THE ZOHAR AND LATER MYSTICISM
Kabbala.--The Bahir.--Abulafia.--Moses of Leon.--The
Zohar.--Isaac Lurya.--Isaiah Hurwitz.--Christian
Kabbalists.--The Chassidim.
Mysticism is the name given to the belief in direct, intuitive communion
with God. All true religion has mystical elements, for all true religion
holds that man can commune with God, soul with soul. In the Psalms, God
is the Rock of the heart, the Portion of the cup, the Shepherd and
Light, the Fountain of Life, an exceeding Joy. All this is, in a sense,
_mystical_ language. But mysticism has many dangers. It is apt to
confuse vague emotionalism and even hysteria with communion with God. A
further defect of mysticism is that, in its medieval forms, it tended to
the multiplication of intermediate beings, or angels, which it created
to supply the means for that communion with God which, in theory, the
mystics asserted was direct. Finally, from being a deep-seated,
emotional aspect of religion, mysticism degenerated into intellectual
sport, a play with words and a juggling with symbols.
Jewish mysticism passed through all these stages. Kabbala--as mysticism
was called--really means "Tradition," and the name proves that the
theory had its roots far back in the past. It has just been said that
there is mysticism in the Psalms. So there is in the idea of
inspiration, the prophet's receiving a message direct from God with whom
he spoke face to face. After the prophetic age, Jewish mysticism
displayed itself in intense personal religiousness, as well as in love
for Apocalyptic, or dream, literature, in which the sleeper could, like
Daniel, feel himself lapped to rest in the bosom of God.
All the earlier literary forms of mysticism, or theosophy, made
comparatively little impression on Jewish writers. But at the beginning
of the thirteenth century a great development took place in the "secret"
science of the Kabbala. The very period which produced the rationalism
of Maimonides gave birth to the emotionalism of the Kabbala. The Kabbala
was at first a protest against too much intellectualism and rigidity in
religion. It reclaimed religion for the heart. A number of writers more
or less dallied with the subject, and then the Kabbala took a bolder
flight. Ezra, or Azriel, a teacher of Nachmanides, compiled a book
called "Brilliancy" (_Bahir_) in the year 1240. It was at once regarded
as a very ancient book. As will be seen, the same pretence of antiquity
was made with regard to another famous Kabbalistic work of a later
generation. Under Todros Abulafia (1234-1304) and Abraham Abulafia
(1240-1291), the mystical movement took a practical shape, and the
Jewish masses were much excited by stories of miracles performed and of
the appearance of a new Messiah.
At this moment Moses of Leon (born in Leon in about 1250, died in
Arevalo in 1305) wrote the most famous Kabbalistic book of the Middle
Ages. This was named, in imitation of the Bahir, "Splendor" (_Zohar_),
and its brilliant success matched its title. Not only did this
extraordinary book raise the Kabbala to the zenith of its influence, but
it gave it a firm and, as it has proved, unassailable basis. Like the
Bahir, the Zohar was not offered to the public on its own merits, but
was announced as the work of Simon, the son of Yochai, who lived in the
second century. The Zohar, it was pretended, had been concealed in a
cavern in Galilee for more than a thousand years, and had now been
suddenly discovered. The Zohar is, indeed, a work of genius, its
spiritual beauty, its fancy, its daring imagery, its depth of devotion,
ranking it among the great books of the world. Its literary style,
however, is less meritorious; it is difficult and involved. As
Chatterton clothed his ideas in a pseudo-archaic English, so Moses of
Leon used an Aramaic idiom, which he handled clumsily and not as one to
the manner born. It would not be so important to insist on the fact that
the Zohar was a literary forgery, that it pretended to an antiquity it
did not own, were it not that many Jews and Christians still write as
though they believe that the book is as old as it was asserted to be.
The defects of the Zohar are in keeping with this imposture. Absurd
allegories are read into the Bible; the words of Scripture are counters
in a game of distortion and combination; God himself is obscured amid a
maze of mystic beings, childishly conceived and childishly named.
Philosophically, the Zohar has no originality. Its doctrines of the
Transmigration of the Soul, of the Creation as God's self-revelation in
the world, of the Emanation from the divine essence of semi-human,
semi-divine powers, were only commonplaces of medieval theology. Its
great original idea was that the revealed Word of God, the Torah, was
designed for no other purpose than to effect a union between the soul of
man and the soul of God.
Reinforced by this curious jumble of excellence and nonsense, the
Kabbala became one of the strongest literary bonds between Jews and
Christians. It is hardly to be wondered at, for the Zohar contains some
ideas which are more Christian than Jewish. Christians, like Pico di
Mirandola (1463-1494), under the influence of the Jewish Kabbalist
Jochanan Aleman, and Johann Reuchlin (1455-1522), sharer of Pico's
spirit and precursor of the improved study of the Scriptures in Europe,
made the Zohar the basis of their defence of Jewish literature against
the attempts of various ecclesiastical bodies to crush and destroy it.
The Kabbala did not, however, retain a high place in the realm of
literature. It greatly influenced Jewish religious ceremonies, it
produced saintly souls, and from such centres as Safed and Salonica sent
forth men like Solomon Molcho and Sabbatai Zevi, who maintained that
they were Messiahs, and could perform miracles on the strength of
Kabbalistic powers. But from the literary stand-point the Kabbala was a
barren inspiration. The later works of Kabbalists are a rehash of the
older works. The Zohar was the bible of the Kabbalists, and the later
works of the school were commentaries on this bible. The Zohar had
absorbed all the earlier Kabbalistic literature, such as the "Book of
Creation" (_Sefer Yetsirah_), the Book Raziel, the Alphabet of Rabbi
Akiba, and it was the final literary expression of the Kabbala.
It is, therefore, unnecessary to do more than name one or two of the
more noted Kabbalists of post-Zoharistic ages. Isaac Lurya (1534-1572)
was a saint, so devoid of self-conceit that he published nothing, though
he flourished at the very time when the printing-press was throwing
copies of the Zohar broadcast. We owe our knowledge of Lurya's
Kabbalistic ideas to the prolific writings of his disciple Chayim Vital
Calabrese, who died in Damascus in 1620. Other famous Kabbalists were
Isaiah Hurwitz (about 1570-1630), author of a much admired ethical work,
"The Two Tables of the Covenant" (_Sheloh_, as it is familiarly called
from the initials of its Hebrew title); Nehemiah Chayun (about
1650-1730); and the Hebrew dramatist Moses Chayim Luzzatto (1707-1747).
A more recent Kabbalistic movement, led by the founder of the new
saints, or Chassidim, Israel Baalshem (about 1700-1772), was even less
literary than the one just described. But the Kabbalists, medieval and
modern, were meritorious writers in one field of literature. The
Kabbalists and the Chassidim were the authors of some of the most
exquisite prayers and meditations which the soul of the Jew has poured
forth since the Psalms were completed. This redeems the later
Kabbalistic literature from the altogether unfavorable verdict which
would otherwise have to be passed on it.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
KABBALA.
Graetz.--III, p. 547 [565]
MOSES DE LEON.
Graetz.--IV, 1.
ZOHAR.
A. Neubauer.--_Bahir and Zohar_, _J.Q.R._, IV, p. 357.
Steinschneider.--_Jewish Literature_, p. 104.
ISAAC LURYA.
Graetz.--IV, p. 618 [657].
SABBATAI ZEVI.
Graetz.--V, p. 118 [125].
CHASSIDIM.
Graetz.--V, 9.
Schechter.--_Studies in Judaism_, p. 1.