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| Likkutim with references to Sefer haIyun and Shem Tov Ibn Gaon (see Appendix): |
- POLEMICS OF AN EARLY MYSTICAL POWER-STRUGGLE -
INTRODUCTION:
The Zohar was first published (in manuscript form) in around
1280. During that century and the next, there was much debate over who wrote
it, who owned it and - more importantly - who owned the Kabbalistic
tradition in general.
The publication of the Zohar brought the issue of
ownership of Kabbalah to a head because this was the beginning of a new literary
(written) mystical tradition replacing a hitherto largely oral mystical
tradition.
In this article, we will explore the question of who owned
the authentic rights to Kabbalah. Was it those who wrote, read and studied its books - or those who transmitted
and expounded it the form of an oral tradition?
I have drawn
extensively from Professor Moshe Halbertal,
a graduate of Har Etzion Yeshiva who later served, amongst other positions, as
visiting professor at Yale and Harvard Universities. He is also the co-author
of the Israeli Army Code of Ethics.
Considering the prime role the Zohar and Kabbalah were to play in future Judaism, it is interesting to see how ideas we usually take for granted as always being part of Jewish tradition, were fiercely debated at that time.
What is refreshing about this account is that it is not
historical speculation but, instead, a record of ‘eye witness’ writings of two
contemporaneous Kabbalists from each of the two competing mystical
schools at the time of the publication of the Zohar in the late 13th-
century. It is the story of the battle between the established older oral mystical tradition and the infancy and stirrings of a new competing written tradition.
THE CLASH OF THE LITERARY AND ORAL MYSTICAL TRADITIONS:
Moshe Halbertal presents the problem:
“The emergence of literary
canon endows a tradition with authority and endurance, which is independent
from the localized and bounded channels of oral transmission. Yet such
transformation might undermine that same tradition it aimed at solidifying.”
MEIR IBN SAHULA VS SHEM TOV IBN GAON:
This tension resulted in a clash between the newer literary
and older oral mystical traditions. The clash may be personified
as a conflict between two exponents of these traditions, namely Meir Ibn Sahula
(1255-1335) representing what was to become the new literary tradition, and
Shem Tov Ibn Gaon (1283-1330) representing the older oral tradition.
PART 1:
MEIR IBN SAHULA:
WRITTEN TEXTS AND MEIR IBN SAHULA’S INDEPENDENT MYSTICAL STUDY:
Towards the latter part of the 13th-century, the
Spanish Kabbalist Meir Ibn Sahula wrote about how he had acquired all
his mystical knowledge from books and not from an oral tradition. This was
something rather unusual at that time.
Meir Ibn Sahula had written a commentary to an earlier Kabbalistic
work, Sefer Yetzirah, and in it he writes:
"For several years
already, I have been studying these things relating to all secrets, starting
with the Sefer Habahir, which explains some matters, and the writings of Rabbi
Asher who wrote the Perush Shlosh Esreh Middot and the Perush Hashevu'ah, and
Rabbi Ezra , Rabbi Azariel and Rabbi Moshe ben Nahman [Nachmanides or Ramban],
all of blessed memory . Also, I studied those chapters. And I acquired some of
the commentary on Sefer Yetzirah attributed to Rabbi Moshe bar Nahman of
blessed memory, but I was unable to acquire all of it."
Evidently, Meir Ibn Sahula had access to a large body of
written mystical literature and he was happy to consult it and learn from it. However, he was the exception rather than the rule, as most Kabbalists
held to the very strict tradition of an oral mystical transmission. Mystical
books (baring one or two exceptions) and certainly libraries were considered
unauthentic and unauthorized for such an important tradition.
NACHMANIDES’ ORAL MYSTICAL TRADITION AND HIS OPPOSITION
TO INDEPENDENT MYSTICAL INQUIRY:
A strong advocate of the oral transmission of mystical
knowledge as the only way to study and understand these ideas was Nachmanides
(1194-1270). Nachmanides is generally known as the father of Jewish mysticism
and he promoted its transmission in a mostly oral form.
Nachmanides maintained that the mystical tradition was a
closed system which had its origins at Sinai and the only way to safeguard its
authenticity was, essentially, through oral transmission.
Nachmanides’ commonly adopted position can be seen in the Introduction
to his Commentary on the Torah:
"[C]oncerning any of the
mystic hints which I write regarding the hidden matters of the Torah...I do
hereby firmly make known to him [the reader] that my words will not be
comprehended nor known at all by any reasoning or contemplation, excepting from
the mouth of a wise Kabbalist speaking into the ear of an understanding recipient.
Reasoning about them is
foolishness; any unrelated thought brings much damage and withholds the
benefit... let them take moral instruction from the mouths of our holy
Rabbis...[A]bout that which is hidden from you, do not ask."
There was to be no innovation or space for any private
access to this knowledge. It could not be acquired independently. It had to be
given over only by the master who possessed and owned that knowledge.
MEIR IBN SAHULA AS INDEPENDENT MYSTICAL INQUIRER:
Accordingly, Meir Ibn Sahula can be considered a mystic rebel
in that he went against the dictates of mainstream Kabbalists and
promoted independent textual study of mystical literature.
Meir Ibn Sahula writes in stark contradistinction to
Nachmanides:
"We must investigate the
words according to our understanding, and walk in them in the paths walked by
the prophets in their generation and in the generations before us, during the
two hundred years of kabbalists to date, and they call the wisdom of the ten
sefirot and some of the reasons for the commandments[,] Kabbalah."
In another statement, Meir Ibn Sahula is even clearer:
"I did not receive this
from tradition, but I say 'open my eyes that I may gaze on the wonders of your
Law'."
Halbertal describes Meir Ibn Sahula as undermining the authority of the earlier Kabbalists:
“The restriction of the scope
of the tradition empowers the investigative position and his reliance on
reasoning.”
AGE AND PROVENANCE OF KABBALAH:
This “restriction of scope” is fundamentally
important because it now allows and admits the notion of innovation of mystical
ideas – something abhorrent to the mainstream Kabbalists like
Nachmanides who roots his mystical tradition in Sinai.
What is striking about the position taken by Meir Ibn Sahula
is that he sees much of Kabbalah as having developed later, especially
during the two hundred year period before him. This would be particularly significant
because new mystical ideas such as the Ten Sefirot
as defined by the more recent written works, were to become a cornerstone
and basic building block of much of future Jewish mysticism.
CHUG HAIYUN AND THEIR PSEUDEPIGRAPHA:
Besides the publication of the Zohar, there were numerous other mystical
writings - some more accurate than others - that were also in circulation. The
Spanish Kabbalists were particularly esoteric but one group from
Castille was even more extreme. They were known as the Chug haIyun or Circle
of In-Depth Contemplation. It is likely that Meir Ibn Sahula was part of this group.
They produced a vast mystical literature which was largely
pseudepigraphical (i.e., written falsely in the name of other, earlier and better
known authorities).
Halbertal refers to their pseudepigraphical enterprises as
“creative and daring.” They did not base their teachings on any oral
tradition. Instead, took their authority from (according to Halbertal a
mythical figure)
R. Chamai Gaon. They were intent on breaking the closed, secret and exclusive circle
of traditional Kabbalists like Nachmanides.
The writings of the Chug
haIyun - together with other mystical writings which accumulated from
various sectors of the Spanish mystical community - eventually culminated in
the writing of the Zohar, which further broke the notion that Kabbalah was
a closed system.
PART 2:
SHEM TOV IBN GAON:
SHEM TOV IBN GAON COMES TO THE DEFENCE OF NACHMANIDES:
At the other end of the spectrum - in light of the plethora
of newly published mystical literature - another mystic, Shem Tov Ibn Gaon
emerges as a defender of the more traditional system of oral transmission as
propounded by Nachmanides. He attempts to reinstate the closed model of Kabbalah
as an oral tradition only for the duly initiated.
Shem Tov Ibn Gaon was a student of Rashba (Rabbi Shlomo Ibn
Aderet - also known as the Rabbi of Spain - El Rab d'España) who in turn was a student
of Nachmanides.
Shem Tov Ibn Gaon writes about how, in his view, the oral
mystical tradition goes back to Sinai:
“For no sage can know of them
through his own sagacity, and no wise man may understand through his own
wisdom, and no researcher through his research, and no expositor through his
exposition; only the kabbalist may know, based on the Kabbalah that he
received, passed down orally from one man to another, going back to the chain
of the greats of the renowned generation, who received it from their masters,
and the fathers of their fathers, going back to Moses...who received it as Law
from Sinai.”
Shem Tov Ibn Gaon then takes a swipe at the style of popular
mystical writings that were beginning to emerge and he challenges their
authenticity:
"[E]very man whom the
spirit of God is within must take heed...lest he find books written with this
wisdom...for perhaps the whole of what he received is but chapter headings;
then he may come to study such books and fall in the deep pit as a result of
the sweet words he finds there; for he may rejoice in them, or desire their
secrets or the sweetness of the lofty language he finds there.
But perhaps their author has
not received the Kabbalah properly, passed down orally from one to another; he
may only have been intelligent or skilled in poetry or rhetoric... and have
left the true path, as our Sages of blessed memory warned, 'in the measure of
his sharpness, so is his error’.”
Probably because of the timing of Shem Tov Ibn Gaon’s writing so soon after the publication of the
Zohar, Halbertal interprets his word as follows:
“It may very well be that Shem
Τον Ibn Gaon was warning his readers against the Zohar, which is the epitome of
the development of the Kabbalah as literature, as its marvelous literary
qualities are powerfully seductive...
[The older and more
traditional oral mystical systems]
have no narrative frames or mythic characters, nor do they display complex
weaves of midrashim and explanations, whereas in the Zohar we find these
elements in abundance. The seductive appeal of the literary kabbalistic works
threaten its status as a precise tradition handed down by Moses on Mount Sinai;
it is this threat that Shem Tov struggled with.”
Halbertal points out that Nachmanides’ writings, in stark
contradistinction to the style of the Zohar, are ‘devoid of any literary
quality’. Nachmanides was not writing to entertain. Bear in mind that
Nachmanides would have passed away (in 1270) about ten years before the Zohar
was published (in 1280).
But Shem Tov Ibn Gaon hasn’t finished yet. Besides
criticising the abundance of new mystical literature, he launches into what
appears to be an attack against the Zohar seeming to accuse it of
pseudepigrapha. This is one of the first contemporaneous criticisms of the Zohar
which was to become the mainstay of Jewish mysticism:
"God forbid, for the
earlier instructed ones and the bearers of tradition have already proclaimed
against this, saying that the wise man should not read any book unless he knows
the name of its author.”
This statement needs to viewed against the backdrop of the fact
that although the Zohar was only published in 1280, it was claimed to have been
written by R. Shimon Bar Yochai, a Tanna from the Mishnaic Period one thousand
years earlier. It was claimed that some of Bar Yochai’s original manuscripts
had recently been found and only published in 1280 for the first time. Others
counterclaimed that the Zohar was a pseudepigraphic forgery written by Moshe de León (1240-1305).
Shem Tov Ibn Gaon continues:
“And this is just, for when he
knows whom its author is, he will understand its path and intention,
(transmitted) from one man to another until the members of his generation.
Thus, he may know if its author was a legitimate authority, and from whom he
received it and whether his wisdom is renowned."
Later, Shem Tov Ibn Gaon continues to highlight the
differences between his Nachmanidean school and the new and emerging literary Kabbalistic
tradition:
"[The traditional
mystical schools] were careful not to compose unattributed literature, writing
only in their own names. Furthermore, they never explained anything based on
their own knowledge, unless they made public to all readers how they arrived at
such knowledge through their own reasoning. They publicized their names in
their works so that all who come after them may know what guarded measure and
in which paths light may be found."
This was not the case with the new emerging written mystical
schools which thrived on grand pseudepigraphical enterprises.
SOME WRITTEN WORKS ARE CONSIDERED AS PART OF THE ORAL TRANSMISSION:
Shem Tov Ibn Gaon was now faced with a dilemma: He opposed
the emergence of the Zohar and other new writings because they were not part of
the oral mystical tradition, but there were some older literary works that
predated his era and he felt that they were authentic. These works included the
Sefer haBahir, Sefer Yetzirah and Sefer Shiur Komah.
His solution was simple. He included those written works
within the corpus of the oral mystical tradition. But in order to qualify as an
oral tradition, the three written works must be chanted “in a tune” and
memorized.
This apparently transformed the written word into an oral tradition.
He had another dilemma: Even some of the mystical ideas of
Nachmanides had been written down and some appear in Nachmanides’ various own
commentaries.
Shem Tov Ibn Gaon explained that Nachmanides’ mystical writings were generally
written in a hinted manner and were not explicit:
“[I]n each and every place
[he] hinted at hidden things...based on what he had received. Nevertheless, he
made his words very enigmatic...”
Thus even the mystical writings of Nachmanides were
to be considered essentially as part of an oral and not a written corpus.
PART 3:
THE INTENTIONAL DISORDER OF THE MYSTICAL ORAL TRADITION:
Halbertal explains that indeed Nachmanides and others did
write very sparsely in a hinted and enigmatic style. It seems that they did not do this just to
qualify their writings as technically within the oral tradition but for another
reason as well. That reason was to maintain control over the ideas.
Halbertal writes:
“[The] oral transmission is
not the organized, systematic transmission of Torah secrets... it was also done
through hints, and a little at a time. The student received the chapter
headings and his masters examined how he developed and understood them on his
own; only when he was found worthy did they expand the range of hints and
transmit additional chapter headings, and so on. This method of transmission
provides the masters with long-term control over the learning process, and
enables the process to be halted at various points.”
MYSTICAL ELITISM:
Halbertal elaborates on the difficult conditions imposed on
one who wanted to become a part of the oral mystical transmission:
“The transmission through
hinting, which is gradually amplified in accordance with the student's own
progress, reflects the circular nature of the condition...
The circular conditions of
entry are the profoundest expression of the elitism of the esoteric. One may
not join the esoteric circle, as it is based on a tautology—whoever knows the
secret is worthy of receiving it. Esotericism thus entails a strong sense of
privacy: 'only those who already understand me can understand me'.”
THE ABILITY TO KEEP SECRETS:
The would-be initiate into the world of the oral tradition
of mysticism had to agree to keep his knowledge secret. Shem Tov Ibn Gaon
describes this commitment as follows:
"When they transmitted
(this knowledge) to me, they did so on condition that I would not transmit it
to others except under three conditions, to any one who comes to receive the
matters of the initiates: the first is that he be a Talmudic scholar, the
second that he be forty years old or more, and the third that he be pious and
humble in spirit."
THE POLITICS AND POWER-STRUGGLES OF THE ORAL MYSTICAL
TRADITION:
Halbertal is quick to point out the human reality that is
always present and the tendency for a power-struggle even (or particularly)
within the mystical world:
“An additional restriction
mentioned by Shem Tov — ‘that he be a Talmudic scholar’— was designed to create
a situation in which the realm of closed knowledge would remain the sole
property of the Torah scholars.
This restriction had
institutional and social significance that far surpassed the question of the
student's aptitude for receiving Torah secrets. Esoteric teachings might pose a
threat to authority structures and halakhic frameworks, because they present
themselves as the inner meaning of religion.
The attempt to restrict the
Kabbalah to traditions transmitted amongst Torah scholars is a means of
preventing its becoming a body of knowledge and authority that could compete
with the halakhic world...
The rabbinical elite attempts
to keep the esoteric tradition within its own domain, so that it will not
become a competing institution of authority and inspiration.”
This may be another reason why the mystics of the oral
tradition were not happy with the emergence of the new literary body of written
Kabbalistic literature.
CONCLUSION:
History has shown that the future dominant school of Kabbalah
was to emerge not from the mystics of the oral tradition but from the mystics
of the new written school which included the Zohar.
In this sense, Halbertal concludes:
“Shem Τον Ibn Gaon presents us
with a polemical picture, full and rare, of an esoteric tradition that has lost
its power.”
Back to our original question: who owned the early Kabbalah
- those who wrote it or those who orally taught it?
It seems that initially, it was the elitist mystics of the
school of oral mystical tradition who owned the Kabbalah. But after the
Zohar was published in 1280, the mystical tradition was democratized and opened
up for anyone who knew how to read it.
The new mystical writers now owned Kabbalah
and the older oral school might have felt that the chain they believed went
back to Sinai had been broken. They may also have lamented their loss of control over the mystical literature which now could easily fall into the hands of Kabbalists who could create an opposing stream to the Halachists.
ADDITIONAL READING:
APPENDIX:
Notes on the picture.
Translation of the title page of Likutim by Rav Hai Gaon (Warsaw 1798 – First Edition Printed by the Magid of Koznitz) which included other works:
[Interesting and relevant names and ideas have been highlighted for further consideration:]
Likutim by Rabbi Hai Gaon, Kabbalistic matters and prayers, "Explanations on the 42 Letter Name, deep secrets, new and very wonderful things", with additional Kabbalistic compilations: Sha'ar HaShamayim by Rabbi Yosef Giktilia, Likutei Shem Tov, Ma'amar Ploni Almoni, on the 10 Sefirot and Names. Tefillat R' Ya'akov Yasgova [of Strzegowo], Sefer Ha'Iyun L'Rav Chamai Gaon, "Secrets by the Kabbalist Chacham Yosef Giktilia" on the mitzvoth, and "Booklet by Rabbi S.T. from the Rashba" explanations of Torah secrets by the Ramban. [Warsaw, 1798]. First edition.
Printed by the Magid Rabbi Yisrael of Koznitz(1737–1814), from manuscripts hidden in his possession, edited by his disciple and personal scribe Rabbi Gavriel of Warsaw. With the approbation of the Magid of Koznitz printed on the verso of the title page. He writes that the manuscript and its printing were performed by his instructions and that Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berdychiv also agreed to print the book, "And with the permission of… Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Av Beit Din of Berdychiv".
Perush Haramban, I, pp . 7-8; Chavel, I, pp . 15-16.
