From Metaphysics to Midrash: Myth, History, and the Interpretation of Scripture in Lurianic Kabbala

The Lurianic Myth A Playbill

the Lurianic Myth A Playbill Figure 1. From Hayyim Vital, ¿Ozrot Hayyim (Jerusalem: Makor Hayyim, n.d.) Figure 2. From Meir Poppers, Ha-Ilan ha-Gadol (r.p. Jerusalem, 2005) 18 From Metaphysics to Midrash Is the Bible myth or “history”? Is Kabbala myth or symbol? More genera a ally, is Judaism founded on myth and, if so, what does a Jewish myth look like? These questions lie at the root of any serious engagement with class a sical Jewish texts and more so with kabbalistic sources that are wed to a notion of understanding this world as a reflection of the cosmic realm. Like other mystical systems, Kabbala posits that the empirical world we live in is accompanied by another nonempirical dimension—created yet not corporeal, divine yet not fully God. This noncorporeal dimension does not only exist outside this world in some transcendent universe but also occupies the very world we live in. The kabbalistic fraternity exami a ined in this study refers to this noncorporeal world as the world of the sephirot (cosmic spheres). These sephirot (ten in number but divided into many subgroups) both affect us and are affected by us. They affect us bec a cause the cosmic realm serves as an intermediary between our world and the undifferentiated God (known by our kabbalists as eyn sof—without end). There is very little the kabbalists have to say about eyn sof since this God, as ineffable, has no real relation to us nor do we have any relations a ship to it. In this sense, some kabbalistic theology is not far from the neoAristotelian “negative theology” popular among many medieval philosop a phers. However, whereas negative theologians leave it at that, kabbalists posit a divine-yet-created cosmic realm with which we have an intimate, and reciprocal, relationship. This realm is the primary focus of their att a tention. The cosmos is affected by us because the kabbalists understand the covenantal theology of the Hebrew Bible in literal or even hyperlite a eral terms. That is, they hold that human action affects God, not God as eyn sof (who, as infinite, is beyond human influence) but the dimension of God that is “created” or the world of sephirot. To act in accordance with div a vine command results in the reparation (tikkun) of the cosmic realm dama a aged by the initial rupture of the creative act. The sephirot serve as catalysts filtering divine effluence as it moves from the eyn sof to the material world. The kabbalists of the Lurianic School hold that creation was, in a sense, a failure. That is, the “divine int a tention” of creation was to produce a corporeal space that could absorb the unmitigated flow of divine energy that would very quickly result in the reabsorption of creation into the undifferentiated God. Things worked out quite differently. The failure of creation is exhibited in the two central parts of the creation myth in Lurianic Kabbala; zimzum (div a vine contraction) and shevirat ha-kelim (the rupture of the vessels) about which I will have more to say below. For our kabbalists, the fallen state of creation is not solely due to the sin of Adam and Eve. The origin of failu a ure, exile, and sin, is the fractured process of creation itself. The sin of Adam and Eve is, in some sense a mirror of the fallen world they occup a The Lurianic Myth 19 pied. According to this school, the sin was not only predictable but also perhaps inevitable. While our world is the consequence of this failed crea a ation process (in Lurianic Kabbala our world is, by definition, exilic) the damage also exists in the cosmic realm (the world of the sephirot). As disj a jointed or uncoupled (the natural state of the sephirot is to be in perennial heterosexual union or yihud tamidi) the sephirot cannot serve as conduits for an even descent of divine effluence into the world. This disunity res a sults in a world (our world) dominated by the powers of the demonic. This is the basis of Lurianic theodicy. This dark vision of existence is temp a pered by the notion that the human being (in Lurianic Kabbala this is largely limited to the male Jew) is created in the “image of God” (zelem eloh him ; Gen. 1:26) and has the unique ability to restructure the...