What is Jewish Mysticism? (Kabbalah)

Now that we've explored both Sufism, which is often referred to as Islamic mysticism, and Christian mysticism extensively, I suppose it is only natural that we should move on to the third of the major Abrahamic religions, Judaism, and explore its mystical tradition. Needless to say, there is a whole lot to explore here, and it is a daunting undertaking.

Now, when most people think of Jewish mysticism, they will automatically think of Kabbalah. And Kabbalah is indeed an important part of this story and will show up later on. But that's precisely the point: it is a part of the story. While many simply equate the terms Kabbalah and Jewish mysticism, things are more complicated than that. Kabbalah could be seen as a certain kind of Jewish mysticism, but there are other expressions and types within this wider category across history. So, what is this wider general category of Jewish mysticism, and how can we understand its history and characteristics? That is precisely what we're going to talk about in this [Applause] episode.

This video is a kind of collaboration with two of my dear colleagues and friends, Justin Sledge and Zevy Slavin from Seekers of Unity and Esoterica, not respectively, the other way around, I messed it up. But still, I'm doing this together with them, not in the usual way of us doing separate videos, but they will both be showing up in this video to tackle topics that they are particularly, um, well-versed in, to really give you a proper introduction to some of these very complex aspects of Jewish mysticism.

So, what do we mean when we say Jewish mysticism? I don't really think we have to define the term Jewish or Judaism here. So, what about the second term? We discussed the term mysticism, its problems, and possible definitions in the last episode about Christianity, where we pointed out that the term often denotes experiences of reactions to and preparations for, or "union" with God. But in that video, we settled on a more nuanced and careful working definition based on Bernard McGinn, who said that it is, in the Christian context at least, "belief and practices that concern the preparation for the consciousness of and the reaction to what can be described as the immediate or direct presence of God." We might generalize that even more by adding that it is a direct encounter with the presence of the absolute, which is often equated with God, usually in the traditions and context. But mysticism, and Jewish mysticism, is more than that too. It's a whole tendency within Judaism that includes certain features and characteristics.

A leading scholar of Jewish mysticism, Elliot Wolfson, puts it really well when he says, "It is possible to isolate two distinct concerns running through all the major texts that scholars include in the corpus of Jewish mysticism. On the one hand, there is the claim to an esoteric knowledge whose content will naturally vary from one period to another, that is not readily available to the masses through the more common avenues of religious worship, ritual, or study. The second major element identifiable in Jewish mystical literature is the emphasis placed on intense religious experience." The particular form of this experience varies, but it usually includes one or more of the following: heavenly ascent, vision of the divine form, angelification, or mystical union. The word mysticism will be used here to refer to those trends of thought in Judaism that lay claim to either an esoteric knowledge of the Godhead (theosophy) or to an intense religious experience of a visionary or unitive sort (ecstasy), though I do not think these two can always be separated in a clear and distinct manner.

These points should be kept in mind as we move through the episode. In fact, with all this in mind, mysticism can be found all over the history of Judaism in different ways, expressing itself in different ways, and taking on different forms, but arguably always being there in some way or another. As early as we can possibly go, into the very days of the Israelite biblical prophets, we have clear indications that the very prophetic experience itself is in some way mystical. In ancient Israel, with its cult centered in Jerusalem, there were, as we all know, several prophets that appeared from time to time to relay messages from God, often involving criticisms of the way the Israelites lived and worshiped. And these prophets seem to have had very powerful experiences as part of the revelatory process, which could even be induced by things like music and dancing.

This becomes even more apparent in the later medieval Jewish thinkers, such as Maimonides, who conceives of a theory of prophecy that is decidedly mystical. The person gradually perfects his intellect or faculty in spirit until it is so perfect that it receives an overflow of revelation from God directly to the intellect. He says, "Know that the true reality and quiddity of prophecy consists in its being an overflow, overflowing from God, may He be cherished and honored, through the intermediation of the active intellect to the rational faculty in the first place, and thereafter towards the imaginative faculty. This is the highest degree of man and the ultimate term of perfection that can exist for his species, and this state is the ultimate term of perfection for the imaginative faculty."

The mysticism of biblical prophecy is perhaps most clear and striking in one particular account: the famous vision of Ezekiel in the very opening to the Book of Ezekiel in the Hebrew Bible. We are presented with a positively shocking and almost psychedelic experience where the prophet has a vision of the throne chariot of God, surrounded by fire and strange, frightening creatures with several heads, wheels inside wheels, covered with eyes. It's an absolutely mind-bending account of a direct encounter with the divine that can certainly be called mystical and would continue to be an important inspiration for later expressions of mysticism too.

Moving just a little bit ahead in history, we also should mention the literature and intellectual movement in Judaism often called apocalypticism, which give us some of the most long-lasting features not only of later Judaism but also of Christianity and Islam. In this literature, there are certainly mystical elements, such as in the Books of Enoch, which describes how the titular character ascends on a kind of heavenly journey, being taken up by God "upward" and eventually being transformed into the angel Metatron, making it some of the earliest examples of ascent literature, which would be so important to mysticism, of course.

And in the earliest forms of Jewish philosophy, we also find features that many would certainly conceive as mystical. The ever-important and fascinating Philo of Alexandria, a Middle Platonist Jewish philosopher who often read the Bible esoterically according to Platonic philosophy, introduced many ideas that would be recurring in the history of mysticism. Despite being Jewish, he would become more influential, arguably, in Christianity, but his impact in Jewish thought is not insignificant either. For example, he talks about the fact that the human being can have mystical experiences of the vision of God and even achieve union with God or an aspect of God, a theme that we will definitely return to.

Perhaps the first kind of mystical movement within Judaism, especially after the biblical prophetic period, is a movement that appears in the first few centuries AD, so just after the fall of the Second Temple, and it's the period, of course, when Rabbinic Judaism as we know it really started to develop. And this is a kind of mysticism that is often referred to as Merkabah and Heikhalot mysticism, which means "chariots" and "palaces" respectively. This is a really, really fascinating type of mysticism that often involves ascent, or rather, sometimes descent, as we will see, and visions of this chariot throne of God, which is, of course, as you probably have guessed, directly related to this vision of Ezekiel that we mentioned earlier.

To give you an overview of this incredible kind of early Jewish mysticism, here is Dr. Justin Sledge from the channel Esoterica to tell you more.

Since the early modern period, Jewish mysticism has become basically synonymous with Kabbalah, the speculative theosophy centered around the divine dynamism of the Sefirot, or divine emanations. However, for nearly 800 years prior to the rise of Kabbalah, it appears that the mystical ascent literature known as Merkabah, or Chariot, Heikhalot, or Palace, mysticism was the primary form of Jewish mysticism, perhaps from roughly the period of the destruction of the Second Temple, maybe even back earlier to people like the prophet Ezekiel, until the rise of Kabbalah in the 13th century. So, what was Merkabah, or Chariot, mysticism? I'm Dr. Justin Sledge from the channel Esoterica.

Merkabah mysticism takes as its central aim a journey into the divine realm to ultimately bear witness to the presence of God, anchored in the visions of Ezekiel chapter 1 and Isaiah chapter 6. There, the prophets make the mystical journey to the divine throne room, where, in Ezekiel's vision at least, God's throne is imagined as a kind of chariot composed of quasi-angelic beings, positively psychedelic, quasi-angelic beings. And in Isaiah, Isaiah the prophet is gifted with a vision of the divine worship, the glory of God by the seraphim, angelic beings of fire. Scholars debate to what degree those narratives are purely literary or the result of actual mystical phenomenology. I suspect the latter, just as much as the former. And to what degree those experiences were idiosyncratic to those specific priest-prophets or representative of a larger priestly prophetic mystical tradition, frankly, we're never going to know.

However, with the rise of apocalyptic Judaism through and following the Babylonian exile, numerous, a veritable library of texts were composed detailing mystical journeys through the cosmos and into the divine realms. In some of those texts, these journeys culminate with the transformation of the mystical pilgrim into angelic beings themselves after beholding or even sitting on the divine throne. The most famous of these texts being the three Books of Enoch.

Even early in the days of the Jesus movement, what will come Christianity, the Apostle Paul claims himself in the book of 2 Corinthians to have been taken up into the third heaven and given a vision of the divine glory as nothing less than the resurrected Jesus as Christ, as Messiah. Further, early such mystical visions were also reported among the generation of the rabbis, those known as the Tanaim, the what would become the compositors of the Mishnah. In those narratives, we're told of four rabbis who journeyed to the mystical Garden of Heaven. However, the journey is fraught with peril. There are illusion tests to test their worthiness to enter the divine realm, and all but one of these rabbis failed the test: one becoming insane, one dying, and one becoming a heretic after seeing the angel Metatron sitting on the throne of God. Only Rabbi Akiva descends and ascends in peace.

Elsewhere in the Talmudic literature, there are even very strict prohibitions on talking about these topics, to the point where it says, "It is better not to have even been born than to publicly speak on these topics." While scholars aren't quite sure how, it does appear that in Perushic circles of this period and later, there emerged a school of mystic descenders. They're usually referred to themselves as Yordei Merkabah, descenders to the Chariot, wherein certain rabbinical Hebrews, typically Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Ishmael, make their way through the palaces, or Heikhalot, of the heavenly realms. They bypass terrifying angelic guardians with quasi-magical codes and symbols to eventually enter nothing less than the throne room of God, sometimes being personally transformed into beings of fire, a bit like angels, and or joining in the divine service with the seraphim, the divine avodah, the worship of God.

What has survived down to us from this form of mysticism is basically a small library of Merkabah literature, composed over several centuries, with mystical narratives of these journeys, mystical codes apparently used to bypass these fierce angelic guardians of the divine realms. In this literature, the angels are much more like cosmic marines, frankly. And the ecstatic hymns and songs uttered in those heavenly palaces, some of which have actually made their way down to this day in Jewish liturgy.

A particularly shocking text in this literature is the Shi'ur Qomah, or "The Measure of the Vastness," wherein the physical dimensions, the physical dimensions of God's body, are measured in a unit of Persian unit called the parasang, along with the secret names of the literal body of God, are given. Scholars have even argued that the rationalism of Maimonides' theology may very well be a kind of indirect assault on this very type of divine mystical anthropomorphism, otherwise unprecedented in Judaism.

Sadly, we know very little, basically nothing, about how this mysticism was performed. The only sustained discussion, and I mean by sustained, I mean a couple of sentences, is mentioned by the Gaon at the turn of the first millennium of the Common Era. He writes, "You may perhaps know that many of the sages hold that when a man is worthy and blessed with certain qualities, and he wishes to gaze at the heavenly chariot and the halls, the Heikhalot of the angels on high, he must follow certain exercises. He must fast for a number of days. He must place his head between his knees, and he must whisper incantations to himself, certain praises of God, with his face toward the ground. As a result, he will gaze into his innermost resources of his own heart, and it will seem as if he saw the seven halls with his own eyes, moving from hall to hall to observe that which is found therein."

Another related text, the Sefer ha-Razim literature, in which an angel is actually summoned down from heaven to teach rapidly the secrets of the Torah to these pre-rabbinical figures, includes even stricter impositions of ritual piety, fasting, study, and prayer, truly athletic spiritual asceticism. It's very likely that these techniques varied from teacher to teacher and were primarily transmitted orally, but seem to have been able to induce a kind of trance-like hallucinatory state wherein one traveled down, descended into the Chariot. Thus, the Merkabah literature, including the Otiyyot ha-Merkabah and the Sefer ha-Razim literature, constitute a form of Jewish mysticism that endured for centuries, maybe even over a millennium. These mystical texts and traditions are found throughout the ancient Jewish world and at times resemble the magical practices similar to those found in the Greek Magical Papyri and the various mystical forms of ascent literature found among the Gnostics and in those of the Hermetic schools of philosophical spirituality.

The Merkabah literature, and perhaps its practice, would also eventually make its way into Central Europe among the German Pietists in the Early Middle Ages, a center of Jewish medieval occultism more generally. However, with the development of the theosophical speculation around the divine emanations, the Sefirot, in Spain and France in the 12th and 13th centuries, Merkabah mysticism in general would come to be assimilated into the emerging school of Kabbalah. Indeed, Merkabah texts can also be found in the foundational text of Kabbalah, the Book of Radiance, or the Sefer ha-Zohar. This would simply mark a new period in the history of Jewish mysticism and an evolution, an evolution of Jewish mysticism of ascent to the divine. However, the Merkabah le'Adonai continues to survive in the weekly Jewish liturgy and is one of the many instances of profound mystical esotericism making its way into the everyday world of the prayer life of Judaism.

If you're interested in learning more about Merkabah, about mysticism, or actually reading some of the texts of this tradition, there are several scholarly book recommendations over in the description box. I have to warn you, with much academic publishing comes much expense. These books are not cheap, unfortunately. And if you're interested in learning more about esotericism, both Jewish and non-Jewish esotericism, check out my channel, Esoterica. But now, back to my colleague and dear friend, Philip.

Thank you so much, Justin. And for anyone who is interested, Justin's channel, Esoterica, is truly a gem of religious studies YouTube and philosophy YouTube. He's just, he's just amazing in so many ways. So check out that channel, especially if you're interested in topics like esotericism, the occult.

This fascinating Merkabah and Heikhalot mysticism was very prominent and popular during the first millennium AD. It was practiced by rabbis and prominent figures of Judaism at the time and was essentially the main form of Jewish mysticism for most of history until the proper birth of Kabbalah in the 13th century. But with that said, Jewish mysticism was much more complex than this too, and there were many different mystical movements and developments during the first millennium. Among them were the composition of books that would become fundamental for the development of Kabbalah. The most important of these are probably the Sefer Yetzirah and the Sefer ha-Bahir.

Here, the Sefer Yetzirah, or "Book of Creation," is an absolutely baffling work. It's quite famous around the world and has shown up in pop culture, like in that episode of The X-Files, and usually in connection to stories about the Golem. But what this book actually is, as the title suggests, is an exploration of how God created the world through the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet and a mysterious concept which it calls the Sefirot Belimah. And you may recognize this concept as the Sefirot would become perhaps the most central part of Kabbalah later on, representing the emanations of God. In the Sefer Yetzirah, however, which came out long before works like the Zohar, it's highly unclear what the Sefirot Belimah actually is supposed to be, other than that there are 10 of them. Scholars really disagree, and there is no consensus on the details of this system. Although some have argued that the author of the Sefer Yetzirah was influenced by Neopythagoreanism and that these Sefirot are some kind of mathematical, geometric concept that is central to reality. Whatever the case, this work explores how God uses the Sefirot along with the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, combining them to create the world, thus establishing some of the core and most lasting themes in Jewish mysticism, albeit in a primitive form, namely the Sefirot, at least in name, and the importance of the Hebrew letters and their mystical powers.

And as for who wrote the book and when, the scholars are just as perplexed here too. There have been some suggestions that it was probably written during the Talmudic period, so maybe around the year 500, give or take a few centuries. It really is a baffling text that we know surprisingly little about, given how important it has been for the history of Jewish mysticism and just Judaism in general, but it's a truly fascinating and very significant and important mystical text.

The second book, the Sefer ha-Bahir, or "Book of Illumination," is equally important, if not even more so in some ways. It is also of highly uncertain and debated authorship, but was probably composed sometime in the 9th century AD, or perhaps slightly earlier. With that said, though, there have been various and widely different claims, some Jewish traditions dating it to the 1st century AD, but other academics dating it to as late as the 13th century. So, needless to say, it's an open question.

In any case, this book is significant for various reasons, among them because many consider it the first proper work of what would become Kabbalah. Now, to be clear, Kabbalah as we know it didn't exist yet at this time, but in the Sefer ha-Bahir, we see some of the key concepts and claims of Kabbalah formulated for the first time. Essentially, the book is a kind of midrashic commentary on the Bible, particularly on the Book of Genesis and the creation account. And what's so significant about this book is that it takes many elements of mystical literature and philosophical speculation at that time and sort of combines it. For example, it takes this idea from the Sefer Yetzirah of the Sefirot, the Sefirot Belimah, but also sort of combines that with philosophical speculation, probably Neoplatonic in origin, about the relationship between the infinite God, the infinite absolute, and creation, to create a kind of synthesis between these two, where this relationship is explained in some way through these Sefirot.

So, in the Sefer ha-Bahir, the way that God, that the infinite, creates the finite world is through emanations in stages, going from the absolute infinite, apophatic divine, all the way down to the world. And these energies or stages of God's emanation are the Sefirot. In other words, here the Sefirot take on the form that we all know and love, and we'll go into further details about this system later on. So, in this environment, we see a diversity of different kinds of Jewish mysticism, some kinds that are very particular and prominent at that time, such as Merkabah mysticism, but also the earliest whisperings of things to come.

Aryeh Kaplan, who has written a popular translation of the work, says about it, "Until the publication of the Zohar, the Bahir was the most influential and widely quoted primary source of Kabbalistic teachings. It is quoted in virtually every major book on Kabbalah and it is cited numerous times by Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman in his commentary on the Torah. It is also paraphrased and quoted many times in the Zohar."

And it is indeed at this point, well into the Middle Ages, that some significant things really start to happen, particularly in Southwestern Europe, in southern France and Spain. We see over the course of the 12th to 13th century the development of what will become widely known as Kabbalah later, essentially becoming synonymous with Jewish mysticism. Now, we must be clear right from the start that there isn't a Kabbalah, but rather many different kinds of Kabbalah, even in this early period.

This was a highly active and flourishing intellectual environment. Spain had been a place where Jews, Muslims, and Christians had lived together for centuries under Islamic rule. And while this situation, of course, wasn't without its conflicts and tensions, it had been a time and place of unusual levels of cross-pollination and inspiration across religious lines. Philosophers like Ibn Rushd, Ibn Sina, and Ibn Arabi on the Muslim side worked alongside Jewish thinkers and inspired many of them, such as the massively important Moses Maimonides on the Jewish side. Furthermore, Sufism, often called Islamic mysticism, had also become quite popular and widespread in the region, and already by the 12th century, we see Jewish writers clearly being influenced by Sufi piety and practice, such as Bahya ibn Paquda's "Duties of the Heart," a book essentially on ethics and spiritual/mystical practice.

In other words, this was a very vibrant time with a lot of intellectual debate on various sides. Maimonides and his rationalistic writings, which interpreted Jewish scripture and religion according to philosophical Aristotelian principles, became very controversial, and there was a kind of division, although we shouldn't overemphasize this dichotomy necessarily, between Perushim rationalists and anti-Maimonideans. What was the place of reason and philosophy in Jewish life? These topics are quite complicated, and the categories between reason and mysticism aren't really clear at all. Many have even claimed that Maimonides himself, the arch-rationalist, had a mystical side to him. My friend Zevi from the channel Seekers of Unity has made a whole series on the topic of Maimonides' mysticism, or not mysticism, that's the question, right? So, if you're interested in that topic, then go check out those wonderful videos.

Whatever the case, it is in this vibrant environment that Kabbalah is born, of course, most likely as a result of this chaotic and, and really just very eventful intellectual and mystical climate. Many would say even that Kabbalah kind of emerges as a response to Maimonides and rationalism, as a way of sort of saying, you know, identifying themselves as the opposite of that, you know, "We are not Maimonideans." So that instead, we present this new, this other way of interpreting Judaism, which becomes Kabbalah. And while there might be some truth to this, certainly I think a lot of Kabbalah is in response to the, what was seen as the extreme rationalism, the radical rationalism of someone like Maimonides, we should be careful about making too simplistic claims about such things. This dichotomy between Kabbalah, or mysticism, and philosophy, doesn't always hold. And one very good example of why that is, is a single man, and that is Abraham Abulafia.

But before we jump into the details of people like Abulafia and others like him, what is Kabbalah to begin with? Well, as you have hopefully picked up on at this point, it isn't a single thing, but several schools of thought and practice, usually connected by certain key features, but often also very distinct from each other. The word Kabbalah essentially means "something received," and is often therefore translated as "tradition." Indeed, the Kabbalists themselves view their tradition as one that stretches back to the Bible itself, a kind of esoteric dimension of the Jewish religion that is restricted to certain kinds of people.

A common idea in Kabbalah, and Jewish mysticism, as it is in so many other traditions, is that there are different levels or dimensions to scripture. Scripture, such as the Bible, may say one thing on the surface, but there's a whole ocean of meaning hiding beneath the plain words. Indeed, it is common within Judaism and Kabbalah, particularly, to divide biblical reading into four levels: literal, the surface level; allegorical; elusive; and lastly, the mystical level. And although Kabbalistic reading of scripture is often very literal, almost hyper-literal, it can be said that they sometimes, through this hyper-literalism, actually are concerned with these hidden mystical dimensions of what is said in scripture and observed in the Jewish tradition as a whole.

There are specific techniques of discovering these true meanings, and often spiritual practices aimed at things like, you know, purifying the soul or the intellect and approaching or interacting with the divine realm. But what this means on a more specific level can differ depending on which school of Kabbalah we're talking about.

And to return, then, to our narrative, the 13th-century mystic philosopher Abraham Abulafia is one of the earliest Kabbalists who developed a kind of system and practice that is very different from the Kabbalah that most people know. By combining the rationalist philosophy of Maimonides with the mystical teachings found in books like the Sefer Yetzirah, and probably other sources, including probably Sufism and the ascetic Hasidism in Northern Europe at that time, he started something that has come to be known as either prophetic Kabbalah or ecstatic Kabbalah. I've already made a full episode on Abulafia and his teachings, which honestly is probably one of my favorite videos that I've made. Abulafia is just such an incredibly fascinating figure, so go check out that episode if you're interested in learning more about him.

But as a shorter overview, Abulafia's Kabbalah is one that is primarily focused on what you could call different kinds of meditative practice and the employment and speculation about the mystical powers of the Hebrew letters. Abulafia describes different, often complex, forms of meditation, which often include vocalizing Hebrew words and letters, moving the head in certain ways, and other involved techniques with the aim of thus having a mystical experience in different stages where one's intellect becomes somehow separated from the body until one reaches the ultimate goal of the path, which is known as Devekut, or cleaving to God, where one is united with the active intellect, and ultimately, at least according to some interpretations, united with God himself.

Abulafia says, "The ultimate composite, which is man, who comprises all the Sefirot, and whose intellect is the active intellect. And when you will untie its knots, you will be united with it, the active intellect, in a unique union." This cleaving or union is described occasionally by Abulafia in pretty radical ways: "For now, he is no longer separated from his master, and behold, he is his master, and his master is he, for he is so intimately united with him that he cannot by any means be separated from him, for he is he."

Abulafia's depictions of the mystical experiences that can be had while practicing his prophetic Kabbalah can be very colorful, involving visions of light, spirit doubles, and many other things. In terms of his philosophical language, as we can see from his uses of concepts like the active intellect, is essentially directly taken from Maimonides, which is a good example to show that this dichotomy between rationalism and mysticism often becomes quite inaccurate, unless we significantly nuance that discussion as well.

What can also be interpreted as quite radical in Abulafia's Kabbalah is that he considers the person who has reached this experience of full Devekut, the utmost mystical experience, to essentially be prophets. This is something that he also gets pretty directly from Maimonides: the highest mystical experience is a prophetic experience, making prophecy, in a way, the goal of his whole system. This is indeed why it is called prophetic Kabbalah. Abulafia says again, "He prophesies according to the entity which causes him to pass from potentiality into the final and perfect actuality, and he, and he become one entity, inseparable during the act."

But Abulafia was quite controversial too, as you can imagine, and his "school," so to say, didn't really survive in any concrete way, especially not in the Kabbalistic heartlands of Spain and France. Although the ideas of prophetic Kabbalah would survive in places like the Middle East and be revived occasionally, as well as influencing some significant later developments in Jewish mysticism, which we will get to.

But at the same time that Abulafia was active in Spain and Italy, other significant things were happening in the same place and, frankly, in connection with him. Namely, a movement where famous and prominent scholars in Spain and Southern France would develop a quite different kind of Kabbalah, one that was much more speculative and metaphysically oriented. This early movement is associated with figures like Isaac the Blind and Provence, the circles in Gerona and Castile, and major Rabbinic and Kabbalistic figures like Moses de Leon. Taking their cue from earlier works like the Sefer ha-Bahir, this led to an absolute explosion of mystical development and speculation. And in some ways, all of this culminated in a single work, an absolutely monumental and massive piece of literature entitled The Zohar.

I'm sure many of you have heard of this book, and for good reason. It has come to be the main representative of Kabbalah in many ways. It cannot be overstated just how important this work is, with many Jews essentially considering it scripture, especially earlier on in history. This book was essentially canonized as part of Jewish scripture for, I would say, most of Jews around the world.

The Zohar is a work that kind of defies any simple explanation. It's a massive work, as we said. I think in the recent translation by Daniel Matt, it comes out, I think, to 12 volumes of text, which is quite significant, right? So it's a very big text. It's a very difficult text, incredibly dense and hard to understand sometimes, but so, so fascinating and so significant and important for Jewish mysticism and Kabbalah in particular.

The narrative of the book follows the second-century Jewish sage Shimon bar Yochai as he's strolling with his friend in the hills of Judea. But through the conversations, meetings, and events that occur to them, the work explores all conceivable aspects of Jewish life and religion, from law and practice to theology and, of course, esoteric Kabbalistic speculation. It is the Zohar that serves as the gold standard for Kabbalah for most of history.

There is some disagreement on who wrote this work. The traditional account within Judaism and Kabbalah is that it was actually written by Shimon bar Yochai himself in the 2nd century, remaining basically secret to all but a few until the late 13th century, when it was revealed to the public, so to say. And the book is indeed written in kind of ancient Aramaic, albeit a very flawed and unusual Aramaic, which sort of adds to this image that it is trying to present of itself. However, most scholars today are pretty sure that the work was actually composed in the 13th century by the Spanish Rabbi and Kabbalist Moses de León. At least a significant chunk of the book seems to come from the pen of Moses de León, but it is possible that the authorship is more diverse, since the work is essentially a collection of different, very strange and difficult texts, from Bible commentaries to baffling stories. So, even though most attribute it to Moses de León, and he probably wrote at least a significant chunk of the text, it might have been a sort of group project with a group centered around Moses de León who sort of wrote it collectively. We don't know for sure, but certainly it seems to come from this, this group or this Kabbalistic environment in Castile in particular. It is thus a direct result of the environment in Northern Spain and Southern France, and like I said, represents a kind of culmination of that whole development, a work that would come to define Jewish mysticism going forward.

The kind of Kabbalah that the Zohar comes from and helped define and shape is widely known as theosophical Kabbalah, and it is this kind of Kabbalah that most of us are familiar with. So, what is it? Well, unlike ecstatic Kabbalah, which is a lot more anthropocentric, concerned with the mystical experience of the individual person, theosophical Kabbalah is more theocentric, concerned primarily with mapping out the divine world, its relationship to this world, and how the everyday Jewish religious practices and commandments, the Mitzvot, are connected to the vast divine realities and concepts.

The scholar of Jewish mysticism, Moshe Idel, said about theosophical Kabbalah that it "encompasses two central subjects: theosophy, a theory of the elaborate structure of the divine world, and the ritualistic and experiential way of relating to the divinity in order to induce a state of harmony." This is a highly theocentric form of religiousness that, while not ignoring the needs of the human being, tends to conceive of religious perfection as instrumental for exerting effective influence on high. And that, "the topics dealt with by this lore are the nature of the Ten Sefirot and the mystical meaning of the commandments." This, I think, captures it pretty well.

Theosophical Kabbalah is an incredibly complex and diverse intellectual tradition that sort of tries to map out the relationship between the divine world, which is represented primarily by the Ten Sefirot that we mentioned earlier, and the human world that we live in, and what the best human response is to that relationship. Although there are, of course, different schools and, you know, diverse arrays of interpretations and nuances within this tradition, but generally, theosophical Kabbalah can kind of be defined as being concerned with that topic in particular. So, the relationship between the divine world, the Ten Sefirot, the relationship within the divine world between the Ten Sefirot, but also the relationship between that divine world and our world, and how the commandments, the Mitzvot of the Jewish law, is the way to establish the proper relationship between those two worlds. This is what the Kabbalists and the Kabbalistic literature is primarily concerned with.

And many would argue that there's significant influence here from the philosophical school of Neoplatonism. But in a way, the issue that the Kabbalists are dealing with is essentially the same as that of the Neoplatonists: how do we go from an infinite God, an absolutely eternal, infinite, and perfect principle beyond any limitation and conception, to a created world full of limitations and flaws? They seem pretty mutually exclusive. So, how does one come from the other? How do we bridge the two?

The Neoplatonists, as you will know, conceived of different hypostases or realities that emanated and in steps eventually became the physical world. From the One, or God, comes the Nous, or intellect, or mind. After which comes Soul, and then we get the sensible world. Even though these realities are interconnected, and according to many interpretations, they all sort of take place within each other.

The Kabbalists had a very similar solution and were perhaps, of course, we could argue, influenced by the Neoplatonists. In Kabbalistic terminology, God in his absolute form is referred to with the term Ein Sof. Ein Sof means "the infinite" and is a term that denotes the absolutely ineffable divine as it is in itself, before self-manifestation. This is a completely transcendent principle beyond the grasp of human reason or understanding. Nothing can be said about it. But this principle is the source, or creator, you could say, of the phenomenal world. And here we have that problem, right? How does one come from the other? Well, we already have the answer: God emanates, God's self, God's light, in stages. And these emanations and stages are the Ten Sefirot. Each Sefirah represents a kind of attribute of God as God becomes particularized, and in a kind of descending order from top, which is closest to the Ein Sof, to the bottom. The names of the Ten Sefirot are: Keter, meaning Crown; Chochmah, meaning Wisdom; Binah, Understanding; Chesed, Loving-kindness; Gevurah, Power or Judgment; Tiferet, Beauty; Netzach, Endurance; Hod, Majesty; Yesod, Foundation; and Malkhut, Kingdom. That last Malkhut is very important, not only for being identified with this world, in a sense, or at least the stage before this world, but also for being identified with the Shekhinah.

Indeed, another one of the key concepts in Kabbalah and key to understanding their vision of God is the Shekhinah. The Shekhinah had been a part of Jewish thought for a long time and denoted God's presence in the world. God, as we said, is utterly transcendent in the form of Ein Sof, but according to Judaism, God is also immanent in the world. God interacts with the world, inspires prophets and visionaries. In Kabbalah, this is how that is explained: the Shekhinah is the last Sefirah, which is present in the world. And very interestingly, the Shekhinah is understood as being female in nature. In other words, the Shekhinah is the divine feminine, identified as God's presence in the world and identical to the last of the Sefirot, Malkhut. So, this is the divine structure in theosophical Kabbalah: an infinite divine principle which emanates itself, self, in stages, the Sefirot, to create the world, and is present in the world through the feminine side of God, or what is known as the Shekhinah.

And while there are many different thinkers who have modified details or aspects, this is the basic features of theosophical Kabbalah, expounded in works like the important Zohar. But what does this mean for the human being? How do we interact with this divine realm? What's the purpose of all this? Well, this is where it gets a little complicated, as if it wasn't already complicated. Clearly, there is a relationship between the divine world of the Sefirot and the human world. Some can see the idea that the attributes of the Sefirot are mirrored or can be found in this world, and even that there's a kind of mirror of the Ten Sefirot inside the human being, the microcosm and macrocosm idea. Again, as such, these Sefirot need to be balanced and united within the human person and his mind and actions and behavior in different ways through religious observances and spiritual practices.

In terms of theosophical Kabbalah, there's a certain theurgic element to it, meaning that we somehow interact and even affect the divine world in some way. Theosophical Kabbalah, as expressed in works like the Zohar, is primarily concerned on the practical level with the observance of the Jewish commandments in the Bible, the so-called Mitzvot. Now, this doesn't just mean the famous Ten Commandments that Moses received on Mount Sinai, but all the Jewish commandments included in the Bible, which make up Jewish law and practice, the Halakha. The Kabbalists speculated about the Sefirot and the divine world, but also conceived of the importance of the Mitzvot in terms of its relationship with the Sefirot. In other words, the deeper mystical meanings and purposes behind Jewish practices like prayer, for instance, a kind of deepening of one's consciousness of the significance of practice, and the idea of the correspondence between the divine and human world also becomes important, as the Kabbalists emphasized different ways of unification or unifying the different Sefirot, both within oneself and outside, so to say.

This is a complicated idea, but it hints at one of the more radical aspects of this system of the Sefirot: the idea that us as human beings can somehow affect the divine world. Now, we should remember that God, the Ein Sof, is perfect and utterly beyond any change or imperfection in Jewish theology, but there is still an openness to the idea that our actions affect and interact with the Sefirot in different ways.

This becomes perhaps most apparent with developments in the 16th century, when there appeared a Kabbalistic circle in the city of Safed, or Tzfat, in which we can see an explosion of Kabbalistic activity and innovation. These activities are primarily associated with figures in Safed like Moses Cordovero, Joseph Caro, Isaac Luria, and his student Chaim Vital. Moses Cordovero, the first one mentioned, is to my mind one of the most interesting Jewish mystics in history, and it's sad that he isn't known and studied more than he is outside the Jewish world. Of course, famous primarily for composing a massive work entitled "Pardes Rimonim," or "Orchard of Pomegranates," Cordovero systematized the teachings of the Zohar and Kabbalah in very impressive ways, while also reincorporating certain aspects of ecstatic Kabbalah associated with Abraham Abulafia, such as the mystical goal of Devekut, or union/cleaving to God, and the more meditative practices that came with it.

But his most widely popular work is probably a book entitled "Tomer Devorah," "The Palm Tree of Devorah," which is essentially a book of ethics that connects to the essential ideas of theosophical Kabbalah. This is an absolutely beautiful book, which at its core explores the idea of Imitatio Dei, imitation of God. And this is where it connects to the themes we have been discussing previously: the goal in life is to imitate God by embodying and manifesting the attributes of the divine Sefirot. This means not only observing the Mitzvot and the Jewish law in a sort of particular way, but generally also things like being a kind, loving, and caring person that gives and cares for their fellow human beings and creatures.

Explaining how to embody the attributes of Keter, he says, "No reason whatsoever should prevent him from doing good to others always and at every moment, and no transgressions or misdeeds of unworthy people should stop him from bestowing good on those in need. And just as God sustains all creatures from the highest to the lowest, despising none of them, for if He despised any creatures because of their insignificance, they would not exist even for a moment, watching over them and showing compassion to all, so too should man do good to all, not despising any creature. Even the lowliest being should be very important in his eyes, and he should show concern for them, doing good to all who require his goodness."

By mirroring and embodying the Sefirot through these principles and behaviors, we become more, more "like God." And by becoming more like God, we are connecting ourselves to the divine world and, in a way, accomplishing God's creation by performing the essence of God's attributes on Earth, completing its very purpose. We are active participants in the purpose and aim of creation and play our role fully by imitating God. This is an idea that stretches back further in history, and Maimonides himself saw it as key to ethics. He said, "The chief aim of man should be to make himself as far as possible similar to God, that is to say, to make his acts similar to the acts of God." But Cordovero, of course, takes this a step further by implementing the Kabbalistic ideas of the Sefirot as a key aspect of this teaching in an truly ingenious way.

Cordovero's younger contemporary, Isaac Luria, however, is more famous and influential in the history of Kabbalah. Passing away at the young age of 38, he had, in a short few years, absolutely transformed Kabbalah and given it the form that most of us know today. Indeed, when you are taught about Kabbalah and its teachings today, it's usually the so-called Lurianic Kabbalah that is taught.

Luria's ideas became so influential, and the innovations that Luria made to the system is perhaps the most striking example of the idea that our actions can affect the divine world. First of all, Luria is significant for introducing the idea of Tzimtzum, or contraction. Remember when we talked about the Ein Sof and how it creates the world by limiting its light into the emanations of the Sefirot? Well, there's still the question of how an infinite, absolute principle can even become or create something limited in itself. Doesn't that kind of limit the Ein Sof by introducing the creation of limits within it? Well, Luria solved this problem by introducing the idea of contraction, or Tzimtzum. When the Ein Sof creates "the world," it has to contract from itself to create a kind of void or empty space within its infinite self, into which it can then pour its light into the vessels of the Sefirot and eventually create the world. This is, of course, a really fascinating and interesting way to solve this issue, and it's become very famous and popular since then. If you've studied Kabbalah, again, you've probably heard about this concept of the Tzimtzum. It's become a kind of standard way of explaining the creation of the world by the Ein Sof. But this was actually introduced by Luria in the 17th or 16th century.

Furthermore, in the process of this emanation, something goes wrong, according to Luria. As the Sefirot are created, he imagines them almost as vessels into which the Ein Sof pours its light or its being, as if you poured water into glass vessels, for instance. But the light of the Ein Sof is so strong and powerful that the vessels can't contain it. As a result, the vessels shatter, and as they shatter, the shards of these vessels descend down into our world. And very significantly, these shards are the cause of all evil in the world. In other words, this is a very unique explanation for the problem of theodicy, or the problem of evil in the world. And it is through this that Luria also introduces his strongly participatory Kabbalistic theosophy. What happens when we perform the Mitzvot and embody the attributes of the Sefirot? When we pray or give to the

poor in a striking way. Lura explains that through these practices, we are helping these shards of the Broken Vessels ascend back into the Divine world and gradually heal the SPH again. In other words, human actions can literally affect and even heal the Divine World in some way. And by healing the Divine, we also heal the World, a famous concept known as Tikkun, which literally means healing the world. Thus, here, theosophical Kabbalah is given a very clear and obvious practical side and purpose. Not only does it explain the Divine world and the deeper mystical meanings behind their Commandments, for instance, it also explains how the performance of those Commandments directly participates in the healing of the Divine and the world. In a way to express it in a radical way, we complete God.

And again, this Lurianic Kabbalah, since then, has become the kind of Kabbalah that most of us are taught. This becomes Kabbalah, um, the ideas of Luria become the way that most theosophical Kabbalists since then understand this system and how it works, right? But this should not be confused with, um, or, or should not be taken to the extreme. We must still remember, of course, that, um, there have been other interpretations, right? Before Luria, like even Cordovero, who was his contemporary in the same city, in the same, he had a different reading of these things. He interpreted the Zohar in different ways. Luria was very innovative. He was very unique, and and and those ideas that he presents is not present before him in Kabbalah, and even after him, of course, not every Kabbalist agrees with him. So before and after, there is a diversity in Kabbalah, right? Even within the so-called theosophical Kabbalah, um, there are different thinkers, both then and now, that that innovate, that see things in from different perspectives, that that don't agree with Luria and have different interpretations of these things. So that should be kept in mind.

On top of the fact that things like ecstatic or prophetic Kabbalah has also been a thing, you know, for most of history, um, and and that's also what's significant about this circle in Safed with people like Cordovero and Luria is that they sort of incorporate both, um, the theosophical strands of Kabbalah associated with the Zohar with the ecstatic teachings and practices of of Abulafia, for instance. And this synthesis that happens in Safed is one of the reasons why it's so significant because this circle in Safed, Cordovero, and especially Luria, as we see, uh, just completely changes the face of Kabbalah. It it really is a very significant moment. Uh, but again, we must point out the fact that there isn't one Kabbalah, but many different kinds of Kabbalah. There is the theosophical one, which has diversity within it. There is ecstatic Kabbalah or prophetic Kabbalah, and there are even other forms of Jewish mysticism still happening across that whole history that is neither of these two.

There was also, for example, the Pietistic mystical movement in Egypt in the 13th century, headed by Abraham, the son of Maimonides, which took major inspiration from the Islamic Sufis and introduced innovations in prayer practice that looked a lot like Muslim prayer and introduced mystical and ascetic practices also clearly influenced by Sufism. And I've explored this group in a previous episode too. And the most recent major form of Jewish mysticism is also arguably a unique case, and that is, of course, Hasidism, appearing in the 18th century. Hasidism has become incredibly popular and in many ways introduced ideas of Jewish mysticism, which were previously the exclusive concern of the elite, the intellectual elite, to the general masses.

To introduce us to Hasidism or Hasidic here is my friend and colleague Zevi from the channel Seekers of Unity. Thank you, Philip. Hasidism is a religious revivalistic movement which emerged in mid-18th century Eastern Europe under the inspiration of Israel ben Eliezer, the Baal Shem Tov, literally the Master of the Good Name. The Baal Shem Tov was orphaned at a young age and, at least according to one version of the narrative, was taken in by a secretive Brotherhood of Jewish Mystics and under that tutelage developed his own unique form of Jewish mysticism which placed a heavy emphasis on simplicity and authenticity in the worship of God and service to one's fellow. The Baal Shem Tov would go on to teach this way of life to his students, most notably to Dov Ber, the Maggid of Mezhirich. The Maggid, the architect of Hasidism, would go and to propagate his master's teachings by formalizing and teaching them to a select inner circle of disciples who would go to spread these teachings across Eastern Europe, effectively creating a mass movement to spread his master of the Baal Shem Tov's teachings.

The first of its kind in the history of Jewish mysticism. Throughout Jewish history, mysticism had been restricted to a narrow cadre of learned scholars. Hasidism was the first time when the teachings and practices of Jewish mysticism reached a sustained mass audience, spreading rapidly across the landscape of Eastern European Jewry. But not without its detractors. With the memory of the devastating failure of the Shabbatean movement still fresh in their minds, members of the rabbinic establishment launched a fierce oppositional movement against the young fledgling Hasidic movement, which culminated in an excommunication of the Hasidic movement in 1781. This firm opposition, however, had the opposite of its intended effect. Instead of shutting down the movement, it ended up bolstering it and helped cement its folk identity as a spiritual revival of the common folk against the elite.

By the time the Maggid, the student of the Baal Shem Tov, passed away in 1772, 20 or so of his handpicked disciples had been dispersed to seed the movement all over Eastern Europe and further afield. Within a few short generations, the Hasidic movement transitioned from a ragtag band of rural mystics to a well-established movement with major dynasties, courts, and centers of pilgrimage across Lithuania, White Russia, Ukraine, Galicia, and Poland. With the onset of World War II, the Hasidic world suffered a major blow. The Holocaust eradicated large swaths of the Hasidic world, tragically wiping out entire dynasties and decimating others. Many historians believed that the history of Hasidism had come to an end, but following the war, Hasidism picked itself back up from the ashes, rebuilt its communities, and flourished in new lands, both in the United States, Israel, and elsewhere. Hasidism lives on today, not merely as a relic of a rich past, but as a vibrant living force into the future, adding to the rich tapestry of the Jewish world with its unique flavor of religious, spiritual, cultural, liturgical, artistic, and human expression.

Part of the challenge of defining Hasidic thought is the sheer diversity of expression and articulation which emerges even within the very first generations of Hasidism, with each of the early masters expressing their own spiritual voice in unique ways. Among the early masters, we find those who practiced asceticism, negating the material wealth, while others preached against asceticism and embraced the divinity hidden within the world. Some advocate for ecstatic union with God, while others prefer a contemplative approach to the Divine. We find some preaching an explicitly Messianic doctrine, while others negate it. We find some teaching pantheistic and acosmic theologies, while others choose to emphasize God's transcendence and radical otherness. Some are staunch adherents and theorists of Jewish law, while others are antinomian. Some highlight the centrality of Kabbalah in their thinking, while others shun it. And the same goes for Jewish philosophy. Some embrace and engage with it deeply, while others outright forbid it. Despite this diversity, however, there are some common themes which we can try and trace out that might unite Hasidic thought into a cohesive whole, without forgetting the above-mentioned disclaimer.

As opposed to an ascetic severity that had dominated religious practice prior to Hasidism, the Hasidic movement, in large part, placed an emphasis on worshipping God with joy and happiness, song and dance, love and ecstasy. Hasidic thought and practice at its finest is marked by an intoxication with divinity, authenticity, and humility. Worshiping God for the Hasidic master is, as it is for many mystics, seen as an opportunity to approach, be in the presence of, and to even perhaps couple and unite with with the Divine. Through the inner work, the avodah of Hasidism, particularly in the act of devotional prayer, the Hasidic mystic strives to strip away their ego, to nullify and integrate the self in an act of devekut. Like a seed which is placed into the dirt, shedding its protective layering, disintegrating into the ground so that it can be reborn again into the form of a tree. The soul, which in Hasidic thought is literally a part of God, likewise needs to strip itself of its shell of the ego, which keeps it trapped in its own identity, so that it can break down in ecstasy and find itself reborn in God, in what they call devekut. This is the central aim of Hasidism: to unite the true self, the soul, with true being, namely God. This union allows the human to see reality clearly as a manifestation of divinity, to recognize God in all things, not just in in moments of sanctioned holiness, but even and particularly in the ordinary and the mundane. This was the Messianic realization and the state of being that the Baal Shem Tov strove to impart to his students, and they to the Jewish masses, by spreading his wellsprings and teaching all how to unite themselves in God, how to unite with reality.

The theology and metaphysics of Hasidism orbit around the attempt to reconcile divine transcendence and divine immanence. They represent a persistent attempt to answer the age-old question of how God can both be infinitely and categorically above and beyond our reality, and yet deeply invested and present in every moment of it. The Hasidic discourse on this age-old challenge joins a global choir of voices explicating mystical theologies of the One and the Many, from Plotinus to Ibn Arabi, from Pseudo-Dionysius to Simone Weil. Hasidism picked up the conversation where Kabbalah had left off, dovetailing their cosmological analysis directly into the Kabbalistic discussions of Tzimtzum, divine self-contraction, Shevirah, the cosmic cataclysmic shattering that preceded our present iteration of reality, and the work of Tikkun, the work to recollect and raise the fallen sparks of divinity back up to be reintegrated into their source in the fiery Pleroma of the Divine. Parallel to this macrocosmic work of restoring divinity to its original form and form of glory is the work of the Hasid upon themselves, the microcosmic work to reorient all of their middot, emotional, intellectual, and ethical character traits, towards love and kindness towards God, reintegrating the disparate parts of ourselves back into our true self. There's no doubt that all of these ideas play central roles in the formation and function of Hasidism. Perhaps between the dance of all of these doctrines, something of the essence of Hasidism can be glimpsed.

If you'd like to learn more about Hasidism, check out Philip's brilliant video on the subject. And now back to you, Philip. Thank you so much, Zevi, for the beautiful explanation. For anyone out there who hasn't yet, go check out his channel, Seekers of Unity. Subscribe to that channel. It's it's truly some beautiful content, especially if you're interested in these kinds of topics that we're talking about today. Zevi is your guy. So check out his channel. Hasidism is really interesting because it combines many different aspects of Jewish mysticism from over the centuries into a new and fascinating movement. Hasidism is still very popular around the world. While the role of Kabbalah generally was somewhat negatively affected by the reform movements within Judaism in the 18th and 19th century and the rise of a more exclusionary rationalism, and of course, the the very dramatic events of the, uh, the figure of Shabbetai Tzvi, the so-called false Messiah, who in the 17th century convinced most of the Jewish world that he was indeed the Messiah, and then one day converts to Islam, uh, and and his sort of claim to be the Messiah is very much connected to Kabbalah and mysticism and Lurianic Kabbalah in particular. That was a huge disaster in many ways and also kind of in some ways gave Kabbalah a bit of a bad name in certain circles. That certainly helped this process of Kabbalah being a less prominent in many movements of Judaism today. Works like the Zohar lost its status as scripture to many, and just like in other contexts like the Islamic world, mysticism was increasingly seen as superstitious and detrimental to a pure rational religion.

But with Hasidism, which was born at the same time, we see a new kind of Jewish mysticism which combines many of the different currents and movements in history and a kind of democratization of mysticism itself. It was no longer just a concern for the intellectual elite, but for everyone. Hasidism is a deeply mystical tradition that has grown immensely popular across the Jewish world, even today. The 20th century also saw the increased interest in the academic study of Jewish mysticism, and one of the most heated debates regarding Jewish mysticism in modern scholarship has been the question of the mystical union, or unio mystica. In the vast world of "mysticism," one of the most recurring themes is indeed this idea of achieving some kind of union with higher realities, and often even the conception of a union with God, Godself. We find this in Sufism, in Christian mysticism, in Platonism. But does this idea exist in Judaism? Indeed, Judaism puts a great emphasis on the idea of God's transcendence and the clear boundary between God and the created world. So does this even allow for the idea of union in this way?

The most prominent scholar of Jewish mysticism of the 20th century, Gershom Scholem, argued that it doesn't. To him, and those who followed him, the Jewish mystics, with very rare exceptions, never went as far as saying that there could be any sort of direct union with God. And this was the prevailing idea for a long time and can be found in a lot of literature about mysticism and Judaism generally. But in the last few decades, scholars like Moshe Idel have gone against this idea and instead argued that not only does it exist in Jewish mysticism, the idea of the mystical union is indeed quite prominent and common, and this stance is gaining more and more popularity. We've seen in this episode many examples of a kind of unitive language from the earliest writers, such as Philo of Alexandria. We find the idea that the human can ascend to God and even unite in some way. Philo writes that "He bids them to cleave to Him, bringing out by the use of this word how constant and continuous and unbroken is the Concord and Union that comes through making God our own." In the case of Philo, though, it doesn't seem like a full union with God, but with an aspect of God, namely the Logos.

But later in history, we get more clear expressions of the mystical union, perhaps most prominently in the ecstatic Kabbalah and writings of people like Abulafia, who talk about the goal of devekut or cleaving precisely as a kind of union where, in Abulafia's words, "He and he become one entity, inseparable during the act." Slightly later, the fascinating but relatively little-known Kabbalist Rabbi Isaac of Acre wrote about mystical union using the language of water, which definitely mirrors the thought and earlier quote of Abulafia. "She, the soul, will cleave to the Divine Intellect, and it will cleave to her, and she and the intellect become one entity, as if somebody pours out a jug of water into a running well, that all becomes one." This idea further shows up in Safed Kabbalah and also quite prominently in Hasidism, which has a quite outright monistic or even pantheistic adjacent theology sometimes, where God is everywhere and where realizing this unity becomes an important feature. Dov Baer of Mezhirich, one of the foundational figures of early Hasidism, wrote that "A man must separate himself from any corporal things to such an extent that he will ascend through all the worlds and be in union with God until his existence will be annihilated."

With all that said, all this, of course, also comes down to interpretation and how we choose to read some of these passages. But I think with all this in mind, it at least to me, it becomes hard to defend a kind of hard anti-unio mystica in Judaism. I think scholars like Idel and many others, um, by studying people like this and and looking at some of these writings that we've explored, um, have shown clearly enough that the idea of the mystical union with God in some way seems certainly pretty common across the history of Jewish mysticism in different ways.

Today, the situation is, of course, quite complex, as it has always been. There has been a resurgence of interest in Kabbalah in the last couple of decades, and Kabbalah is taught in various places around the world, sometimes deeply connected to traditional Judaism, sometimes with a more universalist and maybe even New Age interpretation. We've seen several celebrities show interest in Kabbalah and bring it to a wider audience, such as perhaps most notably Madonna. At the same time, Hasidism continues to be one of the most prominent movements within Judaism and embodying traditions that are centuries old. In other words, while Jewish mysticism has evolved over the centuries and taken on many different forms, it remains a very significant and important part of one of the most significant and largest religions in the world.

Thank you to Zevi and Justin for being part of this video. Um, really appreciate and always love, it's an honor working together with with such uh talented and and beautiful human beings. So go check out their channels, Esoterica and Seekers of Unity, and you will not regret it. Uh, also, don't forget that I just released my new song, "Ismus," with my project Zeni. If you're interested in the music that I make, which is the music of the majority of the videos on this channel, the music is made by me, and I just put out a new song two weeks ago, depending on when this comes out, recently I put on a new song. So, uh, there will be links to that in the description as well if you're interested. And lastly, of course, I want to extend a special thank you to all my patrons who, as I always say, they keep this channel going, and none of this would be possible without you. So thank you from the depths of my heart for all the support. Thank you again to the patrons. Thank you for everyone who likes, who watches, who comments, and who engages with these videos and in this wonderful, beautiful community, uh, that I'm very proud to to be a part of. So thank you all so much for watching, and I will see you next time.

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