264) QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS FROM HEAVEN:

Dreams as a Basis for Halacha; Part II:

INTRODUCTION:

The practice of posing Halachic questions to G-d, and then waiting for alleged angelic responses became quite popular during the 12^th and 13^th-centuries.

One work of great interest is She’elot uTeshuvot min haShamayim, or Questions and Answers from Heaven.

In this article, we will look at some of the background to, and features of this work. I have drawn extensively from the writings of Dr Pinchas Roth[1] of the Talmud Department at Bar Ilan University.

DEVELOPMENT OF RESPONSA LITERATURE:

The notion of questioners from faraway places writing to Gaonic authorities (i.e., rabbis from the Gaonic Period 589-1038) in Babylonia - in request of guidance - emanated around the 9^th-century. The anthology of questions and answers became known as Responsa literature.[2]

At that time, the Babylonian Jews were beginning to disperse to other centres in Europe and North Africa and according to Roth, this genre of Responsa literature was:

“...part of their [i.e., the Gaonim’s][3] campaign to increase their influence on Jewish life throughout the Diaspora.”

[See The Four Captives.]

After the Gaonic Period, the practice continued, with questions being sent to rabbinic authorities now in other centres in the expanded Diaspora - and it still prevalent to this day.

QUESTIONS TO HEAVEN:

In the midst of this flourishing Responsa Literature, a strange work surfaced where suddenly G-d - not rabbis - became the address to which the questions were sent. This was the She’elot uTeshuvot min haShamayim. (Henceforth referred to as She’elot.)

AUTHORSHIP AND PROVENANCE:

Roth analyzed the extant manuscripts of this work and he noticed that the author, a certain R. Yaakov was recorded by different names in the various texts. In some cases, the author was Yaakov ben Levi, in others he was Yaakov haLevi.

One manuscript, copied in around 1388, identifies him as R. Yaakov ben Meir[4], the famous Tosafist known as Rabbenu Tam. 

Other manuscripts[5] refer to him as R. Yaakov of Corbeil (the author of Semak or Sefer Mitzvot Katan). He is even identified as R. Eleazar Rokeah of Worms (the last leader of the mystical Chasidei Ashkenaz.)

However, traditionally the author is considered to be the Tosafist R. Yaakov of Marvège and he has been given the mystical epithets Chasid, Kadosh and Mekubal[6]. As to where exactly he comes from is also very confusing. Roth shows how the manuscripts depict him as hailing variously from ten different places:

To confuse matters even further, in the printed edition shown above, he is called R. Yaakov haLevi and is said to have come from both Marvège as well as from Corbeil. 

A clue as to when and where the She’elot was written, is a reference[7] in the work, to an incident which took place in 1203 which also names certain other identifiable rabbis, indicating that the book was produced in Languedoc[8], Southern France.

STYLE AND FORMAT:

Most sections of the She’elot begin with the author citing the phrase “I asked [G-d]” followed by the relevant question.

The responses begin with “They [i.e., the angels] answered.”

TECHNIQUE:

According to some manuscripts, R. Yaakov practised a Kabbalistic technique known as she’elat chalom or dream questioning.

In one responsum, R. Yaakov writes:

"O Supreme King, great, mighty, and revered God… command the holy angels charged with replying to questions in a dream to give a true and correct reply to the question I ask before Thy throne of Glory"[9]

According to Abraham Joshua Heschel:

“He would do this by isolating himself through prayer and pronouncement of the divine names. He would then receive answers to his questions...

This was his normal procedure whenever there was doubt concerning a halakhah:

He would command that the doors of the study house be locked, then God would appear to him in a vision and resolve the difficulties. Thus anyone seeking the solution to a problem would have it answered by God.

And this was known to everyone, for he was in a trancelike state until some specific matter was brought to the entrance of his study and immediately he was awakened from his sleep.”[10]

EXAMPLES:

The following is an example of a question addressed to G-d. It asks for clarity on the issue of the correct order of the biblical scrolls which are inserted into the Tefillin (phylacteries):

“And I asked about the order of passages in the phylacteries, and this was my question.

 Please, O great, brave and awesome King, sage of the secrets, revealer of the concealed, teller of the hidden, keeper of the covenant and the kindness. Increase your kindness to us today and command your holy angels to inform me regarding our uncertainty in the order of the passages of the phylacteries.

For there are sages who say that the ‘And it shall be’ passages must be in the middle and otherwise it is invalid, and there are sages who say that the ‘And it shall be’ passages should appear in order and otherwise it is invalid.

Now, King of Kings, command your holy angels to tell me whom the law follows, and whose words you prefer.”[11]

According to both Rashi and Maimonides the four biblical passages must follow the order in which they occur in the Torah, while according to Rabbeinu Tam, the two passages beginning with the words ‘And it shall be’ are to be placed together in the middle.

His question was a weighty one because in R. Yaakov’s home region of Languedoc in Southern France, the custom was to follow the opinion of Rabbeinu Tam over the opinion of the latter’s grandfather, Rashi, which was upheld in Northern France.

Although the answers from the angels in the She’elot usually happened to correspond to the local customs of Southern France, in this instance the answer was more moot:

“These are both the words of the living God. As they dispute this below (i.e., in human academies) so they do above (in the Heavenly academy). God says ‘And it shall be’ is in the middle, and the entire Heavenly entourage says they appear in order.”

Nevertheless, while the answer remains technically 'blowing in the wind,' it is still significant that G-d’s view corresponds to that of Rabbeinu Tam whose custom was followed in Southern France.

However, many times the answer was indeed directly in favour of the local customs of Southern France. Thus we see that the angels often answered in accordance with R. Yitzchak Alfasi, known as the Rif, whose views happened to be extremely popular in Languedoc at that time.

But sometimes the angels ruled in favour of Rabbeinu Tam of Northern France. A case in point is the angelic ruling[12] that a woman may recite the blessing asher kideshanu...vetzivanu (who has commanded us) even in instances where the woman has no direct obligation to fulfil the mitzvah:

In another Responsum,[13] a question was asked about the composition of a minyan (a quorum of ten males over the age of thirteen required for prayer). The answer came back that if a boy is eleven or twelve and has begun his studies, he may be included as the tenth person to make up the minyan.

THE FORGED SECTION:

In three instances, a section of Responsa carefully written in a similar style and format to the original (approximately) twenty-five extant manuscripts, was somehow added to the work. 

Interestingly these added sections contain some content very similar to that of the Zohar (which was published around 1280).

This zoharic content was very similar to another forged addition which was also somehow inserted into an earlier Gaonic Responsa work, known as Sha’arei Teshuva.[14] 

[See Creating a Prehistory for the Zohar?]

It is the view of Professor Israel Ta-Shma that these ‘additional’ Responsa were forged by R. Moshe de León to reinforce the notion that the Zohar was a divinely sanctioned work. 

[See Mysteries Behind the Origins of the Zohar.]

THE FIRST PRINTED EDITION:

The first printed version of the She’elot appeared in Livorno in 1818 as an appendix to another work (the fifth volume of the Responsa of R. David ibn Zimra, known as Radbaz). However, according to Roth, for some reason:

“[T]he text of the responsa has not yet been subjected to any systematic comparison with the manuscripts.”

A MAGICAL INCANTATION:

In one of the manuscripts[15], not as part of the official text but in a blank space, we find a magical incantation. To be clear, this is not part of the original She’elot collection but was written into the manuscript in an empty space, probably by one of its owners. This was a common practice with manuscripts.

I have decided to include it only because it may serve as an example of the magical sentiment of some of the readers and owners of the She’elot manuscripts.

To put it in Roth’s words:

“Whatever the intentions of this worried owner, the... magic...on the final page is symbolic of the unique nature of the ‘Responsa from Heaven’ which harnesses mystical power to the needs of Halakhic inquiry.”

The translation of the incantation which follows is from Dr Pinchas Roth and it makes for some interesting reading:

“And any people who hurt me will be sworn by the name Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh that I will see them and they will not see me, not to harm me and not any of those with me.

With the explicit name revealed to Moses at the bush, with the name that was revealed to Elijah at Mt. Carmel they will be… any people… that hurt that I will see… and they will not see me not to hurt me … those with me.

With the great holy name… Akatriel… They will not see me, not to harm me and not any of those with me...”[16]

ANALYSIS:

Getting back to the notion of dream requests in general and the She’elot uTeshuvot Min haShamayim in particular, it should be noted that Maimonides and even certain Kabbalists like Nachmanides were opposed to this type of practice. 

Nevertheless, as we have seen, this did not hinder some leading Tosafists and other rabbinical authorities from insisting on making use of these expediencies.

[For more, see: Dreams as a Basis for Halacha?]

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[1] Pinchas Roth, Responsa from Heaven: Fragments of a New Manuscript of She’lot U-Teshuvot Min Ha-Shamayim from Gerona.

[2] In Hebrew ‘Shut’ or She’elot uTeshuvot.

[3] Parenthesis mine.

[4] MS Oxford 2274.

[5] Such as MS Moscow, Russian State Library, Schneersohn collection, Yevr. 51, fol, 39r.

[6] According to Abraham Joshua Heschel, he was also known as the Tzadik of Marvège. (See: Prophetic Inspiration After the Prophets, p. 51.)

[7] Responsum no. 69.

[8] Pronounced “Longdok”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1DOHckBP0Q

[9] Yehoshua Horowitz, Jacob of Marvège, Encyclopaedia Judaica.

[10] Abraham Joshua Heschel, Prophetic Inspiration After the Prophets, p. 52.

[11] Text from Pinchas Roth: Responsa from Heaven. Responsum no. 3.

[12] Responsum no. 1.

[13] Responsum no. 53.

[14] There are a number of books which also go by this title.

[15] MS Munich Responsum no. 16.

[16] For brevity, I have omitted a following section of Psalms and an extract from the Talmud Yerushalmi.

263) THE POLITICS BEHIND THE PIETY - BRINGING THE BATTLE INTO THE SIDDUR:

King James I of Aragon intervenes on behalf of the Kabbalists to unseat the Maimonidean Rationalists.

MAIMONIDEAN CONTROVERSIES PART IV:

INTRODUCTION:

The intellectual and spiritual rationalism[1] of Maimonides (Rambam, 1135-1204) sparked a series of intense religious confrontations, known as the Maimonidean Controversies. It is widely held that the emergence of Kabbalah in the years following Rambam’s passing was a direct reaction to his extreme rationalism. This renewed interest in mysticism culminated in the publishing of the Zohar in around 1280.

[For more on the intensity of these Maimonidean Controversies, see Part I, Part II and Part III.]

In this article, we are going to show how the battle between the mystics and the rationalists may have resulted in a subtle change in the text of the Siddur (Prayer Book).

We will also take a fascinating inside look into the oftentimes ruthless politics behind the piety of 13^th-century Spain.

I have drawn extensively from Professor (Emeritus) Bernard Septimus[2], a specialist in Jewish History and Sephardic Civilization, at Harvard University.

BARCELONA’S JEWISH ‘CIVIL WAR’:

Around 1240, the Barcelona Jewish community found itself in the midst of three historic conflicts:

One was political; an internal Jewish struggle for communal power. 

The other two were theological; Rambam’s rationalism and philosophical approach to Judaism was considered dangerous and the rising mystics were attempting to displace it.

And, thirdly, this emerging interest in Kabbalah was hotly debated for its legitimacy and authenticity.

THE POLITICAL REVOLT:

Jewish Barcelona was in the hands of the followers of Mainonidean rationalism, known as the Nesi'in (lit.  princes). But this did not last for long.

A political struggle ensued between the Jewish leadership of Barcelona resulting in a revolt against the former Nesi’im who had enmeshed themselves in positions of aristocratic power - and the rabbinical scholarly elite, which included figures like Nachmanides (Ramban) and R. Yonah Gerondi, who as Septimus puts it; “thought power [was] the prerogative of pious scholars.”

The political establishment was comprised of the aristocratic Nesi’im, who were followers of Rambam’s rationalism and philosophy. They condemned the emerging Kabbalistic thought which was becoming popular under the influence of Nachmanides. One of the Nesi’im’s early leaders was Sheshet Benveniste whose fiery defence of Rambam portrayed a “fierce rationalistic spirituality” so typical of the followers of Maimonides.

The rebels, on the other hand, who sought to unseat the Nesi’im, were illustrious scholars like Nachmanides, R. Yonah Gerondi and R. Shmuel haSardi[3], and they were just as steadfast in their mystical agenda. They were led by a mystical and somewhat elusive poet, R. Isaac Castellón.

It is this mystical poet and rebel leader, R. Isaac Castellón that we are going to turn our attention to.

THE LETTER FROM THE RATIONALISTS:

The mystics’ rebellion against the rationalist establishment was bitter with both sides pulling no punches.

Septimus explains that it is most likely that R. Isaac Castellón is the subject of a letter[4] written by the rationalists condemning the mystical rebels and their leader who is described as “a faithless teacher who worships a weird mixture of angels and idols.”

This is a clear reference to the emerging Kabbalists who were regarded as following a type of polytheism because of their system of Sefirot (spheres or energies) which the rationalists considered to contradict the unity and Oneness of G-d. 

R. Isaac Castellón seems to be this ‘faithless’ rebel leader.

The same letter goes on to make some very serious accusations against the Jewish lineage of some of the other mystical leaders like R. Yonah Gerondi and even the Nachmanides himself (the two were cousins). It also seems that R. Isaac Castellón too, was also included in the category of those of suspected impure lineage.

KING JAMES I INTERVENES:

The dispute became so vitriolic that King James I of Aragon (not to be confused with the later King James of England) decided to intervene. 

However, he took the side of the Kabbbalists.

In 1241, the king issued a document calling for the “good men” (i.e., the mystics) of Barcelona to fine or expel those who slandered them (i.e., the rationalist Nesi’im). This started a process whereby eventually the Maimonidean rationalists were unseated from their positions of power which now became the prerogative of the Kabbalists. The Kabbalists now controlled Jewish Barcelona.

As Septimus puts it:

“This document marks the defeat of the nesi’im, and the end of their regime.”

Symbolically the King’s document of 1241 - thirty-seven years after Rambam’s passing - came to represent the beginning of the end for the Maimonidean rationalists who now had to move over and make way for the nascent Kabbalists, whose ideas were to dominate the future of Judaism and largely become it’s mainstream.

R. ISAAC CASTELLÓN IN NACHMANIDES’S LETTERS:

Interestingly, two other documents survive[5] which indicate that Nachmanides himself had a role in informing that fateful decision of the King of Aragon.

Also, in these documents, the mystical poet R. Isaac Castellón emerges as one of the heroes of the rebellion which brought down the authority of the Maimonidean rationalists.

As an example of how bitter and fierce the controversy was, Nachmanides writes with equal but opposing vitriol that his aim is to:

“...refute the Epicurean [the hedonists – which is how he referred to the Maimonidean rationalists][6] and shut the mouths of the reprobates [morally corrupt][7] who project their own blemishes onto others, casting blemish upon the holy...

[For] there has now risen up a brood of sinful men...soiled with every transgression in the Torah, the lightest of which is adultery and lying with menstruant women.

Their prince (nasi) sullies himself with all these abominations. Father and son resort to the same girl with intent to profane.

[They are] utter informers [who deserve] to be lowered into a pit, who slandered noble families in the kingdom of Barcelona and Gerona...”

The document mentions the names of R. Yonah Gerondi and Nachmaindes[8] but, of interest to our discussion is the inclusion of the name R. Isaac Castellón:

“And second to them was the saint (Hasid – a title often referring to Kabbalists)...and poet, R. Isaac [of] Castellón...

Because these masters were most jealous for God, blessed be He, [it transpired][9] that violent, sinful men were called by the title ‘prince’ (nasi), and reduced them in accordance with the law, [(i.e.), they were slandered]...”

R. ISAAC CASTELÓN IN RESPONSA LITERATURE:

Things begin to take an interesting turn because some time after this letter, R. Isaac Castellón’s name appears in a set of unpublished Responsa (Halachic Questions and Answers or She’eilot uTeshuvot) literature.

Questions about the purity of lineage of R. Isaac Castellón began to resurface seventy-five years after the rebellion and Halachic clarity was sought to finally put this matter to rest. 

The Responsa texts indicate that descendants of the Castellón family married into influential families like that of R. Shlomo ibn Aderet (Rashba, 1235-1310). This obviously mitigated in favour of the purity of the Castellón Jewish lineage.

But, the Responsa also show that some families may have intentionally not intermarried with the Castellón descendants to avoid taking any chances with the purity of their lineage.[10]

The Responsa texts then reveal that as many as twenty-one Catalan (Spanish) rabbis wrote to the rabbis of Northern France and Provence (Southern France) and refuted the allegations of impure lineage which had been levelled against R. Isaac Castellón and R. Yonah Gerondi and claimed it was part of the malicious propaganda of earlier rationalists.

THE ROYAL COURT GETS INVOLVED, AGAIN:

Amazingly, for a second time, the King[11] of Aragon intervenes on behalf of mystics. This time, the royal court demanded that the matter of purity of lineage of the Castellón’s descendants be resolved for once and for all.

Septimus writes:

“The king’s decree demanded responses from the entire elite of the Catalan halakhic establishment, attention well beyond what the question would ordinarily have received. By having the full weight of current authority behind them, the family, no doubt, hoped for a decisive vindication...

The king’s order is forceful: it even sets deadlines before which the specified scholars must present their written decisions. I wonder how welcome this intrusion was: the respondents, though asked, as experts, to rule on the basis of Jewish law, cannot have been unaware of the king’s preferred answer...

Royal demand for a halakhic ruling was not unprecedented and is a phenomenon that deserves further exploration.”

All in all, one can only surmise whether the history of the Kabbalist rebellion against the Maimonidean rationalist establishment in Barcelona, would have turned out any different without the intervention of the Spanish royals.

R. ISAAC CASTELÓN’S POEMS (PIYUTIM):

R. Isaac Castellón’s poems are informative as they show how the emergence of a new Kabbalistic style and way of thinking was beginning to embed itself within the tradition.

His poems were deep and meaningful.

This is how Septimus explains one particular poem:

“The opening (‘My mind knows that it knows not...’) appropriates the language of Neoplatonic ‘negative theology.’

The entire first stanza is reminiscent of Bahya ibn Paquda’s remark that ‘the ultimate knowledge of [God] is your acknowledgment and certainty that you are ignorant of His true essence,’ which he links to this prayer: ‘My Lord, where do I find You? But where do I not find You? You are veiled, unseen, yet You pervade All.” 

The stanza also echoes Halevi’s lines: ‘Lord, where do I find You ,Your place is high and hidden. But where do I not find You, Your Glory fills the universe.’

It thus proclaims a twofold paradox: Awareness of one’s ignorance is the true knowledge of God, Who is at once transcendent and immanent.”

ADJUSTING OR SUBVERTING?

Judaism has long had a mystical tradition. However it underwent different stages in its development. At around this period, the mystical tradition was transforming from the older Heichalot and Merkavah literature [see A Window into Pre-Zoharic Mystical Literature] to a new Kabbalah of the Zohar (first published around 1280) which spoke of Sefirot and unifications etc.

Septimus explains:

“Castellón shows himself a master of the Andalusian [southern Spanish][12] tradition, who is adjusting (his opponents might have said subverting) its spiritual orientation. The shift is barely perceptible because he skillfully uses traditional techniques and themes to project a sense of literary and spiritual continuity.”

A ‘PIYUT’ INSERTION IN BLESSING BEFORE THE SHEMA:

One of R. Isaac Castellón’s liturgical poems (piyitim) is known as an Ahavah - after Ahavah Rabbah which is the prayer recited just before the morning Shema.

The prayer ends with the blessing ‘habocher be’amo Yisrael be’ahavah’ (that G-d chooses Israel out of love).

Septimus writes:

“[But] Castellón’s ahavah is unusual: it concludes not with the love between God and Israel that gives the genre its name, but with God’s unity. It transitions, in other words, not to [be’ahavah] 

but to [le’yachedecha][13]

and the first verse of the Shema itself. This anomaly, we shall see, is significant.”

In other words, we suddenly have an insertion of the word le’yachedecha (to unify You). The reason why this is significant is because one of the allegations the rationalists levelled against the Kabbalists was that the emergent system of Sefirot (spheres) was a form of polytheism where G-d is no longer a monotheistic G-d but rather a composite of various energies.[14]

In R. Isaac Castellón’s poem, these Sefirot are referred to a Sodecha, or Your secrets.

According to Septimus:

“This plurality was what rendered kabbalists vulnerable to the charge of polytheism, a charge that, we have seen, was prominent in the polemic against the Barcelona rebels.”

To counter this charge, it was deemed to be very important to point out that all these Sefirot and spiritual energies and realms were able to unite in a Oneness.

The worshipper would reach a state where:

“He causes his thought to ascend through mystical kavvanah, attaching it to the divine and bringing the sefirot into harmonious balance.”

Hence the importance of the insertion of the word le’yachedecha (to unify You), particularly just before the Shema where G-d’s Oneness is proclaimed.

“The liturgical framing of the Shema with a kabbalistic conception of God’s unity, even if subtly stated, is no small thing; for it constitutes a communal embrace of kabbalistic theology.”

A ‘POLITICAL ACT’:

This prayer had become part of the Spanish prayer service in some places in Catalan.

Septimus puts it most poignantly:

“All this may seem quintessentially apolitical; but it was not, in fact, irrelevant to the rebellion in which [R. Isaac][15]the Castellón participated: the final stanza, after all, rejects a charge hurled at the rebel camp.

The poem has a well-defined liturgical function: to augment the berakhah before the Shema in its synagogue recitation.

Any poet who proposes a thematically charged piyyut for public prayer is engaged in a political act. All the more so if it intervenes on an issue that has already entered political discourse...

Public recitation in its pristine version would have signaled a decisive rejection of the old order of the nesi’im.”

The insertion of le’yechedecah was clearly a huge issue because some later versions of the prayer, apparently from 15^th-century southern Italy (in a Spanish hand), expunged that reference.

Another version, this time found in a Machzor (Holiday prayer book) also in a Spanish hand and from the same time similarly ‘dekabbalizers’ the text.

CONCLUSION:

I did some research and found (as far as I can tell) that all versions (nuscha’ot) of this prayer Ahavah Rabbah as they occur in our common siddurim today, conclude with le’yachedecha – but with one exception.

Significantly, it is the prayer book used by the rationalist Yemenites who follow the Maimonidean traditions. Their prayer nusach or liturgy is known as Baladi.

In this version, there is no reference to le’y‎achedecha as, in their Maimonidean system, they had no need to reconcile a notion of plurality with Oneness.

Ashkenazi Nusach with le'yachedecha highlighted.

Baladi Nusach, following Maimonides with no mention of any Unifications.

[See A Traditional School of Yemenite Rationalism and R. Yosef Kapach – The Suppression of a Rationalist Tradition and The Search for the Most Accurate Maimonidean Texts.

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[1] It is interesting to see that Bernard Septimus seems to have coined the phrase ‘spiritual rationalism of Maimonides’ to counter the popular notion that only the mystical approach is spiritual.

[2]  Bernard Septimus, Isaac de Castellón: Poet, Kabbalist, Communal Combatant.

[3] Samuel haSardi wrote the Sefer haTerumot which heavily influenced large parts of R. Yaakov ben Asher’s (also known as the Baal haTurim) Tur Choshen Mishpat, and, through it, subsequent Jewish civil law. [For more on the mystics attempts (and success) at controlling future Halacha see Displacing Maimonides’s Mishneh Torah.]

[4] Klein, Jews, Christian Society, and Royal Power, 121ff.

[5] Septimus, “Piety and Power,” 204.

[6] Parenthesis mine.

[7] Parenthesis mine.

[8] The letters was recorded by an unknown editor apparently quite soon after the events so it is unclear (to me at least) whether Nachmanides was writing about himself or if this was the work of the editor.

[9] Parenthesis mine.

[10] See Bodleian, MS Reggio32, 247a, 252b, 259b.

[11] This would not have been the same King James I of Aragon as he died in 1276.

[12] Parenthesis mine.

[13] Parentheses mine.

[14] The Kabbalists would explain that there is a difference ‘before’ and ‘after’ the tzimtzum (contractions).

[15] Parenthesis mine.