Reflecting on Judaism

Those of us who wish to be loyal observant Jews would want to believe that the religious advice given to us is in accordance with authentic Halachah (Jewish Law.)  Over the past few years, some of the religious advice given, differs markedly from that which I was taught, and upon enquiry, find that some of this new advice has a Kabbalistic basis.  For my own satisfaction I did some research in order to distinguish between the respective sources of Halachic and Kabbalistic advice and feel that perhaps the result may be of interest to others.

Authentic Halachah was succinctly described by Rabbi Doctor Jonathan Sacks in his book “Traditional Alternatives" as follows:-  “To be a Jew was to be subject to Halachah, the vastly ramified provisions of Jewish Law.  That Law, in turn, was derived either directly or indirectly from the Torah, the written record of Divine Revelation at Sinai.  Rabbinic Judaism, as the ongoing application of the oral law, gave Torah its authoritative interpretation and safeguarded its observance through protective enactments and decrees."

Chapter 1 of the “Ethics of the Fathers" begins “Moses received the Torah on Sinai and handed it down to Joshua; Joshua to the elders; the elders to the prophets; and the prophets handed it down to the men of the Great Synagogue.  But how can we be certain  that the Torah, which we know and practice today, is the authentic Torah received at Sinai?

Verse 7 of Chapter 19 of the Book of Exodus says “And Moses came and called for the elders of the people and set before them all these words which the Lord commanded him."  The late Chief Rabbi Hertz in his commentary on this Verse says, “Giving the entire nation the choice of accepting or rejecting the Divine message.  Religion in Israel was not to be a secret doctrine of one favoured class, not a body of “mysteries" entrusted to the keeping of priests as in Eygpt.  At Sinai the Divine Message comes to rich and poor, old and young, learned and unlearned alike.  The commentary continues “Directly and not through a messenger or an intermediary.  The actual witnessing by the entire nation of the redemption from Eygpt and their direct perception of the Divine Manifestation at Sinai, these religious experiences form, according to Yehudah Hallevi, the foundation of belief in Israel".

Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsh, in his  book “Horeb" (another name for Sinai) states “The Law was not brought to Israel by an intermediary, whether accredited by signs or not; all Israel, numbering 2,500,000 souls, were assembled at Horeb and heard directly the voice of the Lord when he began, amid universal turbulence, to reveal the law of life.  The whole of Israel became in this moment prophetic and climbed to the highest reaches of prophecy.  Face to Face, God spoke the words of life to the whole people of Israel.  It is this fact, free from all possibility of deception, which guarantees the Torah as unchangeable for all generations for all time.  The beginning of the Revelation of the Law at Sinai is the guarantee of the completion of the law through Moses.  And since the Torah declares itself to be closed for all time, it follows that only a like occurrence equally direct and with an equal number of eye-witnesses, can add so much as a single word to the Torah or take away or declare one repealed.  So long - even if one were to bring Heaven to earth - does the Torah stand firm for the continuity of Israel as the law of its life."
 
As we can see from the above, authentic Halachah is open and above board; no intermediaries, no secrets and no mysteries.  This, of course, does not mean that there were no differences amongst Rabbis in their concept of Torah Revelation and, as a result, in their attitude towards the scope of the Halachah.  Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits in his book “Not in Heaven" states “Halachah teaches the way along which the Jew is required to walk in accordance with Torah.  Halachah is the application of the Torah to life.  But since there is no such thing as life in general, since it is always a certain form of life as a specific time of history, in a specific situation, Torah application means application to a specific time in a specific situation.  The result of this process I call `Halachic Judaism`."

Kabbala when compared to the openness of Halachah as described above presents us with some difficulties, which must in turn reflect upon any advice based upon it.  The Zohar is the fundamental work of “modern" Jewish Kabbala.  It is the premier text book of Medieval Jewish Mysticism and is in form a commentary on the Pentateuch.  Its parentage appears to be uncertain and its contents esoteric.  Its contents have been variously explained as deriving from “mystical visions", “hidden wisdom", “Elijah the Prophet", “Secret Lore" and similar.  Very unlike the revealed nature of Halachah.

The introduction to the Zohar published by the Soncino Press states, “The Zohar purports to be a record of discourse carried on between Rabbi Simeon Ben Yohai, who lived in the second century of the common era, and certain contemporary Jewish mystical exegetes.  There is a story in the Talmud that Simeon and his son, in order to escape the fury of the Roman persecution, hid themselves in a cave for 13 years, during which time they gave themselves up to those mystical speculations on God, Torah and the Universe which compose the Zohar.  Simeon came thus to be regarded as the author of the Zohar.  But scholarship and research has forced us to dismiss this supposition as nothing more than legend.  Even the most superficial perusal of any section of Zohar will convince the reader of the absurdity of this view of its high antiquity.  The merest tyro in Rabbinic literature will find in the Zohar a great many Rabbinic comments and observations which belong without question to a period(s) later than that in which Simeon Ben Yohai lived.

A version of a more elaborate type and one which modern critics have been much more ready to accept, attributes the Zohar to a 13th Century Kabbalistic writer, Moses de Leon of Granada in Spain who certainly was the first to make it known to the general public.  Moses de Leon published the Zohar as the work of Simeon Bar Yohai, professing to have transcribed the copies which he issued from an ancient manuscript which had come into his possession.  After his death, however, his widow confessed that her husband possessed no such manuscript and that he wrote the work himself.  When asked why he did not publish the book in his own name but chose that of Simeon Bar Yohai, she replied that her husband always said that a book by a miracle-working Rabbi like Simeon Bar Yohai would prove more lucrative than a book bearing his own name.

Although the widow`s story bristles with contradictions and absurdities, many Jewish writers and scholars have maintained that Moses de Leon was the sole author of the Zohar." 
 
 Among such scholars is Graetz,  the 19th Century Jewish Historian and Bible Scholar and Gershom Scholem, the acknowledged leading authority on Kabbalah of the 20th Century.  Gershom Scholem has written extensively on the subject and sets out very clearly his analysis and his reasons for arriving at his conculsions.

In his book “The Evolution of Jewish Thought" Rabbi Doctor Jacob Bernard Agus, one time consulting editor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica on all Jewish subjects, wrote as follows:-  “It was in the eighties of the thirteenth century that the classic text of Kabbalistic literature, the Zohar appeared.  The scholar, Rabbi Moses de Leon is now presumed to have written the major portion of the Zohar, which is not really one systematic work but a collection of many books and brochures, varying in clarity and emphasis and held together by an inner unity of theme and ideology.  This vast compendium of esoteric lore is pseudo-epigraphic composition, attributed by its editor to Rabbi Simeon Bar Yohai and a coterie of his “illuminated" disciples.  This second-century Palestinian Rabbi was believed to have spent thirteen years in a cave, studying the hidden mysteries of Torah, with the direct aid of the “spirit of holiness".  What more natural than to ascribe to him the authorship of a book which is replete with visions and revelations."

Soon after its appearance, the authenticity of the Zohar was questioned by mystics no less than by their opponents.  Rabbi Isaac of Akko reported the testimony of de Leon`s widow to the effect that her husband was the ghost writer of the Zohar, in all its complex subdivisions.  But this testimony was ignored and later controverted with the utmost vehemence.  So congruous was the comforting message of the Zohar with the over-riding needs of the contemporary Jewish consciousness that all critical objections were set aside.  Fundamentally, the Zoharic Mentality was “true" to the increasing impetus of the dogmatic and romantic phases of contemporary Judaism; ergo it had to be an authentic revelation.  For two centuries, the rise of the Zohar in popular acceptance was slow and steady.  Then, when the travail of Spanish Jewry reached its climax in the fateful expulsion of 1492, the Zohar was catapulted to canonical holiness, attaining a degree of authority that was third only to the Bible and the Talmud."

In Judaism A-Z published by Department for Torah Education and Culture, it defines the essence of Kabbala as “intense belief in unbroken inter-relationships between God, as infinite source of power and wisdom in the world above, and Man in the finite world below.  By subduing his own evil impulses, man is capable of lessening influence of the “other (dark) side of negative forces in the world of emanations comprising 10 Sefirot that flow from above.  The authentic Kabbalistis, therefore, were called upon to promote moral and spiritual regeneration of humanity through medium of prayer and interpretation of Divine Mysteries hidden in the Bible.  “Practical" Kabbala stresses importance of amulet, mystical formulas, etc.  In 16th Century Safed, Rabbi Yitzhak Luria and his circle developed so called Lurianic Kabbala which stressed need to restore lost harmony of creation through process of Tikkum (repair).  Expulsion of Spanish Jewry 1492 later persecution and emigration of Marranos from Spain and Portugal and rise of Hasidism, all gained new impetus to the spread of Kabbalistic ideas and literature which also intrigued esoteric Christian groups."
 
 The book “The Story of the Jewish People" by Jack M.Myers, is dedicated “To the memory of the Jewish Mystics of the Middle-ages whose lofty teaching, devotion and enthusiasm helped to preserve Judaism and of the Martyrs who suffered and the heroes who fought  in the interests of their Race and Faith during the dark days recorded in these pages."  In the Chapter dealing with the Kabbala he writes,  “Zohar, like  all the works of the Kabbalists invokes a good deal of attention to the coming of the Messiah."

He continued, “We can understand how the Messianic prophecies of the Zohar secured for the book a large measure of its popularity.  Jews who were subject to continuous oppression naturally turned with longing to anything which they thought would give them relief from their misery.  And Jewish mothers would wonder if they would give birth to the eagerly awaited redeemer of Israel.  The messianic doctrine formed an important part of Judaism, and Jews followed implicitly Maimonides` declaration of faith; “I believe with a perfect faith in the coming of the Messiah, and though He tarry, nevertheless, will I wait for His coming."  Persecution was thus a favourable soil in which to plant Kabbalistic roots.
 
It is not surprising when so much importance was attached to the coming of the Messiah, that many Mystics, worked up into a frenzy by their mysteries, imagined themselves to have a religious mission and even to be the Messiah himself.  Many alleged Messiahs arose before the Kabbala had spent its force.  Some were impostors but others were sincere mystics."

History tells that unfortunately some of these impostors and sincere mystics caused enormous harm to the Jewish people.

Jack M.Myers then goes on “We have to look at the Kabbala as a whole,  understand how it grew, the purpose and spirit of the men who taught it and, above all, the times in which they lived.  If its teachings, stripped of their fantastic covering, were really un-Jewish, it is scarcely likely that great Talmud scholars who did not approve of philosophy, and, even rejected the teachings of Maimonides, would have tolerated it."  “The Kabbalists indeed regarded themselves as the preservers of Judaism.  The old Rabbis placed a `fence` round the Torah in the form of traditional interpretation of the words of the Bible.  The Kabbalists decorated this fence with their garlands of mystical fancies.  Here and there the weeds of superstition would creep in amongst the many coloured flowers."

Professor Leon Roth, one time professor of Jewish Philosophy at the Hebrew University, in his book “Judaism, A Portrait" draws attention to the mythical elements which abound in the Kabbala.  He says that “These may result from the preservation and proliferation of ancient themes; they may be an accretion from environmental associations or they may represent a recrudescence of the archetypal forms which some psychologists believe to constitute the permanent structure of human thought.  But myths they are; and, although in themselves they are of great interest, their presence poses the problem of the nature of Judaism in an inescapable way.  The fact that their traces can be found in ancient literature and that they were accepted by many distinguished Jews is no argument for their validity.  The worship of nature gods, of Moloch, of Adonis and the “Queen of Heaven" all existed within Biblical Jewry; it was Aaron, the High Priest, who fashioned and built an altar before the Golden Calf.  But this did not make their worship part of Judaism. On the contrary, it was the special nature and achievement of Judaism to set its face against them and to attempt to eradicate them. For Judaism, as Maimonides said of an early Kabbalistic classic, they are false gods and must be clearly recognised as such and repudiated      
                        
Professor Roth goes on to say “The two great periods of the emergence of the Kabbala (13th & 17th Centuries) call for some attention.  They were times of storm and trouble within and without the Jewish communities; and the facts suggest that we may have in Kabbalism the phenomenon which Gilbert Murray made familiar to students of Greek religion by the name of “failure of nerve".  Was it not perhaps a “failure of nerve" which prompted the composition and the spread of the Zohar and allied literature in the 12th & 13th Centuries and its reappearance from the 16th to 18th.  And is it not a similar “failure of nerve" coupled with an understandable recrudescence of Messianic Enthusiasm which has caused its revival in our own day?  It is clear that this revival, whatever the explanation of it may be and whatever one may think of its terms, is the most significant fact in the present world of Jewish learning.  It is not a form of escapism as the interest in archaeology can easily become.  It is a genuine attempt to grapple with the religious problem and it is characterised not only by dissatisfaction of received explanations.  It is an endeavour to find or provide others."
 
Professor Roth’s aforementioned book which makes reference to recrudescence of “Messianic Enthusiasm" was published in 1960.  His comments are even more relevant today.   Recently, Chief Rabbi Immanuel Jacobovits is reported to have expressed his concern at the current resurgence of “Messianic Fervour."  He did not express his concern in explicit terms, and, since I have no doubt that he believes in the coming of the Messiah no less fervently than any other believing Jew, I wonder whether he had in mind the fact that, in the current atmosphere of “Messianic Fervour" there might arise one or more self-appointed Messiahs; perhaps an impostor, perhaps a sincere mystic, who will, as in the past, if he gathers a following, do more harm to Judaism in the long-term than the possible good that may be done in the short-term.
 
In compiling this article, I have quoted a minute proportion of the articles which I have read on the subject.  These articles in turn form only a minute proportion of those available; the Jewish Encyclopaedia alone devotes 70 pages to the Kabbala.  What I have not tried to do is to show how the Kabbala today influences our thoughts and practice for this, I fear, would need another article with much additional research, even if I were capable of writing it.  If, however, you have found this article to be of any interest then please find your own sources and read on, read on.  You will find the subject fascinating.
 
August 1990