Feb. 19: Purim; question... What is Kabbalah and what is its place within Judaism and within our holy texts and books?
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Dear Friends,
I hope this message finds you well and safe.
Finally, there are encouraging signs as the Covid-19 numbers decrease both in Illinois and in our nation.
The vaccination efforts are progressing.
Next week is Purim, our most joyous holiday.
And yet, with our current bout of winter, we are also feeling unrest and fatigue.
It has been nearly a year since the beginning of the pandemic.
It has been a long year. The pandemic has disrupted our lives and led to upheaval and loss. (We are planning to have a memorial service next month – Friday March 19th – as part of our Kabbalat Shabbat services to mark the year since our first lockdown. Please stay tuned for more information.)
As the winter progresses, one feels like turning as Tevya in Fiddler on the Roof to the heavens, “Ribono Shel Olam, Master of the Universe, what else?”
It is perhaps no coincidence that Purim is in the middle of the winter months (even in the Middle East, Jerusalem had snow last week). The rabbis instituted that during the month of Purim, we are commanded to be happy. The sages were not being frivolous. They knew this was no easy task. They understand the power of positive thinking and of hope. As I often teach, Biblical Judaism had as many words for joy as Eskimos have for snow.
In times such as these, we are commanded to find happiness. Joy is contagious.
The Talmud teaches that at the center of the Temple in Jerusalem was the even shtiyah, the foundation stone, on which the whole structure - physical and spiritual- of the Temple rested. We, as mini-temples, each need to keep going back to that foundation to be a source of peace, joy, and well-being to our families, communities, and nation.
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Now to our bi-weekly question:
Juli asked me two Shabbatot ago: What is Kabbalah and what is its place within Judaism and within our holy texts and books?
This is a question after my own heart. Kabbalah comes from the verb le’kabel, which means to receive. Kabbalah is the term for the hidden mystical traditions that have been received from generation to generation from time immemorial.
On one hand Kabbalah is the name for a body of literature and a mystical movement within Judaism from 12th - 13th century Spain and Southern France. It was in this period that the foundational text of Kabbalah emerged -- the Zohar. The Zohar quickly became hugely influential to both Ashkenazi (European) and Sephardic/ Mizrachi (Spanish/ North African/Middle-Eastern) tradition. Kabbalah grew still in popularity after the Tzfat Kabbalah Renaissance in the 1500’s (The town of Safed in Northern Israel). From then on, Kabbalah was embedded in all of Jewish life. To this day, we sing a passage from the Zohar during the Torah service, the Brikh shmeh (we sing Ana Avdah De’kudshah Brikh Hu, and Be’ana Rachetz at Har Zion). The Zohar itself was accepted as part of the Jewish canon, joining the Torah, the Talmud, and other rabbinical literature.
Kabbalah is essentially a metaphysical understanding of traditional Judaism asking big questions and making claims about the nature of the universe while adding a metaphysical element to all of Jewish life. When a traditional Jewish practitioner prays or does a mitzvah, the Kabbalah teaches it has cosmic importance. It affects the flow of energies and forces throughout the whole universe, through the sefirot and other cosmic building blocks. To Kabbalah, Divine life and the soul can be understood in a precise manner. To understand them lifts our own state of mind and opens our eyes.
Kabbalistic teachings became part of how ordinary people understood normative Jewish practices and rituals throughout the Jewish world. Kabbalists were regular features of major communities and most important Jewish leaders were themselves Kabbalists. An example of
how widespread Kabbalah became -- in the great Eastern European battles (sometimes they were literally battles) between the Hassidim, generally considered as the mystics and the Litvaks, seen as the traditional rationalists, both the Hassidim and the Litzvaks were adepts in Kabbalah. What separated them was interpretation. The Hassidim had a more demonstrative, democratic and folksy approach to Kabbalah.
After the enlightenment in Western Europe, Kabbalah as a huge body of rituals, texts, and interpretations of Torah lost its influence. In America, Jews wanted to be seen as scientific and rational. Kabbalah was considered too far out. But beginning in the 60's and 70's as spirituality entered the mainstream in America and Israel, Kabbalah and Hassidism made a comeback and led to our current new wave of interest in Kabbalah among the Jewish mainstream.
From a different angle, Kabbalah is not a movement from 800 years ago, but the name we give for the part of Judaism that is interested in the soulful aspects and wisdom of our tradition. In that sense there has always been a Kabbalistic part of Judaism. The Kabbalists believed themselves to be heirs of the prophets. They thought the prophets with their visions and powers were certainly mystics and Kabbalists.
Their tradition was that the knowledge that came out in its most outward expression in the 1200-1300’s in Europe was just another wave of what had been underground and passed from teacher to student for millennia.
In that sense, Kabbalah, as any mystical tradition within a religion is - in my opinion - its beating heart. A religion without a soulful aspect is empty and devoid of vitality.
Kabbalah then is the Jewish exploration of soulfulness. It is what gives neshama/ soul to our Jewish communities and practices. By taking Kabbalah away from the mysterious and the Strange, we are accepting that spirituality can be a clear and important part of our daily Jewish life.
