Unio mystica as a criterion: Some observations on «Hegelian» phenomenologies of mysticism

Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideologies

Volumn 1, Issue 1, 2002, Pages 19-41

  Idel, Moshe ^a  

^a Universitatea Ebraica din Ierusalim ^*

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 61149361537     PISSN: 15830039     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (104)

1. Chaim Wirszubski, Pico della Mirandola's Encounter with Jewish Mysticism, (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, London, 1989), pp. 152, 153-160, 192.
2. On Hegel's ambiguous attitude to Judaism see Yirmiyahu Yovel, Dark Riddle, Hegel, Nietzsche, and the Jews, [Schocken, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, 1996] [Hebrew].
3. Jung was very fond of it, and understood it as corroborating his view of «collective unconscious»; Eliade was well-acquainted with though he did not agree to it. I am using the term in a vague way in order to point to the collective religious concepts and enterprises that differ dramatically from the unio mystica experiences, that are the achievements of the individual.
4. See his programmatic statements in At Sundry Times, [London, 1958], pp. 11-12
5. and Douglas Allen, Hermeneutics in Mircea Eliade's Phenomenology and New Directions, [Mouton Publishers, The Hague, 1978], p. 54 note 58.
6. This is the reason for the marginalization of Judaism in most of Eliade's descriptions of religion, especially the earlier ones, as well as the rather secondary references to Scholem's writings.
7. I would like to mention the brief observation of Leo Baeck, «Jewish Mysticism,» Journal for Jewish Studies, vol. II [1950], p. 7 to the effect that «Jewish Mysticism remained ethical only to him who fulfills God's commandments, so it teaches, is the «unio mystica» granted». Written in 1950, this remark seems to hint at Scholem's denial of unio mystica. This quote escaped the attention of the scholars that have dealt with this issue, [see note 12 below] and unfortunately also my own attention. However, I would say that Baeck's assumption, important as it is because he was the first who took, though implicitly, issue with Scholem's view, does not offer the best explanation for the occurrences of mystical experiences. I am inclined to see in the mystical experiences and expressions, not only a recompensation for a pious way of life, but more predominantly as the result of using some techniques for attaining such experiences, and philosophical vocabulary in order to express them.
8. Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, [Schocken Books, New York,1967], pp. 7-8.
9. See David Biale, Gershom Scholem, Kabbalah and Counter-History, [Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1979], pp. 137, 202-203;
10. Nathan Rotenstreich, Judaism and Jewish Rights, [Hakibutz Hameuchad Publishing House, 1959], pp. 119-120 [Hebrew];
11. Idel, Studies in Ecstatic Kabbalah, [SUNY Press, Albany, 1989], pp. 3-4.
12. Major Trends, p. 55.
13. Recently, the concept of transformation undergone by the Heikhalot mystics has been emphasized by scholars, and it may be that, in the context of our proposal to be formulated later on in this paper, though no adherence between the ascending mystics and the deity is described in this literature, we may nevertheless speak about a mystical union with an extension of God, the angel Metatron. See Peter Schaefer, The Hidden and the Manifest God, [SUNY, Albany, 1992] pp. 165-166;
14. M. Idel, «Enoch is Metatron,» Immanuel, vol. 24/25, (1990), p. 225 note 18
15. and the study of Elliot R. Wolfson, «Yeridah la-Merkavah: Typology of Ecstasy and Enthronement in Ancient Jewish Mysticism,» in ed. RA. Herrera, Mystics of the Book, Themes, Topics, and Typologies, [Peter Lang, New York, 1993], pp. 13-44.
16. «Mysticism and Society,» Diogenes, vol. 58, [1967], p. 16.
17. According to another formulation complete union is denied by Kabbalistic theology: see Scholem, The Messianic Idea in Judaism, [Schocken Books, New York, 1972], pp. 203-204.
18. Ibidem, pp. 203.
19. See also ibidem, 227.
20. I. Tishby has suggested to qualify Scholem's sweeping statements, see his The Wisdom of the Zohar, tr. David Goldstein, [Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1989], vol. II, pp. 228-230.
21. However, his views have been rejected openly by Gershom Scholem, Origins of the Kabbalah, tr. A. Arkush, ed., R.J. Zwi Werblowsky, [Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1987], p. 303 n. 206 [a view expressed already in the first version of this work in German as soon as 1962]
22. and following him by R.J.Z. Werblowsky in his review essay on the Hebrew edition of the Tishby's Wisdom of the Zohar in Tarbiz, vol. 34, [1965], pp. 203-204 [Hebrew] and by a public lecture devoted to defending Scholem's stand by Joseph Dan, in 1984.
23. The single scholar who added significantly new material to that brought by Tishby was Ephraim Gottlieb, Studies in Kabbalah Literature, ed. J. Hacker, [Tel Aviv, 1976], pp. 234-238 [Hebrew] and note 14 below.
24. See more recently Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives, [Yale University Press, New Haven, London, 1988], pp. 59-73;
25. Studies in Ecstatic Kabbalah, pp. 1-31. In the last years J. Dan advanced what I regard as a quite fantastic theory that Tishby's view has been accepted by all scholars, a claim contradicted by his very lecture and it is to be hoped that the original version of this speech will be printed sometimes.
26. It is here that the gap of the second stage of religion is conspicuous in Scholem's vision of mysticism.
27. Compare also his assertion in Kabbalah, [Keter Publishing House, Jerusalem, 1974], p. 176:
28. «Devequt results in a sense of beatitude and intimate union, yet it does not entirely eliminate the distance between the creature and the Creator, a distinction that most kabbalists like most Hasidim, were careful not to obscure by claiming that there could be a complete unification of the soul and God. In the thought of Isaac of Acre, the concept of devequt takes a semi-contemplative, semi-ecstatic character.» Therefore Scholem not only reacted promptly to Tishby's attempt to qualify his view, but also to Gottlieb's one. See above, note 12. Compare however, Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives, pp. 59-73.
29. See also Scholem, The Messianic Idea in Judaism, p. 227.
30. See, however, the critique of Bernard McGinn, The Foundations of Mysticism, Origins to the Fifth Century, [Crossroad, new York, 1991], p. 336.
31. See his Kabbalah, [Keter Printing House, Jerusalem, 1972], pp.88-91; 96-105.
32. See Allen, [note 4 above], p. 140, n. 1.
33. On the Kabbalah and its Symbolism, tr. Ralph Manheim, [Schocken Books, New York, 1969], p. 99.
34. Compare also the unnamed item Kabbalah in Encyclopaedia Britanica, vol. 13 [1959] c. 232: «Kabbalism may be described as a reaction of immanence against transcendence and, in fact, the Kabbalists attained a mystic communion which... seems at times, fantastic.»
35. A major question is, after all, what is the source of the mystical theology of the Kabbalists, which served as object of contemplation. Here, again, Scholem presupposes the primate of theology to experience. See also note 56 below.
36. Hindu and Muslim Mysticism, [Schocken Books, New York, 1972], p. 3.
37. As to the originality of this distinction I have some doubts; see E. Caird's views mentioned below, note 45 and especially Max Weber's view Ancient Judaism, trs. H. H. Gerth and D. Martindale, [The Free Press, Illinois, 1952] p. 314: «The prophet never knew himself emancipated from suffering, be it only from the bondage of sin. There was no room for a unio mystica, not to mention the inner oceanic tranquility of the Buddhistic arhat...Likewise his personal majesty as a ruler precluded all thought of mystic communion with God as a quality of man's relation to him. No true Yahve prophet and no creature at all could even have dared to claim anything of the sort, much less the deification of self... The prophet could never arrive at a permanent inner peace with God. Yahwe's nature precluded it.. There is no reason to assume the apathetic-mystic states of Indian stamp have not also been experienced on Palestinian soil.»
38. See also ibidem, p. 315.
39. For the time being I am unable to locate a reference to Weber and Heiler in Zaehner's discussions of the two major forms of religion.
40. The critiques on Zaehner's stands regarding Hinduism, especially that of N. Smart, should not concern us here, though in principle the same variety of theologies found in Hinduism and Buddhism can be detected also in Jewish mysticism. See Ninian Smart, Worldviews, Crosscultural Explorations of Human Beliefs, [Charles Schreibner's Sons, New York, 1983], pp. 68-71;
41. E. G. Parrinder, «Definitions of Mysticism,» Ex Orbe Religionum, [Leiden, Brill, 1972], vol. II pp. 309-315;
42. Nelson Pike, Mystic Union, An Essay in the Phenomenology of Mysticism, [Cornell University Press, Ithaca, London, 1992], pp. 177-193.
43. ibidem, pp. 195-217.
44. Hindu and Muslim Mysticism, pp. 86-109.
45. See his At Sundry Times, p. 171.
46. See also the evaluation of the mystical element in Judaism in A.S. Pringle-Pattison's item on mysticism in the Encyclopedia Britanica, [1926] vol. 19 c. 124: «neither the Greek nor the Jewish mind lent itself ready to mysticism... The Jewish because of its rigid monotheism and its turn toward wordly realism and statutory observance.» Hence, at least in one of the reasons for the difficulty to create mystical literature is theological: «rigid monotheism.»
47. On this point Zaehner is indeed right, since the two sources had indeed contributed to the contemplative and the unitive nomenclature of Kabbalah. However, this fine observation seems to be the insight of Zaehner, and not so much of his reading of Scholem's writings. See below, par. 6. However, on the other hand, the mystical elements in biblical and Rabbinic Judaism are to be taken into account as major formative elements for the Jewish unitive language.
48. Note the ahistorical stand of this scholar: while speaking about medieval Jewish mystics, whose theosophies are so different from the Biblical theologies, he still assumes that the Jews have cultivated the conception of the Bible.
49. As it is well-known it is Scholem who has repeatedly distinguished between union and communion in Jewish texts.
50. See Concordant Discord, [Claredon, Oxford, 1970], pp. 8-9, 23-31, 324
51. Indeed Scholem has overemphasized the Gnostic nature of Jewish mysticism as a corollary to his negation of mystical union.
52. Concordant Discord, pp. 323-324.
53. Zaehner, Mysticism, Sacred and Profane, [Oxford University Press, London, 1961], p. XVII.
54. ibidem, p. 2. Immediately afterwards Zaehner adduces, again, Scholem's passage on the Heikhalot non-unitive nature of the ecstatic experience.
55. Mysterium Coniunctionis, tr. R. F. C. Hull, [Bollingen Series, XX, New York, 1963], vol. 14, p. 171.
56. See however ibidem, p. 443, where Jung refers to a passage in the Zohar, III, as a unio mystica.
57. Mysterium Coniuctionis, pp. 23, 25, 414, 442.
58. ibidem, p. 170.
59. [Glassgow, 1904] vol. II, p. 214. 46) Caird, ibidem, pp. 188-189.
60. For the dichotomy between the Hebrew and the Greek mind Caird is dependent, at least at some extent, on Matthew Arnold's famous distinction; see Caird's The Evolution of Religion, [New York, 1893] vol. II, pp. 14-15.
61. For an inverse distinction, that between between the 'Oriental man' and the 'Occidental' one, the former described as motor, the latter as sensory, the former more active and expressive, the later more contemplative and inwardly oriented, see Martin Buber, On Judaism, ed. Nahum N. Glazer, (Schocken Books, New York, 1972), pp. 57-60
62. Caird, ibidem, p. 210. See also p. 209. On Plotinus's influence on Jewish mysticism see below paragraph 6.
63. For unitive expressions in Philo see now Bernard McGinn, Foundations of Mysticism, I pp. 39-41.
64. Ibidem, p. 195.
65. See his The Evolution of Religion, vol. II p. 6.
66. Ibidem, pp. 7-12.
67. Ibidem, p. 13.
68. What strikes me most in some of these formulations is not so much the subtle anti-Jewish implications, which anyway inform a significant part of study of religion even after the Second World War, in addition to Jung, like Joseph Campbel, Mircea Eliade or Arnold Toynbee, but the fact that it was Scholem's Major Trends that is invoked - correctly or not is another question - in order to portray an impoverished Judaism.
69. See e. g Zaehner's awareness of Martin Buber's unitive experience, in his At Sundry Times, pp. 91-92
70. and Jung's mentioning a Zoharic text as pointing to a mystical union, in Mysterium Coniunctionis, p. 443. These instances notwithstanding, these scholars did not qualify their views on Judaism as described above.
71. For the importance of theological stands for the way Jung analyzed the significance of androgynity see see M. Idel, «Sexual Metaphors and Praxis in the Kabbalah» in The Jewish Family, ed. D. Kraemer, [Oxford University Press, New York, 1989], pp. 223-224.
72. Definitions of Kabbalah from theological points of view, rather than from more experiential one, are dominant in Scholem's school. On this issue see M. Idel, «Defining Kabbalah: The Kabbalah of the Divine Names,» Mystics of the Book: Themes, Topics, & Typology, ed. R. A. Herrera, [Peter Lang, New York, 1993], pp. 97-99;
73. M. Idel, «The Contribution of Abraham Abulafia's Kabbalah to the Understanding of Jewish Mysticism,» in eds. P. Schaefer - J. Dan, Gershom Scholem's Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, 50 Years After [J.C.B. Mohr, Tuebingen, 1993] pp. 131-133.
74. See M. Idel, «Universalization and Integration: Two Conceptions of Mystical Union in Jewish Mysticism,» in Mystical Union and Monotheistic Faith, An Ecumenical Dialogue, eds. M. Idel-B. McGinn, [MacMillan, New York, 1989], pp. 50-57.
75. It should be emphasized that the meaning of the root DVQ is rather loose in the Biblical and Rabbinic texts and there was no authoritative interpretation of its significance.
76. The Immanence of God in Rabbinic Literature, [London, 1912].
77. and On The Mystical Shape of the Godhead, [Schocken Books, New York, 1991], pp. 148, 149, 152, 182.
78. The Theology of Ancient Judaism, [London- New York, Soncino, 1965], vol. I, pp. 153-155 [Hebrew].
79. Mysticism in Rabbinic Judaism, [De Gruyter, New York, 1982].
80. See Sefer ha-Maalot, [Berlin, 1894], p. 22.
81. On the Mystical Shape, pp. 256-257. However, Scholem does skip over the devequt passage when discussing Falaquera's version of the Theology of Aristotle.
82. idem, The Mystical Experience, pp. 131-132.
83. In fact only Christianity with its theistic theology was considered by him as ensuring the unio mystica experiences.
84. See our discussions and quotes from the writing of these authors above.
85. Idel, The Mystical Experience, pp. 124-126, 130-134;
86. «Universalization and Integration,» pp. 49-50.
87. On the issue of the mystical path I hope to elaborate elsewhere: see, meanwhile, Idel, ibidem, pp. 103-134.
88. See e.g. ibidem, pp. 7-11.
89. Compare, Ithamar Gruenwald, «From Talmudic to Zoharic Homiletics,» ed. Joseph Dan, The Age of the Zohar, [Jerusalem, 1989], p. 293 [Hebrew].
90. Cf. The text translated by Scholem, Major Trends, pp. 150-152.
91. Compare the absence of any discussion of mystical techniques in the most recent monograph on mystical union in Christian mysticism, by Pike, note 26 above.
92. On the criticism of the theory which sees in ideas the origin of myth see Walter Burkert, Homo Necans, The Anthropology of Ancient Greek Sacrificial Ritual and Myth, tr. P. Bing, [University of California Press, Berkeley, 1983], pp. 26-29.
93. See M. Idel, «Between Rabbinism and Kabbalism: Gershom Scholem's Phenomenology of Judaism,» Modern Judaism, vol. XI, (1991), pp. 281-296.
94. See also M. Idel, «Some Remarks on Ritual, Mysticism, and Kabbalah in Gerone,» Journal for Jewish Thought and Philosophy, vol. III, [1993], pp. 111-130 and note 22 above.
95. On exit rites see M. Idel, Hasidism: Between Ecstasy and Magic, [SUNY Press, Albany, 1995], pp. 127-133.
96. In this book I have attempted to offer a theory of models, that include the value devequt into larger mystical structures, which combine, in a way reminiscent of Ewert Cousin's description of the axial and pre-axial elements, mysticism and magic. See his Christ of the 21th Century, (Element, Rockport, Mass, 1992)
97. and Idel, Hasidism, p. 225.
98. Compare also ibidem, pp. 107-109, where, following to a certain extent a view of Erich Neumann, I propose not to reduce the emergence of the hasidic mystical configuration to its pantheistic theology, but assume a more mystical opening of its masters, which was combined with theological beliefs.
99. So, for example, most of the more technical Kabbalistic treatises are still in manuscripts and major issues related to experiential aspects were treated only recently. See Idel, Kabbalah: New-Perspectives, pp. 27-29;
100. idem, «Kavvanah and Colors: A Neglected Kabbalistic Responsum,» in eds. M. Idel, D. Dimant, S. Rosenberg, Tribute to Sara: Studies in Jewish Philosophy and Kabbalah Presented to Professor Sara O. Heller Wilensky, [Jerusalem, The Magnes Press, 1994], pp. 1-2 [Hebrew].
101. For the importance of the experiential aspects in Kabbalah see more recently the statements of Yehuda Liebes, [note 83 below] and Elliot R. Wolfson, Through a Speculum that Shines, [Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1994].
102. More on this issue see above note 56.
103. Indeed Scholem's inclination to use this method was correctly emphasized by Joseph Dan, in his forword to a collection of Scholem's studies, On The Mystical Shape, pp. 8-9. in some of Dan's own studies, this propensity for history of ideas is indeed quite conspicuous.
104. To a certain extent, also Scholem's vision of the major trends of Jewish mysticism implies quantic leaps. See Yehuda Liebes, «New Directions in the Study of Kabbalah,» Pe'amim, vol. 50, [1992], pp. 150-170 [Hebrew].