Introduction
This article—drawing extensively on the research of Professor Hartley Lachter[1]—examines how Medieval Kabbalists constructed a theology of resistance in response to negative Christian portrayals of (particularly) the male Jewish body, as flawed, inferior and weak. In response, the Kabbalists advanced a counter-narrative that framed Jewish bodies as sacred, resilient and transcendent of time. This Kabbalistic interpretation also allowed Jews to see themselves as instrumental in a redemptive history, turning accusations of faithlessness by rejecting Jesus into affirmations of faithfulness to divine mystery. They were no longer inferior, but— through Kabbalah—indeed superior.
Background
Early Jewish mystical and philosophical traditions developed in Islamic cultural settings, particularly in al-Andalus (in Muslim southern Spain) and other centres of Jewish life under Islamic rule. These traditions absorbed and reworked ideas from Aristotelian philosophy, Neoplatonism [Kotzk Blog: 527) Neoplatonic echoes in Chassidic Mysticism], and Sufi mysticism [Kotzk Blog: 151) ‘CHOVOT HALEVAVOT’ – A SUFI CONNECTION?], which were transmitted through Arabic texts and translations.
Later Jewish mysticism, emerging around the time of the Zohar—which first appeared around 1290—developed in Christian Europe, particularly in Provence and northern Spain. Considering this predominantly Christian geography, it may be worthwhile to understand possible Christian influences, or more specifically, reactions to Christianity as found in Zoharic Kabbalah. In this sense, Zoharic Kabbalah should be read not only as a continuation of earlier Jewish mystical traditions but also as a response to Christian cultural pressures—particularly persecutions.
Christian portrayals of the male Jewish body
Medieval Christian discourse often constructed the male Jewish body as a site of difference, weakness, and even pathology, designed to reinforce Christian superiority and Jewish marginalisation. Christian theology frequently depicted Jewish males as plagued by bodily flaws and weakness. This was explained as a punishment for the sin of deicide (the killing of G-d).
Some Christian sources feminised Jewish males and projected the notion of them suffering from monthly male menstruation. This was their punishment for shedding the blood of Jesus (Resnik 2012:185).[2] Christian polemics contrasted the virile, chaste “soldier of Christ” with the feminised or deviant Jewish male. Jewish males were also portrayed as morally corrupt.
To deal with such negative and degrading imagery emerging from Christian polemics, Jewish mysticism developed a powerful counter-theology intended to reconstruct the image of the Jew, and particularly the Jewish male. Thirteenth and fourteenth century Zoharic Kabbalah exhibits redefining imagery of the Jew—particularly the persecuted and subaltern Jewish male—as powerful “inversions of Christian depictions of Jewish maleness” (Lachter 2018:123).
This reconstruction of the Jewish male identity adds nuance to discussions of Judaism as a patriarchal society. While patriarchy certainly shaped Jewish social structures, Kabbalah introduced an additional layer—a mystical reassertion of the male image in response to external Christian polemics. The mystical response was a claim of “secret knowledge about the hidden power of Jewish male bodies” (Lachter 2018:123).
In Christian ecclesiastical literature, Christian males—especially in the clergy—were depicted as elevated and “rarefied spiritual beings” (Lachter 2018:123). By contrast, Jewish males were frequently characterised as carnal and effeminate, while Christian art rendered them as grotesque figures. These characterisations circulated not only in Christian polemical works but also in medical treatises, which projected such perceived deficiencies onto Jewish bodies (Lachter 2018:124).
“[Jews] do not make use of arms and also like women every month they suffer, and for this it is written, ‘The Lord struck them in [their] posteriors and gave them eternal opprobrium [disgrace-GM]’—which is to say God struck them in [their] shameful parts and gave them perpetual reproach—because since they killed their brother, the true Abel, Jesus Christ, they are made vagabond and broken throughout the lands like the cursed Cain, they have a trembling head, which is to say, a fearful heart, shaking night and day, and they do not believe at all in their own lives” (Jacques de Vitry, 13th century, La traduction de l’Historia Orientalis, chapter 81, 129).
Many universities at that time emphasised physiognomy, and the Jewish (particularly male) ‘otherness’ became an important focus of study.
Jewish women
Sara Lipton, in an aptly titled article, “Where are the Gothic Jewish women?” shows that Jews—and Jewish males in particular—were construed as “ugly.” This perception was rooted in the claim that their excessive preoccupation with the minutiae of religious law prevented them from apprehending the spiritual expansiveness of Christian thought as embodied in Jesus (Lipton 2008:151).[3] Notably, however, when Jewish women were depicted, they were not presented as being different from Christian women.
Rabbinic reaction
Earlier Talmudic and Halachic sources did polemicise against Christianity, but usually in legal terms. They debated whether Christians were to be defined as idolaters and how they should be treated socially and economically within Jewish communities.
Kabbalistic reaction
The Kabbalists went one step further, and rather than legally redefining the non-Jew, they reimagined, particularly the Jewish male, as the very embodiment of the Divine. The female, however, remained associated with impurity—a characterisation they continued to share with their Christian counterparts. With their focus on the male, the Kabbalists redirected the discourse from the earlier legal framework to a symbolic-mystical construction of Jewish identity, producing a counter-image and counter-theology in which only the circumcised Jewish male was representative of G-d.
“For the kabbalists, the most sacred bodies are those of Jewish men that are endowed with a divine soul and that perform the mandates of Jewish law” (Lachter 2018:125).
Appropriation of incarnation
This conceptualisation of the sacredness of the Jewish male body may also be understood as a “counter-theological appropriation of the Christian doctrine of incarnation” (Lachter 2018:126), insofar as, in a Kabbalistic sense, the Divine is incarnated into man. Crucially, however, it is the Jewish man—not Jesus—who embodies this incarnation. Through Kabbalah, Jewish male identity was reconfigured and no longer cast as the target of Christian persecution and defilement. It was elevated to become the locus of Divine embodiment. According to a thirteenth or fourteenth Kabbalistic text:
“This is [a matter] from the great traditions of the Kabbalah. Know that man has been made in the image of the supernal sefirot. This is as scripture states, ‘let us make man in our image, according to our likeness,’ for there are supernal powers called ‘hand’ and ‘foot,’ ‘eye’ and ‘head’ as you will find in many places in scripture… And thus you will find that many kabbalists refer to the sefirot as the supernal man (‘adam ha-elyon), and when the lower man sanctifies his limbs and he does not stray after transgression, then his limbs are entwined with and connected to the limbs of the supernal man, and he himself is called holy . . . but if one . . . defiles his limbs, either all or some of them, it is as though he has caused a flaw in the supernal man” (Oxford Bodleian Opp. 487, 28v–29r; JTS 1896, 8b–9b).
Today, the notion that human beings both reflect and influence the Divine is a well‑established mystical concept, prominently expressed in later currents such as Chassidut, where the Sefirotic structure is understood to mirror the human form and inner life. Yet its origins, situated in the period of the Zohar’s emergence—amid intense anti-Jewish Christian polemics—provide a striking theological and historical context for its development that is often overlooked in contemporary discussions.
Mystical emphasis on anti-celibacy
Although the Torah in Genesis, as well as later rabbinic literature, discussed the importance of procreation, the Kabbalists placed particular weight on this theme, aligning it with their anti-Christian polemic against the celibacy promoted by the Church. Late thirteenth-century Spanish Kabbalistic writers like Yosef Hamadan emphasised the Talmudic notion of partnering with G-d in the act of creation, “There are three partners in a person: G-d, the father, and the mother” (b. Nidda 31a). Yosef Hamadan, however, elevated this notion of partnership above a legal requirement, polemicised it and transformed a Halachic‑ethical idea into a mystical‑theological one. He reimagined the Jewish male not just as a partner but as the embodiment of divine creativity itself. He writes that the male becomes G-d’s “collaborator” who also “creates worlds” and “sustains the emanative chain (shalshelet)” (Meier 1974:256).[4] Through a process of theological inversion, this Kabbalistic narrative completely negated the Christian valorisation of celibacy, ascetic detachment from the material world, and monastic life—transforming procreation into a sanctified site of power, holiness if not G-dly embodiment and incarnation. It also served to squarely confront Christian depictions of Jewish males as weak and effeminate, as well as respond to the Christian notion of G-d’s incarnation in just one man, Jesus.
Yosef Hamadan is not regarded as one of the contributors to the Zohar itself, but he is generally situated within the broader circle of Zoharic Kabbalists, whose writings emerged in the same cultural and intellectual milieu as the Zohar and reflect similar mystical themes.
Dietary Laws
Some Christian polemicists claimed that Jews kept their dietary laws reinforce their desire for carnality, appetiete and materialism. This kept them away from the purity, ascetic and spiritual focus offered by Christianity. The Kabbalists developed a counter-theology that the Jew’s involvement in the material realm offered unique opportunities to perfect and purify the cosmos. Jews can consume food and engage with materiality because the “fire” and “sanctity” within their souls have the power to burn away physical impurities and elevate them into the realm of spirituality and holiness. Once again, Yosef Hamadan writes in a style characteristic of Kabbalistic argumentation and logic:
“Foreign peoples [i.e., non-Jews] have no sanctity in them whatsoever, and they have no flame in their souls that consumes the impurity; rather, they draw it to them selves, and thus they eat impure foods in order to draw the impurity to themselves… Happy are we and fortunate is our lot that God…desires us and gave us his Torah and granted us impurity and purity, for it is the perfection of the world. It is impossible to have one without the other. This is the secret of judgment and mercy, the good inclination and the evil inclination, and impurity truly is what purifies Israel” (Yosef Hamadan, in Meier, A Critical Edition of Sefer Ta’amey ha-Mitzvot, 149).
Accordingly, Kabbalistic thought introduces a counter‑notion in which direct engagement with the material realm is not merely permitted but required, since only through such interaction can the physical be elevated and transformed into a lofty spiritual end. It should be noted once again that ideas like elevating the physical to spiritual ends existed earlier in Jewish tradition, but in the Zoharic period, it was intensified, systematised, and polemically sharpened as a response to Christian attacks.
Weak Jews, strong souls
As noted, thirteenth‑century Christian polemicists portrayed Jewish males as effeminate and weak. The anonymous author of Midrash haNe’elam, one of the earliest works within the Zoharic corpus, develops a mystical counter-narrative. Non-Jews may indeed appear stronger than Jews. This is because their power derives from their bodies and not their souls. Jews are powerful in a spiritual sense because their power derives from their souls and the Divine realm.
Jewish prayer is ineffective
Some thirteenth-century Christian polemicists claimed Jewish prayer was clearly ineffective because Jews were few in number, in exile and scattered like scavengers throughout the other nations of the world. Most importantly, they were still waiting for the Messiah, who had not yet arrived. Christian prayers, on the other hand, were effective because the Messiah had already come.
Lachter explains that the accusation of ineffective prayer may have been the challenge that most unsettled the Kabbalists, more than any of the other polemical charges. Consequently, we find mystical writings from this period that emphasise the power and efficacy of Jewish prayer, presenting it as a force capable of sustaining Divine Presence and cosmic order and not just about political or messianic agency. Prayer now became the proclivity of Jewish men who were portrayed to have a direct impact on “the divine realm, uniting the sefirot and drawing divine overflow into the world” (Lachter 2018:130).
Dying for your religion
Going one step further, the Zohar describes Jewish prayer as so holy that the worshiper actually [Mammesh] “dies” after each prayer service, having sustained the universe through their devotion:
“Once a man performs his worship in the proper manner, in both performance and utterance, and he binds the bond of unification, it is by his actions that the upper and lower entities are blessed. Thus, a man must regard himself after he completes the Amidah prayer as though he has died…and he gathers his legs into the tree of death… And thus, he gives himself over to death, truly [mammash]… like one who has truly departed from the world” (Zohar 3:120b–121a).
Christians claimed that Jesus died for the sins of humanity and was subsequently resurrected. In contrast, the Zohar offers a mystical counter‑narrative in which every Jewish male worshiper undergoes a “death” three times daily and is continually resurrected to re‑enter the cycle of prayer.
Depiction of R. Shimon bar Yochai’s death and marriage to
the Shechina
In the section of the Zohar known as the Idra Zuta, a dramatic scene unfolds in which R. Shimon is said to have revealed esoteric secrets of the Divine anatomy and the sexual union between the male and female aspects of the Godhead. The passage then “culminates in the ecstatic death of R. Shimon and his union with—literally marriage to—the Shekhinah” (Lachter 2018:131). R. Shimon is presented as describing and being in control of his own death. He speaks of a “crown” for his head:
“Now I testify that all the days I have existed, I yearned to see this day [of my death- GM], though my desire was not attained. For with this crown, this day [of my death] is adorned…for all of them crown my head…for the whole day [of my death] is in my control” (Zohar 3:291b).
Thus, unlike Jesus, who died at the hands of others and against his will, R. Shimon is in control of his own death. R. Shimon teaches that the unification of male and female aspects of the Divine are mirrored in the union between male and female on earth, again countering the Christian notion of celibacy, which only results in half a body:
“Here, too, when the male joins with the female, all is one body; and all worlds are joyful, for they are blessed by a complete body” (Zohar 3:296a).
Thus, this Zoharic depiction appears to be an inversion of the Christian story of the death of Jesus as well as an inversion of notions of sexual sanctity. It depicts inverted imagery similar to the Christian story:
“Rather than wear a thorny crown, he [R. Shimon bar Yochai] adorns himself with a crown of words woven from his own revelation of divine mysteries. And in place of a celibate Christ, the Zoharic text underscores the notion that only married men like R. Shimon truly reflect the image of God” (Lachter 2018:132).
Inversion of Eucharistic theology
R. Abba is then said to have entered the house where R. Shimon had passed away, following a fiery manifestation that broke out as R. Shimon delivered his final teaching. He finds R. Shimon lying on his right side, smiling. R. Abba is recorded as saying, “As for me, I licked the dust beneath his feet.” R. Shimon’s son, R. Elazar, took his father’s hands and kissed them. The other companions eventually cried. Then:
“Rabbi Elazar his son flung himself down three times but could not open his mouth. Finally he opened, saying, ‘Father, Father! Three there were; into one they have turned… and the companions are all drinking blood” (Zohar 3:296b).
These are images that closely parallel those found in Christian discourse about the Trinity and the death of Jesus. The “licking the dust from beneath his feet” and the companions “drinking blood” resonate with the Christian practice of the Eucharist established in 1215 (the Zohar came out just decades later in 1290), in which the body and blood of Jesus are miraculously “transubstantiated” into the communion wafer and wine and then consumed. But instead of a suffering Jesus, the Jewish hero of R. Shimon bar Yochai emerges smiling and superior (Lachter 2018:132).
Shem Tov Ibn Shem Tov on
persecution and reincarnation
Shem Tov Ibn Shem Tov, a late fourteenth-century Kabbalist, continued along similar lines. He lived at a time when the massacres against the Jews in 1391 had killed off a third of the Jewish population, and there were many forced conversions to Christianity. To dispel Christian accusations of the wretchedness of the Jews, he promoted the idea of Gilgul (Reincarnation). Thus, the Jews have not been abandoned but have been reincarnated since the earliest of times, and this is a necessary process that has to be completed to bring about the arrival of the true Messiah:
“Each experience of violence, expulsion, and oppression serves to purge the collective Jewish community of souls of their impurities and transgressions” (Lachter 2018:136).
This way, Ibn Shem Tov continues the polemic. Using Jewish mysticism, he dispels the negative claims of those Christians who used the tribulations of Jewish history to denigrate the role of Jews in history. He explains through Gilgul, that not only despite the upheavals of Jewish history, but because of them, Jews had a future role of cosmic and messianic significance. Despite depictions of an inferior, flawed and persecuted Jewish body, even that body can traverse time and effect cosmic repair.
Conclusion
The thirteenth and fourteenth-century Kabbalists had a lived experience of—and responded to—Christian polemics not merely with refutation but with profound theological creativity. By appropriating and inverting Christian claims—about efficacy of Jewish prayer, masculinity, materialism, incarnation, redemption and even Jesus’ death—they constructed a mystical framework in which negative Jewish experiences and vulnerability became the very means of cosmic repair. Where Christianity exalted the singular, universal and redemptive role of Jesus, Kabbalah responded and elevated the collective of ordinary Jewish men as indispensable agents of divine restoration, crucial to sustaining the universe.
Analysis
This study has sought to illustrate how mystical theology can serve as a vehicle for cultural and political resilience. At the same time, it raises the possibility that certain Kabbalistic notions—later celebrated as timeless revelations—may have been shaped, at least in part, by the polemical pressures of their historical moment.
In this light—perhaps ironically—Christian polemics may have
provided not only a context but even an impetus for the
articulation of ideas that were later reinterpreted, in unrelated settings, as enduring
mystical truths.
[1]
Lachter, H., 2018, Jewish Bodies in Divine Form: Jewish Difference and
Historical Consciousness in Medieval Kabbalah, Journal of Jewish Identities,
vol. 11 no. 1, 123-142.
[2]
Resnik, I. M., 2012, Marks of Distinction: Christian Perceptions of Jews in
the High Middle Ages Catholic University of America Press, Washington DC,
185.
[3]
Lipton, S., 2008, “Where are the Gothic Jewish Women? On the Non-Iconography of
the Jewess in the Cantigas de Santa Maria,” Jewish History, vol.22, 151.
[4]
Menahem Meier, ed., ‘A Critical Edition of Sefer Ta’amey ha-Mitzvot’, by Joseph
of Hamadan (PhD diss., Brandeis University, 1974).
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