Teachings about God and Creation
The name “Kabbalah” characterizes the theosophical teachings of its followers as an ancient sacred “tradition” instead of being a product of human wisdom. This claim, however, did not prevent them from differing with one another even on its most important doctrines, each one interpreting the “tradition” in his own way. A systematic review of the Kabbalah would therefore have to take into account these numerous different interpretations. Only one system can, however, be considered here; namely, that which has most consistently carried out the basic doctrines of the Kabbalah. Leaving Hasidism aside, therefore, the Zoharistic systems interpreted by Moses Cordovero and Isaac Luria, has most consistently developed these doctrines, and it will be treated here as the Kabbalistic system par excellence. The literary and historical value of its main works will be discussed in other chapters. The Kabbalah, by which theurgic (speculative) Kabbalah is essentially meant, was in its origin merely a system of metaphysics; but in the course of its development it included many tenets of dogmatic, divine worship, and ethics. God, the world, creation, man, revelation, the Messiah, law, sin, atonement, etc.—such are the varied subjects it discusses and describes.
About God - The doctrine of the Ein-Sof (Infinite) is the starting-point of all Kabbalistic principles. God is the infinite, unlimited being, to whom one neither can nor may ascribe any attributes whatever, who can, therefore, be designated merely as Ein-Sof (”without end,” “the Infinite”). Hence, the idea of God can be postulated merely negatively: it is known what God is not, but not what He is. All positive ascription are finite, or as Spinoza later phrased it, in harmony with the Kabbalah, “omnis determinatio est negatio.” One can not predicate of God either will or intention or word or thought or deed (Azriel, in Meïr ibn Gabbai’s “Derek Emunah,”). Nor can one ascribe to Him any change or alteration; for He is nothing that is finite: He is the negation of all negation, the absolutely infinite, the Ein-Sof.
About Creation - In connection with this idea of God there arises the difficult question of the creation, the principal problem of the Kabbalah and a much-discussed point in Jewish religious philosophy. If God were the Ein-Sof—that is, if nothing exists outside of God—then the question arises, “How may the universe be explained”? This can not have preexisted as a reality or as primal substance; for nothing exists outside of God: the creation of the world at a definite time presupposes a change of mind on the part of God, leading Him from non-creating to creating. But a change of any kind in the Ein-Sof is, as stated, unthinkable; and all the more unthinkable is a change of mind on His part, which could have taken place only because of newly developed or recognized reasons influencing His will, a situation impossible in the case of God. This, however, is not the only question to be answered in order to comprehend the relation between God and the world. God, as an infinite, eternal, necessary being, must, of course, be purely spiritual, simple, elemental. How was it possible then that He created the corporeal, compounded world without being affected by coming in contact with it? In other words, how could the corporeal world come into existence, if a part of God was not therein incorporated? In addition to these two questions on creation and a corporeal world, the idea of divine rulership of the world, Providence , is incomprehensible. The order and law observable in the world presuppose a conscious divine government. The idea of Providence presupposes a knower; and a knower presupposes a connection between the known and the knower. But what connection can there be between absolute spirituality and simplicity on the one side, and the material, composite objects of the world on the other?
About the Humanity and Universe
About the World - No less puzzling than Providence is the existence of evil in the world, which, like everything else, exists through God. How can God, who is absolutely perfect, be the cause of evil? The Kabbalah endeavors to answer all these questions by the following assumption:
- The Primal Will - Aristotle, who is followed by the Jewish and Arabian philosophers, taught that in God, thinker, thinking, and the object thought of are absolutely united. The Kabbalists adopted this philosophic tenet in all its significance, and even went a step further by positing an essential difference between God’s mode of thinking and man’s. With man the object thought of remains abstract, a mere form of the object, which has only a subjective existence in the mind of man, and not an objective existence outside of him. God’s thought, on the other hand, assumes at once a concrete spiritual existence. The mere form even is at once a substance, purely spiritual, simple, and unconfined, of course, but still concrete; since the difference between subject and object does not apply to the First Cause and no abstraction can be assumed. This substance is the first product of the First Cause, emanating immediately from Wisdom, which is identical with God, being His thought, hence, like Wisdom, it is eternal, inferior to it only in degree, but not in time, and through it, the primal will (???? ????), everything was produced and everything is continuously arranged. The Zohar expresses this thought in its own way in the words: “Come and see! Thought is the beginning of everything that is; but as such it is contained within itself and unknown”. The real [divine] thought is connected with the ??? [the "Not"; in the Zohar ??? = " Ein-Sof "], and never separates from it. This is the meaning of the words ‘God is one, and His name is one’” (Zohar).
- Its Wisdom - The Zohar, as may be seen here, uses the expression “thought” (Expect, believe, suppose) where other Kabbalists use “primal will”; but the difference of terminology does not imply a difference of conception. The designation “will” is meant to express here merely a negation; namely, that the universe was not produced unintentionally by the First Cause, as some philosophers hold, but through the intention—, the wisdom—of the First Cause. The first necessary and eternal, existing cause is, as its definition “Ein-Sof” indicates, the most complete, infinite, all-inclusive, and ever actually thinking Wisdom. But it can not be even approached in discussion. The object of its thought, which is also eternal and identified with it, is, as it were, the plan of the universe, in its entire existence and its duration in space and in time. That is to say, this plan contains not only the outline of the construction of the intellectual and material world, but also the determination of the time of its coming into being, of the powers operating to that end in it; of the order and regulation according to fixed norms of the successive events, vicissitudes, deviations, origination, and extinction to take place in it. The Kabbalah sought to answer the above-mentioned questions regarding the creation and Providence by thus positing a primal will. The creation of the world occasioned no change in the First Cause, for the transition from potentiality to reality was contained in the primal will already.
- Providence - The primal will contain thus within itself the plan of the universe in its entire infinity of space and time, being for that reason the Providence, and is omniscient concerning all its innumerable details. Although the First Cause is the sole source of all knowledge, this knowledge is only of the most general and simple nature. The omniscience of the First Cause does not limit the freedom of man because it does not occupy itself with details; the omniscience of the primal will, again, is only of a hypothetical and conditional character and leaves free rein to the human will. The act of creation was thus brought about by means of the Primal Will, also called the Infinite Light “Or Ein-Sof”. But the question still remains unanswered: How is it possible that out of that which is absolute, simple, and indeterminate—it being identical with the “First Cause”—namely, the “Primal Will”—there should emerge determinate, composite beings, such as exist in the universe? The Kabbalists endeavor to explain the transition from the infinite to the finite by the theory of the Tzimtzum (contraction). The phenomenon, that which appears, is a limitation of what is originally infinite and, therefore, in itself invisible and imperceptible, because the undefined is insensible to touch and sight. “The Ein-Sof,” says the Kabbalah, “contracted Himself in order to leave an empty space in the world.” In other words, the infinite totality had to become manifold in order to appear and become visible in definite things. The power of God is unlimited: it is not limited to the infinite, but includes also the finite (Azriel). Or, as the later Kabbalists phrase it, the plan of the world lies within the First Cause. The idea of the world includes the phenomenon, which must, therefore, be made possible. This power contained in the First Cause the Kabbalists called “the line”; it runs through the whole universe and gives it form and being.
- Identity of Substance and Form – If God is immanent in the universe, the individual objects—or, as Spinoza terms them, the “modi”—may easily come to be considered as a part of the substance. In order to solve this difficulty, the Kabbalists point out, in the first place, that one perceives in the accidental things of the universe not only their existence, but also an organic life, which is the unity in the plurality, the general aim and end of the individual things that exist only for their individual aims and ends. This appropriate interconnection of things, harmonizing as it does with supreme wisdom, is not inherent in the things themselves, but can only originate in the perfect wisdom of God. From this follows the close connection between the infinite and the finite, the spiritual and the corporeal, the latter being contained in the former. According to this assumption it would be justifiable to deduce the spiritual and infinite from the corporeal and finite, which are related to each other as the prototype to its copy. It is known that everything that is finite consists of substance and form; hence, it is concluded that the Infinite Being also has a form in absolute unity with it, which is infinite, surely spiritual, and general. While one can not form any conception of the Ein-Sof, the pure substance, one can yet draw conclusions from the “Or Ein-Sof” (The Infinite Light), which in part may be cognized by rational thought; that is, from the appearance of the substance one may infer its nature. The appearance of God is, of course, differentiated from that of all other things; for, while all else may be cognized only as a phenomenon, God may be conceived as real without phenomenon, but the phenomenon may not be conceived without Him (Cordovero, “Pardes,” xxv., “Sha’ar ha-Temurot”). Although it must be admitted that the First Cause is entirely uncognizable, the definition of it includes the admission that it contains within it all reality, since without that it would not be the general First Cause. The infinite transcends the finite, but does not exclude it, because the concept of infinite and unlimited can not be combined with the concept of exclusion. The finite, moreover, can not exist if excluded, because it has no existence of its own. The fact that the finite is rooted in the infinite constitutes the-beginnings of the phenomenon which the Kabbalists designate as ”the light in the test of creation”, indicating thereby that it does not constitute or complete the nature of God, but is merely a reflection of it. The First Cause, in order to correspond to its concept as containing all realities, even those that are finite has, as it were, retired into its own nature, has limited and concealed itself, in order that the phenomenon might become possible, or, according to Kabbalistic terminology, that the first concentration might take place. This concentration, however, does not represent the transition from potentiality to actuality, from the infinite to the finite, they took place within the infinite itself in order to produce the infinite light. Hence this concentration is also designated as “Baki’a” (”cleavage”), which means that no change really took place within the infinite, just as we may look into an object through a fissure in its surface while no change has taken place within the object itself. It is only after the infinite light has been produced by this concentration, after the First Cause has become a phenomenon—that a beginning is made for the transition to the finite and determinate, which is then brought about by a second concentration.
- Concentration - [In the sense of “The spatial property of being crowded together” ] The finite in itself has no existence, and the infinite as such can not be perceived: only through the light of the infinite-does the finite appear as existent; just as by virtue of the finite the infinite becomes perceptible. Hence, the Kabbalah teaches that the infinite light contracted and retired its infinity in order that the finite might become existent; or, in other words, the infinite appears as the sum of finite things. The first as well as the second concentration takes place only within the confines of mere being. The order that the infinite realities, which form an absolute unity, may appear in their diversity, dynamic tools or forms must be conceived, which produce the gradations and differences and the essential distinguishing qualities of finite things.
- Preexistence - Existence previous to earthly life or to Creation, attributed (in apocryphal and rabbinical writings) to persons and things forming part of the divine plan of human salvation or the world’s government. Before God created the world He held a consultation with the souls of the righteous.” This view, apparently, has been adopted from the Zend-Avesta, in which the holy “fravashis” (souls) of the heroes of Mazdaism have a cosmic character. With these Ahuramazda holds council before creating the world Enoch speaks of an assembly of the holy and righteous ones in heaven under the wings of the Lord of the spirits, with the Elect (the Messiah) in their midst. He mentions especially the “first fathers and the righteous who have dwelt in that place [paradise] from the beginning.” In fact, it is a “congregation of the righteous” in heaven that will appear in the Messianic time, and “the Elect, who had been hidden, will be revealed with them.” Likewise, it is said in 4 Esdras 7:28, 13 – 52: 14 – 9 that “the hidden Messiah will be revealed together with all those that are with him.” Two Biblical passages favor the view of the preexistence of the Messiah: Micah 5: 1, speaking of the Bethlehemite ruler, says that his “goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.” In Daniel 7 : 13 speak of “one like the Son of man,” who “came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days.” The idea of preexistence was resumed in Zohar literature and Ha-Ari (Rabbi Isaac Luria) developed his messianic doctrine exactly from there.