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The Politics of Mysticism

2018; Duke University Press; Volume: 56; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1215/00138282-4337571

2573-3575

Hartley Lachter,

Islamic Studies and History

Claims to esoteric knowledge are inescapably political. To assert control over a body of knowledge that derives from a source other than human reason is a gesture of power and authority vis-à-vis those who are not part of the privileged chain of transmission. Mysticism and esotericism are often found together. This is certainly the case for Jewish mystics for whom Kabbalah is literally “that which is received.” Kabbalists regard their doctrine as one that originates with revelation, often associated with the theophany at Sinai, or with supernatural pronouncements from the prophet Elijah to select rabbis through the ages. Whatever the source, kabbalistic discourse is built on the claim that Jews have a secretly guarded doctrine that enables them (kabbalists in particular) to control the secrets of the cosmos and wield divine power.The political dimensions of such claims cannot be understated. By claiming exclusive secret knowledge regarding the nature of the functioning of the cosmos, kabbalists sought to establish a bulwark against critiques of Judaism. In many respects, Kabbalah developed in the thirteenth century as a counter-theology to Christian polemics. While Jews were represented in medieval Christian discourse and art as blind to the true meaning of their own scriptures, overly carnal in their religious practices, and fruitlessly waiting for a messiah who would never come, Kabbalists constructed an inversion of such claims. In the kabbalistic imagination, Jews have been handed a secret revelation that describes the inner workings of the divine realm known as the ten sefirot, or “luminosities,” and asserts the power that Jews have to bind with that realm, drawing divine blessing into the world through the practice of Jewish law. According to the kabbalists, Jews heroically sustain the cosmic order by means of their divine souls, and they unite the Godhead through their fidelity to a religion openly derided by those outside the esoteric chain of transmission. Since the Hebrew Bible and rabbinic texts were already well known to Christian scholars and often employed in anti-Jewish polemical tracts, Kabbalistic texts provided a needed refuge from anti-Jewish critique. By claiming to reveal the divinely incarnate status of the Jewish people and the true, inner meaning of Jewish texts and ritual practices that have always been present since Sinai but have never been discussed in writing owing to their secrecy, Kabbalists enabled the creation of an irreducible domain of Jewish knowledge that sought to be immune to both scholastic and philosophical critique.The medieval kabbalistic notion of Jewish superiority was generally not employed as a justification for inflicting harm on non-Jews. That is not to say that kabbalistic pronouncements of the relationship between Jews and non-Jews were in any way subtle or muted. To take one exemplary formulation found in the Zohar: “Rabbi Abba said, ‘Soul of every living being’ [Gen. 1:20], this refers to Israel, for they are the children of the blessed Holy One and their souls derive from Him. The souls of the rest of the nations; whence do they derive? Rabbi El’azar said, ‘from those impure aspects of the left, defiling them and anyone who approaches them.’”1 Given their minority status, Jews generally lacked the capacity and the ability to benefit from the oppression of Gentiles. The polemical, anti-Christian and anti-Muslim dimensions of Kabbalah were part of a strategy for reinforcing notions of the meaning, power, and relevance of Judaism for Jews. Consider, for example, the comment by Abraham ben Eliezer ha-Levi, a kabbalist from the generation of the expulsion from Spain living in Jerusalem. In one of his texts he outlines eight benefits of studying Kabbalah. He is critical of those Jews who do not embrace the legitimacy of the kabbalistic tradition (intracommunal politics), and he derides non-Jews for their lack of understanding due to their ignorance of the Jewish esoteric tradition. In ha-Levi’s words: One will come to perceive, through the opening of the portals of this wisdom, that he shall go forth from darkness to light, and that before he was like one who was blind, “for this is not the city, and that is not the town” (2 Kings 6:19), but rather, he will perceive “a new world, a new heavens and a new earth” (Isa. 65:17), and a new humanity. And he will understand the great misfortune of those who know not upon that which their life depends, who walk in darkness. But concerning the holy people who merit to enter into the orchard of wisdom, I declare “The people who have walked in darkness have seen a brilliant light; on those who have dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, a shining light has dawned” (Isa. 9:1).2The study of Kabbalah, according to ha-Levi, provides the opportunity for self-transformation and a transformed consciousness regarding the conditions of Jewish life in exile. Despite being expelled from Spain and forced to endure a very dangerous journey across the Mediterranean that killed a significant number of Jews, ha-Levi described Kabbalah as a way of unveiling the “great misfortune” of those “who walk in darkness” because they are not counted among God’s “holy people.” This is just one example of the many strategies kabbalists employed to reimagine their circumstances by asserting, on the basis of their privileged knowledge, that Jews were secretly superior to the non-Jewish majority cultures in which they lived.The development of the state of Israel has created a new circumstance for the development of kabbalistic discourse in relation to Jewish politics and power. Kabbalistic images and ideas can be found on both the right and the left of the political spectrum. One particularly interesting example is Yitzchak Ginzburgh, an American-born rabbi loosely associated with the Chabad Lubavitch movement. He has written extensively in Hebrew and English about Kabbalah and Jewish politics, and he takes medieval discourses of Jewish superiority and transforms them into a platform for political action in the modern Jewish state. He asserts that Kabbalah teaches that Jewish lives are inherently superior and more sacred than those of non-Jews, and that therefore the Land of Israel, including all the territory of the West Bank, must remain in Jewish hands to usher in the Messianic redemption, even if this involves the killing and expulsion of non-Jews. As Ginzburgh notes in his book Rectifying the State of Israel: The Zohar refers to netzach and hod . . . as “two sides of one body.”3 . . . Often they are referred to as partners. In particular, netzach corresponds to the right leg while hod corresponds to the left leg. Unlike the two hands, each of which can function independently of the other, the two legs, in walking, must function together. Just as the right leg encourages mass Jewish immigration to Israel, the left leg expels undesirable elements from the land.4For Ginzburgh, the mandate for Jews to move to Israel and expel non-Jews is encoded in the structure of the divine economy.Laying claim to exclusive secret knowledge or asserting the capacity to experience direct encounter with God can have powerful social, cultural, and political consequences, depending on the conditions in which such discourses are elicited. Mysticism, like any form of religious discourse, can move many people and serve as the basis for identity formation. In virtually every case, there is some degree of politics at work when a mystical text is written, preserved, copied, and read. The works of mystics like Meister Eckhart or Ibn Arabi represent shifts in discourses about God and religious experience that contribute to changes in how religious authority is imagined and articulated. Such texts perform important social work regarding the relative authority of religious claims. When a mystical trend encounters success, political transformations are inevitably part of the story.