Charles Mopsik

Picture by Marc Attali

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Today’s sharing from the Blue House of Via-HYGEIA, is part 1 (out of 3) of a very substantial study by Charles Mopsik, ‘Unity of Being, Unity of the World‘, excerpted from ‘Chemins de la Cabale, vingt-cinq études sur la mystique Juive’, Editions de l’Eclat in 2004. It stands as number 7 in the index of the book shown below. A Via-HYGEIA English translation from the original French. Part 1 of the study runs from page 71 to 87. Following part 2 (from page 87 to 92), and concluding part 3 (from page 92 to 103) will come soon after, as God kindly allows. It goes without saying that the original article is in one flow…This study was a participation to Michel Cazenave’s edition of a collective offering, ‘Unity of the world, unity of being?‘ published in May 2005 by Editions Dervy in Paris, France.

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Part 1

Introduction

I will devote this presentation to an evocation of the conception of the ‘theosophical‘ kabbalists, who starting from the XIII th century-and first in south Europe (Languedoc, Spain, then Italy), have transmitted, re-elaborated and systemized a teaching, the origin of which would go back according to them to the first Man, but the historical study shows us that it originates in Jewish mystical circles of the end of the Antiquity.

Without entering into the intricate details of a pretty exotic doctrinal universe in regards of the religious theologies, we will focus upon an aspect of this form of thought, that has sought to represent divine unity, not as a data of a faith, but as the achievement of an utopia.

When we speak of divine unity, it goes without saying that for these kabbalists, it means unity of being and even unity of the world, because, in their eyes divinity-at least what is comprehended by Man as such and not the unfathomable mystery expressed by them through the name of En-Sof or Infinite- designates the result in incessant becoming of the existence of the Origin, or of the primordial One also called Nothingness. In this capacity, it fills everything that exists and finally merges with the world, including the material world, which is but an ultimate echo of its after-effect. Some kabbalists have designated matter as a ‘thickening‘ or a ‘hardening‘ of the divine light, which beaming from the first emanations, is prone, in turns, to different levels of organizations, less and less ‘spiritual’, constantly forming and re-forming the substance of the world. The En Sof, by definition being what is hidden and never manifest, the question of the why and the how of its manifestation through he system of the emanations (the 10 Sephirot), has remained one of the kabbalists permanent question marks.

We are going to examine a few ‘classical’ formulations of divine unity (meaning of the unity of the world, of the emanation of the ten sephiroth that may be considered as ten initial steps of the manifestation of being), in which sexual duality (masculine and feminine) has served as the main metaphor to report, not only about the representations of the organization of divine unity, but also of its realization paths. In other words, as an answer to a question that would be: how to think the practical operation that consists in giving at the same time meaning and concrete reality to this utopia of the One?

For the kabbalists, a continuum exists, which leaves ‘historically’ from the unique primordial point (neqoudah qedoumah), and spreads since the start of the emanation process, forming concentrical circles more and more large, and which encloses what they call all of the ‘worlds’, which means all the levels of reality that, of course, also include Man.

But, this continuity isn’t without flaws. For instance, it bears ruptures in the very consciousness of Man, who struggles to fathom the unity of the whole worlds, and who is at pain even more to give substance, consistence of it, in his daily life, his decisions, his practices, his relationships with others and with the society in which he evolves.

The essential aim of all of the religious practices, whatever their form, consists according to them to establish or re-establish this continuity at the very heart of the domain where it is most likely to bear a rupture. The organized religion strive to achieve this, with more or less success and relevance, even though, sometimes, they increase much more the faults that crack and damage the unity of the worlds. Nevertheless, if it is well understood and put into practice, the revelation at the Sinai Mountain and the religion that has spread from it, constitute the method by excellence to restore (tiqun) the continuum of being up into the intimate conscience and concrete life.

The heart of the Hebrew cult prescribed by the Torah gives of it the most appropriate and the most clear formulation. It is about what is casually called the ‘attestation of the divine unity‘. We will therefore stop there by going through the explanations that some Spanish Kabbalists of the 13th and 14th centuries gave us.

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The proclamation of divine unity,

and the male-female couple

One of the most characteristic occasions in which the union of the masculine and feminine poles implies the manifestation of divine unity, even of its effective realization, is not the least paradoxical. Very significantly, the ‘creed of faith’ of the Jewish people, the proclamation of  divine unity: ‘Listen Israel, YHVH our God, YHVH is one.’ (Deuteronomy, 6:4), was conceived by the kabbalists as relating to the union of the masculine and feminine entities. Here are a few examples. First, a text by Moses of Leon:

‘The secret of the Shema Israel: The Spouse returns towards her Husband so that they unite in a real unity‘. (‘Sheqel ha-Qodesh’, Greenup edition, London 1911-with a Jerusalem 1969 re-edition-page 104; and a critical edition by Charles Mopsik, Cherub Press, Los Angeles. 1996).

It is very interesting to note that the many kabbalists, Rabbi Moses of Leon included (and the Zohar), have detailed the ‘kavanot‘, these ‘intentions‘ that Man must have in mind when he voices the Shema, and which have as an aim to to proclaim the unity of the whole of the ten Sephirot, which-as Rabbi Isaac of Acre says to explain this proclamation-‘are all united in the En-Sof‘. But it is manifest that his union of the whole of the Sephirot can be summed up in the union of the masculine and feminine dimensions. Rabbi Joseph of Hamadan makes clearly divine unity as the result of the re-union of the male and female poles.

‘For this reason we are in exile: because the saint king is not intimate with his queen, being in a back to back position. When the house of the Sanctuary was up standing, when the saintly king and the queen were intimate facing each other, they faces turned towards the West, so the angels were also turned towards the West, because the body of the saintly king was united to the queen. This is why Rabbi Eliezer says: ‘ When the Temple was up standing, the Holy, bless He be, was One, but, we could say at the present time, it is not One, like it is said: ‘YHVH will be king upon the whole earth, and on that day YHVH will be One and his name One.’ (Zachariah, 14:9). See how many secrets of secrets are hidden in that verse, because the sacred Body is called YHVH, while the Small Face, the Queen bears the name of Adonai (Lord). If that sacred Body has its face turned towards the East and turns its back to the Queen, the ‘moon’ bears a loss, this is why it is written ‘will’ in the future tense, when the face of every one will turn towards the other, and that the sacred Body will unite with the Queen like a flame in the embers, it will be One, as it is written: ‘Listen Israel, YHVH our God, YHVH is One.’ (Deuteronomy, 6:4). Bless be the name of his glorious kingship for ever.’ (‘Sefer Tashak’, edition by Jeremy Zwelling, Ann Harbor, 1975. Page 118).

The evocation of the words of Rabbi Eliezer are referring to the midrash about ‘Lamentations’, 3 in fine, in which we find written:

‘Rabbi Eliezer says: When will the names of the wicked be eliminated from the world? When will ‘astro-latry’ and its worshipers be pulled out of the earth? And when will the Holy blessed be unique in the world? Therefore, as it is written: ‘YHVH will be king upon all the earth, on that day He will be One, and His name One.‘ (Zachariah, 14:9).

In the same order of ideas, we ought to quote an ancient exegesis of verse 6:4 from Deuteronomy, which has a Tanaite origin (1st to 2cd century), and was transmitted in an anonymous manner:

‘ ‘Listen Israel, YHVH our God’ in this very world, YHVH is One in the world to come, as it is written: ‘YHVH will be king upon all earth, on that day YHVH will be One and His name One.’ ‘ (Zachariah, 14:9). (Sifre Deuteronomy, chapter 31, Horovitz-Finkelstein edition, New York, 1969. Page 54.)

If the Lord is ‘our Lord‘ in the present time, He will only be One in the future Eon, when his royalty will be recognized and accepted by all. Such conceptions attributing to divine unity an effective and realistic historical value, do not consider the proclamation of unity as the statement of an abstract reality, transcendent and eternal, but tie ‘the One’ to the concrete situation of mankind it depends upon in order to come.

Rabbi Joseph of Hamadan re-uses explicitly such antic sources and constructs around them a mytho-theorical structure. Divine unity is conceived as the union of the King and the Queen, but this union is not an intemporal constant, it is linked to history. The cause of Israel’s exile is nothing else but the back to back (position ) of these intra-divine figures, and similarly, the eschatological vision of the Redemption consists on the supra-historical event of the turning back face to face and of the re-union of these masculine and feminine dimensions. The place, at the same time terrestrial and heavenly, where this union is accomplished was the Temple of Jerusalem, in which the cuddling of the cherubim meant, on one side the union of Israel and its God, and on the other side the union within divinity of Its male and female aspects.

The story from the Talmud which is at the foundation of this conception is to be found in ‘Yoma’ 54b: ‘When the Israelites were performing their pilgrimage, (the priests) unfolded for them the curtain and showed them the cherubim embracing each other. And were saying to them: ‘See, you love before God is like the love of the male for the female‘.’

In another passage from the Talmud (‘Baba Batra‘ 99a), the position of the cherubim is defined depending on the behavior of Israel: their faces are turned towards each other if Israel is following the will of God, and on the contrary, they turn their faces away from each others. These are the ancient stories that are making the frame upon which Rabbi Joseph of Hamadan embryoids his theosophical and hiero-historical canvas. If this kabbalist is not embarrassed to give to God’s unity an historical relativity, conceiving it as linked to human development-itself participating in a hyper-cosmical drama, at the risk to put His transcendence in peril, other kabbalists (not many in number, it is true) have adopted a more cautious approach. For instance, the author of the ‘Tiquney Zohar‘, does distinguish what he calls: ‘the associative One‘ from the ‘One without a second‘:

‘As for the Cause beyond all causes, there is not second to which It could refer; It is unique, prior to everything, without any associates. It is about this very Cause that we say: ‘See now, I am He, and there are no Elohim with me‘. (Deuteronomy, 32:39), from which to take counsel from, nor any second or associate, as I am  not part of the numerical series. There is an ‘associative One‘, like the male and the female, of which it is said: ‘Because He called them One.’ (Isaiah 51:2). While He is ONE beyond numbers, without associates. (edited in Zohar 1,22b. See our translation, in Zohar, volume 1, page 129).

This book takes up the expression, of a philosophical origin, of the Cause of causes to designate the En-Sof as a transcendent God. On the opposite of the ‘associative ONE of the male and female‘, characterizing the sephirot’s unity going by couples, for our author, it is above the world of the Sephirot that the attributes of action of the divinity and that the ONE without a second is to be found: It is not constituted of the union of the two entities, male and female, but because It is of a different nature. In a passage of this book preserved in the ‘Tiqouney Hadachim‘, the Shekinah is described as ‘that through which all the Sephirot, and even the Cause of causes, can be known‘:

‘The intelligent (maskilim) are those who possess the intelligence that enables them to know the Master of the world, the Cause of all causes, within the Shekinah. On the side of the Sephirot She is a limit; but on the side of the Cause of all causes of which nothing is above, She has no limit on her side and she has no boundaries; no power is about her nor outside of her; she has no dimension nor no measure. Further more, on the side of the Central Column, she has an associate and a companion, alike male and female; she is the Daleth (ד) and her associate is the Ah (אח , brother); together they are Ehad (אחד, One), while on the side of the Cause of all causes she is One without association.’ (Tiqounim from the ‘Zohar Hadach‘, Jerusalem, 1978, page 103a).

For the author of these lines, the Shekinah is the mirror in which the fullness of the divine world appears. In fact, she is identified, in turns, with each of the superior entities, God in His transcendence included. At this level she is neutral and loses any differentiation character: not only she is not united to a male partner anymore, but her femininity has also been completely dissolved. The ‘philosophical’ option of the ‘Tiquney Zohar‘  obliges in some way its author to come back to theological considerations more mainstream.

There is no doubt that other kabbalists also felt the danger that may represent a conception of the One as union of two terms, which are moreover sexually differentiated, but they have chose-opposite to the author of the ‘Tiquney Zohar‘ to therefore maintain the interiority of the One haunted by a couple, against all odds.

A kabbalist like Moses of Leon, from whom we have just quoted the ‘dualistic’ interpretation of the proclamation of the Shema, strongly affirms in the same treatise: ‘God is One and unique, bearing no change; and even though the Sephirot are fair and righteous mirrors, they are One without any separation.’ (Shekel ha-Qodesh, page 20).

The ‘dualistic‘ conjuration-or the ‘materialistic‘ comprehension of the entities of the emanation-is a rather common practice that is found in the introduction of many kabbalistic works. Their authors free themselves of the anxiety and any scruple in order to be able later in their developments, to elaborate, unhindered, their conception of the One ‘plural‘. In the measure that this thought of divine unity is  directly clashing with many theological prejudices-which our kabbalist are very conscious of-great was their courage in affirming their conceptions, because it was not easy to think against the standards of an epoch!

This was the case of the author of a book, which is rightly name ‘Sepher ha-Yihoud‘ (‘The Book of Unity‘), written at the end of the XIIIth century by an anonymous author (Rabbi Joseph of Faro?), which represents in a very interesting manner his conception of divine Unity and of it proclamation. For him, ‘The true ‘Yichud’ is neither of an affirming nor denying nature’, which means that it is neither an apophatic theology nor a cataphatic theology, susceptible to give a meaning to divine unity. The signification of it ‘is extremely deep and it is expressed in an esoteric manner in the Torah: the true ‘Yichud’ is about to connect with the One without neither any rupture nor separation appearing in the heart of Man at the time when he is uniting.’ (Ms. Paris 799, folio 22b).

It is not possible to simply translate the last expression with the usual ‘attestation of the divine unity‘, as we would do in the context of an exoteric ‘Yichud‘. For our kabbalist, the true ‘Yichud‘, the Esoteric union, may be accomplish in three distinct ways: 1. Through the study of the Book (the Torah), 2. by the fulfillment of the Commandments, 3. and finally by the ritual reading of the Shema in the morning and in the evening. Detail about the three modalities are given to us:

1.The study consists to join the written Torah to the oral Torah-the Bible with its traditional commentaries- and these two Torahs are but one reflect (dougma) of the Double-Face: the written Torah reflects the male face, the Sephira Tiferet, while the oral Torah reflects the feminine face, the Sephira Malkhut: ‘One need the other and the form of the two is Man.’ (ibid, folio 23b). So, the person who studies ‘the two Torahs by uniting them, makes them become Two Faces.’ (ibid, 23b), in the likeliness of the ‘Man from above‘ (Adam Kadmon) who constitute the structure of the Sephirot.

2. The fulfillment of the Commandments consists also in reuniting Tiferet and Malkhut, and our author illustrate his demonstration by explaining the theosophical definition and the theurgical function of the wearing of the Tefilim.

3. Finally, the third form of ‘Yichud‘ consists in the classical reading of the Shema, aiming at uniting ‘the two cherubim‘, Tiferet and Malkhut. It seems that the order in which the explanations are given indicates a preferential order or value: The ‘Yichud‘ ‘achieved’ through study is the first in importance, while to one achieved by reciting the ritual formula comes at the end position. In all cases, it is clearly the same ‘Yichud’, a similar union of the masculine and the feminine dimensions by the means of three different means. But, this kabbalist says: ‘It is in the ‘heart of Man’ (who is undertaking what we would call a unification), that the ‘Yichud’ manifests‘.

This idea is quite close to the concept of esoteric ‘tawhid‘ in Sufi Islam and in Ismaili Islam, and professor Henry Corbin describes it, opposing it to the exoteric tawhid: ‘The theological ‘tawhid’ poses and presupposes God as being already a being, Ens supremum. But, the word ‘tawhid’ is a causative; it means ‘to make-one’, to become one, to unify.‘ (‘The paradox of Monotheism‘, Paris, 1981, page 32). In fact, in Hebrew, the word ‘Yichud‘ is also causative. The clear theurgical meaning attributed to it by the kabbalists must not make us forget what the anonymous author of the ‘Sepher ha-Yichud‘ reminds us at the beginning of his treatise: ‘it is upon the achievement of the unification of the emanations, in the heart of Man, that the success of the unification act the One is made of, depends‘. This is not the fallback position of the author of the ‘Tiquney Zohar‘ that will prevail later, as the following examples attest.

In the XVIth century, Rabbi Moses Cordovero who lived in Safed in upper Galilee, but who was originally from Spain, had elaborated a detailed commentary of the saying of the Shema, and gave a summary of its signification, that the reciter was to meditate when he was coming to the part of the word ‘One’: ‘Malkhut unites with Tiferet.’ (‘Tefilah le-Moshe‘, I, page 70a).

Rabbi Mattathias Ben Solomon Delacrut, a Polish kabbalist of the XVIth century who was quite influenced by the Italian Kabbalah (he also studied mathematic at the Bologna university), agrees with the same idea: ‘The reciting of the Shema is connected to the secret of the union performed by the mouth and the concentration of the heart, as we ‘gather the young spouse to the young groom’, with his groomsmen as well, by saying: ‘YHVH our God, YHVH us One!’ (‘Commentary of the Cha’are Orah‘, page 11b, note 3).

A Moroccan kabbalist of the XVIIth century, Rabbi Joseph Ibn Tabul, one of Rabbi Isaac Luria’s disciple, precises further more: ‘Such is the secret of the unification  of the ‘Shema Israel’: To unite the spouse and the Groom. When we unite them, the Groom gives the consecrations to the Spouse. This is what ‘Sanctify thy Name’ means: to consecrate in marriage the Malkhut called ‘Name‘ ‘ (‘Commentary upon the ‘Idra Rabba’, edited by Israel Weinstock, in the periodical ‘Temirin, second issue, Jerusalem, 1981, page 245).

Also among the immediate successors of Rabbi Isaac Luria, we ought to mention Rabbi Israel Sarug Ashkenazi who describes at length the procedure for accompanying the recitation of the Shema with various meditations which start like this:

‘About the secret of the union in the recitation of the Shema: we ought to meditate first with the aim to ready the ‘Zair Anpin’ (the groom, male) and his Female, then to adorn her so to allow them to rise higher and become feminine waters conjoining Father and Mother; we ought to surrender one’s soul to the sanctification of the Name when we contemplate on the One, by saying the word ‘Listen’ we ought to meditate the name of 70 letters (the ‘Shem HaMephorash’ (Hebrew: שֵׁם הַמְּפֹרָשׁ Šēm hamMəfōrāš, also Shem ha-Mephorash), meaning “the explicit name”); here is the explanation: the Malkhut is a point and we construct it as the secret of a configuration. By saying the word One, we ought to meditate upon the rising of the ‘Zair Anpin’ and his Female which have been adorned at the same time that we have surrendered our soul for the sanctification of the Name; and when they rise, they become feminine waters for the conjoining of the Father and the Mother; this conjoining consists in meditating into the intertwining of YHVH and the ‘I will be’.’ (From the ‘Commentary attributed to Rabbi Israel Sarug Ashkenazi, published in the ‘Tefila le-Moshe‘, a commentary upon prayer by Rabbi Moses Cordovero, Prezmysl, 1891, from page 69b to 70b).

Within the Lurianic doctrine, the rising of the ‘feminine waters‘ designate the action led by the inferior level upon a higher level. By uniting and adorning the ‘Zair Anpin‘ and Malkhut (the Male and Female, dimension of the Son and the Daughter), we allow them to rise and to meet Hokhmah and Binah (Father and Mother), and by doing so to contribute to their conjoining. The recitation of the Shema acts with the aim of the union, not only of the inferior Sephirotic couple embodied by Tiferet and Malkhut, but also to con-join Hokhmah and Binah to the top of the structure of the Sephirot. So, it is not about to only affirm divine Unity, but also to participate by uniting one’s male and female parts (components) through this rite. This conception found an ideal support to express itself with the publication of an anonymous treatise, also originating from the school of Rabbi Israel Sarug Ashkenazi, the ‘Sefer haYashar‘(‘The Book of Righteousness’):

‘When the Male and the Female are eager to conjoin themselves again (after their very first conjoining), we know that no conjoining of the Male and the Female have happened if they are not preceded by the conjoining of the Father and the Mother. The reason is because the two ‘tiaras’ we spoke of earlier the Male and Female adorn themselves with, was an answer to their need and were destined to their bodies; but as for the new rising of other children, they would have not been able to do so if they would not have this ‘supplement’ from their parents from above, the Father and the Mother; also, similarly, Father and Mother only take what is most elevated up to the supreme Emanation, which alone has the Might to make new things surge, because it has no end. It is not the case of the emanated beings who only dispose for themselves what has been surged from above for them as sustenance. This is why there are no conjoining in the realm of the Male and the Female, if these conjoining are not originating from above until the Infinite. Such is the secret of the intention of unification in the recitation of the ‘Shema Israel’ in its truth, because you know already that it is about the level of the conjoining of the Father and the Mother aiming to place new marrow between Male and Female, so that they also can couple in order to engender other children. Therefore, we ought to aim meditatively, during the recitation of the Shema, to accomplish all of the conjoining up to the Infinite, so that the ‘Zair Anpin’ receives from the Father and Mother, and that Father and Mother also receive from the ‘Arikh Anpin’, then the ‘Arikh Anpin’ from the ‘Ancient of the Days’, and so on…Until En-Sof (the Inifinite).’ (From the ‘Sefer haYashar’, Jerusalem re-issue, 1971, folio 4d).

The intelligibility of this text depends quite narrowly of its context, which is no other than the Lurianic story of the setting of the divine configurations just after the initial moment of the primordial contraction of the Infinite (Tzimtzum). Through a complex process of syzygies (male and female con-joining) and successive births, the figures of the ‘Ancient of the Days‘, of the ‘Long Face‘, of the Father and the Mother, of the ‘Small Face‘ (the Male) and of the Female are being constituted, their whole constituting the primordial Man: the ‘Adam Kadmon‘.

Further on, the union of the last two configurations, corresponding to the Sephirot Tiferet and Malkhut of classical kabbalah, must in turn conjoin to engender, but this conjoining is problematic. It needs the prior intervention of the superior configurations, called Father and Mother. The syzygy of the Father and the Mother gives a fertilizing impulse to the Male and the Female and allows them to conjoin and to give birth to new children.

The recitation of the Shema therefore aims to the completion of a series of syzygies, from the Infinite-source of ever-flowing renewal-down to the inferior stages of the divine world. As it is the case in all the writings of the school of Safed, no constraint of a philosophical nature weights upon the thought of the authors, and removed from the ancient shackles that weighted down, more or less, upon the earlier kabbalists, especially those from Spain among others, the religious expression of these texts does not contend anymore to use metaphors or concrete images, but we could use the word ‘mythic‘ if this word would have not been so much trifled. We could qualify these types of stories to be ‘historico-mythic theogonies‘, in the sense that the successive of the divine configuration, true entities quasi-endowed of a proper personality, are in great part linked to the human action and to the state of ritual and moral purity of the Jewish society.

Divine unity, which remains the essential obsession of these writers, is the result of these complex processes of syzygies and child birthing, because the ultimate term-the highest level-is not the One, but the Infinite. Divine unity depends on the manner which this Infinite circulates throughout the syzygies that allow its passing through. The place of the ‘Father’ and ‘Mother’ configurations is in this aspect clearly decisive; and this before the completion of the quasi-historical process of the setting into a perfect order of the configurations, the same writer further writes, embodying on this point the Lurianic teaching.

This completion will be achieved only at the time of the coming of the Messiah, Male and Female-The Son and the Daughter of Zoharic kabbalah-can unite only by rising towards the Father and the Mother, in which their nuptial room is located, and it is in their bosom that they unite to escape to the clench of the demonical powers, the ‘Shells‘ (qlippoth, Hebrew: קְלִיפּוֹת, in French: Coquilles), that could reach them and take advantage of their influx at the time of the syzygal union. This union, in fact, implies a time of fragility and vulnerability: the necessity of the face to face position, alone able to allow the conjoining, exposes their back, without any protection, to the greed of the evil ‘Shells‘. To unite, Male and Female must therefore seek refuge at the bosom of the Father and the Mother, where they will be able to turn towards each other and expose their back without danger, because within their superior Parents the ‘Shells’ have no reach. (ibidem, folio 52a and following).

The lengthy explanations of the author cannot be here summarized here. They call out the totality of the mythical system transmitted by the kabbalists. We just need to simply underline the immense part taken by the syzygies, which play the main role in the process of manifestation and activation of the divine world and which, far from corresponding to borrowed images or random metaphors, determine the intimate nature of the links of union between the divine configurations (partsoufim) of Lurianic Kabbalah.

To be continued…

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Source

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Coming soon

Charles Mopsik – Unity of Being,

Unity of the World – Part 2/3

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