Jews in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s; kabbalah was often combined with some neo-Hasidic expressions, endowing their spiritual experiences with an aura of Jewish traditionalism while de-emphasizing, or even rejecting outright, the authority of the halakhah. Since the 1980s these groups and tendencies were integrated with the atmosphere of the New Age culture. Adherence to some elements of kabbalistic terminology enabled these havurot to develop a Jewish identity without the obligation to observe the strict rules of Jewish orthodoxy. The kabbalah was thus established as a traditional Jewish substitute to the attractions of Zen Buddhism, Transcendental Meditation, and other alternative religions and spiritual practices. In many cases the kabbalah was identified with these and other spiritual fashions that originated in the East and became an integrated component of Euro-68
M O D E R N T I M E S I : T H E C H R I S T I A N K A B B A L A H
pean and American culture, especially among students and young academics on university campuses, where young Jews assembled in quest for spiritual identity. The term “kabbalah”
did not carry the reservations and ambiguous attitudes that non-Jews had toward the term “Judaism” and the traditional expressions of Jewish orthodoxy.
69
K A B B A L A H
9 According to Lurianic thought, the structure of the ten sefirot also
represents the basic structural characteristic of everything that exists, be it spiritual or material.
70
M O D E R N T I M E S I I : S A F E D A N D T H E L U R I A N I C K A B B A L A H
6
Modern Times II:
Safed and the Lurianic Kabbalah
Following the destruction of the great Jewish center in the Iberian peninsula in 1492, groups of Jewish intellectuals gradually congregated in the small town of Safed in the Upper Galilee, attracted by the traditional belief that Rabbi Shimeon bar Yohai, the main figure of the Zohar, was buried in the nearby village of Miron. The Jewish community in Safed was very small (hardly two thousand families in the sixteenth century), but it included many of the most inspired and ambitions minds of the period.
A pioneering spirit imbued the community, which believed itself to be the religious leader of the Jewish people. In the 1530s the town’s scholars were engaged in a revolutionary endeavor.
They intended to reconstitute the traditional ordination of rabbis, which started with Moses on Mount Sinai and continued through biblical and talmudic times but was discontinued in the beginning of the Middle Ages, when it was relegated to the realm of messianic redemption. The Safed scholars believed that they should actively prepare for the redemption, and the renewed semikhah (ordination) was carried out there for several generations. The rabbis of Jerusalem and Egypt did not accept it, and it seems that the venture ended in failure.
Rabbi Jacob Berav was the leader of the movement, and one his ordained students, Rabbi Joseph Karo, is the author of the most normative and dominant work of religious law in 71
K A B B A L A H
modern Judaism—the Shulhan Arukh (The Laid Table). Karo was a kabbalist as well as a lawyer, and he wrote an extensive kabbalistic work that he claimed was dictated by a divine messenger, a magid , whom he regarded as a manifestation of the shekhinah . Several great writers, all of them kabbalists, were active in Safed, among them Rabbi Shlomo Alkabetz, Rabbi Moshe Alsheikh, and the greatest kabbalist of the time—Rabbi Moshe Cordovero, who wrote numerous kabbalistic treatises in addition to his multivolume commentary on the Zohar, Or Yakar (Precious Light).
The community of Safed distinguished itself by strict adherence to the ethical and ritualistic commandments, believing that scrupulous observance would enhance the arrival of the era of redemption. They developed a sense of communal interde-pendence: religious perfection was everyone’s endeavor, and anyone who transgressed harmed not only his own
M O D E R N T I M E S I : T H E C H R I S T I A N K A B B A L A H
pean and American culture, especially among students and young academics on university campuses, where young Jews assembled in quest for spiritual identity. The term “kabbalah”
did not carry the reservations and ambiguous attitudes that non-Jews had toward the term “Judaism” and the traditional expressions of Jewish orthodoxy.
69
K A B B A L A H
9 According to Lurianic thought, the structure of the ten sefirot also
represents the basic structural characteristic of everything that exists, be it spiritual or material.
70
M O D E R N T I M E S I I : S A F E D A N D T H E L U R I A N I C K A B B A L A H
6
Modern Times II:
Safed and the Lurianic Kabbalah
Following the destruction of the great Jewish center in the Iberian peninsula in 1492, groups of Jewish intellectuals gradually congregated in the small town of Safed in the Upper Galilee, attracted by the traditional belief that Rabbi Shimeon bar Yohai, the main figure of the Zohar, was buried in the nearby village of Miron. The Jewish community in Safed was very small (hardly two thousand families in the sixteenth century), but it included many of the most inspired and ambitions minds of the period.
A pioneering spirit imbued the community, which believed itself to be the religious leader of the Jewish people. In the 1530s the town’s scholars were engaged in a revolutionary endeavor.
They intended to reconstitute the traditional ordination of rabbis, which started with Moses on Mount Sinai and continued through biblical and talmudic times but was discontinued in the beginning of the Middle Ages, when it was relegated to the realm of messianic redemption. The Safed scholars believed that they should actively prepare for the redemption, and the renewed semikhah (ordination) was carried out there for several generations. The rabbis of Jerusalem and Egypt did not accept it, and it seems that the venture ended in failure.
Rabbi Jacob Berav was the leader of the movement, and one his ordained students, Rabbi Joseph Karo, is the author of the most normative and dominant work of religious law in 71
K A B B A L A H
modern Judaism—the Shulhan Arukh (The Laid Table). Karo was a kabbalist as well as a lawyer, and he wrote an extensive kabbalistic work that he claimed was dictated by a divine messenger, a magid , whom he regarded as a manifestation of the shekhinah . Several great writers, all of them kabbalists, were active in Safed, among them Rabbi Shlomo Alkabetz, Rabbi Moshe Alsheikh, and the greatest kabbalist of the time—Rabbi Moshe Cordovero, who wrote numerous kabbalistic treatises in addition to his multivolume commentary on the Zohar, Or Yakar (Precious Light).
The community of Safed distinguished itself by strict adherence to the ethical and ritualistic commandments, believing that scrupulous observance would enhance the arrival of the era of redemption. They developed a sense of communal interde-pendence: religious perfection was everyone’s endeavor, and anyone who transgressed harmed not only his own
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