WHEN GOD gets small cont.

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This source sheet is a continutation of https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/380865

Exiles from Spain

The principal founders of the new center were Spanish exiles , but they were soon joined by enthusiasts from other communities , until Safed became a kind of miniature distillation of the whole Jewish Diaspora . ... The doctrines developed in the schools of Safed apparently embodied some fundamental and universal Jewish quality that transcended all local variations , some kind of quintessential historical experience of Jewry in exile , for otherwise they would hardly have succeeded in opening up a new dimension to the traditional universe of Jewish religiosity..

The contribution of the kabbalah to the religious revival that followed upon the expulsion from Spain can be adequately appreciated only by paying attention to its novel attitude toward the messianic tradition. ... the author of the Zohar had invested the old concept of the “ exile of the Shekhinah , ” based on the Talmudic saying that wherever Israel is exiled, the Shekhinah goes with it.

Kabbalism triumphed because it provided a valid answer to the great problems of the time . To a generation for which the facts of exile and the precariousness of existence in it had become a most pressing and cruel problem , kabbalism could give an answer unparalleled in breadth and in depth of vision . The kabbalistic answer illuminated the significance of exile and redemption and accounted for the unique historical situation of Israel within the wider , in fact cosmic , context of creation itself.

But the decisive innovation , that which held the secret of the Lurianic appeal to the age , was the transposition of the central concepts of exile and redemption from the historical to a cosmic and even divine plane . The eschatological vision of redemption from oppression by the gentiles widened in scope to include not only the whole of creation but even the divine realm . Exile and redemption are the two poles of the axis around which the Lurianic system revolves ; viewed in a dimension of depth , they now stand out as numinous symbols of a spiritual reality of which historical exile and redemption are merely the concrete expression ... the basic notions.. which contain , in nuce , as it were , the whole of Lurianic kabbalah . These are the notions of “ retraction , ” the “ breaking of the vessels , ” “ restoration ” (or tiqqun) , and the “ raising of the sparks . ”

Shabatai Tzi, Gershom Scholem

There is ruthlessness toward Himself , for He exiled Himself from boundless infinity to a more concentrated infinity.

There is a profound inward Galut , not the Galut of one of the creatures but of God Himself , who limited Himself and thereby made place for the universe

The Messianic Idea In Judaism, GS

Emanation to Tzimzum

The process of creation , as seen by the early kabbalists unfolds in progressive stages of a gradually coarsening , that is , materializing , “ light . ” It is essentially a one - way process , from God to the world and man.

For the kabbalists of Safed things were not quite so simple and straightforward. Even before Luria the theory of emanation had become much more complicated . On every level and at every stage of emanation we find not only the “ straight , ” “ direct light ” of the primary ray of emanation , but also its reverse , the “ reflected light ,”

Luria added paradox to dialectic when he formulated his doctrine of ṣimṣum , or “ retraction ” or “ withdrawal.” According to this doctrine , the first act of the Creator was not His revelation of Himself to something outside . Far from being a procession outward , or a “ going out , ” of His hidden self , the first step was , rather , a withdrawal or retreat. God withdrew “ from Himself into Himself , ” and by this act , abandoning a region within Himself to emptiness, He made room for the worlds to be. In relation to the infinite En-Sof this space was no more than an infinitesimal point , but in relation to creation it was the whole of cosmic space.

The kabbalists did not explicitly say that the act of ṣimṣum was a divine type and prefiguration of the exile , though the analogy seems obvious . God , instead of revealing Himself , “ banishes ” and withdraws Himself into the hidden seclusion of His essence . Yet it is surely no accident that the doctrine of ṣimṣum , the first inklings of which appeared among the kabbalists of Gerona in the thirteenth century , struck root and blossomed only at a later period , when the problem of exile had become central to religious consciousness...

The breaking of the vessels was thus an event that took place within the Deity itself . Its repercussions are manifest in every single detail of Lurianic cosmology . But for the breaking of the vessels , everything would have occupied its rightful and appointed place . Now everything is out of joint.

That which should have occupied its appointed and appropriate place has moved somewhere else . However , this situation of not being where one ought to be , namely , of being removed from one’s rightful place , is what is meant by the term “ exile . ” In fact , since the breaking of the vessels , exile is the fundamental and exclusive — albeit hidden — mode of all existence . In Lurianism the historical notion of exile had become a cosmic symbol.

Only by their breaking could the divine configurations [ parṣufim ] be perfected.. Tiqqun , meaning “ mending , ” “ restoration , ” or “ reintegration , ” is the process by which the ideal order is restored , but the lights of the divine emanation are incapable of bringing it about by themselves. God in His wisdom allotted this task to man , who thus has to play a major part in the great drama of restitution and tiqqun.

Exile , therefore , had its reason , and this reason was rooted in the nature of creation . There is something startlingly novel about this kabbalistic explanation which regarded exile not merely as a test of our faith or punishment for our sins , but first and foremost as a mission.

Disruptive Escatology

Jewish Messianism is in its origins and by its nature — this cannot be sufficiently emphasized — a theory of catastrophe.

The apocalyptists have always cherished a pessimistic view of the world . Their optimism , their hope , is not directed to what history will bring forth , but to that which will arise in its ruin , free at last and undisguised.

that there are deeds which , as it were , help to bring about the redemption , somewhat like a midwife at a birth. ... This catastrophic character of the redemption , which is essential to the apocalyptic conception , is pictured in all of these texts and traditions in glaring images . It finds manifold expression : in world wars and revolutions , in epidemics , famine , and economic catastrophe ; but to an equal degree in apostasy and the desecration of God’s name , in forgetting of the Torah and the upsetting of all moral order to the point of dissolving the laws of nature.

the anarchic element is also joined by the antinomian potentialities which are latent in Messianic utopianism.

TMIIJ (The Messianic Idea In Judaism)

Messianic legend indulges in uninhibited fantasies about the catastrophic aspects of redemption .

There is no continuity between the present and the messianic era ; the latter is not the fruit of previous developments , let alone of a gradual evolution.

Far from being the result of historical process , redemption arises on the ruins of history , which collapses amid the “ birth pangs ” of the messianic age . The bitter experience of many generations that had tasted the heavy yoke of alien rule , oppression , and humiliation was not likely to mitigate the violence of this type of eschatology , whose roots go back to the apocalyptic literature of the period of the Second Temple . It has been one of the strangest errors of the modern Wissenschaft des Judentums to deny the continuity of Jewish apocalypticism . ... The endeavors of leading scholars to dissociate apocalyptic from rabbinic Judaism and to associate it exclusively with Christianity have contributed much to the modern falsification of Jewish history and to the concealment of some of its most dynamic forces , both constructive and destructive.

"Jewish and European Enlightenment subjected the Messianic idea to an ever advancing secularization Messianism became tied up with the idea of the eternal progress and infinite task of humanity perfecting itself." TMIIJ, GS

The process of tiqqun , though essentially constructive , is thus not without destructive aspects.. The cosmic redemption of the raising of the sparks merges with the national redemption..

The final stages of tiqqun are thus the hardest of all , and it is in connection with them that the Lurianic writings have preserved many of the catastrophic traits of apocalyptic Haggadah. the kabbalists ’ battle for hastening the “ end . ”

Conflict with Rabbinic Judaism (and traditional ethics)

As long as the messianic hope existed in the abstract , real for the imagination only , the gap between traditional law and “ messianic law ” was relatively easy to bridge ... But whenever messianic hopes assumed actuality, the tension with regard to rabbinic tradition became manifest. .... Messianic movements would often produce individuals with sufficient charismatic authority to challenge the established authority of rabbinic Judaism.

The view that kabbalists were beyond apocalyptic catastrophe is eloquent testimony to a sense of superiority that undoubtedly acted as a powerful factor in the propagation of kabbalistic doctrines .

The specific objects of his indignation are the wealthy leaders of the community , the proud elders who exploit their position of power. even when it concerns the Law of the Torah ; and the rabbis and judges are not strong enough to make the Law of the Torah prevail … because the earth is filled with violence . ”

The Identity of the Messiah and Messianic era less important than the process...

The most surprising feature of this system , with its characteristic eschatological tension , is the feebleness of its image of the messiah. ...in this process the messiah himself plays a pale and insignificant role . Except for the highly developed and firmly established tradition of the messiah , perhaps the kabbalists would have dispensed with him altogether.

Shabatai Tzvi, GS

It is therefore not surprising that little importance is given to the human personality of the Messiah in Lurianic literature , for the Kabbalists had no special need of a personal Messiah .

The Messianic Idea In Judaism, GS

The Challenge of (anti-Messianic) Zionism

the price demanded by Messianism , the price which the Jewish people has had to pay out of its own substance for this idea which it handed over to the world . The magnitude of the Messianic idea corresponds to the endless powerlessness in Jewish history during all the centuries of exile , when it was unprepared to come forward onto the plane of world history . There’s something preliminary , something provisional about Jewish history ; hence its inability to give of itself entirely . For the Messianic idea is not only consolation and hope . Every attempt to realize it tears open the abysses which lead each of its manifestations ad absurdum . There is something grand about living in hope , but at the same time there is something profoundly unreal about it . It diminishes the singular worth of the individual , and he can never fulfill himself , because the incompleteness of his endeavors eliminates precisely what constitutes its highest value . Thus in Judaism the Messianic idea has compelled a life lived in deferment , in which nothing can be done definitively , nothing can be irrevocably accomplished . One may say , perhaps , the Messianic idea is the real anti - existentialist idea . Precisely understood , there is nothing concrete which can be accomplished by the unredeemed . This makes for the greatness of Messianism , but also for its constitutional weakness . Jewish so - called Existenz possesses a tension that never finds true release ; it never burns itself out . And when in our history it does discharge , then it is foolishly decried ( or , one might say , unmasked ) as “ pseudo - Messianism . ” The blazing landscape of redemption ( as if it were a point of focus ) has concentrated in itself the historical outlook of Judaism.

Little wonder that overtones of Messianism have accompanied the modern Jewish readiness for irrevocable action in the concrete realm , when it set out on the utopian return to Zion . It is a readiness which no longer allows itself to be fed on hopes . Born out of the horror and destruction that was Jewish history in our generation , it is bound to history itself and not to meta - history ; it has not given itself up totally to Messianism . Whether or not Jewish history will be able to endure this entry into the concrete realm without perishing in the crisis of the Messianic claim which has virtually been conjured up — that is the question which out of his great and dangerous past the Jew of this age poses to his present and to his future .

The Messianic Idea In Judaism, Gershom Scholem