The Books of Contemplation: Medieval Jewish Mystical Sources

1. INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK OF CONTEMPLATION, THE FOUNTAIN OF WISDOM, AND THE BOOK OF UNITY

1 INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK OF CONTEMPLATION, THE FOUNTAIN OF WISDOM, AND THE BOOK OF UNITY In western Europe, around the year 1230,1 an obscure Jewish luminary writing under the nom de plume, Rabbi Hammai, composed a short yet profound theosophical treatise, probing the recondite nature of the Divine realm. Ifammai, it should be noted, is an Aramaic epithet signifying "seer" or "visionary."2 He entitled his trenchant essay SeJer ha-'/yyun, The Book oj Contemplation (hereafter , Contemplation). As it circulated throughout Spain and Provence it influenced other Jewish mystics. Within a few decades, dozens of texts were composed reflecting the idiosyncratic doctrines and terminology of Contemplation. Accordingly, it has become scholarly convention to refer to all of these works under the rubric of the writings of the "Circle of Contemplation" (hereafter "Circle").3 Contemplation is undoubtedly one of the seminal texts of the Jewish mystical tradition. Not only did it have a marked impact on contemporaneous works, but it continued to be studied and cited in 1. On the contentious issue of dating, see below pp. 179-185. 2. The Aramaic ~amma'/~ammy connotes seeing or observing. Thanks are due to Marc Brettler for this insight. Moreover, as Bernard Septimus has suggested , the rabbinic ending 'ale/, yud would signify one who engages in visionary or contemplative activity. 3. This construct was first formulated by Scholem and stems from the earliest period of his career, "Zur Frage der Entstehung der Kabbala," Korrespondenzblatt des Vereins zur Grundung und Erhaltung einer Akademie fur die Wissenschaft des ludentums, 9 (1928), 18-21. Subsequently, he mapped out the boundaries of the "Circle" by compiling a bibliographical catalogue of thirty-two distinct texts, Reshit ha-Kabbalah (Jerusalem 1948) 255-262. His most extensive discussion of these writings is found in Origins ofthe Kabbalah (Princeton 1987), 309-364. 2 The Books ofContemplation subsequent centuries.4 This in itself would justify serious research, and it was for this reason that I began my investigation of this text a number of years ago. What started out as a straightforward project became something much more fascinating with the startling discovery that there were in fact a whole series of interrelated texts, preserved only in manuscripts, bearing the name Contemplation and attributed to the mysterious Rabbi Hammai. Moreover, the only version ofthis work that was generally known and cited by scholars, such as Gershom Scholem, proved to be the last in the series, and therefore the farthest removed from the original composition and its doctrines. During the thirteenth century the different recensions of Contemplation were readily accessible, as is evidenced by contemporary citations. After that time only the last version remained in the public domain-the others became sequestered in unstudied manuscripts. A comparative analysis reveals that the various recensions underwent substantive changes. As we shall eventually see, the theological doctrines of the earliest version differ radically from the last. Presumably , this is indicative of a succession of authors that felt compelled to revise and reformulate the book's original teachings. Insofar as there is more than one text bearing the name The Book ofContemplation, it is appropriate to refer to these works collectively as The Books ofContemplation. The bulk of this monograph will be devoted to a presentation and analysis of these texts. We shall offer critical editions of the surviving Hebrew manuscripts, basing our results on some fifty different witnesses, currently preserved in libraries throughout the world. In addition, these treatises will be 4. Throughout this study numerous references will be made to the connections between Contemplation and other Spanish mystical writings from the early thirteenth century. Its influence on somewhat later authors is discernible in the late thirteenth-century German theologian R. Moses b. Eliezer ha-Darshan and the following late thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century figures: R. David b. Abraham ha-Lavan, R. Isaac of Acco, R. Menahem Recanati, and R. Joseph of Hamadan. In the subsequent centuries many of the pivotal kabbalists likewise referred to this text, including: R. Shem Tov ibn Shem Tov, R. Meir ibn Gabbai, R. Moses Cordovero, and R. Hayyim Vital. Nor was interest in Contemplation confined to Jewish authors. Beginning with Johannes Reuchlin, who cites Contemplation a number of times in his De Arte Cabbalistica, other Christian Renaissance theosophists followed suit, including Agrippa and Kircher. For bibliographical references to these and other sources, cf. M. Verman, Sifrei ha-Iyyun (Harvard U. diss. 1984), 155-163. Mark Verman...