History of the Jews, Vol. 4 (of 6)

There are certainly very few compositions which have exercised so much influence as the Zohar, or which can be compared with it in regard to the remarkable nature of its contents and form. It is a book without beginning or end, of which it is unknown whether it once formed part of a whole, whether the extant portions originally belonged to it, or were added later, or whether at an earlier period more of it was in existence. It consists of three principal parts, with appendices and explanatory comments. The absence of form in this farrago made it possible for certain portions to be imitated. It is so easy and tempting to imitate its wild though sonorous style. Thus the forgery was counter-forged. It is not positively certain whether the Zohar is to be regarded as a running commentary to the Pentateuch, as a theosophic manual, or as a collection of Kabbalistic sermons. And its contents are just as curious, confused and chaotic as its form and external dress. The Zohar with its appendages in no wise develops a Kabbalistic system like Azriel's, neither does it unfold an idea like Abraham Abulafia, but plays with the Kabbalistic forms as with counters – with the En-Sof, with the number of the Sefiroth, with points and strokes, with vowels, accents, with the names of God and the transposition of their letters, as well as with the Biblical verses and Agadic sayings – casts them about in eternal repetition, and in this manner produces sheer absurdities. Occasionally it gives a faint suggestion of an idea, but in a trice it evaporates in feverish fancies, or dissolves in childish silliness.

The underlying principle of the Zohar (if we may speak of principles in reference to this book) is that the historical narratives and religious statutes of the Bible were never intended to be understood in a plain, simple sense, but that they contain something higher, mysterious, supernatural. "Is it conceivable," the Zohar makes one of Simon bar Yochaï's circle exclaim, "that God had no holier matters to communicate than these common things about Esau and Hagar, Laban and Jacob, Balaam's ass, Balak's jealousy of Israel, and Zimri's lewdness? Does a collection of such tales, taken in their ordinary sense, deserve the name of Torah? And can it be said of such a revelation that it utters the pure truth?" "If that is all the Torah contains," remarks Simon bar Yochaï (or Moses de Leon), "we can produce in our time a book as good as this, aye, perhaps better. No, no! the higher, mystical sense of the Torah is its true sense. The Biblical narratives resemble a beautiful dress, which enraptures fools so that they do not look beneath it. This robe, however, covers a body, i. e., the precepts of the Law, and this again a soul, the higher soul. Woe to the guilty, who assert that the Torah contains only simple stories, and therefore look only upon the dress. Blessed are the righteous, who seek the real sense of the Law. The jar is not the wine, so stories do not make up the Torah." Thus the secret lore of Moses de Leon naturally has free play to pervert everything and anything, and give it the seal of sublimity, and in this manner to promulgate a false doctrine, not only absurd, sometimes even blasphemous and immoral. All laws of the Torah are to be considered as parts and constituents of a higher world; they resolve themselves into the mysteries of the masculine and feminine principle (positive and negative). Only when both parts meet, does the higher unity arise. Consequently, whenever any one transgresses one of the laws, he obscures the brilliant image of the higher world.

It is almost impossible to give an idea of the abuse which the Zohar, or Moses de Leon, practices in the interpretation of Holy Writ, and how he twists the sense of the words. In the verse, "Raise your eyes to heaven, and see who has created this," a profound mystery is supposed to reside, which the prophet Elijah learned in the celestial school, and revealed to Simon bar Yochaï; namely, that God had been unknown and obscure before the creation of the world, in a manner existing, and still not existing. He was the "Who" (the unknown subject). The creation is part of His self-revelation. It was by the creation that He first proclaimed Himself as God.

The Zohar is particularly concerned with that side of man which is an eternal riddle to man, – the soul, its origin and end. Like the older Kabbalists, the Zohar assumed the pre-existence of the souls in the brilliant world of the Sefiroth. They are there wrapped in a spiritual robe, and entranced in the contemplation of God's light. When the souls are about to enter this world they assume an earthly garment, the body; but as soon as they are to leave the earth, the angel of death divests them of this earthly garment. If a soul lives piously and morally here below, it receives its former heavenly robe, and can once more enjoy the blissful ecstasy of God's presence; if not, particularly if it departs from the world impenitent, it wanders about naked and ashamed till purified in hell. The nakedness of the soul, paradise and hell – depicted in fantastic, baroque, and terrible images – are themes for which the Zohar often and gladly makes digressions. What happens to the soul during sleep, and the shadows of life – sin, impurity in small and great things – are likewise favorite subjects for discussion in the Zohar, to which it frequently reverts, presenting them in the greatest variety of guises and repetitions. One of the older Kabbalists arrived at the notion that to the higher world, the world of light, of holiness, and of angels, there was a sharp antithesis – a world of darkness, of unholiness, of Satan, in short the principle of evil, which was likewise developed into ten degrees (Sefiroth) at the creation of the world. In spite of their opposite characters, the two worlds are of one origin, forming opposite poles, and are in the same relation to each other as the right side is to the left. Accordingly, evil is called in the language of the Kabbalists the left or other side. The Kabbalists gave another representation of the Satanic empire. On the border of the world of light, the world of darkness is situated, and encompasses it as the shell surrounds the kernel of the fruit. Hence the Zohar metaphorically designates evil, or sin, with its ten degrees, as shell (Kelifa). This side is the favorite topic of the Zohar; for here it can apply its peculiar exposition of the Scriptures. The ten Sefiroth of the left side, the Satanic kingdom, are enumerated and denominated by names which savor of barbarism. The names sound like those of the princes of the demons in the book of Enoch, and are perhaps borrowed thence: Samael or Samiel, Azael, Angiel, Sariel, Kartiel. The Zohar identifies all blasphemers and wicked people with the evil principle of the "shells" (Kelifoth) – the first serpent, Cain, Esau, Pharaoh, and Esau's empire, Rome, and the civil and spiritual power of Christendom in the Middle Ages, which rested on violence and injustice. Israel and righteous people, on the other hand, belong to the world of light, the right Sefiroth. "He who goes after the left side (sin), and defiles his actions, draws upon himself the impure spirits; they attach themselves to him, nor do they ever leave him." The laws of the Torah have no other object than to effect and cherish the union of the souls with the world of light. Every transgression of them brings the souls to the world of darkness, evil spirits, and impurity. The Zohar coarsely represents the connection of the souls with light or with darkness by the image of wedded union, as, in general, it asserts the masculine and feminine principle in the higher world, even in reference to the Deity. As long as Israel lives in exile, the divine unity is deficient and disrupted; God will become one only in those days when the Mistress (Matronita) will espouse the King.

Moses de Leon would have left a gap, if he had not spoken of the Messianic period – the keynote of the Kabbala – and determined its date. In fact, the sudden revelation of the doctrine so long held secret rests on the assumption that the time of the Messiah is near. But here the forger betrays himself. Instead of indicating a period or a year for the appearance of the Messiah approximating the age of Simon bar Yochaï (in the second century), the Zohar, with its casuistical playing with letters and numbers, demonstrated that it would happen in the beginning of the fourteenth century, therefore in the lifetime of the author. "When the sixtieth or the sixty-sixth year will pass the threshold of the sixth thousand, the Messiah will show himself;" but some time will pass before all nations will be conquered, and Israel be gathered together. The Messiah will first be summoned to appear on earth from his secret abode in Paradise, "the bird's nest," where he has been dwelling in bliss since the beginning of the world. A bloody conflict will then break out in the world. Edom and Ishmael (Christian and Mahometan nations) will vehemently contend with one another, and eventually both will be annihilated by a mightier conquering people. Signs and miracles will presage the time, and the resurrection of the dead and a general diffusion of the Kabbalistic knowledge of God will constitute the end of the world. Moses de Leon intended to arouse in the minds of his contemporaries the hope that they would behold the time of the Messiah with their own eyes. He was perhaps as much a victim to Messianic enthusiasm as Abraham Abulafia. Despite the Zohar's endeavor to exalt rabbinical Judaism and its law, and by a mystical explanation to give every custom, however trivial, a special signification and higher import, it carps at and criticises the Talmud and its method, though in an obscure, equivocal manner, and with the most innocent air in the world. It represents the study of the Kabbala as of much higher importance than the study of the Talmud, and even of the Bible. The Kabbala has the power of soaring, and is able to follow the flight of the Deity in His inscrutable guidance of things; the Talmud, on the other hand, and its adherents, have clipped wings, and cannot elevate themselves to higher knowledge. The Zohar compares the Mishna (Talmud) with a lowly slave; the Kabbala, on the other hand, with a powerful mistress. The former has to do with inferior matters, with "clean and unclean," with "permitted and prohibited," with "what is and is not fit to be used." As long as this woman rules with her "now pure, at another time impure blood," the union of the Father with the Matrona (God with Israel) cannot take place. In the Messianic period, on the other hand, when the higher knowledge will awake, and gain the ascendency, the Kabbala will once more assert its dominion over the slave (Talmud), as in the time of the lawgiver Moses. The Zohar lastly compares the study of the Talmud with a rugged, unproductive rock which, when struck, gives out scanty drops of water, causing only disputes and discussions. The Kabbala, on the other hand, is like a spring flowing abundantly, to which only a word needs to be spoken to cause it to pour out its refreshing and vivifying contents.

When the Zohar or Midrash of Simon bar Yochaï was published, it aroused the greatest wonder among the Kabbalists. They seized upon it with avidity. Moses de Leon received vast multitudes of orders to send copies. The question, whence all at once had come so comprehensive a work of an old teacher of the Mishna, not a trace of which had been known till then, was thus answered: Nachmani had exhumed it in Palestine, had sent it to his son in Catalonia, by a whirlwind it had been carried to Aragon or Alicante (Valencia), where it had fallen into the hands of Moses de Leon, who alone possessed the original document. The repute of the newly discovered Kabbalistic treasure soon spread through the whole of Spain. The school of Abulafia at once gave the Zohar the tribute of its acknowledgment, and considered it indisputably genuine. Moses de Leon's wildest hopes were more than realized. There were, of course, Kabbalists who doubted that the Zohar had originated with Simon bar Yochaï and his school, but none the less did they pay homage to the book as to a pure source for Kabbalistic theories. When the Kabbalist Isaac of Accho, who had escaped the massacre that had ensued upon the capture of that city, arrived in Spain, and saw the Zohar, he was staggered, and became desirous of coming to the root of the question, whether this alleged ancient Palestinian work was really genuine, as he had been born and educated in the Holy Land, had associated with Nachmani's pupils, and yet had never heard a syllable about it. When he met Moses de Leon in Valladolid, the latter took a solemn oath that he had in his house at Avila an old copy of the book from the hand of Simon bar Yochaï, and pledged himself to submit it to Isaac of Accho for examination. But Moses de Leon became ill on his journey home, and died in Arevalo (1305). The veil around the origin of the Zohar was wrapped still closer. Two influential men of Avila, David Rafan and Joseph de Avila, had indeed discovered the simple truth from Moses de Leon's wife and daughter. Moses de Leon had never possessed the original copy, but had evolved it out of his own inner consciousness, and had written it with his own hand. His wife frankly related that she had often asked her husband why he published the productions of his own intellect under a strange name, and that he had answered that the Zohar would not, under his own name, have brought him any money, but assigned to Simon bar Yochaï it had been a lucrative source of income.

Thus wife and daughter, without being aware of the full gravity of their assuredly unassailable testimony, unmasked Moses de Leon as a forger. Nevertheless, the Zohar met with the unqualified applause of the Kabbalists, because it supplied a want which would have had to be provided for in one way or another. The Kabbalistic doctrine, which had already gained so much weight, had hitherto been without firm basis; it had no other authority than the very doubtful one of Isaac the Blind. Now the dignified figure of a teacher of the Mishna in communion with departed spirits and celestial hosts and angels confirmed the truths which were not only doubted by many at the time, but absolutely ridiculed. Should they, then, not cling to it and defend it? What Moses de Leon put into the mouth of Simon bar Yochaï, "Many will range themselves round the book Zohar, when it becomes known, and nourish their minds with it at the end of days," actually happened soon after his death. If the Zohar did not bring the Kabbalists anything essentially new, it exhibited to them what they did know in so peculiar a form and language, that they were wonderstruck. Everything in it is contrived for effect, for illusion, and for fascination. The long discussions which Simon bar Yochaï holds with his circle or with the "faithful shepherd," have dramatic power, especially the scene in which, in premonition of his speedy dissolution, he imparts once more what he so often had proclaimed. Full of effect, and, upon minds easily accessible to faith, of transporting and overwhelming influence, are the oft-recurring exclamations in the Zohar: Woe, woe to those who believe, or do not believe, or fail to respect, this and that. Sometimes short prayers are interspersed, which, being elevated and imaginative, are peculiarly fitted to fill the soul with mysterious awe. Even the characteristic terms introduced instead of the usual Kabbalistic forms are calculated to arouse interest by their double sense. The author designated God and the higher spiritual substances (Sefiroth) collectively or in their single parts and effects, as father, mother, the prototype of man, bride, matron, the white head, the large and the small face, the mirror, the higher heaven, the higher earth, lily, apple-orchard, and so on. The pious were gained over to the side of the Zohar, as it attributes to every religious custom and every practice a higher import, a higher sanctity, and a mysterious effect.

So a new text-book of religion was by stealth introduced into Judaism. It placed the Kabbala, which a century before had been unknown, on the same level as the Bible and the Talmud, and to a certain extent on a still higher level. The Zohar undoubtedly produced good, in so far as it opposed enthusiasm to the legal dry-as-dust manner of the study of the Talmud, stimulated the imagination and the feelings, and cultivated a disposition that restrained the reasoning faculty. But the ills which it has brought on Judaism outweigh the good by far. The Zohar confirmed and propagated a gloomy superstition, and strengthened in people's minds the belief in the kingdom of Satan, in evil spirits and ghosts.

Through its constant use of coarse expressions, often verging on the sensual, in contradistinction to the chaste, pure spirit pervading Jewish literature, the Zohar sowed the seeds of unclean desires, and later on produced a sect that laid aside all regard for decency. Finally, the Zohar blunted the sense for the simple and the true, and created a visionary world, in which the souls of those who zealously occupied themselves with it were lulled into a sort of half-sleep, and lost the faculty of distinguishing between right and wrong. Its quibbling interpretations of Holy Writ, adopted by the Kabbalists and others infected with this mannerism, perverted the verses and words of the Holy Book, and made the Bible the wrestling-ground of the most curious, insane notions. The Zohar even contains utterances which seem favorable to the Christian dogma of the Trinity of the Godhead. The mystics dismembered the fair form of Holy Writ, indulged in mad sport, and stupefied all sense for truth, but they were scarcely more guilty in this respect than the so-called philosophers of the time. Maimuni's attempt to bring Judaism and its religious literature into consonance with reason, to give certain too realistic verses of the Bible a philosophical, or at least a tolerable sense, and place religious precepts on the basis of an intelligible, acceptable purpose, encouraged half-learned men to explain everything and anything in the same way. Hence the allegorizing of the Scriptures, the Agada, and the rites, was carried to an incredible extreme. These pseudo-philosophers divested the stories of the creation and of the patriarchs of their historical character, and interpreted them as philosophical commonplaces, in which they sported with Aristotelian and Maimunist terms, as the Zohar with Kabbalistic terms. Abraham and Sarah, for example, denote to the allegorists matter and form, Pharaoh denotes vicious desires, Egypt the body, the land of Goshen the heart, Moses the divine spirit, and the Urim and Thummim, which the High Priest wore on his breast in the Temple, were the astrolabe of the astronomers, with which they calculated time, longitude and latitude. If there had been at that time any Jewish thinkers of the first rank, they would have made serious efforts to put a stop to this childish proceeding, whether Kabbalistic or pseudo-philosophical. But the age of Ben Adret happened to be poor in great intellects. Even the two chief representatives of the philosophy of that time, Shem-Tob Falaquera and Isaac Albalag, were not above mediocrity, and were themselves tainted with the current errors.

There were, however, certain men of bolder spirit, who from philosophical premises drew conclusions endangering the stability of Judaism. Like their predecessors, the Alexandrine allegorists, many intelligent and consistent thinkers were induced at this time to disregard the ceremonies of Judaism by assigning erroneous purposes to religious precepts. As the ceremonies are intended simply to awaken certain religious, philosophical, or moral feelings, they argued, it is sufficient to call up these thoughts, to be penetrated by them, to occupy one's mind constantly with them, while the observance of religious customs is superfluous. Several members of this school denied Moses' prophetic character, accepting him only as an ordinary lawgiver, such as other nations had, and thus rejected the divinity of the Torah. The pseudo-philosophers cast a doubt upon the very fundamentals of Judaism, and thereby provoked a reaction injurious to free inquiry.

The chief authority of this allegorical school was a man of vast erudition, but full of crotchets, who, without desiring it, occasioned violent conflicts. This was Levi ben Abraham ben Chayim, of Villefranche, not far from Perpignan (born about 1240, died after 1315). Coming from a respectable family of scholars, he was deeply read in the Talmud; but he was more attracted by Maimuni's philosophy and Ibn-Ezra's astrology, being a warm adherent of the belief of the latter in the influence of the stars over human destiny. Of a volatile rather than a solid mind, Levi ben Chayim had no perfect conception of Maimuni's aims. To him Judaism resolved itself into philosophical platitudes, which, preposterous and childish as they sound to us, were, strange to say, regarded by the people of early times as profound wisdom. Ben Chayim was the disseminator of that superficial method satisfied with formulæ instead of thoughts. He composed two chief works, one in verse, the other in prose, a kind of encyclopædia, in which he applied the theory derived from Maimuni to all branches of knowledge. In these books he translated the historical narratives in the Bible into philosophical generalities, explained the standing still of the sun on the occasion of Joshua's victory as a natural occurrence, and in general, adopted any method of expounding which depends on word-twisting. Levi ben Chayim repudiated the allegorical interpretations of laws; in fact, he denounced the allegorists as heretics, and desired to preserve the historical character of the biblical narratives as much as possible. Like his prototype, Ibn-Ezra, he tried to keep secret his deepest convictions, so that not even his friends could fathom his ideas. This Judaism, disfigured by absurd philosophical interpretations, was not only privately taught, but preached in the synagogues.

The home of this pseudo-philosophy was the not insignificant congregation of Perpignan, the capital of the province of Roussillon, which belonged to the kingdom of Aragon. Although the Jews had no enviable lot, and were compelled to live in the most miserable part of the town, that assigned to lepers, they nevertheless preserved a taste for science and free inquiry, and eagerly awaited the new theories taught by the exponents and followers of Maimuni's philosophy. Here poor Levi of Villefranche had found a place of refuge at the house of a rich and influential man, Don Samuel Sulami or Sen Escalita, whose piety, learning and liberality were praised beyond measure by his contemporaries. "From Perpignan to Marseilles there is not another who can be compared with Samuel Sulami in knowledge of the Law, benevolence, piety and humility. He gives charity in secret, his house is open to every traveler; and he is indefatigable in getting books for his collection." He corresponded on learned topics with Ben Adret, and took interest in the philosophical interpretation of the Bible and the Agada. Even the rabbi of Perpignan was a friend of free thought and a determined enemy of mummified orthodoxy and the unreflecting faith of the literalist. This was Don Vidal Menachem ben Solomon Meïri (born Elul, 1249, died about 1306), little celebrated in his own time, but none the less of great importance. Though not of commanding influence, he possessed an attractive personality. He had what nearly all his contemporaries sorely lacked, moderation and tact. These qualities are revealed particularly in Meïri's style. Nearly all the Jewish authors of Spain and Provence wrote their prose and verse in a redundant, bombastic style, as if the whole literary thesaurus of the Bible were needed to express a meager idea. The much-admired model of this time, the moral poet Yedaya Bedaresi, is so prolix in saying the most ordinary platitude, that one has to peruse whole pages of his apology, reflections, and miscellaneous writings before coming across a tolerable idea. The style in vogue, a mosaic of Biblical phrases, favored verbosity. But Don Vidal Meïri forms a glorious exception to this practice, his style being terse and clear. In his commentaries to the tractates of the Talmud which relate to ceremonial duties, he proceeds throughout in a methodical manner, advances from the general to the particular, arranges his material in lucid order, and seeks to give the reader information, not to confuse him. Of a similar character is Meïri's exposition of Holy Writ. The philosophers and mystics always endeavored to find some higher meaning in it, the simple explanation being too prosaic for them, and accordingly they put upon the Bible their own extravagant nonsense. Not so Meïri. He certainly assumed that there are many commands and narratives in the Bible which point to something higher than the literal meaning, but the majority of them must, he maintained, be taken quite literally. Meïri was naturally dissatisfied with the extravagant mannerisms of the allegorists, but it did not enter his mind to reject the good together with the bad, to interdict learning because of its abuse.