followers. The tales will awaken you to the mysteries of Torah and Kabbalah, and show you why Rebbe Nachmans teachings are a major source of inspiration and perception in our times.

Rejoice in the stories of Rebbe Nachman of Breslovfor their insight into the human condition and the realm of the mysterious.

When Rabbi Nachman first started telling his stories, he declared: "Now I am going to tell you stories." The reason he did so was because in generations so far from God the only remedy was to present the secrets of the Torahincluding even the greatest of themin the form of stories. from the Preface

For centuries, spiritual teachers have told stories to convey lessons about God and perceptions of the world around us. Hasidic master Rebbe Nachman of Breslov (17721810) perfected this teaching method through his engrossing and entertaining stories that are fast-moving, brilliantly structured, and filled with penetrating insights.

This collection presents the wisdom of Rebbe Nachman, translated by Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan and accompanied by illuminating commentary drawn from the works of Rebbe Nachmans pupils. This important work brings you authentic interpretations of Rebbe Nachmans stories, allowing you to experience the rich heritage of Torah and Kabbalah that underlies each word of his inspirational teachings.

The Way into the Jewish Mystical Tradition by Lawrence Kushner (Jewish Lights) What Jewish mysticism means: Classic and less familiar texts - and guidance on how to approach them--allow us to learn the key ideas of Jewish mysticism firsthand. Why mystical tradition is a part of the modern Jewish experience: The Bible, midrash, the Jewish prayer book and rabbinic literature teach us that mysticism is not something we do but is an attitude toward how we approach our daily lives, an important way of understanding, organizing and enriching Jewish religious life today--and every day. How mysticism contributes to Jewish spirituality: Through becoming aware of the Jewish mystical tradition and its goals, we share in the work of restoring harmony to the world we live in.

For everyone who wants to understand the concepts of Jewish mysticism, this book shows the way into an essential aspect of Judaism, and allows you to interact directly with the sacred mystical texts of the Jewish tradition. Guided by Lawrence Kushner, a leading teacher of Jewish mysticism and Rabbi-in-Residence of Hebrew Union College--Jewish Institute of Religion, The Way into the Jewish Mystical Tradition helps explore the world of Jewish mysticism, its religious and spiritual significance, and how it relates to our lives. The Way into the Jewish Mystical Tradition allows us to experience and understand mysticisms inexpressible reverence before the awe and mystery of creation, and celebrate this rich traditions quest to transform our ordinary reality into holiness.

Excerpt:

Abraham Joshua Heschel is easily the best-known mystical teacher of the last generation. Born in Warsaw in 1907, scion of a Hasidic dynasty, Heschel was uniquely qualified to combine Western scholarship with Eastern mysticism. Heschel's mysticismlike most Jewish mysticismwas one of political activism. An outspoken critic of American involvement in Vietnam, he was literally on the front lines of the Civil Rights Movement as well. The Encyclopedia Judaica, in its entry on "Negro-Jewish Relations," includes a photograph of the march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. These were frightening times; protesters had been (and would yet be) murdered. Leading the march were Roy Wilkins, Ralph Abernathy, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Abraham Heschel. Heschel died in 1972; he was perhaps the last rebbe educated as a boy in the living community of Polish Hasidim.

    The following passage is taken from Heschel's classic God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism. In his distinctive poetic and aphoristic style, Heschel expresses the primary tenet of the Jewish mystical imagination: The whole world is filled with the presence of God. Or, in the words of Isaiah 6:3, "God's presence is the fullness of the world." There is no place without the Divine. In Heschel's formulation, wonderment is the touchstone for all spiritual life. The beginning of religious awareness is standing astonished, reverent, and chastened before the mystery of being. Heschel cautions us that taking things for granted invariably seals us off, not only from novelty and surprise but also from life itself. For Heschel, our chronic dullness to wonderment is the beginning of sinfulness. There is simply more to reality than meets the eye. The closer we look, the more we discover hidden layers of being, and this invariably leads us to God.

 

Among the many things that religious tradition holds in store for us is a legacy of wonder. The surest way to suppress our ability to understand the meaning of God and the importance of worship is to take things for granted. Indifference to the sublime wonder of living is the root of sin. (43)

[Citing Nachmanides, Commentary on Exodus 13:16] The belief in "the hidden miracles is the basis for the entire Torah. A man has no share in the Torah, unless he believes that all things and all events in the life of the individual as well as in the life of society are miracles. There is no such thing as the natural course of events...."(51)

The beginning of awe is wonder, and the beginning of wisdom is awe.... Awe is a way of being in rapport with the mystery of all reality. The awe that we sense or ought to sense when standing in the presence of a human being is a moment of intuition for the likeness of God which is concealed in his essence. Not only man; even inanimate things stand in a relation to the Creator. The secret of every being is the divine care and concern that are invested in it. Something sacred is at stake in every event. (74)

 

2. The power of the Creator within each created thing

 

Power of the Creator

    Menachem Nachum Twersky of Chernobyl, Me'or Eina'im

    According to classical Hasidism, the power of the Creator resides within each created thing. Hasidism is the most recent flowering of the Jewish mystical impulse. Beginning in mid-eighteenth-century Poland as an ecstatic folk revival, Hasidism understood communion with God as the primary goal of religious life and made it available to the masses. The movement was founded by Israel ben Eliezer (1700-1760), who came to be known as the Baal Shem Tov, or, after the initials of his Hebrew name, the BeSHT. He preached a Judaism that even the unlearned could easily embrace. Each Hasid became the disciple of a particular rabbi, or rebbe, who served as spiritual mentor. The BeSHT had four primary students, each of whom in turn generated his own circle of disciples: Dov Baer, the Maggid of Mezritch; Pinchas Shapiro of Koretz; Yaakov Yosef of Polnoye; and the author of the following passage, Menachem Nachum Twersky of Chernobyl (1730-1797). Nachum worked as a teacher and lived in poverty.

    Like the majority of the literature of theoretical Hasidism (as opposed to its legends and stories), this passage is woven into a teaching on the weekly Torah portion. A canvas painted by Claude Monet has value and power even if the painting itself is of apparently inferior artistic quality. The mere fact that the great impressionist master painted it makes it instructive and therefore significant. The power of the creator, in other words, remains within the creation. In the same way, all of creation, "the fullness of the world," is likewise a manifestation ofand therefore a mechanism for returning tothe Creator. We can access the Creator everywhere.

 

God is the fullness of the world; there is no place empty of the divine. There is nothing besides God and everything that exists comes from God. And, for this reason, the power of the Creator resides within each created thing. (14)

 

3. There is no place without God's presence

 

The Sand beneath My Feet

Kalonymus Kalman Shapira of Piesetzna,
Benei Makhshava Tovah

    Following World War II, while clearing land for new construction on the site of what had once been the Warsaw Ghetto, a worker unearthed a container filled with Hebrew manuscripts. They were the writings of Kalonymous Kalman Shapira of Piesetzna (Pee-ah-SETZ-nah, 1889-1943). Kalonymous Kalman was born in Grodzisk, Poland, and died in the Trawniki concentration camp. His biographer, Dr. Nehemia Polen of Boston's Hebrew College, notes that the Piesetzner's book Eish Kodesh, "Holy Fire," was the last work of Hasidism written on Polish soil. For Kalonymous Kalman, God can be found everywhere and within everythingnot merely in the first springtime flowers or the majesty of the mountains, but even in apparently ungodly and irrelevant things like grains of sand. Everything dissolves into and is nullified within God. Indeed, the only impediment to such cosmic vision is our refusal to see ourselves as indistinguishable manifestations of the divine unity underlying all creation, the mother lode of all meaning. In such moments of heightened awareness, the mystic realizes that God is not other than the world, but that being is itself made of God. In the words of one ancient maxim: Min ha-olam ye-ad ha-olam ata Ayl, "From one end of being unto the other, You are God."

    The following passage is taken from one of the Piesetzner's earlier works, Benei Makhshava Tovah, a meditative journal for those seeking to create a spiritual community.

I may not be able to see it right now, but the Holy One fills all creation, being is made of God, you and I, everything is made of Godeven the grains of sand beneath my feet, the whole world is included and therefore utterly nullified within Godwhile I, in my stubborn insistence on my own autonomy and independence, only succeed in banishing myself from any possibility of meaning whatsoever.

THE KISS OF GOD: Spiritual and Mystical Death in Judaism by Michael Fishbane (The Samuel and Althea Stroum Lectures in Jewish Studies: University of Washington Press) 

$10.95, paper, 136 pages, notes, index

0-295-97555-5

 hardcover:

A winner of the National Jewish Book award, this rich, learned, and persuasive review of an elemental theme in Jewish spirituality, offers exploration of the quest for spiritual perfection in early rabbinic sources and in Jewish philosophy and mysticism. The "kiss of God," is a symbol for union with God. Fishbane shows ritual practices, meditations and performances that are connected the themes of love and death. Illuminating the range of interpretive approaches to love and death in Jewish literature and thought, including the biblical, rabbinic, kabbalistic, philosophic, and Hasidic traditions, he shows them reflected in spiritual growth and martyrological ideals, revealing in a remarkable manner the transcendent aspect of Jewish spirituality. The book is written with grace and elegance and is an original and thoughtful contribution to understanding spirituality within the Jewish context. It is a blend of scholarly insight into and deep personal engagement with a panoply of Jewish sources that evince a coherent debt of religious and psychological themes of love and death. The result is a splendid clarity of expression and an unencumbered command of a wide range of complex texts and topics. It has a thoughtful originality and vigor.

Michael Fishbane is Nathan Cummings Professor of Jewish Studies and chair of the Committee on Jewish Studies at the University of Chicago. He is the author of many books, including Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel, and Garments of Torah: Essays in Biblical Hermeneutics. He has also edited Death, Ecstasy, and Other Worldly Journeys by John J. Collins.


STUDIES IN JEWISH MYTH AND JEWISH MESSIANISM
Yehuda Liebes
Batya Stein, translator
SUNY, State University of New York
$19.95, paper; 226 pages
0-7914-1194-x

 hardcover:
A major rethinking of the religious character of Sabbatean Messianism and the nature of myth in the kabbalah, Liebes represents the best tradition of the scholarly study of religion and has a general relevance beyond Jewish studies to all scientific study of religion. Brilliant! Trade, religion, libraries.

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