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6 The Theurgic Dimension of the Commandments There are reasons for miFot that are not intended to be revealed. -Tiqqunei ha-Zohar, 130b. Jewish Mysticism is the sum of the attempts made to put a mystical interpretation on the content of Rabbinical Judaism. -Gershom Scholem1 As indicated earlier, the relationship between the maskil and the law is ambivalent, to the extent of being perceived as antinomian by mystics and critical scholars alike. In fact, the role of halakhah in Tiqqunei ha-Zohar and Ra'aya Meheimna can be determined through examining the dominant rabbinic motifs cited in these works. The author proposes a theurgic religious practice grounded in theosophical Kabbalah. Tiqqunei ha-Zohar and Ra'aya Meheimna tend to employ more widespread and sophisticated symbolization of halakhic ideas than the earlier sections of the Zohar. The law's mystical dimension flows from the mystique of practice, creating new possibilities for religious experience. 81 82 The Enlightened Will Shine Halakhic systems and rhetoric are means of interaction with the hidden functions of the Divine. Religious practice is a means of deepening one's understanding of the hidden and the revealed elements of existence. The practitioner's existential situation is in tension with the origins of the formal rite. Historical distance from the "simple" understanding of the ritual act invokes a mystery, the disjunction of present reality and the transcendent. The individual laws are metaphors for human and national conditions. The tropes of halakhah join biblical references as fuel for the author's flow of symbolic associations. Even the rabbis' social observations were reflective of metaphysical dynamics. Their ethical dicta do not merely describe patterns of religious behavior, but, rather, are insights into the very nature of the adept's condition. Contemplation of the Torah and the practice of the mi.~vot, particularly prayer, are also vehicles for kabbalistic theurgy.2 Tiqqunei ha-Zohar and Ra'aya Meheimna assign differing functions to the positive and the negative mi?Vot. The talmudic dictum "One increases in holiness and one does not decrease" is interpreted as implying that the negative mi?Vot are secondary to the positive.3 The positive commandments are symbolized or alluded to in such images as the apotropaic dove's wings,4 or the Divine glory or kavod.5 Different areas of Jewish law are understood in broadly symbolic terms. For example, the citron of the feast of Tabernacles or the broken mCl.??ah of the Passover meal are symbols of the Shekhinah, as are all references to archetypal femininity. The laws concerning the return of lost property are seen as a metaphor for the restoration of authentic gnosis and the commonwealth.6 Similarly, the various agricultural tithes symbolize the experience of exile .? Finally, the exile is symbolized by the forgotten sheaf lying in the "field," itself an archetypal symbol of the Shekhinah. In the opinion of Tiqqunei ha-Zohar and Ra'aya Meheimna, a characteristic theurgic act is that which unified the ten sefirot, because "the Torah and its precepts are for the sake of unification ."B All recurrences of the number ten are understood as referring to such theurgic actions. The author associated the ten acts composing the order of ritual sacrifice with the ten The Theurgic Dimension of the Commandments 83 declarations through which the world was created.9 These, in turn, are invoked every week in the ten attendant laws of the ritual benediction over wine.10 The rabbinic dictum "There is no holiness less than ten" validated the prayer quorum (minyan )ll and the idealized human height of 10 cubitsY These speculations on the number ten led to the conclusion that each of the ten sefirot contained another set of ten sefirot.13 Acts of speech have direct bearing on metaphysical reality , because God created the world through speech. Vows and oaths, therefore, derive their force from the nature of this Divine speech. Hence, the metaphysical binding power of vows and oaths derives from the same imperatives that bind God to the covenants with the Patriarchs. Vows are invested with greater power than oaths, because of their different nature. An oath, therefore, which is contingent on corporeal objects, derives from the transient world of temporal existence. A vow, which shapes the future behavior of the person who makes it, is contingent on the eternal world to come.14 All religious law necessarily contains aspects of the sefirah Gevurah, Divine judgment. The energies of that sefirah are applied by the rabbinic court.IS Biblical forms of...

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