-
1. Tiqqunei ha-Zohar and Ra'aya Meheimna in Context
- State University of New York Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
1 Tiqqunei ha-Zohar and Ra'aya Meheimna in Context The enlightened will shine like the brightness of the firmament (Daniel 12:3). The enlightened are Rabbi Shimon and his companions, will shine when they gathered together, they were permitted an audience with Elijah, all the souls of the academy and all the hidden and cerebral angels. And the Most Transcendent permitted all the holy names and beings and all the signs to reveal their hidden secrets to them, every name on its own level, and the ten sefirot were permitted to reveal to them secrets hidden until the advent of the Messiah. -Tiqqunei ha-Zohar la The main sections of the Zohar were composed informally, based on (the sages') discussion when they had completed studying the intricacies of the laws of the Torah. But for Tiqqunei ha-Zohar and Ra'aya Meheimna, the Song of Songs, Piqqudim and the Idra, they truly put everything aside for the present text, for these compositions complete the others. In it, they delved into the secrets that came forth to them, of the shining ofthe firmament . .. -Moshe Cordovero1 1 2 The Enlightened Will Shine The purpose of this study is to examine two works of an anonymous medieval Jewish mystic: Tiqqunei ha-Zohar (also called the Tiqqunim) and Ra'aya Meheimna. Both works are included in the Zohar, the classical work of Jewish mysticism. The author of the Tiqqunim was one of the last of the circle of scholars who composed the lohar. This mystic's expressive style and theological ideas stand out from the rest of the lohar. His works have a particular understanding of the mystic's role in society. The author of the Tiqqunim and Ra'aya Meheimna was very conscious of the tensions inherent in the mystic's relationship to Jewish law and society. When considered together, the works of this mystic have a coherent and unified theological position that encompasses the dominant themes of Jewish mysticism up to his time and presage its subsequent historical development. This study will examine this obscure figure and show his effect on subsequent Jewish spirituality. The lohar literature is the strongest expression of the medieval Jewish mysticism that is commonly called Kabbalah. The Hebrew word kabbalah means, literally, "that which is received." This emphasis on reception reflects a tension between adherence to traditional religious structures and lore, on the one hand, and the renewal of the tradition through creative reinterpretation, on the other.2 Kabbalists reviewed the vast exoteric Jewish tradition and understood its inner dynamics in novel and compelling ways. The legal (halakhic) and homiletic (aggadic) structure of Rabbinic Judaism provided Kabbalah with its imagery, whereas its religious practices defined the parameters of the kabbalist's experience. The strength of the Kabbalah lay in its perceived authenticity, in its evocation of the spirit of the law. Its theorists generally adhered to the most pious belief and practice. Kabbalistic truths, therefore, are best understood in the context of their source tradition, for Kabbalah is the product of a reconsideration of the universe of symbols provided by classical Judaism. Although reinforcing the values and piety of Rabbinic Judaism, Kabbalah expressed the mystical desire for renewed experience of the transcendent and for the metaphysical understanding of reality. Kabbalists claimed to experience the Tiqqunei ha-Zohar and Ra'aya Meheimna in Context 3 metaphysical ultimacies as well as the historical realities of Judaism. Kabbalah portrayed itself as the inner component of Judaism, the resolution of its underlying paradoxes and contradictions . The lohar is the preeminent text of the theosophical Kabbalah, the first great work of genius in this tradition. The lohar is not a single work, but a collection of some two dozen separate compositions, constituting, in published editions, over 2,000 pages of closely printed Aramaic text. These various compositions experiment with a number of writing styles and rabbinic literary forms. Such stylistic variety may be either the result of multiple authors and strata of composition or the attempt of a single author to find his literary muse.3 Because of the sophistication of their ideas and their late setting, Tiqqunei ha-Zohar and Ra'aya Meheimna probably make up the latest chronological stratum of the lohar. Critical lohar studies, to date, have concentrated on the main body of the lohar, which is generally understood as having been compiled by R. Moshe Ben Shem Tov de Leon, of late thirteenth century Guadalajara, Spain. Contemporary scholars of Kabbalah, such as Gershom Scholem, Isaiah Tishby, and...