Recently a near and dear friend
suggested that I translate the work “Da’ath Elokim” into English. This work
summarizes Lurianic Kabbalistic cosmology by presenting a basic outline without
getting bogged down in the details. It’s designed to help Kabbalah students see
the overall forest without getting lost among the trees; to focus on the broad
strokes without too many of the details.
At first I felt inwardly resistant
about embarking on such a task. Mainly, because the book is written in such a
way that one can easily confuse the map for the territory. This is actually an
issue shared by many classic Kabbalistic works, including Lurianic ones. If one
doesn’t know differently, one can come away thinking that the higher cosmos houses
ghosted versions of physical structures; maybe, even ghosted versions of human
bodies as well. Truthfully, not even is one’s very own soul a ghosted duplicate
of his or her body. So, obviously applying such imagery is highly
misleading.
Therefore, I didn’t feel that
“Da’ath Elokim” should be a central primer on a student’s reading list,
not at least without a good teacher. Translating it into English could really
elevate it to such a position.
My personal vision of what studying
Kabbalah accomplishes (for the masses) is guided by two teachings:
(A) The Zohar’s guarantee that by
studying it, the Messiah will arrive with compassion ~ sweetly, without
attendant birth pangs.
(B) The Messiah’s words to Rabbi
Israel Baal Shem Tov that his mystical teachings will usher in the messianic
era.
To me, it seems likely that (A) and
(B) are intertwined words of guidance. The Zohar or teachings from the Zohar
should ideally be taught to the masses in the style of Rabbi Israel Baal Shem
Tov’s teachings. This combined approach is the best way to lay down the
educational groundwork for the Messiah’s smooth arrival.
What does the Baal Shem Tov’s
teachings add to the earlier Kabbalistic teachings? The answer is rather
simple, a model for the masses to understand them. He psychologicalized
the earlier concepts. When it came to mystical teachings which were conveyed
cryptically in either the language of anatomy or geometry, he substituted such
descriptions with new metaphors drawn from human psychology. For example,
instead of identifying the “sefira of chesed” directly like the Zohar does “as
the right arm”, he prefered to identify “chesed” as “feelings of love”.
Obviously, feelings of love are not physical, like an arm is. Emotions,like
love, are spiritual forces which souls outside of bodies can participate in and
maybe even feel more strongly than an embodied soul can.
This is not to say that the Baal Shem
Tov’s predecessors were not aware that their teachings transcended physical
form. If they weren’t aware, their credentials as Kabbalists would be called
into question. The physical descriptions were intended as mere coding, to
protect the teachings from the unworthy. In those times, such teachings did not
automatically come with clear models from the world to draw upon and compare
to. Therefore, exceptional levels of spiritual purity were required to properly
and safely absorb such concepts. Initially, most of these teachings could
not be taken in intellectually. They required a holy intuition called, ruach
hakodesh, i.e. the spirit of holiness.
The Baal Shem Tov innovated using
models to explain such concepts to the masses by drawing from the subject we
would call today psychology. Using such models, he was able to make Kabbalistic
teachings much more widely accessible. With his guidance, the simple folk were
able to identify samplings of the higher spiritual realms within their own
psychological dynamics. This worked on the concept that the microcosm (the
human being) is rally built from samplings of the macrocosm (the larger
universe). This was not only true of the physical universe, from which the body
is derived, but also and perhaps, more importantly of the spiritual universes,
from where the soul and all her attendant psychological forces are derived.
However, the psychological terminology
that he and his successors employed often differ from contemporary usage. For
example, as of this writing, it’s unclear to me how the term “will of the
heart” matches up precisely with the terms we use today to describe our own
psychological states. There are other such terms which could use contemporary
clarification. And even when we have a general idea of what was meant, we don’t
always have it down precisely.
Upon reflection, I think that it is
possible to write a useful commentary to accompany an English translation of
“Da’ath Elokim”; one with which the student gets a sense of what the
Kabbalistic mapping really refers to. However, it is a two stage process; which
is outside of my abilities at the present moment.
The first stage would be to make an
organized study to gather the psychological terms used by the Baal Shem Tov and
his successors. Then do the research to match these terms to contemporary
terminology. This effort alone would open the gates to these teachings to many
in a way which they have not been open in a very long time. Of course, the
subject of contemporary psychology is a moving target. What’s considered good
psychological theory today is outdated tomorrow. To work around this limitation,
the Baal Shem Tov needs to be considered the ultimate psychological authority,
because the effort is really about reconstructing his own theory of psychology,
as it were. It’s just trying to make his theory more relatable in modern terms.
The second stage would then be to
craft these teachings into a commentary on “Da’ath Elokim”. This would bring
the Baal Shem Tov’s teachings back to the source material they were originally
intended to illuminate. It would answer very important questions, such as: What
does “tikkun” look like inside of the human psyche? What inner
psychological forces match up with what holy names? What’s a person’s inner
version of the worlds “Atziluth”, “Briyah”, “Yetzirah” and “Assiyah”?
Though I do not see myself today as qualified
to carry out this project, I wish I were. It’s definitely something for me to
work towards or to play a supportive role to those already working towards it. I
wish to know who they are. Based on Jewish mystical tradition, as I understand
it, the person who manages to accomplish this and/or related projects will have
not only seriously advanced the messianic process, but, also the way in which
it occurs.
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