Judaism

CHAPTER VI

JEW­ISH MYS­TI­CISM

‘Ju­daism is of­ten called the re­li­gion of rea­son. It is this, but it is al­so the re­li­gion of the soul. It recog­nis­es the val­ue of that mys­tic in­sight, those in­de­fin­able in­tu­itions which, tak­ing up the task at the point where the mind im­po­tent­ly aban­dons it, car­ries us straight in­to the pres­ence of the King. Thus it has found room both for the keen spec­ula­tor on the­olog­ical prob­lems and for the mys­tic who, be­cause he feels God, de­clines to rea­son about Him–for a Mai­monides and a Mendelssohn, but al­so for a Nach­manides, a Vi­tal, and a Luria’ (M. Joseph, _op. cit._, p. 47). Used in a vague way, mys­ti­cism stands for spir­itu­al in­ward­ness. Re­li­gion with­out mys­ti­cism, said Amiel, is a rose with­out per­fume. This say­ing is no more pre­cise and no more in­form­ing than Matthew Arnold’s def­ini­tion of re­li­gion as moral­ity touched with emo­tion. Nei­ther mys­ti­cism nor an emo­tion­al touch makes re­li­gion. They are as of­ten as not con­comi­tants of a patho­log­ical state which is the de­nial of re­li­gion. But if mys­ti­cism means a per­son­al at­ti­tude to­wards God in which the heart is ac­tive as well as the mind, then re­li­gion can­not ex­ist with­out mys­ti­cism.

When, how­ev­er, we re­gard mys­ti­cism as what it very of­ten is, as an an­tithe­sis to in­sti­tu­tion­al re­li­gion and a re­volt against au­thor­ity and forms, then it may seem at first sight para­dox­ical to recog­nise the mys­tic’s claim to the hos­pi­tal­ity of Ju­daism. That a re­li­gion which pro­duced the Psalter, and not on­ly pro­duced it, but used it with nev­er a break, should be a re­li­gion, with in­tense­ly spir­itu­al pos­si­bil­ities, and its ad­her­ents ca­pa­ble of a vivid sense of the near­ness of God, with an ev­er-​felt and nev­er-​sat­is­fied long­ing for com­mu­nion with Him, is what we should ful­ly ex­pect. But this ex­pec­ta­tion would rather make us look for an ex­pres­sion on the lines of the 119th Psalm, in which the Law is so marked­ly as­so­ci­at­ed with free­dom and spir­itu­al­ity. Ju­daism, af­ter all, al­lowed to au­thor­ity and Law a supreme place. But the mys­tic re­lies on his own in­tu­itions, de­pends on his per­son­al ex­pe­ri­ences. Ju­daism, on the oth­er hand, is a scheme in which per­son­al ex­pe­ri­ences on­ly count in so far as they are brought in­to the gen­er­al fund of the com­mu­nal ex­pe­ri­ence.

But in dis­cussing Ju­daism it is al­ways im­per­ative to dis­card all _a pri­ori_ prob­abil­ities. Ju­daism is the great up­set­ter of the prob­able. Anal­yse a ten­den­cy of Ju­daism and pre­dict its log­ical con­se­quences, and then look in Ju­daism for con­se­quences quite oth­er than these. Over and over again things are not what they ought to be. The sac­ri­fi­cial sys­tem should have de­stroyed spir­itu­al­ity; in fact, it pro­duced the Psalter, ‘the hymn­book of the sec­ond Tem­ple.’ Phar­isaism ought to have led to ex­ter­nal­ism; in fact, it did not, for some­how ex­ces­sive scrupu­los­ity in rite and pietis­tic ex­er­cis­es went hand in hand with sim­ple faith and re­li­gious in­ward­ness. So, too, the ex­pres­sion of ethics and re­li­gion as Law ought to have sup­pressed in­di­vid­ual­ity; in fact, it some­times gave an im­pulse to each in­di­vid­ual to try to im­pose his own con­cepts, norms, and acts as a Law up­on the rest. Each thought very much for him­self, and de­sired that oth­ers should think like­wise. We have al­ready seen that in mat­ters of dog­ma there nev­er was any cor­po­rate ac­tion at all; in an­cient times, as now, it is not pos­si­ble to pro­nounce def­inite­ly on the dog­mat­ic teach­ings of Ju­daism. Though there has been and is a cer­tain con­sen­sus of opin­ion on many mat­ters, yet nei­ther in prac­tice nor in be­liefs have the lo­cal, the tem­po­ral, the per­son­al el­ements ev­er been neg­li­gi­ble. In or­der to ex­pound or de­fine a tenet or rite of Ju­daism it is most­ly nec­es­sary to go in­to ques­tions of time and place and per­son.

Per­haps, then, we ought to be pre­pared to find, as in point of fact we do find, with­in the main body of Ju­daism, and not mere­ly as a freak of oc­ca­sion­al ec­centrics, dis­tinct mys­ti­cal ten­den­cies. These ten­den­cies have of­ten been ac­tive well in­side the sphere of the Law. Mys­ti­cism was, as we shall see, some­times a re­volt against Law; but it was of­ten, in Ju­daism as in the Ro­man Catholic Church, the out­come of a sin­cere and even pas­sion­ate de­vo­tion to au­thor­ity. Jew­ish mys­ti­cism, in par­tic­ular, starts as an in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the Scrip­tures. Cer­tain truths were ar­rived at by man ei­ther in­tu­itive­ly or ra­tio­nal­ly, and these were har­monised with the Bible by a pro­cess of lift­ing the veil from the text, and thus pen­etrat­ing to the true mean­ing hid­den be­neath the let­ter. Al­le­gor­ical and es­oter­ic ex­ege­sis al­ways had this aim: to find writ­ten what had been oth­er­wise found. Hon­our was thus done to the Scrip­tures, though the lat­ter were some­what cav­alier­ly treat­ed in the pro­cess; Phi­lo’s doc­trine (at the be­gin­ning of the Chris­tian era) and the great canon­ical book of the me­di­ae­val Cab­bala, the Zo­har (be­gin­ning of the four­teenth cen­tu­ry), were alike in this, they were large­ly com­men­taries on the Pen­ta­teuch. Mai­monides in the twelfth cen­tu­ry fol­lowed the same method, and on­ly dif­fered from these in the na­ture of his de­duc­tions from Scrip­ture. This prince of ra­tio­nal­ists agreed with the mys­tics in adopt­ing an es­oter­ic ex­ege­sis. But he read Aris­to­tle in­to the text, while the mys­tics read Pla­to in­to it. They were alike faith­ful to the Law, or rather to their own in­ter­pre­ta­tions of its terms.

But fur­ther than this,–a large por­tion of Jew­ish mys­ti­cism was the work of lawyers. Some of the fore­most mys­tics were fa­mous Tal­mud­ists, men who were ap­pealed to for de­ci­sions on rit­ual and con­duct. It is a phe­nomenon that con­stant­ly meets us in Jew­ish the­ol­ogy. There were anti­no­mi­an mys­tics and le­gal­is­tic op­po­nents of mys­ti­cism, but many, like Nach­manides (1195-1270) and Joseph Caro (1488-1575), dou­bled the parts of Cab­bal­ist and Tal­mud­ist. That Jew­ish mys­ti­cism comes to look like a re­volt against the Tal­mud is due to the course of me­di­ae­val scholas­ti­cism. While Aris­to­tle was supreme, it was im­pos­si­ble for man to con­ceive as know­able any­thing unattain­able by rea­son. But rea­son must al­ways leave God as un­know­able. Mys­ti­cism did not as­sert that God was know­able, but it sub­sti­tut­ed some­thing else for this spir­itu­al scep­ti­cism. Mys­ti­cism start­ed with the con­vic­tion that God was un­know­able by rea­son, but it held that God was nev­er­the­less re­al­is­able in the hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence. Ac­cept­ing and adopt­ing var­ious Neo-​Pla­ton­ic the­ories of em­ana­tion, elab­orat­ing thence an in­tri­cate an­gelol­ogy, the mys­tics threw a bridge over the gulf be­tween God and man. Phi­lo’s Lo­gos, the Per­son­ified Wis­dom of the Pales­tini­an Midrash, the demi­urge of Gnos­ti­cism, the in­car­nate Christ, were all but var­ious phas­es of this same at­tempt to cross an oth­er­wise im­pass­able chasm. Through­out its whole his­to­ry, Jew­ish mys­ti­cism sub­sti­tut­ed me­di­ate cre­ation for im­me­di­ate cre­ation out of noth­ing, and the me­di­ate be­ings were not cre­at­ed but were em­ana­tions. This view was much in­flu­enced by Solomon ibn Gabirol (1021-1070). God is to Gabirol an ab­so­lute Uni­ty, in which form and sub­stance are iden­ti­cal. Hence He can­not be at­tribu­tive­ly de­fined, and man can know Him on­ly by means of be­ings which em­anate from Him. Nor was this idea con­fined to Jew­ish phi­los­ophy of the Greece-​Ara­bic school. The Ger­man Cab­bala, too, which owed noth­ing di­rect­ly to that school, held that God was not ra­tio­nal­ly know­able. The re­sult must be, not mere­ly to ex­alt vi­sion­ary med­ita­tion over calm ra­ti­oci­na­tion, but to place re­liance on in­ward ex­pe­ri­ence in­stead of on ex­ter­nal au­thor­ity, which makes its ap­peal nec­es­sar­ily to the rea­son. Here we see el­ements of re­volt. For, as Dr. L. Ginzberg well says, ‘while study of the Law was to Tal­mud­ists the very acme of piety, the mys­tics ac­cord­ed the first place to prayer, which was con­sid­ered as a mys­ti­cal progress to­wards God, de­mand­ing a state of ec­sta­sy.’ The Jew­ish mys­tic must in­vent means for in­duc­ing such a state, for Ju­daism can­not en­dure a pas­sive wait­ing for the mov­ing spir­it. The mys­tic soul must learn how to mount the char­iot (Merk­aba) and ride in­to the in­most halls of Heav­en. Most­ly the ec­stat­ic state was in­duced by fast­ing and oth­er as­cetic ex­er­cis­es, a nec­es­sary pre­lim­inary be­ing moral pu­ri­ty; then there were soli­tary med­ita­tions and long night vig­ils; last­ly, pre­scribed rit­ual of proved ef­fi­ca­cy dur­ing the very act of prayer. Thus mys­ti­cism had a far­ther at­trac­tion for a cer­tain class of Jews, in that it sup­plied the miss­ing el­ement of as­ceti­cism which is in­dis­pens­able to men more aus­tere­ly dis­posed than the av­er­age Jew.

In the six­teenth cen­tu­ry a very strong im­pe­tus was giv­en to Jew­ish mys­ti­cism by Isaac Luria (1534-1572). His chief con­tri­bu­tions to the move­ment were prac­ti­cal, though he doubt­less taught a the­oret­ical Cab­bala al­so. But Ju­daism, even in its mys­ti­cal phas­es, re­mains a re­li­gion of con­duct. Luria was con­vinced that man can con­quer mat­ter; this prac­ti­cal con­vic­tion was the mov­ing force of his whole life. His own man­ner of liv­ing was saint­ly; and he taught his dis­ci­ples that they too could, by pen­itence, con­fes­sion, prayer, and char­ity, evade bod­ily tram­mels and send their souls straight to God even dur­ing their ter­res­tri­al pil­grim­age. Luria taught all this not on­ly while sub­mit­ting to Law, but un­der the stress of a pas­sion­ate sub­mis­sion to it. He added in par­tic­ular a new beau­ty to the Sab­bath. Many of the most fas­ci­nat­ing­ly re­li­gious rites con­nect­ed now with the Sab­bath are of his de­vis­ing. The white Sab­bath garb, the joy­ous mys­ti­cal hymns full of the Bride and of Love, the spe­cial Sab­bath foods, the no­tion of the ‘over-​Soul’–these and many oth­er of the Luri­an rites and fan­cies still hold wide sway in the Ori­ent. The ‘over-​Soul’ was a very in­spir­ing con­cep­tion, which cer­tain­ly did not orig­inate with Luria. Ac­cord­ing to a Tal­mu­dic Rab­bi (Resh Lak­ish, third cen­tu­ry), on Adam was be­stowed a high­er soul on the Sab­bath, which he lost at the close of the day. Luria seized up­on this mys­ti­cal idea, and used it at once to spir­itu­alise the Sab­bath and at­tach to it an ec­stat­ic joy­ous­ness. The rit­ual of the ‘over-​Soul’ was an elab­orate means by which a re­la­tion was es­tab­lished be­tween heav­en and earth. But all this sym­bol­ism had but the slight­est con­nec­tion with dog­ma. It was prac­ti­cal through and through. It emerged in a num­ber of new rites, it based it­self on and be­came the cause of a deep­en­ing de­vo­tion to moral­ity. Luria would have looked with dis­may on the moral lax­ity which did lat­er on in­trude, in con­se­quence of un­bri­dled emo­tion­al­ism and mys­tic hys­te­ria. There comes the point when he that in­ter­prets Law emo­tion­al­ly is no longer Law-​abid­ing. The anti­no­mi­an cri­sis thus pro­duced meets us in the ca­reers of many who, like Sab­batai Ze­bi, as­sumed the Mes­sian­ic role.

Jew­ish mys­ti­cism, start­ing as an as­cetic cor­rec­tive to the con­ven­tion­al he­do­nism, lost its as­cetic char­ac­ter and de­gen­er­at­ed in­to li­cen­tious­ness. This was the case with the eigh­teenth-​cen­tu­ry mys­ti­cism known as Chas­sidism, though, as its name (’Saint­li­ness’) im­plies, it was in­no­cent enough at its ini­ti­ation. Vi­olent dances, and oth­er emo­tion­al and sen­su­al stim­ula­tions, led to a state of ex­al­ta­tion dur­ing which the line of moral­ity was over­stepped. But there was nev­er­the­less, as Dr. Schechter has shown, con­sid­er­able spir­itu­al worth and beau­ty in Chas­sidism. It trans­ferred the cen­tre of grav­ity from think­ing to feel­ing; it led away from the wor­ship of Scrip­ture to the love of God. The fresh air of re­li­gion was breathed once more, the stars and the open sky re­placed the mid­night lamp and the col­lege. But it was des­tined to raise a fog more murky than the con­fined at­mo­sphere of the study. The man with the book was of­ten near­er God than was the man of the earth.

The op­po­si­tion of Tal­mud­ism against the neo-​mys­ti­cism was thus on the whole just and salu­tary. This op­po­si­tion, no doubt, was bit­ter chiefly when mys­ti­cism be­came rev­olu­tion­ary in prac­tice, when it in­vad­ed the es­tab­lished cus­toms of le­gal­is­tic or­tho­doxy. But it was al­so felt that mys­ti­cism went dan­ger­ous­ly near to a de­nial of the ab­so­lute Uni­ty of God. It was more dif­fi­cult to at­tack it on its the­oret­ical than on its prac­ti­cal side, how­ev­er. The Jew­ish mys­tic did some­times adopt a most ir­ri­tat­ing pol­icy of de­lib­er­ate­ly al­ter­ing cus­toms as though for the very plea­sure of change. Now in most re­li­gious con­tro­ver­sies dis­ci­pline counts for more than be­lief. As Sal­im­bene as­serts of his own day: ‘It was far less dan­ger­ous to de­bate in the schools whether God re­al­ly ex­ist­ed, than to wear pub­licly and per­ti­na­cious­ly a frock and cowl of any but the or­tho­dox cut.’ But the Tal­mud­ists’ an­tag­onism to mys­ti­cism was not ex­clu­sive­ly of this kind in the eigh­teenth cen­tu­ry. Mys­ti­cism is of­ten mere delu­sion. In the last re­sort man has no oth­er guide than his rea­son. It is his own rea­son that con­vinces him of the lim­ita­tions of his rea­son. But those lim­ita­tions are not to be over­passed by a vi­sion­ary self-​in­tro­spec­tion, un­less this, too, is sub­ject­ed to ra­tio­nal crit­icism. Mys­ti­cism does its true part when it ap­plies this crit­icism al­so to the cur­rent forms, con­ven­tions, and in­sti­tu­tions. Con­ven­tions, forms, and in­sti­tu­tions, af­ter all, rep­re­sent the cor­po­rate wis­dom, the ac­cu­mu­lat­ed ex­pe­ri­ences of men through­out the ages. Mys­ti­cism is the ex­pe­ri­ence of one. Each does right to test the cor­po­rate ex­pe­ri­ence by his own ex­pe­ri­ence. But he must not el­evate him­self in­to a law even for him­self. That, in a sen­tence, would sum­marise the at­ti­tude of Ju­daism to­wards mys­ti­cism. It is medicine, not a food.