THE JEWISH HOME
DECEMBER 26, 2013
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Talking about the Ineffable: Rabbi Lieberman Lecture Series on the History of the Kabbalists Begins at Maayon Yisroel By Rabbi Harold Rabinowitz
Rabbi Abraham Lieberman, noted historian and Dean of YULA Girls High School on Robertson Blvd., Los Angeles, has delivered the first two of a planned series of three lectures at Maayon Yisroel Chassidic Center on “The History of the Kabbalists” to receptive audiences, on two successive Wednesday evenings, December 11 and 18 (Tevet 8 and 15). The subjects were the history and place of Kabbalistic literature and thinking in Judaism, from its origins in antiquity to the publication of the Zohar in the thirteenth century. A third lecture on the development of Kabbalistic writing and discourse since the Zohar period is scheduled for Wednesday, December 25, (Tevet 22) at 8:00 pm—at Maayon Yisroel, 140 N. La Brea Ave., in Hancock Park. Using printed hand-outs containing texts, frontispieces and, drawings, Rabbi Lieberman presented an hour-long introduction to the important ideas that lie at the center of Kabbalistic thinking— what is referred to as Torat Ha-Nister: “the esoteric Torah”—and the key works and personalities responsible for bringing that knowledge to the attention of the Jewish people and to the world. He then discussed two important early works—Sefer Yetzirah (The Book of Creation) and Sefer HaBahir (The Book of Illumination)—which establish the foundational principles of the Kabbalah in an authentic and legitimate way; the third great work of this kind, the Zohar, will be the subject of the next lecture. Orientation to Kabbalistic Thinking He began by asking the audience to imagine they are in a totally darkened room that contains a wealth of objects. Then, they were instructed, imagine the room is lit by a lightning flash for just a brief moment. They may catch a glimpse of some of the objects in the room, and they may also gain a quick impression of the general layout and contours of the furniture and the piles of objects contained in the room, but they will never be able to say they fully know what is in the room. Such, Rabbi Lieberman said, is what the journey into the Kabbalah is like—that is the only way we can experience and study the Kabbalah: only in brief encounters of flashes of insight. The Chassidic master, Reb Menachem Mendel of Shklov (1750–1827), the devoted student of the Vilna Gaon who recorded many of the commentaries of the Gaon produced in his later years, and who settled in Eretz Yisroel after the Gaon ‘s passing in 1797 (first in Tzfat, and finally in the famous Churvah Shul in the Old City of Jerusalem), described this body of knowledge with these words: “We give the name ‘Nister’ to that which can-
not be transmitted to another person with words. Just as the taste of a food cannot be described by someone who has tasted the food to someone who never has, so are there experiences and ideas about the world that cannot be described and conveyed to another person with mere words. If one were to try to convey to another person the Yiras Hashem—our individual experience of our fear and awe of G-d—we would find words inadequate to the task.” The essential ask of the Kabbalist, Rabbi Lieberman continued, is essentially to understand and explain two brief portions of Biblical texts: the description of the vision of the Prophet Isaiah contained in the Book of Isaiah, Chapter 6; and the opening two chapters of the Book of Ezekiel. In both, the Prophet describes what has become known as “Ma’aseh Merkavah”—the structure and operations of the “Chariot” or Throne of the Almighty. Though the descriptions of the two prophets, expressed in highly poetic and image-laden language, seem to be reports of different visions, they are , in fact, of the same aspect of the supernal word. They difference in the descriptions are due to the differences between Isaiah and Ezekiel—both their in their individual personalities and in the level of their sophistication and proficiency in receiving and imparting their vision. (The Talmud regards Isaiah a “city-dweller” who is able to impart his vision completely in just a few sentences, while Ezekiel is a “country-dweller” who needs chapters to convey the same thing.) The Book of Samuel tells us that Eliyahu HaNavi (Elijah the Prophet) instructed the most devout and capable among the students of the Torah in the ways of Prophecy so that they could approach the esoteric wisdom of the Toras HaNistar, suggesting that even in the field of prophetic vision, there is training and methodology to be mastered. The problem is—and has always
been, Rabbi Lieberman pointed out—that this wisdom cannot be imparted in a scientific way, with a cookie-cutter syllabus of instruction. Dealing as it does with the most fundamental aspects of Creation—the manner in which the Infinite G-d fashioned a bounded, finite world and how He maintains oversight and dominion in that world—understanding such matters requires the very individual and personal aspects and capabilities of the person attempting to understand it. By its very essence, it cannot be contained in a set of rules, in a lecture given to a crowd, or in an instructional textbook (or a YouTube video). Nor may it be, for the Talmud tells us, in the opening of Tractate Chagiga, Chapter 2, that, while there are some subjects that can only be conveyed in direct communication between teacher and student, one-to-one, so that there is (nearly) no possibility that an important aspect of the teaching will be misconstrued or simply missed due to inattention (something known to happen on occasion with students), Ma’aseh Merkava, the inner mechanics and wisdom of Creation cannot be conveyed even to one: it must be pondered and arrived at through individual effort, devotion and study. While Creation and the “mechanics” of the relationship between Hashem and the Created Universe forms a core subject of the Kabbalah, two other subjects occupy the attention and exploratory talents (intellectual as well as imaginative) of the Kabbalists: one is the nature of the human being; and the other, the meaning and function of Mitzvot—the precepts of the Torah. Regarding the first subject, the Bible is replete with instances and passages that make it clear that the Biblical view— championed since antiquity and defended right to the present day!—is that the human being is comprised of both a physical (guf) and a spiritual component, the latter
called the neshamah—the soul. The decidedly Jewish conception that the soul, the neshamah, is derived in some manner from G-d Himself—that it constitutes a connection between the Infinite, boundless (ayn sof) Divine Presence (Shechinah) and the material, created world—has stood in contradistinction to (and defiance of) the materialistic ideologies that have appeared from antiquity to the modern day, that view human physical existence as well as human psychological, emotional and intellectual existence in purely physical, mechanical terms. If the areas of (a) the relationship between the Almighty Creator and the physical world, and (b) of the ethereal, spiritual composition and working of the human being by virtue of having a soul— have been areas where Jewish religious and Kabbalistic thinking has wrangled with the materialistic, value-less ideologies of the world, such has not been the case with Mitzvot—precepts—in which Jewish Rabbinic analysis has been virtually alone in human history. Though many respected and admired rabbinic authorities have throughout the ages attempted to provide rational and utilitarian explanations for the precepts—in which the Mitzvot are seen as beneficial to human welfare, family happiness and persona fulfillment—the most important work in this area has been in analyzing and explaining the mystical, Kabbalistic, “metaphysical” basis for Mitzvot: the ways in which Mitzvot amplify and enhance the connection between flesh-and-blood human beings and the supernal world of the Shechina and the Divine Presence. Great rabbinic thinkers and authorities have often said that these connections constitute the most important and life-affirming aspects of Torah and Mitzvot, and take Jewish tradition out of the sterile rational way of life into a rich, experiential way of life in which the Jew creates and maintains an existential connection to the Almighty. This has been promoted and illuminated by several works of Kabbalah, which Rabbi Lieberman proceeded to discuss two formative works: Sefer Yetzirah—The Book of Creation; and Sefer HaBahir—The Book of Illumination. Like the third work, the Zohar, in this triumvirate of the most critical works of this literature of the Torat HaNistar, these works were transmitted down through the ages from antiquity in oral or perhaps even in written (but never disseminated) form. In all three instances, ample evidence exists to substantiate the authentic antiquity of the works; and the wealth of rabbinic commentaries written on these works—Sa’adiah Gaon; Nachmanides; Ravad; the Vilna