Forsaken: The Menstruant in Medieval Jewish Mysticism

4 Menstrual Impurity and Mystical Praxis in Theosophical Kabbalah

63 4 Menstrual Impurity and Mystical Praxis in Theosophical Kabbalah Kabbalah emerges in southern France at the end of the twelfth century in response to the challenge of medieval Aristotelianism.1 Provençal rabbis were first introduced to Aristotelian philosophy by Sephardim fleeing the Almohad and Almoravid persecutions in the 1140s. After Maimonides’ works reached Provençal shores, introduction gave way to controversy. Traditional scholars who had been accustomed to midrashic modes and the Neoplatonism embedded in them, were now challenged by what was for them a new, foreign, and inauthentic perception of God. Who was this unmoved mover? Why interpret the anthropomorphisms of the Bible allegorically? In response, they synthesized late-antique and Ashkenazi Jewish mystical traditions, and enlarged upon them to create a type of indigenous Jewish philosophy.2 Isaac the Blind, son of the famous Jewish legist Abraham ben David, wrote kabbalistic commentaries on Sefer Yetsirah and the statutory prayers.3 He shared his teachings with students Ezra and Azriel of Gerona, who along with Jacob ben Sheshet developed the distinctly philosophical form of Geronese Kabbalah.4 Moses ben Nahman, the leader of the Jewish community of Barcelona , disapproved of these Geronese innovations and insisted that kabbalistic speculation remain traditional and esoteric. He only alludes to kabbalistic secrets in his Torah commentary. Ironically, in so doing, he popularized Kabbalah, alerting the uninitiated to the existence of an esoteric meaning to the Bible and unwittingly inviting kabbalists to bring to light that which he had chosen to keep hidden.5 In the last quarter of the thirteenth century, Jewish mystics flocked farther southtoCastile,whereaculturalrenaissancesponsoredbyAlphonsotheWise facilitatedwhatMosheIdelhascalled“thefloweringofKabbalisticsymbolism,” culminating in the Zohar.6 The Zohar is a pseudepigraphic work attributed to 64 · Medieval Kabbalah the second-century Palestinian scholar Shimon bar Yoh . ai, but its origins were actually in late-thirteenth- and early-fourteenth-century Castile. Moses de Leon of Guadalajara was long considered to be the sole author of the Zohar, but recently scholars such as Yehuda Liebes and Ronit Meroz have shown that the work is too multifaceted to be the product of a single person. They suggest that the Zohar is a compilation by a circle of scholars with Moses de Leon at the helm. Indeed, this collaborative effort is suggested by the Zohar’s frame narrative—the circle of Rabbi Shimon bar Yoh . ai and his compatriots in the Galilee parallels the mystical circle in Castile/Leon. Members of this esoteric group include many kabbalists known by their independent works: Joseph Gikatilla, Joseph Hamadan, Avner of Burgos, and Joseph Angelet.7 Mystics throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries collected these traditions until they were ultimately canonized by the printing of the Zohar in Italy in the sixteenth century.8 Many kabbalists were frustrated by the Aristotelian assertion that God is unknowable—an unmoved mover unresponsive to his believers—but nonetheless attracted to the notion of an omnipotent and immutable power. Building upon Jewish tradition and the Neoplatonic philosophy regnant in their day, they described a God that is both” hidden and manifest” in our world.9 God is said to have ten knowable attributes, known as sefirot, with one aspect lying beyond the realm of human cognition, the Ain Sof (without end). Theosophical kabbalists believed that they could learn about the inner processes of the divine realm through the esoteric interpretation of God’s own words. Mystical contemplation of the Torah rather than philosophical speculation of Aristotle’s Metaphysics was their path to God and his cosmos. Moreover, thirteenth-century kabbalists believed that human beings and God enjoyed a reciprocal relationship. Men and women were sustained through God’s beneficence, but God was invigorated through people’s actions. Proper performanceofallthecommandmentswouldfosterunityinthedivinerealm, and conversely, sinning could unleash the forces of evil in the sefirotic realm. Few laws escaped their notice, including the long defunct laws of the Israelite Temple cult. ThesymbolsoftheTemplecult—priesthood,theHolyofHolies,thethrone of the cherubim, sacrifice, the chariot of Ezekiel—that had been so central to Hekhalot literature and German Pietism take on even more symbolic importance in twelfth and thirteenth century Kabbalah. The priestly authors of the BibleconsideredthetabernacleandtheHolyofHoliesintheSolomonicTem- Menstrual Impurity and Mystical Praxis · 65 ple to be God’s office on earth.10 After the destruction of the First Temple, Ezekiel envisioned a mobile Temple in the form of a chariot (merkavah) that brought God’s glory into Exile. Hekhalot literature fixes this Temple in the heavens, and German Pietists make this celestial...