1 See E.E Urbach, The Sages 16ff (1975); Solomon Schechter, Aspects of Rabbinic Theology (1961).
2 See Gershom Scholem, On the Origins of the Kabbalah (1962) (hereinafter, Scholem, Origins) at 46.
3 See Scholem, Origins, at 18-27.
4 The use of the term "mysticism," which has its origin in Christianity, is somewhat misleading. I do not refer here to that mode of religious expression which describes a closeness to or unity with Gcd. A better term for what I mean by "Jewish mysticism" would be esotericism, which would refer to any theological or other speculation which may depend on a "mystical experience" but may also assert ancient roots or some form of revelation as its source. Nonetheless, so long as we understand that religious thought and not religious experience is the subject here, I will avoid propagating new neologisms and will stick with "Jewish mysticism."
5 Gershom Scholem, Kabbalah (1974), at 40-44.
6 Epistle sent from Narbonne to communities in Sefarad, expressing support during the Maimonidean controversy, and opposition to Solomon ben Abraham of Montpelier, (Ms. Oxford Ms. Heb. d. 2). The translation here is Bernard Septimus, Hispano-Jewish Culture in Transition (1982), but the text was first brought to light by Joseph Shatzmiller, in Towards a Picture of the First Maimonidean Controversy, in Zion 34 (1969) at 143-44.
7 See Scholem, Origins, at 7-8, discussing Heinrich Graetz, Geschichte der Juden, vol. 7, 385-402 (1908 ed.).
8 Again remembering that anyone who is part of the mystical intellectual tradition is a "mystic" for these purposes.
9 Septimus at 83, quoting epistle in Shatzmiller, Zion 34 (1969) at 140-41.
10 E.g. Milhemet Mitzvah by R. Meir ben Simon, which says of the Bahir, "The language of the book and its whole content show that it is the work of someone who lacked command of either literary language or good style, and in many passages it contains words which are out and out heresy." See Scholem, Teudah Hadasha L'Toldot Reishit Hakabbalah, in Sefer Bialik (1934), at 146.
12 Id. Scholem's article gives a very detailed treatment of the polemics among pro- and anti- Kabbalists in this article, which is probably the most comprehensive treatment of the subject.
13 See Scholem,
Kabbalah 182-89 (1974). It is important to note that ascetic practices
were not among the targets of theosophical Kabbalists -- here, they parted
company with rationalist critics, and continued to advocate fasting, and
occasionally even seclusion, as aids to mystical speculation.
14 Narbonnese
Epistle, in Zion 34 (1969), at 143.
15 Scholem, Kabbalah, at 50. Of course, this particular debate has continued through the Sabbatean heresy to our own day, as various groups within Judaism continue to come under attack for promulgating mystical ideas not only from rationalists but from "believers" as well, who dispute not the truth of the Kabbalah but its dissemination. Then, as now, the debate both among "believers" and yet is also connected with "outsiders'" concerns regarding the potentially foreign character of the Kabbalah. As Scholem states, "The Kabbalists were accepted as proponents of a conservative ideology and as public defenders of tradition and custom, but at the same time they were suspected, by a substantial number of rabbis and sages, of having non-Jewish leanings and of being innovators whose activities must be curtailed wherever possible." Id. at 50-51.
16
Scholem, Origins, at 11.
17 See Id.,
at 45 ("On the one hand, we are dealing here with something really new
... On the other hand, we are also dealing with the vestiges of an unarticulated
tradition that survived in the form of old notebooks and fragmentary leaves;
and these came from distant lands or from subterranean levels of the Jewish
societies in which they emerged into the light of day.")
20 The text itself is actually untitled, but Scholem named it Maaseh Merkavah because of a citation to it in a text of the Hasidei Ashkenaz which referred to it by that name, although the name almost certainly referred to a genre of literature rather than to the text itself. See Scholem, Jewish Gnosticism, Merkavah Mysticism, and the Talmudic Tradition (1960).
22 E.g., Scholem, Origins, at 197-98.
23 Joseph Dan, The Early Kabbalah (1986), at 15-16.
25 See Septimus at 112ff; Scholem, Origins, at 378-86.
26 Obviously, there are hundreds of "further" instances of influence. I have not discussed at all, for instance, the ecstatic Kabbalah of Abraham Abulafia, who saw Maimonides as his chief influence, or the many other mystics who sought to syncretize rationalism with the developing Kabbalah.
27 It is also, not coincidentally, the polar opposite of the New Testament's emphasis on intent and the "spirit of the law." To overgeneralize only slightly, Talmudic Judaism knows no spirit other than the letter of the law.
28 Conversation with Joseph Dan, January, 1998.
29 E.g., Shaar Hakavvanah L'Mekubalim Rishonim.
30 E.g., Sodot Hatefilah, attributed to R. Eleazar of Worms, containing excerpts from R. Yehuda HaHasid's interpretation on the liturgy.
33 On the contrary; if anything, it would be the external language of prayer, not the inner semantic meaning, that would have relevance for a Merkavah or Hechalot mystic.