Reading "Mysteries of the Kabbalah"

I have been reading Marc-Alain Ouaknin (the most famous for his account on Talmud: The Burnt Book) "Mysteries of the Kabbalah" for quite a long time, both in Polish and English...
I was coming to and going away from it for other books.

I must say that this is one of the most important and most beautiful and most comprehensive (for us mere mortals of XX/XXI centuries...) book about the Kabbalah...

This is not a review yet. This is a running log of some finest thoughts and ideas.

Let me start with, actually, some quotes the author makes:

"... the mystery of evil, the only one in which God does not make us believe but makes us think" (Marie Noel)

opens Chapter 20.

"The very root of evil is hidden in the depths of absolute good and it is the act of denying the miracle and the possible" (Yosef Ben Shlomo from "The Master of Lights")

Now, Marc-Alain himself:

"For man, good resides in the gap between the perfection of God and the transgression of this perfection through the creation of the world. This creation is a break in the immanence of perfection. Any creation is less perfect than the source of all perfection."

I will perhaps come here to some previous thoughts of the book later ...

There we go now: from Rabbi Nachman from Breslov: "It is forbidden to be old" .

And from the author: "A person is old when he has lost hope. A person is old when instead of seeing hope as a door opening onto the future, he sees it opening onto the past. Old age is a nostalgia for hope. It is when one does not have the strength to say, 'Tomorrow'"

CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE

"... in the beginning, after the contraction of the divine, the tsimtsum, and the first emanation of light, there was beriya. This word literally means 'creation', the transition from absolute nothingness to a state of being, the transition from ayin to yesh, to produce the raw material of the universe ..."

"This raw material, the infinitesimal element in matter, had a specific shape, the point.(...) So, in the beginning, there was the point ..."

"The second phase of creation for the kabbalists is called yetsira: "formation". (...) the first transfiguration of the point was a vertical line, (...) After this vertical line a horizontal line was born and attached to it, and thus the plane was born."

THE IMPERFECTION AND EVIL

"(...) the Kabbalah of Rabbi Isaac Luria was an immediate success, since it answered the existential questions of the period."

Rabbi Issac Luria replied by formulating the theory of tsimtsum ("reduction"). According to this theory, the first act of the Creator was not to reveal himself to something on the outside. (...) the first stage was a folding in, a withdrawal; God withdrew 'from himself into himself' and in doing so left a void within his bosom, thus creating a space for the world to come."

"That which happens in the world can only be the expression of this original and essential exile (one might be tempted to call it 'ontological'). That the divine presence, the shekhina, might be ontologically in exile is a daring and revolutionary idea. All the imperfections of the world can be explained by such an exile"

"This kabbalistic explanation () is of striking originality in that it does not consider exile to be uniquely as a proof of faith, nor a punishment for sins, but, above all, as a mission. (...) the aim of this mission is to cause the holy sparks that had been dispersed to ascend again and release the divine light and holy souls from the domain of the qlipa, which represents tyranny and oppression on the terrestrial and historical plane."

I must admit, that this theory developed by Rabbi Isaac Luria is the first ever explanation of the imperfection of the world and its horrible condition, its evil - given from inside a religious tradition - that speaks to me... That was a revelation to me to find it out after so many years of study ...

❧

LITERATURE AND SILENCE

"This silence of words that speak to say nothing is perhaps the very essence of literature"

Rabbi Nachman from Breslov: "Words are like birds; why keep them shut away in cages?"

THE JOY

"Joy is the creation of space in which speech can be expressed and exist."

Rabbi Nachman from Breslov: "It is a great obligation to always be in joy" , "Sadness is the exile of divine presence"

Jean-Yves Leloup: "Being is not a thing, but a Space, an Opening which must remain free. God is the freedom of man."

THE VOID

"The letter of the Ten Commandments were produced 'in a void', as one might say 'in marble' or 'in wood'. The actual substance of the writing is a nonsubstance"

THE MEANING OF WORDS

Rabbi Levi Isaac of Berditchev: "Everyone has a duty to look at their nothingness and to respect it"

LANGUAGE AND LOVE

"Saying that 'father' and 'mother', each in their own way, possess the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet is expressing the fundamental relationship between language and fertility; it is stressing the fact that 'making' a child is first and foremost a dialogue and that the human being anchors the possibility of his existence in the linguistic potential unleashed in speech"

THAT IS ENOUGH ! DO NOT COME

"To summarize the theory of tsimtsum, the space occupied by the world is created aby an emptying or withdrawing of the infinite and by a force that maintains the light of the infinite at the periphery. This force is called Shaddai"

"It is also the name of God, which designates the force that prohibits the infinite from reoccupying the void it has left."

ON THE UNIVERSE

A quote from Maurice Blanchot: "... at the beginning of everything, the power of words and exegesis is affirmed, in which everything begins from a text and everything comes back to it, a single book in which a prodigious sequence of books unfolds, a library that is not only universal but which takes the place of the universe and which is even more vast and more enigmatic than the universe."

THE REVELATION OF A TEXT

"The Revelation is first and foremost the revelation of a text; this is the revolution contained in the Bible story"

"The question of the relationship to the text is not merely that of reading but of interpretation. Interpreting is discovering meaning but not truth - not revealing a secret, but revealing that secret exists."

"The "Text-God" must be accorder its status of infinity; in other words, every means must be used to give it an infinite meaning. These means consist of all the rules of interpretation that have been explained in the previous chapters, and especially gematria, tseruf, and so on. The need to interpret the text as the liberation of the divine is one of the fundamental meanings of all the work of kabbalists and Talmudists."

"Truth does not mean the appropriateness in relation to certain prior existing meanings, but resides in being "open to" ...

ON THE TETRAGRAMMATON

"The infinity of God is self-limiting. He created the world and became its guest in a finite form. For the Kabbalah, this passage from the infinite to the finite occurs through the text"

"For kabbalists, the incarnation is produced in the body of the Text"

"The name is a meditation on nothingness that becomes a being, and which returns to nothingness. It is entry into movement and an infinity of time"

LOVE

"(...) it is the conjugal, or rather love, relationship that is the favorite metaphor, as the Bible shows in the Song of Songs. Love, (...) is the primary value on which the world rests. This reunion of the beloved and the bethrothed is a refrain that runs through kabbalistic literature and is translated at the cosmic level by the reunion of man with the Creator (...)"

CODA

Rabbi Tarfon taught, "You are not required to complete the work, but nor are you at liberty to abondon it" (Pirke Avot 2,16)

Baal Ha-Orot, The Master of the Lights:
"If you want to, you can. Son of man, look!
Contemplate the light of the Presence that resides in all existence!
(...)
You have the wings of wind,
the noble wings of the eagle...
Do not deny them for fear that they will deny you.
Seek them and immediately they will find you."

❧

Absolutely incredible book ....
Mirek@Lodz, Poland / October 26, 2016

Too short — (but still timely) — A review of „The Mystery of the Aleph”

Amir Achel's book „The Mystery of the Aleph: Mathematics, the Kabbalah, and the Search for Infinity” is essentially the book about the famous XVIII century German mathematician George Cantor — famous for his invention of set theory and its first formulation. The book focuses on his life-time long efforts to describe, define and understand the nature of infinity. The efforts, mostly related to his theory of  transfinite numbers and the search for Absolute Infinity that transcends the transfinite numbers. The mathematical details, indispensable in such a kind of book, are presented in a simple way, so that any high school student can understand it. However, the main theme of the book is the detrimental impact the search on Cantor's mental health.

What was a bit disappointing in the book is the Kabbalah thread. First and foremost, we can't find too much of good explanation of the link between Cantor's search and search for Ein Sof — absolutely Infinite Being. Perhaps the intro to Kabbalah was too short, or, as I tend to think, one can't really understand Kaballah in a simplified way, so that we can see the relation between it and science. This seems to be impossible, and the disappointment I feel is perhaps the signal of something deeper....

Any way — it is interesting and fascinating book to all those who are interested in history of mathematics.

Manuscrit trouvé à Saragosse

Even though I read this book when I was young, the return to it in my fifties, and the reading of the final chapters in Paris was a kind of circular literature experience I did not predict to touch me so deeply in the end of 2009...

"Manuscrit trouvé à Saragosse" or "The Saragossa Manuscript" is an epic novel originally written in French in the beginning of XIX century. Its author, Jan Potocki was Polish nobleman, off-spring of famous lordly Potocki family, which was so important in the history of Poland. The family was far from being a dull aristocratic dynasty - see a note about Walentyn Potocki as an example.

Jan Potocki was highly educated person, known as ethnologist, Egyptologist and a linguist. He wrote in French. It is interesting to find that the final complete edition of the French original was published only in ... 2006.

"The Saragossa Manuscript" is a frame-tale story. In modern literature it was one of the first, preceding Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights by more than 30 years. Critics compared "The Manuscript" to The Decameron and to The Book of One Thousand and One Nights, but Potocki story telling is much more elaborated and convoluted, with stories told in parallel, stories within stories, sometimes going to the fourth level of nesting, or stories affecting the other stories on different planes of narration ... This very construction make the reading not only pleasant but also intellectually challenging experience.

In the factual setting, the story is located in the Napoleonic war times, when a French officer, after the fall of Saragossa, discovers an XVIII century manuscript describing the life of young officer of Wallon Guard - Alphonse van Worden. The plot described in this manuscript form the most of the book.

Being the officer of the Wallon Guard, the famous catholic formation from southern Belgium, he happened to be the only surviving male of fictional Muslim Gomelez family. The family members, hiding in caves of Sierra Morena mountains, predicting the glooming future of their Shi'a dynasty, organized intricate probation for Alphonse, driving him through ecstatic erotic experiences, inquisition tortures and metaphysical and philosophical conundrums, rooted in Jewish Kabbalah, Dervish and Gypsy stories, enlightened science and history of the region. The challenge was to test Alphonse honor, loyalty to his faith, ability to keep secrets and integrity. This part of the story is written with such level of realism, that even modern reader is completely surprised when, at the end of the narration, the true is finally revealed to Alphonse. It is also written with true love for diversity and cultures. Christian, Jewish, Gypsy and Muslim heroes of the stories are pictured with equal admiration and respect…

In almost 700 pages of the book, you will also find a lot of philosophical deliberations. Some of them ponder on the nature of the mind and the difference between human and animal intellect. Some of Potocki's thoughts are surprisingly modern...

I must admit, when it comes to storytelling and imagination, Potocki XIX century novel surpasses by an order of magnitude that of Don Brown's XXI century narration. He could be a teacher for all who write about secret societies and mysterious events alike. You never get impression of a naiveté of the author knowledge.

I have been reading this book in audio, in the translation from French to the mother tongue of the author. When finished I watched the entire 1965 black & white film by Wojciech Has. This was culmination of my adventure with Potocki and his book.

FYI, I was once honored to talk to late Wojciech Has, when I gave lectures in the Lodz Film Academy. I also know very well the locations the film was set - as it was an area for my climbing training in my youth. I can only pity that there are no English subtitles on YouTube complete set of episodes from the movie... :

Song of the Soul

I had been reading that book for 6 months or more. I read it almost always only to my sleep, but almost every night, chapter by chapter. I read it in my mother tongue. This was eerie experience.I know, from my long discussions with Orthodox Jewish friend, that Kabbalah is out of reach to common people, is out of reach even to very religious people. And he was right. I must confess that I did not understand most of the book... But that was quite surprising experience, because this misunderstanding did not take me away from it. And I diligently was reading it, night by night. So what ? What is this strange experience?

I think that this book gives us some blurry view of the landscape of reality that is hidden from our eyes, until you spent life in Safed and study all these sacred books ...

But at no single sentence of this book I had impression of using Kabbalah to impress public, to try to use it the way people searching for superficial "religiosity" sometimes use it. No red strings, no "living kabbalah system", no celebrities, no DNA analogies ... All these deceitful things invented by people to get attention of naive people - are not in this book.

So - is it really true that I did not understand it at all ?
Well, there are some concepts that are very deep, but I feel I have far recognition of what they mean.

These concepts are related to the fundamental question: What is creation? How creation was possible? How infinite G-d, could create finite universe? These deep philosophical questions form a foundation of Kabbalistic thought. Kabbalah teaches that the Creation is revelation of G-d WILL to create the world. And to create the Universe G-d had to limit himself. The study of nature and the meaning of this "limitation" as something essential for infinity to create finite things is fundamental to Kabbalah.

Now, Kabbalah asks why the world was created imperfect? And, surprisingly, gives a simple answer - because it was created for us, people, so that we could use our free will to improve it, to complete what was lacking.

These simple thoughts have in fact very deep meaning, far deeper than we could expect....

I must admit, these few thoughts are almost all of concepts I could grasp....

Finally, I do not recommend to read this book.
But you can think of what I just said - as quite machiavellian suggestion....

The scanned book is available online at the author website.

Writing about Kabbalah - Charles Mopsik attempt

Charles Mopsik was French Jewish philosopher who specialized in general studies of Jewish mysticism and of Kabbalah in particular. The book "La cabale" which I read in translation to Polish, is an attempt to write about Kabbalah in both objective (say, "scientific") way and with passion characteristic for young French philosopher (Charles died at the age of 46 in 2003).
In fourteen chapters he explains is Kabbalah, what are its relations to Judaism, describes fundamental Kabbalistic authors and texts. His accounts about Abraham Abulafia stress the importance of linguistic and hermeneutical component of Kabbalah. There are parts of the book, that are historical and ... sorry to say so - quite funny - when the author writes about "Christian" Kabbalah.... Of course we had in history such mixtures (e.g. in Pico de La Mirandola legacy), but if someone had a little of Jewish mysticism - can only read such chapters with ... a smile.

Generally - the book is very good, and in the time when a hordes of followers (like Maddona) go after Rav Berg's Kabbalah Centre, like in blindness – it’s good to see Kabbalah from rather objective perspective.

Personal note: I spoke to one of the Orthodox Jewish Rabbi recently. After this incredible meeting I talked to one of his students, and I know that true Kabbalah is almost never spoken of. It exists, it is important, and is living. But there is no way to speak of its secrets without such deep knowledge and wisdom, that is hardly attainable by us mere mortals...

The far feeling of it I was able to experience in my recent trip to Tzfat...

Four days of silence ....

I was outside any "connected world", outside any electronic books...
I was in total solitude canoeing on two wild rivers Bukowina and Łupawa in Northern Poland.
Pictures (about 300 ...) will come later.
The only things I was reading deep into the nights, against starry sky were: Tomer Devorah and Mesillat Yesharim by Moshe Luzzatto. At this moment I will not comment about these lectures ... Too deep feelings ....
After the silence I finished the Sepulchure (see next entry) and started to read "Shadow of the Wind" - the second after an advice from my beloved daughter.... See next entries ....