textfiles/occult/CHRISTIAN/idel2.txt

      II:  The Primordial Light:  The Ecstatics' Quest
                   Thursday 18 April 1991

      [The   introduction  to  the  lecture
    mentioned that the lecture series would
    eventually be coming out as a  book  to
    be   published  by  the  University  of
    Washington Press.]

      [The  introducer mentioned  an  article
    in  the Jerusalem Post about Scholem  and
    Idel.   Idel  has established  the  basis
    for  a  critical look at Scholem's  work.
    Scholem's  approach  was  historical  and
    contextual:  he interpreted the  Kabbalah
    as  a system of thought.  Idel's approach
    is  phenomenological:   he  endeavors  to
    discern  what  the symbolism  and  ritual
    meant  to  those who practised  it.   For
    Idel,  the  Kabbalah is not a  system  of
    ideas  but  a practical path to  mystical
    experience.    For   Scholem,    Kabbalah
    entered  Judaism  from the  outside,  and
    was  the result of the influence of Greek
    gnosticism on Rabbinic Judaism.  It  was,
    in   effect,  an  alien  heresy  with  an
    underground   existence.     For    Idel,
    Kabbalah   is   an   esoteric   tradition
    flowing   from  within  Judaism   itself,
    though  with  links  and  correspondences
    with  other  mystical  traditions.   Idel
    feels  that  the study of the  manuscript
    tradition  has  just  barely  begun,  and
    that therefore most of the field has  yet
    to be explored.
        He  also  feels that even the  most
    theoretical  texts  are  experientially
    oriented.  This has led him to  try  to
    reconstruct  the techniques  that  were
    actually used.  He has done so in  part
    through  observation  of  practices  of
    ultra-Orthodox communities in Israel  -
    and  they in turn have come to him  for
    technical   advice   on   reading   and
    understanding their texts.]
 
 There is another paradigm through which the
story of the entry to Pardes can be read - one
which is not philosophical, but ecstatic.  This
variety of paradigms by the way is very
important.  It shows that Jews were less
interested in establishing a unified theology
than they were in finding secret interpretations
that would attract many different kinds of
people.  They were open to having a different
way for each sort of person.  This is a sign of
the openness of the elite culture to allowing
different approaches for a variety of people -
not so much to attract the masses, but to allow
for diversity among the elite.
 This second interpretation of the Pardes was
the result of the merger of Jewish mysticism and
Neoplatonic philosophy.  For Maimonides, it was
a Pardes ha Chokmah, a Pardes of Knowledge.  It
had to do with the solution to cognitive
problems.  For Maimonides, Adam was lost in
contemplation of metaphysical truths.  Thus, for
Maimonides, R. Aqiva was the central figure, the
most perfect of the four sages.
 But for some Kabbalists at the beginning of
the Thirteenth Century the major figure was not
R. Aqiva but Ben Azzai, the Talmudic master who
died.  For them, the Pardes was not a matter of
intellect, but of the experience of a supreme
light.  This Light was not an intellectual or
conceptual light, but an experiential light.
 
 Ancient Jewish textual material is rich in
emphasis on the importance of light - as in
Genesis, where Light is the first created
entity.  Midrashic texts portray Adam as an
entity of Light, and as having garments of
Light, which were lost after his expulsion from
Eden.  In this tradition, the basic activity of
Adam was the contemplation of the Light, of the
Shekinah.  The "Light of the Shekinah" is a key
term in these texts.
 Both Pardes and Paradise, in this tradition,
are seen as full of Light.  Adam's experience in
the Fall is the loss of the possibility of
contemplating the Light.  The loss of garments
of Light leads to their replacement by garments
of skin (a pun in Hebrew).  This loss of the
possibility of experience of the Light is
crucial in ancient Hebrew texts.
 For example, in the Book of Adam and Seth (as
preserved in Armenia):  "But Adam .. in being
stripped of the Divine Light .. became an equal
of the dumb beasts.  Enoch for forty days and
nights did not eat.  Then he planted a garden ..
and was in it for 552 years.  Then he was taken
up into heaven ...."  [The quotation was quite a
bit longer; unfortunately, I couldnot keep up.]
This portrays an attempt by Enoch to reconstruct
and re-enter the situation of Adam.  This is a
basic pattern in later discussions of the Pardes
texts:  an attempt to return to the ability to
contemplate the Light as Adam once did.
 In the Hekhaloth texts, too, the idea of Light
is paramount.  Pardes is described as full of
the radiance of Light.
 There is a manuscript text by an unknown
author - one which I needed some 60 pages to
analyze, so we can only deal witha small part of
it here.  There are some ten lines in it about
Ben Azzai (who did not return).  "Ben Azzai
peeked and died.  He gazed at the radiance of
the Divine Presence like a man with weak eyes
who gazes at the full light of the sun and
becomes blinded by the intensity of the light
that overwhelms him...  He did not wish to be
separated, he remained hidden in it, his soul
was covered and adorned ... he remained where he
had cleaved, in the Light to which no one may
cling and yet live." [Quotation approximate]
 This text portrays people gazing not at a
Chariot or a marble throne, but at the radiance
of God (Tzvi ha Shekinah), a light so strong
that no one can bear it. The idea of
"overwhelming" is textually crucial.  The idea
of having a great desire to cleave, as described
in the medieval text, is new.  In ancient
literature, contemplation is of something far
away, across an unbridgeable gap.  There is no
idea there of love, only of awe.  Here, however,
we see a trace of a radical change:  the
intensity of the experience is linked with a
great desire to cleave to the radiance of the
Shekinah.  There is a strong experience of union
with the Divine, the result of a desire to enter
and become a part of the Divine realm.  There is
an attempt to enjoy the Divine without
interruption.  The language of desire implies
erotic overtones to the experience, especially
since "Shekinah" in Hebrew is feminine.  The
text then is speaking about an attempt to cleave
to a feminine aspect of the Divine - also a
development unique to the medieval literature
(and not found in the ancient literature).  And
also the idea of "sweet radiance" has erotic
overtones.
 
 So what happened?  He couldn't return from the
experience.  The Hebrew terms are very strong.
After his death he was "hidden away in the place
of his cleaving."  This death was the death of
the pious ones whose souls are separated from
all concerns with the mundane world, and who
cleave to the supernal world.  It was, in other
words, not an accident but an achievement.
 There is a threefold structure implied here,
reminiscent of Christian and Neoplatonic
mysticism.  The first phase is the via
purgativa, "Those who are separated from all
concerns of the lowly world."  The second phase
is the via illuminativa.  The third phase is the
via unitiva.  There is here a combination of
ancient Jewish material with pagan or Christian
Neoplatonist material to portray or interpret
the experience of Ben Azzai.  This interpretive
paradigm continued in active use from the
Thirteenth through the Eighteenth centuries,
where it was used among the Hasidim.  It was a
tradition that lasted 600 to 700 years, and it
is exactly the kind of tradition it is hard to
study without looking at manuscripts.
 
 This text was also copied by a Thirteenth
Century Kabbalist who gave it an even stronger
nuance of mysticism.  Ben Azzai died because of
the cleaving of his soul out of a great love;
his soul didn't return because he reached a
great attainment.  The assumption:  out of
intense love, his cleaving was total.  Later,
there were even stronger formulations, in which
the soul and the Light become one entity.
 This text is one example of texts dealing with
the unio mystica.  It allows for bridging in a
total manner the gap between man and God.  This
is another example of the formative power of the
Neoplatonic mystical tradition, as it also
expressed itself in Christianity and Islam.
 However, for the Kabbalists the major events
took place in the past.  He is reporting not on
a contemporary but on Ben Azzai.  Is this simply
a matter of an intepretation?  Or is there
something more to it - a practical interest?
Can we extract from the sources a method, a
practice?
 
 In my opinion, since the end of the Thirteen
Century there is evidence that there were
experiences of Light connected with the story of
Ben Azzai and the Kabbalists who discussed it -
but this is not always simple to demonstrate.
 Another anonymous text, written in 1290 or so
in Galilee, describes a technique, and afterward
describes a personal experience characterized by
amazement, confusion, and a need for
clarification and interpretation.  Its author
describes the Divine Light as attracting the
Light of the soul, "which is weak in relation to
the Divine Light."  (There is a magnetic
metaphor here, and we can see in this adoption
of non-traditional metaphors an attempt to come
to terms with personal experience.)  This
experience was the result of letter-combination
techniques.  Later the anonymous Kabbalist
attempts to describe how he approached a master
to learn a technique to stop the experience.
Thus, discussing this experience in terms of the
story of Ben Azzai is an attempt to relate
personal experience to a model.  It is not
simply an attempt to provide an interpretation
for the story of Ben Azzai.
 Another ecstatic Kabbalist also relates his
experience to the story of Ben Azzai:  "If a man
does that which his soul wishes in the proper
ways of hitbodeduth, his soul is immersed in
this light and he will die like Ben Azzai."
 The Kabbalists tried to reach the pre-fall
state of the Primordial Man, to enteragain the
radiance of the Shekinah, and even to enter a
certain erotic relationship with the Divine
Presence, as later we find in the Zohar in other
forms.  They also provided, by the end of the
Thirteenth Century, certain detailed techniques.
"By letter combinations, unifications, and
reversals of letters, he shall call up the Tree
of Knowledge of Good and Evil... [list of
encounter with various polarized qualities and
entities, e.g., Mercy and Severity] ... he will
be in danger of the same death as Ben Azzai."
 
 Beginning with the end of the Fourteenth
Century, there are descriptions of Kabbalists
studying together, and of each observing the
others to see if they become luminous.
"Likewise today, if someone will look at the
faces of students who are worshipping out of
love .. you will see on them the radiance of the
Divine Presence so that those who see them will
be afraid, and each of them will have the
radiance of the Divine Presence according to his
rank."  There is, in other words, the
expectation of a corporeally observable
radiance.
 
 For Maimonides the experience of the Pardes
was mental, with no outward sign; for the
Kabbalists it was corporeal and visible.
 For Maimonides, God was an intellect; for the
Kabbalists, God was a radiance.
 For Maimonides, Adam was a perfect intellect;
for the Kabbalists, Adam was a creature of
Light.
 For Maimonides, Paradise and Pardes were
intellectual (cerebral) states; for the
Kabbalists, they were corporeal, sensuous,
erotic, sexual and an object for practical
striving.
 The Kabbalists developed techniques -
Maimonides had no clear method.
 The Kabbalists attempted to describe
techniques, and signs of attainment.
 Thus the Kabbalistic tradition is not one of
speculations about mysticism; it is full-fledged
mysticism.  In the Kabbalistic tradition, an
extreme type of experience is sought out and
considered positive.
 The mystical death is the real goal of
ecstatic Kabbalah.  For Maimonides, the ideal is
to remain in a state of intellection.  For the
ecstatic Kabbalists, extreme experience is final
experience.
 
 The Pardes was thus idealized by Jewish
mystics, and given new meanings.  This
idealization opened another avenue, one
exploited especially by Eighteenth Century
Hasidic mysticism.  We can see a continuous line
from the beginning of the Kabbalah up to the
founder of the modern Hasidic movement who
himself quoted parts of the same text.  This can
be understood as an inner Jewish development,
and not a historical accident.
                              
                              
                          Questions
                              
Q:  Did all Kabbalists wish actual death?  For
  those who did not, what was the rationale for
  not wanting it?
A:  That is a matter of the mystic's role in
  society.  Moses, it is said, wanted to die,
  to leave the world, to remain in a state of
  union.  But God said he had a role as a
  mystic - to reach the extreme and yet return.
  But that is not the case for all Kabbalists:
  not all of them were oriented toward society.
  There as also a controversy about the
  desirability of it, but the idea that it
  could be achieved was admitted on all sides
  of the controversy.  It was not theologically
  denied.  Even those who opposed it admitted
  that a total union was possible.
Q:  In that case, how was Aqiva understood?
A:  He was understood as someone who could
  balance, who could enter and leave.  Aqiva
  (like Moses) could enter, but he knew when to
  retreat.  He knew how to combine the two.

Q:  On Tuesday you discussed the role of
  Halakhic ritual as a way of controlling
  impulses, for Maimonides.  Tonight you did
  not mention it at all.  Did it have a role?
A:  Maimonides was a Halakhist.  But most of
  the Kabbalists we have mentioned were not.
  Most were anonymous - they were not Halakhic
  masters, but mystics.  For them, keeping the
  norms was not as important as reaching beyond
  the norms.  Basically, they were a-nomian.
  They did not regard the Commandments as a
  major tool.  They might be preparatory, but
  they were not final.
Q:  Certainly not all aspects of Halakha would
  have been neutral:  it afforded major
  opportunities for ecstatic experiences on
  certain feasts, for example...
A:  These Kabbalists were not unobservant, they
  were not antinomian.  But as mystics (rather
  than as Jews) they used other types of
  rituals or techniques.  Ritual anyway would
  be suspended at the peaks of ecstatic
  experience, when one cannot do anything.  The
  issue is not simple - but there seems to have
  been no friction.  It is highly significant
  that there are no critiques of the use of
  mystical techniques, e.g., of combining
  Divine Names.  Their practice probably did
  not interfere with regular Halakhic
  observances.

Q:  How did such experiences tend to affect
  their experience of the material world?  Did
  it enhance their opinion of it?  Lower it?
A:  Here we touch on the paradoxical connection
  of the mystic and the prophetic mission.  As
  ecstatics, they were escapist.  But they also
  felt that the experience prompted or provoked
  a mission.  In coming back, the return was
  interpreted as a being sent forth, as having
  a mission.  This offered a rationale for
  coming back.  "You are permitted to return if
  you are needed."  Thus there was a tension
  between the drive for attainment and the
  feeling of a mission.

Q:  What about free will?  Could one say that
  Ben Azzai got what he wanted, and that Aqiva
  got what he wanted?
A:  Not exactly.  At a moment in an experience
  one may be caught up or captured by another
  dynamic.  You may lose control; free will may
  be overwhelmed, overridden.

Q:  Is there an attempt to revive these things
  in Israel?
A:  Yes; some are studying and practising these
  techniques.
Q:  For example?
A:  Breathing, letter combination - I have
  contacted at least ten people I know.
Q:  They base this on Kabbalistic descriptions?
A:  They ARE Kabbalists.

Q:  In this Kabbalistic context God is
  described as radiance, energy, but in basic
  Judaism God is also anthropomorphic,
  interested in the world.  Is there a
  connection?
A:  If one is speaking about erotic experience,
  there must be some sense of a personalistic
  object.  The Kabbalists tried to compromise
  between anthropomorphic and spiritualistic
  content.  The Sefiroth were seen as a
  structure of Light, but also as corporeal.
  They were able to shape the anthropomorphic
  content to a more spiritual, energic model.
  
  
   [Afterward, as is usual at such  lectures,
  people   approached   the   speaker    with
  congratulations,  comments,  and   assorted
  questions.  Two stand out.]
  
   [A  thin, intense young man kept asking  Idel
  about  energy  experiences, and the  sense  of
  "energy  coming in," and asked if  anyone  had
  done  any  EEG  studies of  Kabbalists.   Idel
  said  that  Judaic studies were still in their
  infancy; mostly they were textual studies,  an
  attempt  to figure out what the texts actually
  said  and what they were about - and even just
  to  find them and get them edited and printed.
  No  one  had  gotten to doing  anything  else,
  though  he  knew of the work by  Ornstein  and
  others,  and  thought it would be  interesting
  to do in a Kabbalistic context.
   [The  young man, consumed by his questioning,
  didn't  quite  see  Idel's  point  about   the
  emphasis   on   textual   scholarship;    Idel
  gradually   realized  the  young  man   wanted
  advice     about    his    own    meditational
  experiences,  and  was a little  taken  aback,
  and tried to achieve polite closure.
   
   [Idel  turned  to  another  questioner,   who
  asked something textual:
  
Q:   You  mentioned that these techniques became
  discussed  and  elaborated in  the  Thirteenth
  Century  or so.  Is there any textual evidence
  for their source?
A:   Yes;  in fact some of them can be found  in
  texts  of  the Hellenistic period,  especially
  those    involving   breathing   and    letter
  combination and visualization.  They  seem  to
  be   a   part  of  a  general  fund  of   such
  techniques  at the time, parallel  to  similar
  things   one  finds  in  Hellenistic   magical
  papyri, for example.
   
   [Then,  as  though realizing  then  that  the
  young  man's  questions {about what  it  meant
  when  energy  came in, as opposed  to  finding
  oneself   elsewhere,  about  the  dangers   of
  possession,  and  so on} were  pressing,  Idel
  turned   back  {despite  attempts  by  various
  professors  to ease him out of the  hall}  and
  began  quietly  to  address  himself  to   his
  queries.]
                              
                      [end of part II]