By: Harold Sequeira
promhari@yahoo.com
CABALA Ð
BODY OF JEWISH MYSTICICAL TEACHINGS
ANTECEDENTS
In India mysticism could flourish because of the freedom of expression and life style. As G. Ranade puts "mysticism has been like waves in the Ocean in India", unhindered, unrestricted, and free. Elsewhere the story has been different. By its own nature mysticism was kept as a secret, away from inquisitive and ignorant eyes. Moreover, entrenched religions, power hungry, have looked with consternation at the mystics in most of the countries. There has been persecution, maiming, murder and what not of the mystics.
Further when an entire race is enslaved and even after being freed was further persecuted, that race is most likely to be secretive about their mystic quests. Such was the case of the Jews, enslaved by the Egyptians, persecuted by the Romans, and almost annihilated by the Nazis before and during the Second World War. They were bound to be secretive.
The Jews, with this background, became a melancholic lot; even at the temple in Jerusalem, there is the "wailing wall" (the western wall of the Temple of Jerusalem). They are also "formalistic" and "rigid" in their approach to religion and or mysticism. That is why it took nearly a thousand and plus years to free Jewish mysticism, called the Cabala (called Kabala in the Hebraic language) from rigidity; this was done in Spain, where the Jewish Mysticism was codified, by Moses of Leon, in the classic called the Zohar, about whom more later.
THE CABALA
The word Cabala comes from the Hebrew language and means "received tradition generally"; Cabala also means Jewish mysticism in all its forms, but specifically its crystallization in 13th Century Spain around "Zohar" (The Book of Splendor) which later generated all mystical movement in Judaism" [i] The Jews considered that this was a revealed knowledge of God and the Universe. Jewish mysticism earnestly tried to probe the mystery of creation, the relation of God to the world and the destiny of humanity.
The earliest form of Jewish mysticism dates back to the first centuries A.D, and is a variant of the Hellenistic astral mysticism. Through meditation and ecstatic journeys through seven levels of astral regions, the Jewish mystic sought Divine vision. When Alexander returned from his invasion and incursions in India, he took with him untold wealth as also pundits and learned men of philosophy and mysticism. Even before him Pythagoras and others had made the long overland journey to India, to seek from its Seers, knowledge and wisdom of life here and hereafter. Pythagoras formed a school of philosophy and mysticism in southern Italy, in the 6th c B.C. He influenced Plato and later the neo-platonic philosopher and mystic Plotinus of Alexandria. The Pythagoreans believed in the immortality of souls and transmigration. Yoga like discipline was followed, in terms of reflection, meditation, control of diet, behavior and so forth. The roots of Jewish Mysticism can be found in the Mysticism that flourished in the Hellenistic culture.
The Jewish mystic literature shows three elements. The first is theosophic and based partly upon ecstatic visions. In the early period God is represented in human form, but immeasurable. In the higher mysticism he in inconceivable to man, but he creates a being, Adam Kadmon, to communicate with Him. Part of this theosophy is the description of seven halls of heaven and the mysteries of nature. This leads to the second Ð the cosmological. This explains the emergence of visible matter from a primal substance. The third element is theurgy, the practical control of divine powers, through mystic names and formulae.
Man was considered the highest point of the created world, and his soul contains animal and moral elements, but also an element of pure spirit, which in righteousness ascends to God.
Cabalistic literature shows an extraordinary welter of speculation, leading the layman and expert to confusion and consternation.
The methods are generally meditation and contemplation, and prayer. A treatise written in Palestine in 1295, called "The Gates of Justice" outlines three roads to spiritual expansion. The first, the vulgar way is through asceticism and concentration. The second is the intellectual way which appeals to the philosophers. The third, the Cabalistic way, reaches beyond finite forms, to the Infinite. Such a spiritual ascent starts from the cleansing of the body, then of emotions, then the cleansing of the soul from the material.
"ZOHAR": JEWISH MYSTICISM CODIFIED
The formalistic and rigid Jewish mysticism got a touch of fresh air in Medieval Spain.
Cabalistic mysticism was codified in Spain by the Spaniard Moses of Leon (1205-1305), in his classic work called the "Zohar" or Book of Splendors. He was a wandering mystic and prolific writer. Zohar was written in the Aramaic[ii] language. The Zohar depicts God as a dynamic force, composed of numerous aspects, like infinity, immutability, omniscience, omnipresence and so forth, and functioning through 10 Sefirots (mystic realms). The cosmology of the Zohar tries to interpret all these realms. The Zohar became a "manual" and an inspiration to Jewish mystics, thereafter.
[i] Richard S. Sarason, Associate Professor of , Jewish Institute of Religion, Cincinnati
[ii] Semitic language related to Hebrew, which dates back to 1000 B.C. and which was widely used in the Middle East. Jesus Christ spoke this language
Harold Sequeira
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