Kabbalah, the central system inJewish mysticism, usesanthropomorphicmythicsymbols tometaphorically describe manifestations ofGod in Judaism. Based on the verses "God created man in his own image, in theimage of God created he him; male and female created he them" (Genesis 1:27)[1] and "from my flesh shall I see God" (Job 19:26),[2] Kabbalah uses the form of the human body to describe the structure of the human soul, and the nature of supernalDivine emanations. A particular concern of Kabbalah is sexual unity between male and female potencies in Divinity on high, depicted as interaction of the two sides in thesephiroth,Adam Kadmon the divine Anthropos, between archetypalpartzufim or divine personas, and the redemption of the exiledShekhinah, feminine divine presence, from captivity among the impure forces calledqlippoth "husks" below.
Kabbalists repeatedly warn and stress the need to divest their subtle notions from anycorporeality,dualism,plurality, orspatial andtemporal connotations. All divine emanations are only from the spiritual perception of creation, nullifying from the Divine view into theOhr Ein Sof (Infinite light). As "the Torah speaks in the language of Man", according toBerachot 31b and other sources, theempirical terms are necessarily imposed upon man's experience in this world. Once the analogy is described, itsdialectical limitations are then related to stripping the kernel of its qlippa "husk" to arrive at a more accurate conception. Nonetheless, Kabbalists believe their mythic symbols are not arbitrary but carefully chosen terminologies thatmystically point beyond their limits of language to denote subtle connotations and profound relationships in the Divine spiritual influences. More accurately, as they describe the emanation of the Material world from theFour Worlds, the analogous anthropomorphisms and material metaphors themselves derive throughcause and effect from their precise root analogies on High.
Due to the danger ofidolatrous material analogy, Kabbalists historically restricted esotericoral transmission to close circles, with pure motives, advanced learning and elite preparation. At various times in history, however, they sought wide public dissemination for Kabbalistic mysticism or popularethical literature based on Kabbalah to furtherMessianic preparation. Understanding Kabbalah through its unity with mainstreamTalmudic,Halakhic, andphilosophical proficiency was a traditional prerequisite to avert fallacies. Rabbinic Kabbalists attributed the 17th-18th centurySabbatean antinomian mystical heresies to false corporeal interpretations of Kabbalah through impure motives. LaterHasidic thought saw its devotional popularisation of Kabbalah as a safeguard against esoteric corporeality by its internalization of Jewish mysticism through thepsychological spiritual experience of man.[3]
The roots of Kabbalah predate rabbinic Judaism by centuries[citation needed].Talmudic-eraRabbinic Judaism of the early centuries CE comprised the Halakha or religious law and the imaginative theological and narrativeaggadot or narratives. Alongside references to early RabbinicJewish mysticism, unsystematised philosophical thought was expressed in the Aggada, as well as highly anthropomorphic narrative depictions accentuating thepersonal God of theHebrew Bible in a vivid loving relationship with the Jewish people in Rabbinic Judaism. Among such visual metaphors in the Talmud andMidrash, God is said to weartefillin, embody the lover seeking for Israel's bride in theSong of Songs, suffer with Israel's suffering, accompany them in exile as theShekhina or female divine presence, appear as a warrior at thecrossing the Red Sea and a wise elder atthe revelation at Sinai.Jacob Neusner shows the chronologically developing anthropomorphism in classic Rabbinic literature, culminating in the personal, poetically embodied, relational, familiar "God we know and love" in theBabylonian Talmud.[4]Gershom Scholem describes theAggadah as "Giving original expression to the deepest motive-powers of the religious Jew, a quality which helps to make it an excellent and genuine approach to the essentials of Judaism"[5]
TheMiddle Ages saw the development of systematic theology in Judaism in Jewish philosophy and Kabbalah, both reinterpreting classic rabbinic aggadot according to their differing views ofmetaphysics. Kabbalah emerged in the 12th-14th centuries parallel to, and soon after, the rationalist tradition in medieval Jewish philosophy.Maimonides articulated normative theology in his philosophical stress against any idolatrous corporeal interpretation of references to God in the Hebrew Bible andRabbinic literature, encapsulated in histhird principle of faith: "I believe with perfect faith that the Creator, Blessed be His Name, has no body, and that He is free from all the properties of matter, and that there can be no (physical) comparison to Him whatsoever," andlegal codification ofmonotheism. He formulated the philosophicaltranscendence ofGod throughnegative theology,allegorising all anthropomorphic references as metaphors of action, and polemicising against literal interpretation of imaginative myth.Kabbalists accepted the Hidden Godhead, reinterpreting it in mystical experience and speculation as the transcendentAyin "Nothing". However, seeking the personal living God of the Hebrew Bible and classic rabbinic aggadic imagination, they formulated an opposite approach, articulating an inner dynamic life among divineimmanent emanations in the Four Worlds. These involved medieval Zoharic notions of divine personas and male-female powers, recast in the 16th centuryLurianic Kabbalah ascosmic withdrawal,exile–redemption and Divinepersonas. Lurianic Kabbalah further emphasised the need to divest its heightened personification from corporeality, while lending its messianic mysticism to popular social appeal which became dominant in early-modern Judaism.[6]
