First of all, have a very sweet new year.
So I've been engaging Jewish practices more and more in the last year, and becoming a part of an ecstatically-inclined Jewish community this summer has afforded me the opportunity to learn much more. In this thread I'd like to talk about modern ecstatic and mystical practices in Judaism, as well as mystical threads running through all of ancient Jewish scripture (not just the Kabbalah).
I'll start by pointing folks to the book God is a Verb by Rabbi David A. Cooper. This book gives to people with moderate, little, or very little knowledge of Judaism a good foundation in understanding the Kabbalah in a Jewish context.
In addition, I want to point out the work of Rabbi Gershon Winkler, whom I just heard speak not too long ago on the topic of the mystical significance of the High Holy Days, and some of the traditions thereof. Many of his books can be found here, among other things, but I'll start us off with this:
"You find that when the Holy Blessed One desired to create the primeval human, she consulted the ministering angels and said to them: 'Should we make the human?' Said they: 'What is the human that you even bother thinking about them?' (Psalms 8:5). Replied the Creator: 'The human that I wish to create, its wisdom is superior to yours.' What did Creator then do? She gathered all of the animals and wildlife and birds and stood them before the angels, and said: 'Okay, assign them names.' The angels just stood there and didn't know what to call them. She then brought all of them to the primeval human and said to it: 'What are the names of these?' Said the human: 'Master of all the universes! It is fitting to call this one Ox, and to this one it is fitting to call Lion, and to this one Horse, and to that one Camel, and to the other one Eagle,' and so with all the other animals. Said Creator: 'And what about you? What shall be your name?' Said the human: 'Earth Being (Ahdam), because I was created from the Earth (Ahdamah).'" [Midrash Kohelet Rabbah 7:32]
The tradition in Judaism that the human was formed out of the earth is more than a simplistic metaphor or colorful homily. The theme runs continuously and consistently throughout the scriptural, legalistic, midrashic, and kabbalistic avenues of Jewish spiritual teachings. For example, in the Book of Genesis (2:7), the narrator of the creation story informs us that Creator formed the human out of the earth. In the Midrash, the second-century Rabbi Shim'on ben El'azar taught that not only was the human created out of a clump of soil but out of earth gathered from all four directions (Midrash B'reishis Rabbah 8:1). In the Jewish mystical tradition, the Book of the Zohar describes Creator as forming the human out of the earth of the site of the sacred space of the Holy of Holies atop Mount Moriah in Jerusalem, and that each of the four winds of the four directions were then summoned to gift the primeval human with each its particular power and attribute (Zohar, Vol. 1, folio 130b and Vol. 2, folio 23b). These and other sources imply that the human is a living microcosm of the entire planet earth, and whose very soul is imbued with the powers of the four winds. As the second-century Rabbi Shim'on ben Lakish put it: "All that the Holy Blessed One created in the human had been created in the earth to resemble the human" (Midrash Kohelet Rabbah 1:9).
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The human's relationship to the earth, then, involves a serious covenantal relationship (Job 5:23), which, when betrayed, promises consequences of deprivation (Deuteronomy 11:17) and exile (Leviticus 18:25), and which, when honored, promises longevity and a peaceful life (Job 5:23-26; Deuteronomy 11:21). "The Israelites do not acknowledge the distinction between the psychic and the corporeal. Earth and stones are alive, imbued with a soul, therefore able to receive mental subject-matter and bear the impress of it. The relation between the earth and its owner—is a covenant-relation, a psychic community, and the owner does not solely prevail in the relation. The earth has its nature, which makes itself felt and demands respect" (Johannes Pederson in Israel: Its Life and Culture [Oxford University Press,1959], p. 479).
Ancient Jewish rites for invoking mystical experience and for vision questing also involved the earth, ranging from lying down on the earth with stones arranged around the head (Genesis 28:11), to assuming a fetal-like position while facing the earth (1 Kings 18:42). Weeping, too, is among the rites of achieving mystical experience, employed quite often by the second century Rabbi Shim'on bar Yochai (Sefer HaZohar, Vol. 3, folio 166b) while also assuming the fetal-like position of "head between the knees." It is obvious from these accounts and others that the revelatory experience emanates from the earth: "Converse with the earth, and she will reveal to you" (Job 12:8). Upon completion of his vision, Rabbi Shim'on would kiss the earth he had been facing during the entire quest (Sefer HaZohar, Vol. 3, folio 166b and 168a). As the tenth-century Rabbi Hai Ga'on summed it up: "[The seeker of mystical experience] must fast a certain number of days, put his head between his knees, and whisper many traditional chants and prayers to the earth. Then he is shown the inner mysteries of the earth and is invited to journey through her seven chambers" (Quoted in Neil Asher Silberman's Heavenly Powers: Unraveling the Secrets of the Kabbalah [Grosset Putnam, 1998], p. 36). The mystical experience involved could be some profound wisdom, or it could be the revelation of a technique for performing a specific act of sorcery (Midrash Heichalot Rabati 1:3).
These seven mystical chambers of the earth to which Rabbi Hai Gaon alluded play no less a role in spiritual questing as do the more popularly known Seven Heavenly Chambers. In fact, the ancient teachers gave them both equal importance, and taught that both meet and conjoin in common mystery at the Seventh Chamber (Zohar, Vol. 1, folio 38a). Each chamber corresponds to one of seven names of the earth (which vary in different texts) and wields a particular attribute:
Eretz, meaning Compressed, whose attribute is Wisdom; Adahmah, meaning Clay, whose attribute is Peace; Ar'ka, meaning Inward, whose attribute is Grace; Yabashah, meaning Dry Earth in Relationship to Water, whose attribute is Potential; Tehvel, meaning Habitation, whose attribute is Bounty; Char'vah, meaning Destruction/Eruption, whose attribute is Life; Gey'a, meaning Gulley, whose attribute is Power.
The sanctity of the earth is described in the Jewish tradition beyond its relationship to the human, but also its relationship to the divine, whose presence, we are reminded, is no less in the earth as in the heavens: "And you will then know that I am Infinite One who dwells deep within the earth" (Exodus 8:18). The ancient rabbis further dramatized the sacredness of the earth by over her" (Genesis 2:15).
—Ancient Jewish teachings about the sanctity and spirituality of the earth, by Rabbi Gershon Winkler. |
