Outline
I. Introduction/thesis
II. R. Nahum's worldview/idea of reality
A. World created through Torah
1. Relation to idea of Logos
2. Torah is everywhere
B. Torah is Gcd
1. Understanding and unity
C. Statement and details of worldview: "All is One"
1. No evil
2. Linguistic tzimtzum
3. The Sefirot/ Torah as Binah
4. Where is Bittul?
III. The importance and nature of Torah study
A. Understanding as summum bonum
1. Shechinah dwells in person
2. Torah as ultimate purpose of creation
B. What is this 'knowledge' of?
1. Cleaving to letters
2. The infinity of Torah
3. Knowledge as realization of Reality
a. Nonacademicism: no data value
C. What type of knowledge is it?
1. Hayye Sarah VI and divine Hokhmah
2. Bereshit IV, the nest: Attachment to the godhead
3. Bereshit IV, the sanctuary for Gcd
a. Intimate 'knowledge,' Daat, the 4-pronged Shin
b. Longing and joy, emotionalism
c. Relation to Tzimtzum and the infinite
5. Ecstatic knowledge? Meaning vs. meanings
D. How do we get knowledge of Torah?
1. Lova and Fear
2. Humility v. Nothingness revisited
a. philosophy and psychology
3. Toledot IV and killing of selfhood
4. Conditioning of soul
5. Noah III: everything is Torah study (devekut)
E. What effects does Torah study have?
1. Healing and protection
2. Protection from enemies
3. Immortality
a. Does study really change the situation?
b. Radicality of position
4. Integration of self
5. Coming of the Messiah
6. Repairing the Breach in Gcd
F. The one thing better than Torah
1. Uplifting fallen sparks; avodah b'gashmiut
2. Catch: You need Torah to do it
3. Tension in this position
IV. Conclusions
A. Tension between R. Nahum and mitnaggdim: Mitzvot
B. Tension between R. Nahum and Hasidim: Prayer
C. Is Meor Einayim a mystical text?
D. Conclusion
To ask such questions is immediately to enter into an
investigation of R. Nahum's conception of the nature of reality: if
understanding, wisdom, and knowledge are the chief motivating
forces is his universe, then surely the foundational construction
of that universe must in some way be intellectually based. (I
should note here that I intend to discuss in this paper R. Nahum's
attitude towards 'intellection,' which I take to
include--sefirotically and psychologically--hokhmah, binah, and
daat. The distinctions between the three will be discussed within,
but in mapping out the importance of intellection and 'knowledge'
generally, I will be referring to the three as one de facto
unit, as indeed R. Nahum himself does in Vayetze V, to be discussed
below) What I believe characterizes the worldview as expounded in
And so we find that the first remark R. Nahum makes in the
entire Meor is that "It was through the Torah... that Gcd created
that world; all things were created by means of Torah." (49) The
idea that the Torah somehow predated creation and formed a
blueprint for it itself has a long history, of course. Hellenizing
philosophers from Philo onwards (cf. the first pages of
But Torah is much more than the Logos in R. Nahum's system.
It is the immanent (and yet also transcendent, since it precedes
the world) reality of Gcd in the world. "The point is that Gcd
created the world through Torah, and by means of Torah the world
continues to exist. And since He and His Torah are one, all the
worlds and all ths nations receive their sustenance only from the
Torah." (Noah III, p. 93) Torah sustains the world, and, insofar
as Gcd fills and surrounds creation and Torah and Gcd are one,
Torah
This very strong statement, while again not unique to R. Nahum (as widely noted by scholars beginning with Scholem, the identity of Gcd and Torah is explicitly stated as far back as R. Moshe de Leon and R. Joseph Gikatilla, and seems implicit in certain Hechalot texts as well), leads to the conclusion here that if we can come to understand the Torah, we come to understand Gcd himself and the blueprint of creation. R. Nahum, as we will explore below, indicates that this 'understanding' is not simple comprehension (and we will see how different when we investigate the ways a tzaddik is to attain it), but the drawing near of man to his ultimate source: Gcd. "Man is a part of Gcd above; by means of the Torah he can draw himself near to Gcd." (Miketz II, p. 256) R. Nahum's language on this point is sometimes stronger still. "Such study of Torah brings about a face-to-face unification... since the one who studies has become one with Gcd." (Bereshit II; p. 62) By identifying the Torah with Gcd, he makes Gcd an eminently accessible entity, with whom union itself is possible by understanding the Torah.
Given the identity of Torah with Gcd, and the omnipresence of It in the world, what is the nature of reality according to R. Nahum? "All is one: Divinity above, Israel, Torah, the world-to-come, and this world. All bring forth the flow of His Gcdliness." (Vayetze V, p. 224) This beautiful formulation, as we will discuss below, is immediately followed by the claim that it is Israel's sublime task to recognize its truth: this is in fact the purpose of creation itself, as we will see below.
Before we do so, it is worth discussing certain details of the conception of reality itself. First, the doctrine ties in neatly with R. Nahum's radical anti-dualism, evinced in his two brief polemics against the crypto-Zoroastrian Talmudic heretic (who appears in Sanhedrin 39a), who correlated his division between good and evil with the upper and lower halves of the body. In a fascinating effort at transhistorical concept-morphology (Hayye Sarah II, p. 155), R. Nahum contrasts this heresy with the similar Lurianic idea of the body. The conception is the same (a work in progress by Moshe Idel claims they even may be historically related): the human body is divided into two halves, the bottom evil (Ahriman), the top good (Ormuzd). But where the Zoroastrian sees this as the 'way things are,' the Kabbalist, according to R. Nahum, seeks to unite the two halves. "The true way is rather to bring together good and evil, so that all may be good." (155) If all is one in Gcd and Torah, then of course evil is merely that which has been temporarily separated from its source. Following these Lurianic patterns, R. Nahum's panentheism repeats the same conclusions: evil has no independent ultimate reality -- it is only that which is waiting to be turned to good and returned to Gcd. R. Nahum's theory of non-evil gets played out throughout the Meor--in 'the Souls they had made in Haran' (Lech Lecha V, p. 113), in Jacob with Lavan (Vayetze I, p. 205), for example--and will be developed in greater detail later in this paper.
A second detail of the Gcd-Torah omnipresence is the specific way that Gcd and the Torah can be said to be one entity, and their relationship to the world they fill. In fact, that way is none other than the linguistic tzimtzum, which figures so prominently in the work of one of R. Nahum's contemporaries, R. Schneur Zalman, and here makes its appearance in several places throughout the work, among them Vayetze VIII, Bereshit IV, and Hayye Sara II: "The real nature of this zimzum, however, involves the Torah, since it was into the letters of the Torah that Gcd contracted Himself. It was then through the letters that the world was created: Thus are Gcd and Torah one. The Torah is His very self, through which He created the world." (152) He continues shortly below: "You must go back to the one who formed you in order to regain the light of Torah, containing the infinite light of Ein Sof contracted within it." (153) The linguistic tzimtzum into Torah leads to a particular form of Torah study, of 'cleaving to the letters,' which contain this infinite light; this study will be explored below, in the context of how R. Nahum wants us to go about fulfilling our ultimate aim in the world.
The mechanism of Gcd/Torah equivalence is also described by R. Nahum in terms of the sefirot. Torah is equated several times with the Sefirah of Binah: in Bereshit II ("Binah equals Torah," p. 63), in Vayetze V ("The Torah is called binah," p. 217), and other points throughout the Meor. It is also stated as having "come from" Hokhmah, as does Binah in the Kabbalistic process of the origination of the sefirot: "Torah comes from divine hokhmah and hokhmah is called a point." (Vayera II, p. 133) "She opens her mouth in wisdom (Prov. 31:26); the Torah comes from hokhmah." (Vayetze VIII, p. 229) Yet Torah cannot be revealed except through Da'at: "Gcd's hokhmah and binah are the World of Thought. There the Torah exists in a completely hidden way, not revealed at all... In order to be revealed as word, the Torah must pass through da'at, that which is to bring it from the World of Thought into the World of Speech." (Vayetze V, p. 216) As we will see later, it will be the task of he who truly studies Torah to rise above the world of speech, where controversies exist, to the world of thought, where they are all unified.
One detail that is missing from R. Nahum's formulation
of the relationship between Gcd/Torah and the world is the
negation-speak we find in such works as R. Schneur Zalman's
Still, given the powers and meaning of understanding the Torah, it is not surprising that R. Nahum refers to it as the summum bonum of human existence. We can see this even without the metaphysical conclusions I have tried to derive. Again and again in the Meor, we see that knowledge (binah and daat) are the qualitative factors that distinguish generations and individuals from one another. For example, the generation of the desert is called not the generation of purity of action or something similar, but "the generation of awareness." (59) The Messianic age is described as a time when "Mind will be expanded to the fullest." (58, also 221, 232, etc.) When R. Nahum wants to describe an ideal state (or a fallen one, as in "The prophet reproves them for having become involved in the concerns of the nations and thus having distanced themselves from true Torah, the source of living waters." (Noah III, p. 95)), he does so in terms of Torah.
As I have already suggested, R. Nahum is still more specific on the ultimacy of attaining wisdom/knowledge. Returning to the opening homily on Bereshit, he says there that "it is by means of the Torah that Gcd causes his shechinah to dwell within a human being." (73) That is to say, the immanence of Gcd can be not only recognized but actualized by Torah. How this can be achieved by the Hasid will be discussed at length later, as it entails a radical self-effacement; for the time being, it suffices us to note that Torah is the vehicle for this indwelling to occur. "When you read Gcd's Torah... you will see that 'bird's nest' before you; your chief intent in study should be to become a nest for that bird, to fashion within yourself a dwelling place for the shechinah." (75)
Indeed, it is for this purpose that, R. Nahum says time and
again, the world was created. "Creation took place... so that man
might draw forth the flow of perfect life from the Torah." (152)
"Creation took place for the sake of the Torah and for the sake of
Israel. Its purpose was the Gcd be revealed to Israel, that we
come to know of His existence." (80) "The world was created for the
sake of Torah and for the sake of Israel; all Creation took place
in order that He might be known and recognized by His creatures."
(255) We can thus at last begin to grasp the full nature of
knowledge's importance within the
If Torah study is thus the ultimate aim of creation, we might expect R. Nahum to give us a clear and forceful statement on what exactly we should learn, that is, what is the object of our Torah study? He does not, however, do so. Instead, we must glean from the way he describes the process of Torah study what it is he means to endorse. For example, phrases such as "cleave to the letters of the Torah" (219) suggest a Beshtian approach to Torah study, of engaging in it for the letter combinations and meditational value of Lurianic yichudim that the Torah's holy letters have within them. Of course, this ties in with the aforementioned linguistic tzimtzum idea, and much has been written on the type of Torah study it entails. (eg. Weiss, "Torah Study in Early Hasidism,") The clearest of the several formulations of the type and object of Torah study comes in the rich Vayetze V chapter:
In holding fast to the letters of Torah, through love and fear, the
person is drawn by the force of those letters to the Torah's
source... Everything that comes into this world, whether for good
or ill, comes about through certain permutations of the letters.
(219)
Here, although R. Nahum is using the term 'letters' as Luria would use the term 'fallen sparks' and encouraging us to understand that they are all ultimately good, R. Nahum implies that it is the 'letters of the Torah' which are to be cleaved to. Likewise, in Bereshit IV, "by cleaving to that infinite light which flows through the letters, a person may bring those forces back to their root and sweeten them." (79) And in Bereshit VI, "The twenty-two letters of the Torah as it has been given to us flow from those same letters in the Torah above, the secret Torah. When a person studies Torah for its own sake, to unite the two Torahs, he also unites heaven and earth, Gcd and His shechinah." (84) Each time, R. Nahum has spoken of Torah study as a process oriented around the letters of Torah, not, for example, the teachings, narratives, or mystical symbolic correspondences within it. Not the Pshat, Remez, Drash, or Sod, but the aleph-bet is to be focused on by the Hasid.
What can we say about the Torah itself? R. Nahum says that it is "everything in the Torah must apply to each person and to every time." (Vayetze III, p.212, for example; also Vayeshev I: "The Torah is eternal; it refers to all times and to every person," p. 249, and Vayera I, p.132: "The holy Torah being eternal must apply to each person and to every time.") Exegesis for personal instruction is here given validity because of the eternality of the Torah. Further, as mentioned earlier, Gcd "conducts the world through it, and that all life and energy come from the holy Torah." (Ibid.) Thus, we can on the basis of the former draw conclusions about our own life from the Torah, a principle given its philosophical justification on the basis of the latter. R. Nahum also states that true knowledge of Torah will transcend the controversies of the sages. In a passage comparable to the Talmudic "Elu v'Elu" discussion (which R. Nahum himself cites) in its worth for tolerance and pluralism (although I wonder if R. Nahum meant it that way...) he writes:
We know how mind is poured forth from the unified source above and
comes down into this world of separation; only as it enters this
universe is mind divided. This is the source of controversies and
divisions among the sages in understanding the mind of Torah, [of
which it is said]: 'Both these and those are the words of the
living Gcd!' Mind comes from this sublime and unified source
above; it is divided only as it enters into the universe of
distinctions, the place where the souls of Israel originate... Each
persons' opinions follow the root of his soul. That is why he
understands Torah in a particular way. Another, who says the very
opposite, may be acting just as faithfully in accord with the root
of his own soul. In their source, both are the words of the living
Gcd, since all is one...
(Vayetze I, p. 208)
Proper Torah study, then, cannot mean only the analysis of these
controversies and disputes, but must instead mean transcending
them, by uniting with this 'unified source,' i.e., the Binah of Gcd
itself, which is the Torah. R. Nahum continues, defining this
unification is these sefirotic terms:
In the flow of daat from binah, there is no division or conflict at
all; only as mind enters to world of separation is it too separated
and does it flow through various channels. All the sages really
mean the same thing, however, since all of them are drawing from
the same well, from the same mind. Only in this world of
separation do their opinions appear to diverge.
(Ibid.)
So the object of Torah study is ultimately that which unifies discrepancies in the infinite; and it is important to remember this last part from earlier, because it means that the 'ultimate Torah' is not one sages opinion or another's but rather the union of them both in the infinite Gcd/Torah.
It seems that to a great extent we can categorize the object
of proper knowledge as being the nature of the truth of reality.
"The rule that all of this teaches is as folllows:
Of course, it is important to note, if only to bring us back
to normative-Judaism's reality, that R. Nahum does not formulate
knowledge of Torah in "academic" terms at all. It is not a matter
of understanding the rules of the mitzvot, or mastering Talmud: it
is a cleaving to Gcd. Likewise, R. Nahum nowhere states that what
is needed is a theosophic understanding of the particularities of
the sefirot, or of Lurianic kavvanot, but rather a realization that
everything has its root in Gcd. In fact, any pretense on the part
of the student that he has learned something is the best clue that
he does not understand:
A person who has truly learned the entire Torah realizes that he
knows nothing. The end of knowledge is the awareness that we do
not know. Thus the Zohar says: 'Once you reach there, what have
you examined? What have you seen? Everything is just as hidden as
it was in the beginning.' When a person has learned and known that
he has attained nothing, he joins together the upper and lower
wisdom, forming that single aleph. If, however, he thinks that he
knows some particular thing, he has not attained wisdom at all.
Then he is called the 'whisperer who separates the aleph.'
(Bereshit V, p. 82)
This remarkable passage, besides bearing a font of information for students of comparative mysticism, works towards our purposes by reinforcing the idea that the 'knowledge' being pursued here is not knowledge of data -- it is not what we refer to as knowledge in the mundane sense at all. It has zero data value, and yet is one with ultimate Reality. With this in mind, and considering that this knowledge of Gcd in which 'mountains are again mountains' is meant to arise out of 'binding onesself to letters of Torah,' I think it is not out of line to suggest that it is in some way a mystical understanding that has but one Object: Gcd. Yet if the Torah knowledge R. Nahum places at the center of creation is neither gnosis nor mundane information, what type of understanding is it?
The question is a significant one, precisely because R.
Nahum's truths seem quite easy to recite--they would take less than
a page of dogma to set out. However, the Meor indicates in a few
places that a somehow "deeper" level of actual understanding is
needed; after all, if the Jew is essentially Torah, then one must
'get to one's root' in order to comprehend it. Besides the
epistemological question is a psychological one: I may know that
Gcd is one, just as I know that the table is brown, but do I
The first passage I would like to discuss here is an enigmatic secion of Hayye Sarah VI, in which R. Nahum relates how to study Torah to Torah's origin, the sefirah of hokhmah. So in hokhmah, which is called yod, there is nothing yet that can be grasped. Only as the lower qualities spread forth from it can it be perceived that they in fact emerged from hokhmah. This is the meaning of 'Wherever most of your letters are dotted' (Bereshit Rabbah 48:15)--the dot refers to hokhmah above, that shines down on a person. Where this shining is more than the letters, is beyond what he has learned in books... you interpret the Torah according to this dot of light from hokhmah above, even in matters that you have not learned from books. (168)
Contrasting this inspired mystic-learner with one who only "interprets the letters," because he has not "perfected the qualities in his life, he has not yet received the light that shines from their counterparts above," (169), R. Nahum seems to be suggesting here that a divinely-inspired scholar can understand the Torah (whether as letters or as teachings is unclear) in some way which transcends what can be ordinarily learned. He links this understanding to "proper living out of the qualities," thus necessitating the mitzvot he seems overall to minimize in the face of devekut/Torah study. (Ibid.) While we might understand what he means by this right living, what sorts of 'shining interpretation' such a scholar might offer are not specified and remain mysterious. It seems as if they have some contact with the ineffable, and thus an intuitive, or divine, grasp of Torah. But, unfortunately for us, R. Nahum gives no details about "the light of His sublime wisdom." (Ibid.) Regarding its relevance to Torah study, we can only say that the practice of study itself is here one of uncovering mysteries by means which may include cleaving to the letters of the Torah themselves, and, it seems, recognizing some supra-rational (or supernally-rational) understanding of reality.
A second source I believe points toward a non-standard conception of the knowledge received as the end of Torah study is one already quoted, so I will mention it only briefly here; it is in Bereshit IV, in the long discussion of the obscure Talmudic riddle "What if you find a bird's nest in a person's head?" (71, quoting Hullin 139b) He says that the meaning of the bird's nest in a person's head is creating a vacuum (by knowing that the self is nothing) for the indwelling of the shechinah, whose entrance is represented as some form of mystical-intellectual union. "Your chief intent in study should be to become a nest for that bird, to fashion within yourself a dwelling place for the sheckinah. All this should be in your mind... Place this intention ever before you as you go 'along the way' of Torah." (75) A paragraph earlier, R. Nahum taught that "One who studies His Torah must make his chief goal one of service, of cleaving to Him and being a nest or a Temple where His blessed shechinah, which is called a bird, may dwell." (Ibid.) What kind of knowledge is this, when a person removes all sense of ego from himself, even if this were only to mean the greatest possible humility, to become like a nest for the bird?
I wish to discuss at greater length a passage earlier in the
same chapter, in order to answer this question. Shortly after
stating that Torah study brings about unification with Gcd (p.66),
R. Nachman discusses the way this unification takes place:
When a person attaches his inner life-force and his words to the
Torah, that life within him is bound to the portion of divinity
that shines forth from Torah's letters. Such is the case of one who
studies with this intent, and has no ulterior motivations or
extraneous goals. This person is himself also called a 'sanctuary'
for by means of the longing and joy that reach Him from such
service, Gcd contracts His shechinah so that it may enter the man.
(Bereshit IV, p. 73)
There is much of interest in this passage. First, again, is the statement that study of Torah effectively 'brings down' the godhead so that it may dwell in man: note that R. Nahum explicitly mentions study, and we cannot claim that Torah generally -- which we 'attach ourselves to' by means of the mitzvot -- is being dealt with. Study here replaces the Temple: it is a sanctuary for the shechinah, as in the "bird nest" image discussed above. If religion generally, and Jewish Hasidism in particular, is about finding a way to access or encounter the transcendent, then R. Nahum has elucidated the goal and the means to attain it quite clearly: study. But what kind of knowledge is attained? Surely being able to recite Talmudic passages by heart is not what R. Nahum calls "attachment." Even, as discussed, if the object of study is the letters of the Torah, R. Nahum here says that the studier is bound to the "portion of divinity" within them.
What I am trying to suggest, is that this knowledge of Torah is closer to the Biblical sense of 'knowledge' than to our academic one, and is in some way more an intimate recognition and awareness of the nature of reality than a detached comprehension of certain facts. I believe there is an allusion to this sexual metaphor in R. Nahum's references to the 4-pronged shin (Bereshit I, p. 55), an ancient idea that becomes associated with the union of Yesod and Shechinah (yod + shin), the male and female principles in the Gcdhead. "This 'knowing' refers to being joined together, and it is this sort of knowing that is considered whole. This makes for the letter shin in its four-pronged form: intellect and understanding, but within mind both love and fear." (55) R. Nahum links love and fear with Jethro, who "added (YeTeR) something to the Torah and completed that four-pronged shin." unification to Torah: Now, I do not propose that this reference is by any means conclusive that Torah study is explicitly linked phenomenologically to sex; even if it affects a conjoining in the Deity, there may be no analogical feeling or effect down below. Nonetheless, the terms which R. Nahum employs, here and elsewhere, are loaded ones, and carry with them connotations of intense emotive attachment.
This leads me to the second notable quality R. Nahum associates with study in Bereshit IV, and this he does speak of directly, that of 'longing and joy.' Although it is study R. Nahum is talking about, and not about "a life of Torah" (this is an important point, and I repeat it because in other contexts, to simply say 'Torah' might be interpreted as, in today's parlance, a 'Tora lifestyle.' Here, however, as elsewhere in the Meor, R. Nahum specifically mentions study.), it is not joyless pilpul such as one might expect from a Lithuanian mitnaggid. It seems to be an emotional, passionate endeavour. This would seem to indicate that what is actually studied is not studied so much for its meaning as for its intrinsic emotive value, if one may use such a phrase. 'Emotive' may better be rendered 'spiritual,' for the idea is elegantly simple: Gcd's infinity is somehow contained in the Torah, and by 'attaching his inner life force to it' (devekut), one attaches onesself to Gcd--the familiar (though by definition ever-new) ideal of Hasidism.
Third among the significant points in the Bereshit passage is
the matter of this 'somehow,' that, in my opinion, R. Nahum here
seems to return to the idea of linguistic tzimtzum, which we
mentioned earlier. "It is known," R. Nahum writes in the sentence
immediately preceding the above-quoted passage, "that the light of
the Infinite, blessed be He, shines forth and dwells in the letters
of Torah." (73) Elsewhere, R. Nahum is more explicit on the
matter. As quoted earlier, Hayye Sarah II: "It was into the
letters of the Torah that Gcd contracted Himself. It was then
through the letters that the world was created: Thus are Gcd and
Torah one." (152) Here is as clear a formulation as we could want
of the 'somehow' that Gcd is contained in the Torah, although of
course the exact 'how' of tzimtzum itself remains obscure. And in
saying that through the letters of Torah, the world was created, R.
Nahum even gives a
Returning to the present question of what sort of knowledge this Torah study is, we can now see how the linguistic tzimtzum fits into the issue; it is the mechanism by which Gcd's infinity can be known to us. Like the Hasidei Ashkenaz long before him, R. Nahum has seized upon the infinity of the Torah as a (contemplative?) tool for what he considers to be the highest good.
Unlike the Hasidei Ashkenaz, however, R. Nahum's passage from Bereshit IV does not suggest that it is the infinity of meanings in the Torah that interests him. It is, rather, the infinity of Meaning. R. Nahum speaks in what Green calls "ecstatic" terms about the comprehension of (some of) Gcd, for instance in Toledot V: "He, the blessed Lord, is the source from which life flows forth into all the living in every way," and elsewhere. (188) But let us compare this 'knowledge' of Gcd with that of the Hechalot mystic, the Zoharic Kabbalist, the Lurianic pietist. R. Nahum's knowledge, except when it refers to ethical matters, seems entirely comprised of a handful of tenets: the unity of Gcd and the world, the fact that everything is from Gcd, etc. It is not esoteric wisdom a la Hechalot Rabbati or the Zohar, nor is it cosmological secrets or kavvanot a la Luria. Indeed, the type of knowledge to which R. Nahum seems to be alluding seems more quasi-mystical communion than quasi-scientific understanding.
Two central questions remain: How is this knowledge of Torah/ Gcd to be attained, and what benefits and effects does R. Nahum say come from it? It is to these questions that we now turn.
With regard to the former question, R. Nahum gives a great deal of advice, as one might expect, to those seeking to be righteous, i.e. 'enlightened', Jews. In line with the type of knowledge one is hoping to attain, R. Nahum says that one must have proper "love and fear.. Daat contains both love and fear; only through it can the revealed word be joined to its sublime and hidden source, [even] without understanding." (217) Quite surprisingly, R. Nahum here appears to say that studying with the right intention (love and fear) is more important than understanding what you study. "Study without this content [love and fear], of course, is not the same. Here the words are cut off from their root... Not rising and being joined to its source, theverbal Torah that you study cannot receive the flow of fine oil that might otherwise come upon it." (Ibid.) Besides enraging Mitnaggdim, for whom study itself was more important than your feelings while you studied, this passage indicates that how you get the knowledge is intimately bound up with the sort of knowledge that is being acquired, and so one's 'kavvanah' is of perhaps paramount importance.
Another frequent motif in the Meor is that of humility. It is
not, however, simply stated. A useful passage to explore some of
the complexities of R. Nahum's remarks on how to attain the Divine
wisdom is again in Bereshit IV. There, he states:
Now it is known that the higher the rung that a zaddik attains, the
more he will see himsefl as nothing, having seen so much of the
greatness of Gcd. He must not give any consideration to the high
rung his service has reached, really that of infinity itself...
The intensity of that presence [of the shechinah] increases as he
continues to reach upward. But finally he must realize that he has
in fact attained nothing at all... If you think such a thought
[that you have reached a place where the shechinah dwells] you will
surely fall, for you have then become a 'something' and are no
longer 'nothing'; uou will have taken on limits and will thus no
longer be one into which Gcd can place His infinite Presence.
(76)
We discussed earlier the ambiguity regarding what sort of 'nothingness' is being discussed here, whether it is an ontic category or a psychological one. There, our concern was ontological, and I claimed that we cannot say for sure that R. Nahum is saying, like R. Schneur Zalman does, that the world is "Ayin v'efes Mamash." (Tanya 294, for example) Here, though, our concern is epistemological and practical, and it does seem that on this level, R. Nahum can here be read as demanding an effacement of self so that the emptied soul can be a proper receptacle for Divine influx. The question then arises: should we capitalize 'nothing' in "He must realize that he has in fact attained nothing at all?" Is attaining nothing, in fact, attaining all?
While the Meor Einayim is not a philosophical treatise as is,
in large part, the Tanya, I think we can at the very least offer
the reading that R. Nahum is speaking here in philosophical terms.
What, if it is just a matter of being humble, does he mean that
'you will have taken on limits' by recognizing your ego? If we
agree that he is speaking of the ego as a finite entity which must
be erased completely by some form of emptying contemplation, then
the sentence makes sense. If not, the talk of limits is confusing,
and one is still left with the problem of how an infinite Gcd can
enter that which is not empty. Additionally, what does R. Nahum
mean by 'he has attained nothing at all' if we are dealing with a
person who has, indeed, attained a high rung of wisdom? It must be
that he has attained a self-consciousness of nothing, as R. Nahum
says two pages earlier (Bereshit IV, p. 74):
Therefore he [Moses] said: 'We are what,' for he thought of himself as nothing in the face of Gcd's creatness. As long as a person still thinks of himself as something, he will necessarily have limits, for everything that exists has some limit. Gcd cannot dwell in such a person, since He is infinite and without limit, and that person is a bounded one. You have to be like the plae of the ark, which took up no space at all, so fully humbled that you see yourself as nothing, not a being at all. Then you can be called 'nothing,' and the Creater who is called 'no limit' or endless can contract Himself into you.
The Meor Einayim may not be a philosophical tract like the Tanya, but here at least I do not think R. Nahum is thinking in terms of mere ego-humility. He who wishes to have the Creator contract Himself into him, just as he is contracted into Torah -- and let us remember that this seems to be the goal of Torah study -- must completely erase any notion that he exists, because to exist necessitates a limit. (This question relates, of course, to the semantic difficulty of saying 'Gcd exists.') Finally, if we recall that this knowledge is essentially a panenthiest-monotheist awareness, then a conception of the self as something distinct, i.e. something independent of Gcd, is completely mistaken, if not outright evil (qua separation). As such, the dissolution of such a wrong idea would seem to be a ready prerequisite for enlightenment.
The philosophical interpretation of Bereshit IV is strengthened by a passage in Toledot IV, which reads that "The point is... to kill of selfhood, for 'Torah does not exist'--is not really alive and one with the source--'except in one who kills himself.' (Berachot 63b) He has to kill his own self and act only for the goal of pleasing Gcd." (186) Obviously we are not speaking materially, but rather one must kill the idea of one's independent self in order to "Be united with the sublime form." (187)
In sum, it seems that R. Nahum gives more time to how to
condition your soul for studying Torah than the actual
Lastly, in our consideration of "how to study Torah according to R. Nahum," we must consider what is perhaps his ultimate statement on the matter, which is in Noah III, p. 95: "Now the wise man has eyes to see that 'the study of Torah' spoken of here takes place in all things, including conversations with non-Jews, so long as one remains directed to the proper aim." In the end, the study of Torah is separated entirely from what we would generally refer to as study of Torah, and seems to refer instead to devekut itself. In a way, this resolves the Beshtian controversy that led to many Hasidic-Mittnagdic disputes about the relative value of devekut vs. that of Torah study: here, they are one and the same. Of course, it resolves the conflict in such a way that the Hasid goes on doing just what he was doing (ideally) before, only now it is called 'Torah study.' The object of this'knowledge' is an intimate awareness and oneness with Gcd in everything, the knowing itself is identical with devekut, and attaining it is, remembering from earlier, the ultimate purpose of creation.
Moving from the question of how to study Torah to what results from Torah study/devekut, we find that there is a wide variety of effects that result, from the mundane to the monumental. These effects include: healing, protection from evil, protection from death, the coming of the Messiah, and the unification of the Divinity itself.
Let us discuss each in turn, beginning with the mundane. R. Nahum presents in Hayye Sarah II a deceptively simple word of advice, that Torah study will cure your bodily ills. He cites "a teaching of the rabbis: 'If a person has a headache, he should study Torah.'" (151) The mechanism by which this works (R. Nahum also recommends it for a sore throat, in manifest contradiction with the way Torah study is usually carried out in yeshivot..) is not magical or voodoo, but rather theurgical. That is, it does not act of its own accord--as it would, for example, the words of Torah themselves to dissipate nearby demons--but rather by "draw[ing] forth the flow of perfect life from Torah." (152) R. Nahum continues here with the ancient idea of 613 commandments referring to 613 "limbs or sinews," and the explanation, discussed at length below, that studying a commandment is equivalent to doing it. So, if you study each one, you gain Torah through every limb. Moreover, "One who cleaves to Ein Sof by means of the Torah," puts himself on a higher 'rung' from judgment, and thus is immune from its ill effects. (154)
It is clear how this theurgical (by means of devekut) power of Torah study can lead to more significant (possibly worldly) benefits, and indeed R. Nahum says that it does. Back in Bereshit II, R. Nahum says that the Torah scholar is "liberated from the angel of death, as we have found in the cases of various Talmudic sages and also of King David -- while they were studying Torah, the angel of death had no power over them." (62) This seems understandable only in the light of the particular nature of knowledge of Torah as unification with the eternal deity, as we discussed. R. Nahum makes the claim, astonishing if we are to take it at all literally, that Torah study leads to immortality, on the basis that it is, in a sense, unification with unification, that discovering the truth that all is one in Gcd in some way makes it (more) so.
Here, I believe, lies an ambiguity in R. Nahum's thought. On the one hand, we can argue that when a person recognizes he has no existence independent from Gcd, he/she realizes what has been the case all along. This realization may indeed cause him to behave more piously, and act as if constantly in communio with Gcd. But it does not change the fact that he depends utterly on Gcd. On the other hand, one could argue based on passages like those under discussion here, that in fact some actual change does take place in the soul of the individual when it realizes its origins are Gcd. It seems reasonable to infer from phrases like 'he is liberated from the angel of death' that an actual yoke has been lifted, and he will not die. The counterargument that this 'yoke' is only a psychological one fails, to me, in that R. Nahum continues "while they were studying Torah the angel of death had no power over them." (Ibid.) This is no mere psychological phenomenon, that the hasid is somehow content and at peace with his mortality and thus transcends it. It seems that R. Nahum is making the more radical claim, that Torah study actually makes one immortal, that it does change the situation, as it were. Earlier, as discussed above, R. Nahum says that Torah is the means by which the shechinah can dwell within a person. If this is the case, it seems to me plausible to accept the strong reading of R. Nahum's immortality claim.
Even if we spiritualize this idea, or put immortality off until the next world, the idea is still a fairly radical one, and again one which departs from mitnaggdic Jewish theodicy. Immortality is not attained by Torah study, but rather by good deeds, by whose merit the righteous live forever. And while it is true that Torah study was occasionally championed as the greatest human activity ('Talmud Torah k'neged kulam,' for example, if one is really necessary), R. Nahum takes this stature to a much greater extreme than most: not only is it the greatest human activity, but, in its unificatory powers (for both the hasid in unio mystica and the Divine in sefirotic shlemut) it is the apotheosis of the human itself. "You will merit to be united with all the rungs and to raise them up," he writes. (76)
A third, more blatantly corporeal, benefit to be derived from Torah study is protection from one's enemies. R. Nahum in Vayetze V cites a Talmudic (Gittin 7a) story of Rabbi Eleazar advising Mar Ukva to achieve victory over his enemies not by "turning them over to the civil authorities" but by going "to the House of Study over them morning and evening, and they will be destroyed on their own." (218) R. Nahum says that "The Ba'al Shem Tov interpreted this passage in accord with what we have taught... if you go to the House of Study morning and evening, bearing them in mind, the judgment forces in those enemies will be sweetened." (Ibid.) What happens in the House of Study is that "you and your words will be raised up to the World of Thought, that place where there is no judgment... Then you, along with those fallen forces that had become enemies, will be drawn into the good." (219) Since, as we recall, Torah study lifts one up to the level of Hokhmah, Binah, and Daat, this elevates the studier above the level where the attribute of Gevurah is operating, and he is thus safe from it. Moreover, the "fallen forces" of his enemies are not vanquished (that would imply they are evil, which R. Nahum does not believe in) but rather returned to their good origins. Indeed, this could work on a national level: "Were Israel to have full faith in the power of mind [!] and apply it to Torah study with proper devotion, they would uplift and transform all such judgments into pure good." (221) This is how R. Nahum interprets Jacob's dream: that the forces rising and descending were being 'transformed' into good. Once more, this ties in with what we can argue is the central thesis of Hasidism: the ultimate unity of all in Gcd and the nonexistence of such things as evil--"one has to bring to the Torah or binah all those gevurah forces of the left side, so that they be sweetened and become good." (Bereshit IV, p.74)
A fourth personal benefit is one which is less corporeal: the
unification of one's own mind. In the Kabbalistic system, the
microcosm and macrocosm are both analogous and interrelated; "The
cosmos, time, and the human soul are all structured in the same
way," R. Nahum says. (Vayishlach I, p. 255) And, yet more
convincingly, "This is the Torah: man. (Numbers 19:14) Torah comes
from divine wisdom, the World of Thought. It has a fully laid out
form, consisting of 248 positive commandments and 365 prohibitions.
Since man is derived from Torah as his spiritual source, he too has
248 limbs and 365 sinews, even in his physical form." (Toledot IV,
p. 185) The morphism is also an active relationship: What occurs
here has its attendant on high, and in the Hasidic reading of that
system, they are ultimately one and the same. So any unification
of the latter can be said to effect a unification in the former.
Thus, if Torah study unifies the godhead, it can also unify in the
Hasid his own intellecutal faculties. Without even going into this
philosophical footwork, R. Nahum says clearly that a process of
self-integration takes place during Torah study:
When a person looks into His Torah [a remarkable phrase in itself],
seeing Gcd's hokhmah, and attains a degree of binah, these two
qualities are joined together in him as 'two companions who never
part,' just as they are above. Then his daat is expanded, as the
flow of divine life comes forth from the source, the 'well of
living waters,' source of life.
(Vayetze VIII, 230)
Given that the human is defined by his intellection, this self-integration is, of course, a remarkable 'benefit' to Torah study. And the powers of intellect are not unified only with themselves, but also with their supernal counterparts, which -- through the realization of Torah -- the Hasid understands to completely include the personal. Finally, one can conjecture (and purely conjecture: there is no direct reference to it in the text) that if R. Nahum, like R. Schneur Zalman, is working within a Maimonidean framework, the unification of one's self with Gcd's process of knowing also unifies one's self with His knower-ness and knowledge. R. Nahum does not elaborate on this last point at all, either in a Maimonidean or neo-Logos context, yet for those who would like to take a magical-theurgical reading of Hasidic texts, unifying one's intellect with that Intellect which knows All can yield great abilities indeed. Still, I want to emphasize that this last point is only a conjecture, albeit one which seems to follow necessarily from R. Nahum's ideas.
There are yet greater benefits to be derived from Torah study,
according what R. Nagum does say, however. Namely: the coming of
the messiah and the unification of the Gcdhead. "Having now reached
the higher state and the broadening of mind," R. Nahum writes, "one
is no longer subject to exile." (62) While this claim may be read
in purely psychological terms (I do not feel like I am in exile,
because I am one with Gcd) or spiritual ones (I am not really in
exile, because really what counts is the spirit, and I am one with
Gcd), R. Nahum is elsewhere more clear that the actual coming of
the Messiah is fomented by the study of Torah, not only in its
theological/unification sense but in its historical sense as well.
Continuing a passage quoted two paragraphs ago, he says in Vayetze
V that
In the exile of Israel, some of those judging forces from above take on the form of nations that bring us suffering. Were Israel to have full faith in the power of mind, and apply it to Torah study with proper devotion, they would uplift and transform all such judgments into pure good... it is only because our faith is imperfect that the exile lasts so long... The true meaning of exile, then, is that mind is in exile because it is not employed properly in the service of Gcd. (221)
The redemption of Israel and unification of the world (other nations will in fact take part in serving Gcd after the Messiah, according to R. Nahum, and all will be as spirit, [p.224]) is dependent only on proper Torah study by all of Israel. The universalist theme continues, in that "Mind and awareness will be so increased that 'everyone will point with his finger and say: 'This is the Lord for whom we have hoped!'" (Bereshit II, p. 58, quoting Ta'anit 31a) and it too is linked with awareness and intellection. What defines the Messianic age is Torah, and what will bring it about is Torah.
In some contradiction to this, R. Nahum writes in Vayera VI
that "Of course we can never fully understand the Torah's secrets
before messiah comes... only of that time it has been said, 'Earth
will be filled with knowledge of the Lcrd.' (Isaiah 11:9)" (139)
However, I think that if we keep in mind the fact that the Torah
study advocated by R. Nahum appears to be more one of cleaving to
letters than understanding secrets, this tension lessens somewhat.
After all, R. Nahum says "we may still interpret it [the Torah]
according to PaRDeS." (Ibid. Green renders it, I think
misleadingly, 'in a multiplicity of ways.') He then goes on to
talk about service of Gcd and about the 'benoni,' he who is neither
tzaddik nor
More typical of R. Nahum's view of Torah are those occasions on which he claims that Torah study will repair the breach between Gcd and the shechinah, which is of course the essence of the eschatology of post-Lurianic mystical thought. "Torah study for its own sake unites these two, heaven and earth, Gcd and shechinah," he says early on. (Bereshit VI, p. 85) And the Torah, as the upper sefirot of the Gcdhead, is itself their unification, insofar as it is manifest only through all of them. In short, the study of the Torah by Israel is that which causes the return of the shechinah's exile, just as it does Israel's own. Not only is a divine unification brought about; as discussed above, a unification of the Hasid with the Divine (or the divine wisdom) takes place, and he becomes a receptacle -- the metaphor of a bird's nest is used in Bereshit IV and that of the Throne of Glory in Lekh Lecha VIII -- for Gcd Himself, bringing the transcendent into the world.
Yet one passage which affirms this deo-unificatory power of
Torah study also makes the point that there is something yet
greater--the only time (to my knowledge) that R. Nahum implies that
something is greater than Torah study. That greater activity is,
perhaps surprisingly, "service of Gcd through business dealings,"
(238) which uplift sparks from the other side to unite them with
Gcd.
How is this service greater than the study of Torah? He who studies Torah effects a unification [of Gcd with] something that is already elevated; the divine joy is greater when holy life is found in the raising up of the lowly. In this sense such service is greater than that of study. (Ibid.)
This is to me a remarkable passage, and Green's suggestion that it is part of a special set of homilies intended for a mass audience (204) is to me beside the point, just as was his suggestion that the orientation toward Torah study was because of an elite, scholarly intended audience. Again, if we recall the Hasidic/Kabbalistic theological framework within which R. Nahum is writing, the point is a logical one: the only action greater than integration of the Divine is returning the fallen sparks to it.
Even this, however, is occasionally referred to in terms of Torah. We find in Vayetze I R. Nahum's approval (or defense?) of a Biblical example of uplifting the sparks from a fallen source, Jacob's going to live with Lavan: "Before Jacob went to Laban there had been as yet no revelation of this mind or of Torah; all was still hidden. Various elements of the Torah lay scattered about in the lower universe, because no such revelation had yet taken place.
In the house of Laban too there were elements of
Torah..." (205) (It is interesting that the process of uplifting
the sparks is linked here to education of the unenlightened --
something the Hasidim, and R. Nahum in particular, were becoming
known for.) That the uplifting of sparks is described this way is
significant in two ways. First, it shows that R. Nahum's
Torah-is-Gcd statements are neither flippant nor trivial. The
identification is carried through even here, as R. Nahum plugs in
'Torah' for 'Gcd's light' in the Lurianic formula. Second, it
suggests that even the one activity that R. Nahum elsewhere says is
superior to Torah study, is itself intimately bound up with Torah.
In fact, given the reference to Jacob as teaching Torah, we might
think there is no "gashmiut" at all, that he went solely as a
teacher, were it not for discussion of "purifications," and
specific actions of Jacob. (206) Still, the Vayetze I discourse is
full of phrases like "[Jacob] removed the obstacle that blocks the
wellspring of living waters, the Roots of Torah that were hidden
there," and "bring forth those roots of Torah," which imply that he
was actually carrying out some sort of revelation, not only
This emphasis on the greatness of uplifting evil is not
entirely unexpected, since good is defined as the process of
becoming good, a greater amount of good is done when something is
elevated a further distance. Obviously, this doctrine has
consequences far beyond the scope of this paper, in the realms of
avodah b'hipukh and b'gashmiut, here elevated to the highest
position of all human activities. There is a catch worth
mentioning, however, and that is that
One still has to study Torah in order to know how to go about this uplifting, as well as for various other reasons; Torah remains the root. But service of Gcd through business dealings and other lowly things is also a form of Torah; without Torah one never would come to it... Torah exists in all things, since Gcd and His Torah are one. (Ibid.)
Has R. Nahum undermined his own (alleged) populism? First, he has indeed sanctified the everyday acts of the hasid, by claiming that, if done with the right intentions, they are bringing about the highest form of redemption. But now, he has taken the possibility of cultivating that 'right intention' away from all but the learned. And then at the end of the above passage, he seems to imply that, even if you don't have scholarly learning, you are interacting with the Torah all of the time, because of Gcd's/the Torah's immanence and omnipresence (panenlogoism?). Elsewhere, R. Nahum is yet more cautious about recommending 'falling and rising' for everyone: "Each time he [the righteous] falls... he rises to yet a higher rung. This may be true of the zaddik, but is not true of everyone." (Vayetze VI; p. 225) He continues there to explain that the non-tzaddic, not being "bound" to Gcd, is in danger of falling and not returning, and so only the tzaddik can indulge this.
Nonetheless, even if avodah b'hipukh (R. Nahum does not use
this term) is only for the elite, avodah b'gashmiyut seems
available, and indeed unavoidable, for the many. There seems to me
to be here a tension between R. Nahum's desire to say on the one
hand that business dealings are the holiest of endeavors and on the
other hand that actually, such
R. Nahum's ideas on Torah and reality, as I have tried to
show, are worded quite strongly in the Meor, and we can identify
several ways in which they differ from both those we might loosely
label as "traditional," i.e. non-Hasidic, post-Lurianic
Kabbalistic, and other Hasidic teachings. With regard to the
former, R. Nahum has opened himself up to Mittnagdic criticisms of
misplaced priorities. They might agree that Torah is in some way
the blueprint for creation. But a non-Hasidic source would insist
that we must observe the commandments of the Torah in order to
actualize it, whereas R. Nahum emphasizes that Torah study, if, as
we have seen, for "its own sake" (e.g. page 51), is central. He
thus appears to leave himself vulnerable to the common Mitnaggdic
charge that the Hasidim are lax in there observance of the mitzvot
because their priorities are elsewhere. Here again, a Mitnaggid
might say, is a Hasid shirking off his responsibilities in the name
of some mystical activity. However, R. Nahum has anticipated this
point. A crucial passage in the Meor for understanding his
principle of Torah study can be found in Hayye Sarah II. There, R.
Nahum states:
When he fulfills the Torah with all of its commandments, both positive and negative... life flows from each commandment into its parallel limb or niew in him. Even though we cannot fulfill all of the commandments in deed, we can certainly do so in word. Thus have the rabbis said: "Whoever studies the teachings concerning the burnt-offering, it is as though he had offered it." [Menahot 110a] The same is true of all the other commandments; as long as the person himself is prepared to fulfill them... then the spoken word considered the mitzvah is taken as a deed. (152)
Through this statement, R. Nahum avoids the charge that he is not
giving the mitzvot their due, because the study of Torah (and once
more, it is specifically study, not 'a life of Torah') he advocates
is in fact equivalent to performing the mitzvot. Is this the
motivating force behind all of the Torah rhetoric we have examined
in the Meor? It seems to me, since this sort of passage only
occurs once in a text rife with statements about Torah study, that
this is not the case. Given the preponderance of
quasi-philosophical discussion of the importance of Torah study,
the constant interpretation of Biblical texts as advocating it as
the highest good, I cannot think that this one passage, as it were,
'came first.' Instead, I think R. Nahum is making sure all the
bases are covered, so that he can get on with his discussion of
immersion in Torah. For him, Torah is the means to union, and yet
he has the problem that Talmud Torah is only one of 613+
commandments Israel must observe. R. Nahum -- again not so much
innovating as drawing yet another conceptual strand into his
remarkably systemic homily -- reverses the situation by saying that
Torah study is
Moreover,R. Nahum's definitive endorsement of Torah study as the means to devekut seems to leave little room for the more frequent Hasidic means to that end, namely prayer. Perhaps, as Arthur Green has suggested, this is because much of Meor Einayim was intended for a learned audience, and not the common hasid. Yet even if this is the case, it seems remarkable that Torah study becomes of paramount importance and that it, not ecstatic or contemplative prayer, is the means of unifying and unifying with the Divinity: regardless of motive, the principle is remarkable. In fact, prayer appears as a significant factor by itself only once in the entire Meor, in Hayye Sarah V. And even here, its efficacy is not in attaining devekut but in recognizing one's shortcomings: "There are... three things that bring a person's sin to the fore, and one of them is contemplative prayer." (162) Contemplative prayer as a path towards humility does thus indirectly contribute to achieving oneness with the Divine, but it is not the chief vehicle to it, as it is in numerous other sources. Another time prayer appears, it performs a similarly indirect role, purifying the the individual. "This is what our worship is about: to purify these qualities within us from their own evil and to raise them up to Gcd by using them in the act of His service." (Lekh Lekha V, on 'The souls which they had made in Haran,' p. 114) And a third time prayer appears it is said that "By mentioning the twenty-two letters of the alphabet in prayer, the flow of divine blessing is called forth." (Noah V, p. 100)
Yet only one time does prayer appear in the Meor as a means to ultimate wisdom-"A person who studies Torah or prays with both love and fear can.. create a channel in his mind and speech so that the eternal found of wisdom may flow into him." (217) Obviously, the almost parenthetical position of 'prayer' is striking, and the ensuing lines talk only about study, not about prayer. Finally, this remark comes right after R. Nahum's statement, quoted above, that one can effect divine unification "without understanding." (Ibid.) Whether prayer is this relative ignorance or not, it certainly receives relatively little attention in this Hasidic text.
Meor Einayim is, I have tried to suggest, an enigmatic work, in that it operates on several levels at once, playing an almost Maimonidean sleight-of-hand with the reader, not to mention being organized less around themes than around linguistic opportunities in Torah portions to explain ideas. Of course, the first characteristic is itself highly surprising, as we would expect a collection of homilies to be straightforward and plainly-worded. What pedagogical or political motivations R. Nahum may have had for structuring his work in this way are open for speculation, but one methodological point on which I would like to conclude is the ques`ion of whether this work can be defined as a 'mystical text.' Gruenwald, Dan and others have noted the inappropriateness of such Christian-centered labels on Jewish practices and texts, trying to develop criteria by which we might still decide if the latter fit into the former. As scholars debate the accuracy of such schema, one is given to wonder if the mystic/non-mystic writers would have made any sense of them at all.
My own opinion is that the question of 'Is it mysticism' is itself problematized by R. Nahum's ideas. If all of life is to be viewed as Gcd, if every action uplifts holy sparks, then we have none of the division into 'mystical' and 'non-mystical' that most Christian sources, for example, possess. Yes, there are mystical and kabbalistic elements running through the text. And insofar as the knowledge around which the life of the hasid is to be built is to some extent mystical (resulting from emptying contemplation; an indwelling of the Divine Presence in the mind/soul of the hasid; holistic, ultimate, transrational, etc.), then indeed those Hasidim who follow the teachings of the Meor can be said to be a community of mystics. And as those teachings are coupled with anti-elitism and a ready understandability for the common hasid (perhaps here is the reason for the multi-layeredness of the text?), we have the vision of Hasidism as populist mysticism that has so captured the imagination of latter-day thinkers. Nonetheless, I think it more productive to entertain R. Nahum's claims more seriously and question whether the erection of boundaries such as 'mystical' or 'non-mystical' is an erroneous non-monotheism, itself the antithesis of the whole-oriented awareness he is trying to cultivate.
References to the Tanya of R. Schneur Zalman of Liady are from the 1981 Kehot Publication Society edition (trans. Nissim Mindel).
As this is paper was intended to be an independent discussion of a Hasidic text, I have tried to keep secondary sources to a minimum. Those referenced in the paper are:
Green, Arthur, Introductory notes, in Meor Einayim, cited above.
Weiss, Joseph, "Torah Study in Early Hasidism" in
the reference to Wittgenstein refers primarily to
Back to library.
Back to homepage.
Email
feedback to the author.