The Ban On Kabbalah

[Bill Hamblin]

Now Prof. Hamblin can find inner peace, knowing that an anonymous Jewish person from the internet enjoyed an article he wrote years ago.

I am at peace. (OK, I'm really not. I've got a huge pile of student tests to grade.)

[Bill Hamblin]

I'm going to clarify what I said, because its bothering me to leave it danging. When I said that Prof. Hamblin's explanation of Kabbalah was frustrating, I think that I was talking about his dismissal of Kabbalah as "NeoPlatonic." Our tradition is that Kabbalah precedes Plato, Socrates, Jesus (historically - no theological statement is intended), and even Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai (which would make sense, since he probably lived after Jesus, who is already listed), the author of the Zohar. We believe that Abraham himself wrote Sefer Yetzirah, and that Rabbi Shimon's teachings on the Zohar simply restatements in novel language of concepts that predate the existence of the world. According to our traditions, they weren't medieval attempts to blend Judaism with Christian NeoPlatonism.

Well, I didn't "dismiss" Kabbalah as Neoplatonic. Kabbalah has many parallels to Neoplatonism. How one wants to explain this is, of course, open to discussion.

Most scholars don't accept Shimon as the author of the Zohar, nor Abraham as the author of the Sefer Yetzirah. They view these works as pseudepigrapha. (The same type of issues face the Book of Mormon, Pearl of Great Price, etc.).

[volgadon]

I am at peace. (OK, I'm really not. I've got a huge pile of student tests to grade.)

Just flunk them all, then you'll attain true inner peace.

[volgadon]

And yet it is presumed by the critics that Masonry sprang from nowhere in the 18th century, and could not possibly point to ancient understanding.

We see a lot of that on this board. That has never made sense to me. Then of course we also have Margaret Barker who I think has made a very convincing case for non-Masonic ancient parallels with our temple practices.

That same Pawel Maciejko I mentioned earlier, well, it seems he is doing work on the relationship between Jews and European secret societies in the 18th century. http://www.dubnow.de/index.php?id=379&L=0

[mfbukowski]

That same Pawel Maciejko I mentioned earlier, well, it seems he is doing work on the relationship between Jews and European secret societies in the 18th century. http://www.dubnow.de....php?id=379&L=0

Fascinating! Thanks for that link!

[wenglund]

That same Pawel Maciejko I mentioned earlier, well, it seems he is doing work on the relationship between Jews and European secret societies in the 18th century. http://www.dubnow.de....php?id=379&L=0

What makes this interesting is certain critics, assuming I understand them correctly, may be of the mind that the supposed Masonic influences on Mormonism were primarily a result of the Christianization of Masonry. I can't wait to see how this all eventually plays out in the marketplace of ideas.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Edited March 2, 2012 by wenglund

[volgadon]

What makes this interesting is certain critics, assuming I understand them correctly, may be of the mind that the supposed Masonic influences on Mormonism were primarily a result of the Christianization of Masonry. I can't wait to see how this all eventually plays out in the marketplace of ideas.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

I'm not sure that the two phenomena were unrelated.

[wenglund]

I'm not sure that the two phenomena were unrelated.

Same here. I am just not sure which, or both, if either, PRIMARILY impacted LDS beliefs and practices, but will anxiously wait to see what the various scholars have to offer.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[mfbukowski]

What makes this interesting is certain critics, assuming I understand them correctly, may be of the mind that the supposed Masonic influences on Mormonism were primarily a result of the Christianization of Masonry. I can't wait to see how this all eventually plays out in the marketplace of ideas.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Yes I agree. That is always the story we hear around here. It will be interesting.

[volgadon]

I have not read anything by Nibley about the Neibauer/JS connection. But he has written much more than I have read.

Perhaps I'm missing some sources, but, intriguingly, Nibley only seems to have mentioned him twice in print. Once was about how he never really taked of Joseph Smith's vision, and the second deals with his reaction to some unfortunate prejudice of Brigham Young's. Makes one wonder why Nibley would not have mentioned Neibaur as a conduit for Kabbalah, seeing how keen he was on it, especially if his ancestor were the one who initiated Joseph into it.

Prof. Hamblin, by contrast, in his response to the Owens piece, clearly supports the view that Neibauer likely had no training or initiation into Kabbalah. I said in the past, and I'll say it again: not being a Mormon, I really don't take a side in this debate - though I have done my homework. But I think that some of Prof. Hamblin's conclusions do not rest on as solid a ground as he thinks (even though the vast majority of his response is 100% accurate).

Sort of why I am revisiting the article. Some points could be qualified and tweaked somewhat, but on the whole it is persuasive.

Prof. Hamblin leans on the fact that the "ban" on Kabbalah would have prevented him from learning Kabbalah. Not so. It would have prevented him from learning Kabbalah in a traditional Eastern European yeshiva.

Not even then, but it makes chances of him being taught Kabbalah extremely slim. The burden of proof would be on those asserting that Neibaur was taught Kabbalah.

But he did not live in Eastern Europe.

Not even when he lived in a region which is now part of modern Poland. It was part of the German world, culturally.

Plus, even in Eastern Europe, (particularly Lithuania) Chassidic Yeshivot were teaching rudimentary Kabbalah through the Chassidic teachings themselves. (Hungarian Chassidism is quite different from Lithuanian Chassidism in this respect.) This is explicitly true in the case of Lubavitch (Lithuania) and Breslav (Ukraine), but was even the case in some of the larger Polish denominations of Chassidic Jews.

One would also have learnt rudimentary Kabbalah through various elements of the siddurim, piyutim and many minhagim, but nothing particularly systematic, nor would it equip one to tackle the Zohar portion in question.

Typically, "enlightened" or Reform Jews in Western Europe rejected Kabbalah as being irrational, or useless. But that is far from universally true. Either way, the "ban" probably made little impact in areas that were heavily "enlightened" in Western Europe.

Shlomo Maimon was exceptional in that regard. IIRC, even Jellinek viewed the Kabbalah with contempt, despite publishing many of its manuscripts! Even so, it is worth a further look.

Prof. Hamblin claims that Enlightenment Yeshvot did not teach Aramaic. That is not entirely true. The Talmud, written in Aramaic, is the backbone of the Jewish religion. Even Enlightenment Rabbis (like R' S. R. Hirsch) had a very impressive handle on the Talmud, even though they taught that Jews ought to engage in secular learning - including the learning of Latin, etc. The Talmud was likely taught in many Enlightenment Yeshivot, even if it was not taught in some Reform Yeshivot (Reform being a subset of the Enlightenment school). Prof. Hamblin does have a point, however, when he states that knowing how to read the Talmud does not translate seamlessly into knowing how to read the Zohar.

There is a sizeable gap in our knowledge regarding exactly where Neibaur was schooled. Simcha Asaf's "Mekorot Letoledot Hahinuch BeIsrael" is an older work, but invaluable for studying Jewish educational systems. It provides source material which would be very difficult to find otherwise, let alone in one place. The people at hebrewbooks.org can give themselves another pat on the back for uploading it to their site. Your hunch seems correct. Some people discouraged learning Talmud (and even Hebrew), others encouraged it, as well as studying the secular tongue. RSR would make an interesting case study, as he was born in the same year as Neibaur. His attitude towards the Kabbalah, however, was far from positive. Among the enlightenment-era Germans, Ettlinger, a kabbalist among other things, was the exception.

The bigger question for me was: how did he get copies of Kabbalistic books? Prof. Hamblin answered that question in his article very well: Nishmat Chaim actually quotes many of the sources contained in the Times and Seasons article.

Further, as Prof. Hamblin points out, but does not elaborate on, Neibauer quotes the Zohar (though he calls it the Sohar)

Sohar was the older, Germanicised spelling. Amusingly, some Victorian/Edwardian scholars called Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi "Rabbi Raf."

and Midrash HaNeelam as if they were two separate books. They are not. The only place one can find the Midrash HaNeelam in print is in the Zohar. As I've said elsewhere, the Zohar actually contains a number of smaller books scattered about within its pages, and arranged based upon subject matter. Others include the Idra Raba, Idra Zuta, Raya Mehemna, Tosefta, etc. When a book written to an educated audience quotes one of the Zohar's other books, like Idra Zuta, it will often state "Idra Zuta" and then give the page within the Zohar where one can find that particular piece of Idra Zuta. This is because an educated audience will known that the Idra Zuta is found in the Zohar. In other places, the it would be quoted as Zohar, Idra Zuta, and then the page number. But Neibauer doesn't indicate in his article that the two are connected at all - leaving one to wonder whether he was reading an attribution to Midrash HaNeelam as an attribution to one book, and an attribution to the Zohar as an attribution to a different book. This stood out to me immediately as I read the Neibauer article.

That is a very good point, one which I hadn't considered.

On the other hand, nothing that Neibauer quotes is terribly complicated. The impressive bibliography does not necessary indicate complicated ideas. Many of the ideas he cites are commonly understood concepts within Jewish circles that place even slight emphasis on Kabbalistic ideas.

Indeed. Not every topic discussed in the Kabbalah is esoteric or extremely complicated.

[volgadon]

So while Prof. Hamblin is probably correct that JS never learned the Zohar, Owens isn't crazy. He's just incorrect.

Owens certainly isn't crazy, from my limited private correspondence he comes across as very gracious. When I came across the Zohar section I was at first struck by the similarities, until I looked at both closely. Then that resemblance vanished in a cloud of smoke, pfft.

[volgadon]

The footnote leads to the first volume of Isaiah TIshby's "Wisdom of the Zohar," in turn leading to p. 126 of Meir Balaban's Hebrew work, "Letoldot Hatenuah HaFrankit." In 1756 the Kloyz of Brody issued a herem, a ban, against Jacob Frank and his followers. This Kloyz was a small, elite group of ascetic scholars who devoted their time to studying Kabbalah and were supported by some of the wealthy in the town of Brody. Unlike most other private institutions like that, it attained a very influential position in community affairs throught Lithuania-Poland and Ukraine. What prompted the ban against Jacob Frank and followers was a widely publicised case of an orgiastic ritual among the group, which apparently even included a rape incident. The Kloyz placed the Frankists under the ban, the Jewish equivalent of excommunication, forbidding them to serve as butchers, scribes, teachers, readers, or any other official, annuling all marriage contracts between them and other Jews and ruling that their sons were to be considered bastards and their daughters whores. They also forbade the studying of any works composed by or in the possesion of the Frankists, including all works of R. Isaac Luria (the Ari or Arizal), even if the text was authentic and accurate beyond all doubt. The ban on the works of the Ari applied to all under the age of forty. Studying printed versions of the Zohar, Shomer Emunim and R. Moshe Cordovero's Pardes Rimonim, were permitted to those of the age of thirty and above. This was contingent upon a study of the Mishnah, Talmud and halakhic authorities, in other words, the works of normative Jewish law. Hamblin already noted this in the article as well. This restriction not only was meant to deprive the Frankists of their legitimacy as interpreters of Jewish esotericism, but also established the supremacy of Jewish law. Everything else could be studied only in relation to it. When the Jewish Council of the Four Lands endorsed the ban, this made it official for all Polish Jews.

I'll work on a translation later, but here is the Hebrew text of the ban. It begins at the bottom of this page, continuing on the next.

http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=45492&st=&pgnum=128&hilite=

[DubaDNura]

Well, I didn't "dismiss" Kabbalah as Neoplatonic. Kabbalah has many parallels to Neoplatonism. How one wants to explain this is, of course, open to discussion.

Most scholars don't accept Shimon as the author of the Zohar, nor Abraham as the author of the Sefer Yetzirah. They view these works as pseudepigrapha. (The same type of issues face the Book of Mormon, Pearl of Great Price, etc.).

My misstatement. You didn't dismiss it. Ascribing the Zohar to a medieval source functions as a dismissal of it in that it is contrary to the Zohar's own claims about its origin. But I did not mean to imply that you were being flippant. You don't need an anonymous dude from the internet to tell you when you're standing on solid ground. But I'll say it anyway: "you're standing on solid ground."

Collegiate Academia and Religious Jewish scholars don't see eye to eye on this one. You pointed to the Book of Mormon, Pearl of Great Price, etc., as an example of a similar phenomenon, where many secular academics don't see eye to eye with the leaders of the religion, and its laity.

[volgadon]

If you read One Eternal Round by Prof. Hugh Nibley, you'll see arguments in that book that the Pearl of Great price itself contains traces of Kabbalah (as well as Egyptian religion, Hermetic concepts - which ostensibly were first transcribed in Egypt, and then later brought to Greece, neo-Platonism, and even Mayan concepts, etc.) Some of Prof. Nibley's connections are a stretch, to be sure (and even his most ardent supporters would have to admit that). But it would be inaccurate to say that the idea does not exist.

I think that quite a lot of what Nibley wrote was a stretch, but I have to say this for him, he never feared going out on a limb. I used to hold to a much stricter, linear historical development when it came to Kabbalah, but a fluider model has actually made more sense. Sometimes there are clear historical developments, yet often enough later strata preserve earlier ideas. R. Azriel of Gerona's understanding of the light of creation is actually a lot closer to Second Temple notions than the prevalent Amoraic idea. There is also evidence of a Zohar passage utilising the same ol Jewih myth that apparently influenced Orphsm.

[DubaDNura]

I think that quite a lot of what Nibley wrote was a stretch, but I have to say this for him, he never feared going out on a limb. I used to hold to a much stricter, linear historical development when it came to Kabbalah, but a fluider model has actually made more sense. Sometimes there are clear historical developments, yet often enough later strata preserve earlier ideas. R. Azriel of Gerona's understanding of the light of creation is actually a lot closer to Second Temple notions than the prevalent Amoraic idea. There is also evidence of a Zohar passage utilising the same ol Jewih myth that apparently influenced Orphsm.

I have long thought that seeming "developments" in Kabbalah constitute more a development of language than a development of the ideas themselves. Now, obviously when the language changes, the ideas are affected too. The Zohar, for example, never refers specifically to a Tzimtzum/contraction - but in the Kabbalah and Mormonism thread, another poster pointed to lines from the Bible itself that imply contraction. Even more evidence of such exists in the Zohar, despite the lack of the term "tzimtzum.

Your comment about the Zohar influencing Orphism made me curious. Please expand. (There's the word "expand" again. For Rob Bowman's sake, I mean the term exactly the same way as it was used in the Hebrew scriptures, and in the Book of Mormon).

[volgadon]

I have long thought that seeming "developments" in Kabbalah constitute more a development of language than a development of the ideas themselves. Now, obviously when the language changes, the ideas are affected too. The Zohar, for example, never refers specifically to a Tzimtzum/contraction - but in the Kabbalah and Mormonism thread, another poster pointed to lines from the Bible itself that imply contraction. Even more evidence of such exists in the Zohar, despite the lack of the term "tzimtzum.

I'm not sure that all "developments" are mere changes in language, there are definitely many different views even in the Zohar itself, but looking for concepts even when they use different terms is definitely more rewarding academically (and spiritually). You mention tzimtzum. A careful consideration of the evidence tends towards the conclusion that the roots of the doctrine are fairly old, but that it only came to the forefront in the 16th c. with the Ari and R. Shimeon Labi.

Your comment about the Zohar influencing Orphism made me curious. Please expand. (There's the word "expand" again. For Rob Bowman's sake, I mean the term exactly the same way as it was used in the Hebrew scriptures, and in the Book of Mormon).

It is not that the Zohar influenced Orphism. Even if one accepts the traditional attribution to Rashbi the Orphic sources are earlier. The long and short of it is this. One of the aspects of God in Orphism is named Erikapaios. None of the Greek etymologies are particularly workable, but the Hebrew Erikh Apayim fits very well. There is also a papyrus from Egyt which says Irikepaige, soisom me. Irikepaigus, save me. There are also affinites with the three-headed Chronos of Orphism and some of the symbolism used for Hesed, Gevurah and Tiferet. Yehuda Liebes also connected the Orphic imagery of the cosmic egg which cracks and shines to the Hormanuta texts. His case is that the same ancient Jewish myths (in the technical sense) influenced both the Orphists and the Zohar.

Edited March 7, 2012 by volgadon

[Bill Hamblin]

I'm not sure that all "developments" are mere changes in language, there are definitely many different views even in the Zohar itself, but looking for concepts even when they use different terms is definitely more rewarding academically (and spiritually). You mention tzimtzum. A careful consideration of the evidence tends towards the conclusion that the roots of the doctrine are fairly old, but that it only came to the forefront in the 16th c. with the Ari and R. Shimeon Labi.

It is not that the Zohar influenced Orphism. Even if one accepts the traditional attribution to Rashbi the Orphic sources are earlier. The long and short of it is this. One of the aspects of God in Orphism is named Erikapaios. None of the Greek etymologies are particularly workable, but the Hebrew Erikh Apayim fits very well. There is also a papyrus from Egyt which says Irikepaige, soisom me. Irikepaigus, save me. There are also affinites with the three-headed Chronos of Orphism and some of the symbolism used for Hesed, Gevurah and Tiferet. Yehuda Liebes also connected the Orphic imagery of the cosmic egg which cracks and shines to the Hormanuta texts. His case is that the same ancient Jewish myths (in the technical sense) influenced both the Orphists and the Zohar.

Orphism seems to be partially Illyrian in origin, so it is likely the Erikapaios is not Greek at root.

I agree it is essentially impossible that Kabbalah influenced Orphism.

[DubaDNura]

This is very fascinating to me. I don't know anything about Orphism, so I can no more intelligently comment on the relationship between the two than I can lecture on the origin of the gummy bear or candy corn.

Edited March 7, 2012 by DubaDNura

[volgadon]

There is a sizeable gap in our knowledge regarding exactly where Neibaur was schooled. Simcha Asaf's "Mekorot Letoledot Hahinuch BeIsrael" is an older work, but invaluable for studying Jewish educational systems. It provides source material which would be very difficult to find otherwise, let alone in one place. The people at hebrewbooks.org can give themselves another pat on the back for uploading it to their site. Your hunch seems correct. Some people discouraged learning Talmud (and even Hebrew), others encouraged it, as well as studying the secular tongue. RSR would make an interesting case study, as he was born in the same year as Neibaur. His attitude towards the Kabbalah, however, was far from positive. Among the enlightenment-era Germans, Ettlinger, a kabbalist among other things, was the exception.

Upon further consideration, I'm going to soften my remarks a bit. I forgot Nathan Adler, his students and Isaak Bernays. They were German rabbis and scholars who were kabbalists as well.

[volgadon]

This is very fascinating to me. I don't know anything about Orphism, so I can no more intelligently comment on the relationship between the two than I can lecture on the origin of the gummy bear or candy corn.

You actually made me look their history up.

Edited March 8, 2012 by volgadon