The Emergence of Medieval Kabbala in Provence and Spain
🧿 Mystical circles arose in the twelfth century throughout the Jewish world, but coalesced in Provence before moving into Spain.
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The term Kabbala, meaning “that which is received, tradition,” most commonly refers in medieval texts not to esoteric (secret) matters but to the mainstream handing down of the Oral Law. Thus R. Avraham Ibn Daud’s Sefer ha-Kabbala pertains to the authoritative chain of transmission of the Oral Law from rabbi to rabbi. Only later does the term Kabbala come to be predominantly associated, as it is today, with specifically medieval forms of Jewish mysticism (attempts at union of some kind with the Divine) and theosophy (explanations of the nature and structure of Divinity). The use of the term Kabbala for Jewish esotericism is significant: it mirrors the emphasis made by early Kabbalists (mekubalim) themselves on the oral nature of the transmission of secret knowledge and the importance of received tradition in the dissemination of esoteric wisdom.
Kabbalists themselves, including contemporary ones, emphasize the antiquity and continuity of esoteric traditions; they are of necessity (small-c) conservative, in the sense of conserving ancient, even primeval, knowledge. Scholars of Kabbala, in contrast, tend to stress the novelty of medieval esoteric circles and what they describe as their sometimes radical creativity. Each of these perspectives comes laden, of course, with its own ideological lens. I would offer that on the one hand, the many streams of antique esoteric Jewish thought nourished medieval Kabbala deeply, while on the other, medieval thinkers applied their own spiritual needs, curiosities, and intellects to this ancient wellspring of tradition.
Precursors
One of the central scholarly debates in Kabbala, now somewhat defanged by its age, is over the relationship of medieval Kabbala to Gnosticism, an initially pagan and later Christian-identified movement of the early centuries of the Common Era that focuses on non-rational, spiritual knowing (gnosis in Greek). The ability to know of the Divine in this way is related to the emanation, or flowing-out, of ineffable Divinity into the lower world, resulting in corruptible matter—the material stuff that makes up the natural world and our bodies. (The opposition of Matter and Form are central to Platonism, deriving from the work of the classical Greek philosopher Plato, and later Neoplatonism.) This interfacing of Divine Form and lower Matter results in a central conflict, sometimes depicted dualistically as a Demiurge figure who rules over the lower world of matter and is locked in battle with the ineffable purity of the Power ruling the non-material world(s). Gnosticism, or intellectual movements nourished by its tenets, bubbled up occasionally in the medieval world, especially among heretical Christian sects in southern France (Provence), but elsewhere as well. The tantalizing possibility that such movements influenced medieval Kabbalists, who notably surfaced in Provence, has remained unproven, however. Similarities between Christian Gnosticism and seemingly gnostic elements in Jewish esoteric thought are suggestive, but not directly related.
Precursors to the Kabbalistic circles of Provence, which then moved across the Pyrenees into the Catalunyan town of Girona and finally into Castile, tend to be isolated. That is, they are not part of a unified movement and constitute unique stirrings of esoteric seeking. Most were not subsequently passed down in the master-to-disciple tradition of Kabbalistic teaching. However, these early individuals, and sometimes groups of initiates, tapped into a teeming esoteric realm which underlay exoteric Jewish learning, inherited from rabbinic mystical traditions. There was a common and ancient substrate upon which they drew in order to respond to their questions of meaning. These questions included the purpose of the Torah’s commandments (taamei ha-mitzvot); the deeper meanings of Scripture, particularly the creation sequence in Bereshit (Genesis) and passages from the Neviim (Prophets); and the possibility of experiential interaction, perhaps even union, with the Divine as it interfaced with the human world.
Until the thirteenth century, with a few exceptions, Kabbalistic secrets were not written down, but transmitted orally from master to disciple. As a result, several figures engaged in early mysticism are better known by their exoteric works. This includes R. Yehuda ben Barzillai “ha-Nasi” al-Bargeloni (of Barcelona), who flourished at the end of the eleventh and into the twelfth century in Spain. Primarily known from the surviving sections of his halachic works, Sefer ha-Itim (The Book of Occasions) and Sefer ha-Shetarot (The Book of Documents), R. Yehuda also wrote an extensive commentary on Sefer Yetzira, a central ancient Jewish mystical text that attracted the attention of philosophers and especially mystics throughout the medieval period. Layered in R. Yehuda’s Commentary on Sefer Yetzira is a vast amount of material gathered from the large library he had acquired of esoteric speculative writings. However, the traditions he details are notably distinct from that of later Kabbala that arose in Christian Europe.
Another early figure who dabbled in esoteric matters was the one-of-a-kind R. Avraham Ibn Ezra (1089-1164), usually thought of as the consummate rationalist due to his peshat (contextual, or literal) approach to Tanach interpretation. However, Ibn Ezra straddles the worlds of rationalism and mysticism somewhat, being interested in letter and number symbolism, astrology and its intersection with Divine will, and secrets of the Torah. His treatises and commentaries on such matters proved an influence on later Kabbalists, though his unique teachings did not find a direct path into their writings. The same can be said of the Chasidei Ashkenaz (the Rhineland Pietists) of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, who too mostly expressed their esoteric teachings as commentaries to Sefer Yetzira and through the primarily ethical manual Sefer Chasidim (Book of the Pious). Their teachings and interest in esoteric matters was influential, but was not directly constitutive of later Kabbalistic movements.
Provençal Kabbala
In the twelfth century, individuals and groups of initiates began disseminating esoteric material in Provence. Among the earliest practitioners of Kabbala was Raavad (R. Avraham ben David of Posquières), the towering halachist whose Kabbalistic traditions are known only from a number of cryptic citations of them made by his students over the two generations that followed him. However, several later figures refer to circles of initiates in the yeshivot (rabbinic academies) of Provence, one of which was apparently headed by Raavad. Raavad’s son was R. Yitzchak Sagi Nehor, sagi nehor being an Aramaic epithet, “seeing much light,” alluding to his blindness, for which reason he is referred to in the scholarly literature as “Isaac the Blind.” R. Yitzchak Sagi Nehor is known for his Kabbalistic knowledge, preserved mostly in a treatise written as a commentary on Sefer Yetzira. The treatise also incorporates many elements from Sefer ha-Bahir and Maaseh Bereshit (the mysteries of creation)—he also wrote a commentary on the first part of Sefer Bereshit, which circulated in Provence in condensed form. Some of R. Yitzchak Sagi Nehor’s traditions are preserved, like his father’s, by succeeding generations of his students, including his development of the process of devekut, or union with the Divine.
In the early thirteenth century, the enigmatic Sefer ha-Bahir (The Book of Brilliance or Clarity, also called Midrash R. Nechunia ben ha-Kanah) surfaced in the south of France. (Scholars debate whether it belongs to the twelfth century or has an earlier provenance; the problem remains unsolved.) Though the concept of the Sefirot was introduced already in Sefer Yetzira, in Sefer ha-Bahir, they are represented far more dynamically, as active and describable processes in a Divine overflowing. Sefer ha-Bahir is written in midrashic form, like the Zohar, which would surface in Castile in the late thirteenth century. Midrash, a genre and set of exegetical (interpretive) strategies central to rabbinic thought, was an internally Jewish mode of working with text. As such writing in midrashic form was a key component of medieval Kabbala’s ultimate triumph over medieval philosophy, whose systematic treatise was foreign to Jewish tradition. The use of the Bahir by Kabbalists marked a new phase in the development of medieval esoteric knowledge.
One of the early circles of mystics in Provence, known as the Iyun Circle after its main text, Sefer ha-Iyun (The Book of Contemplation), made use of the Bahir, though some of its dozens of identified texts use a system of Sefirot entirely distinct from that of the Bahir. Primarily influenced by Merkava mysticism and Neoplatonism—but also medieval sources, including R. Yehuda ha-Nasi of Barcelona—the writings of the Iyun Circle are rubrics intended for the initiated, rather than beginners’ manuals. They assume prior knowledge received in person and are difficult to decipher. One version of the Sefer ha-Iyun explains:
באותה שעה המשיך הקב”ה כל כח וכח בפני עצמו לאחד אחד. הראשון אור מופלא… אחר כך ברא הקב”ה מהאור המופלא החשמל שהוא תחלה למעשה העליונים והוא כמין פלס משפיע בכל צד כחותיו. מאמצע לראש ומראש לאצמע. ומאמצע לשמאל ומשמאל לאמצע. ומימין לשמאל ובכל צד. ונעשה עליו מלאך עומד שיש בו פרצוף פנים כאדם ויש בו כח לדבר כאדם ולשמוע כאדם וזהו כמראה אדם עליו מלמעלה. ולא אדם ממש. והוא כח מושכל והוא סבה ראשונה לכל הסבות… והחשמל הוא כנגד י’ של ארבע אותיות מפני שיש בו עשרה כחות.
At that moment the Holy One, blessed be He, emanated each power individually—one at a time. The first was Marvellous Light [or mufla]… Afterwards the Holy One, blessed be He, created the hashmal (electrum) from the Marvellous Light. It is the beginning of the hierarchy of exalted beings, and it is like a scale whose powers have an effect on every direction—from the middle to the top and the top to the middle; from the middle to the left and the left to the middle; from right to left and every direction. Standing upon it, an angel was fashioned, with a face like a man. It possesses the power to speak like a man and listen like a man. Thus it is written, “like the appearance of a man, up above it” (Ezek. 1:26)—but not a real man. It is the intellectual power and the primal cause of causes… Moreover, the hashmal corresponds to the [Hebrew letter] yod of the Tetragrammaton [the four-letter Divine Name], since it possesses ten powers.
Sefer ha-Iyun (short version), ed. and trans. Mark Verman, The Books of Contemplation (SUNY Press, 1992), Heb. p. 35, Eng. pp. 43-44.
Notice the use of a technical mystical vocabulary here, including the or mufla (which Verman translated Marvellous Light) and the use of the difficult term chashmal from Yechezkel (which became the modern Israeli Hebrew word for electricity). The Hebrew is remarkably clear, but the concepts are difficult and deep. It speaks of hidden, upper realms, exalted beings (angels), and the special powers of the letters of the Divine Name. And, of course, it strings into its exposition verses of scripture (only one of many is included in the excerpt above).
Gironese Kabbala
The Kabbala of Raavad’s circles, especially that of R. Yitzchak Sagi Nehor, was transmitted over the Pyrenees Mountains into northeastern Spain, reaching a group of mystical adepts in the town of Girona (more commonly spelled Gerona in English). As with so many aspects of the early Kabbala, there is considerable scholarly debate about Ramban’s role in Gironese Kabbalistic circles (he was born and lived most of his life in Girona), as well as the nature of the relationship of Gironese Kabbala to later, post-Zoharic Kabbalistic movements. Without trying to sort out these complicated issues here, we’ll note that there were a number of influential early Kabbalists active in Girona, which served as a hub of Jewish mystical activity.
Two students of R. Yitzchak Sagi Nehor, R. Ezra ben Shlomo (died 1238 or 1245) and his younger contemporary R. Azriel of Girona, were instrumental in formulating Kabbalistic thought. R. Azriel, who was also interested in philosophy, systematized Kabbalistic concepts and introduced to them a vocabulary inflected with philosophical terminology. Evidently, R. Azriel and R. Ezra—often confused due to the similarity of their names—began disseminating the teachings they had received in writing, prompting a stern missive from R. Yitzchak Sagi Nehor imploring them to stop. The letter seems to have had a profound effect on the Gironese mystics, with the result that the next generations of initiates, such as Rabbenu Yonah Gerondi, preferred to write ethical works. Ramban went somewhat further, writing in his commentary on Bereshit hints at Kabbalistic secrets, introduced by the telltale phrase al pi derech ha-emet, “by way of truth.”
From Girona, Kabbala wound its way to Castile, where a circle of Kabbalists devoted themselves exclusively to mystical matters. That is, they produced no halachic or ethical works, only Kabbalistic ones. Two brothers, R. Yaakov and R. Yitzchak, the sons of one R. Yaakov ha-Kohen, functioned at the center of the circle, and claimed to have discovered ancient mystical texts. R. Yaakov (the son) wrote a popular work on letter mysticism that incorporated a developed sefirotic system, while R. Yitzchak presented a detailed demonology of the realm of evil, which stood in contrast to that of the Good. Some of the brothers’ ideas explored apocalyptic visions and messianic yearnings, which would be picked up in the next generation by the ecstatic, experiential Kabbala of R. Avraham Abulafia.
Reads and Resources
It can be difficult to find early Kabbala texts; there is a wonderful set of translations by Yosef Dan, but no similar reader that I know of with the Hebrew texts (for his edition, Dan gathered texts in part from manuscript).
Works of the Iyun Circle are available in multiple Hebrew versions with English translation by Mark Verman (cited above).
In Hebrew, R. Azriel’s Commentary on Aggadot has been edited by Yeshayahu Tishby.
Though its conclusions have been significantly revised by later scholarship, Gershom Scholem’s Origins of the Kabbalah has been reprinted as a “Princeton Classic” for good reason!
A huge yasher koach! (I enjoy all your posts but this one was exceptional.) Derech agav, a little trivia: Satmer Rebbe's strong opposition to modern Hebrew was related to something you mentioned. He was extremely bothered by the fact that chashmal became the word for electricity. He say it as an extreme kind of profanation of the sacred.