History of the Jews, Vol. 4 (of 6)

by Heinrich Graetz

Our souls, he says, reflect the close connection between the finite and the infinite, and, therefore, have a manifold character. The whole of the soul material to appear in temporal life was created with Adam, but each soul, according to its higher or lower degree, was fashioned in, from, or with the first man, out of high or low organs and forms. Accordingly, there are souls of the brain, the eyes, the hands, and the feet. Each of these must be regarded as an effluence, or spark (Nizuz), from Adam. By the first sin of the first man—for the Kabbala finds original sin necessary for its fanciful creations—the higher and the lower, the superior and the inferior souls, good and evil, became confused and mingled together. Even the purest beings thereby received an admixture of evil and the devilish element of the "husk" (Kelifa). But the moral order of the world, or the purification of the first man, cannot be brought about till the consequences of original sin, the confusion of good and evil, are obliterated and removed. From the most evil part of the soul material emanates the heathen world; the people of Israel, on the other hand, come from the good part. But the former are not quite without an admixture of the original good, while the latter are not free from an admixture of the corrupt and demoniac. This imperfection gives the continual impulse towards sin, and hinders the chosen fragment of the human race from following the law of God, the Torah. The Messianic period will put an end to the disturbance of divine order arising from the first sin, or abolish the disorder which has since crept in, and will introduce, or see introduced, the divinity of the world. Therefore, a complete separation of good from evil must take place, and this can only happen through Israel, if it or each of its members will lose or cast away the admixture of evil. For this purpose, men's souls (especially those of the Israelites) have to wander through the bodies of men and animals, even through rivers, wood, and stones. The doctrine of the transmigration of souls forms the center and basis of Lurya's Kabbala, but he has a peculiar development of the idea. According to this theory even the souls of the pious must suffer transmigration, since not even they are free from the taint of evil; there is none righteous upon earth, who does only good, and sins not. In this way, Lurya solved the difficulty, which former Kabbalist writers could not overcome.

But this separation of the good and evil elements in the world's soul material, the expiation and obliteration of original sin, or the restoration of the divine order in Adam, would require a long series of ages, owing to the impulse towards sin continually present. There are, however, means of hastening this process, and this was the really original doctrine that Lurya enunciated. Besides the transmigration of our souls, sinful and subject to demoniac forces as they are, there is another mode of expiation, the elevation or impregnation of the soul (Ibbur, superfœtatio). If a purified soul has neglected various religious duties here on earth, or has had no opportunity of fulfilling them, it must return to the earthly life, attach itself to the soul of a living human being, and unite and coalesce with it in order to retrieve this neglect. Or again, the departed spirits of men freed from sin appear again on earth to support the weak and wavering souls which cannot attain to good by their own efforts, strengthen them and lead them to the final goal. These pure spirits combine with weaker souls still struggling, and form a union with them, provided that they have some affinity with one another, i. e., if they originate from the same spark or organ of Adam, since as a rule only similar (homogeneous) souls attract each other, while on the other hand dissimilar (heterogeneous) souls repel each other. According to this theory the banishment and dispersion of Israel have for their purpose the salvation of the world or of men's souls. The purified spirits of pious Israelites unite with the souls of men of other nationalities in order to free them from the demoniacal impurities that possess them.

Isaac Lurya imagined a complete system of the transmigration and combination of souls. It also seemed to him important to know the sex of a soul, for feminine souls are found in masculine bodies, and vice versâ, according to the transmigration and attraction in each case. It is especially important in contracting a marriage to know whether the souls of man and wife harmonize with each other in respect of origin and degree. By means of this secret the visionary of Cairo expected to solve the other mystery, namely, how good spirits may be conjured down from heaven, and in a measure compelled to enter the bodies of living men, and thus made to divulge revelations of the world beyond. Hereby he believed that he held the key to the kingdom of the Messiah and the regeneration of the world. Lurya also believed that he possessed the soul of the Messiah of the branch of Joseph, and that he had a Messianic mission. He saw spirits everywhere, and heard their whispers in the rushing of the waters, the movements of the trees and grass, in the song or twittering of birds, even in the flickering of flames. He saw how at death the souls were set free from the body, how they hovered in the air, or rose out of their graves. He held intimate intercourse with the saints of the Bible, the Talmud, and with the rabbis, in particular with Simon bar Yochaï. In short, Lurya was a ghost-seer and raiser of the dead, a second Abraham Abulafia, or Solomon Molcho, arousing hopes of the coming of the Messiah by Kabbalistic jugglery, but with all this fanaticism he was sober and sophistical. He introduced the casuistry of the Talmud into the Kabbala.

In Egypt, Isaac Lurya found little or no favor with his labyrinth of higher worlds and his theories of creation and redemption. To realize his scheme of redemption he migrated with his wife and child to Safet, the Jerusalem of mysticism, where the mystic doctrine flourished, and the Zohar, the spurious work of Moses de Leon, was exalted to the same level as the Law of Moses ben Amram. Almost the whole college of rabbis and the chief leaders of Safet were Kabbalists. This place was at the time a flourishing city inhabited only by Jews. The members of the community knew little of oppression or the cares of life, and so the Kabbalists could spin mystical theories to their hearts' content. They felt as safe under the favor that the Jewish Duke of Naxos found with the sultan, as if in a state of their own, politically independent. The Kabbalists had gone so far in their imitation of Catholicism that they had adopted auricular confession and the adoration of martyrs. And this was the stage on which Lurya, the creator of the new Kabbala, was to originate new aberrations.

At first (about 1569), he appears to have received little attention in the city of Kabbalists. Only through his acquaintance and connection with a still greater visionary, perhaps not quite so honest as himself, did he become a person of consequence, and infect everyone with his waking dreams. This man was the Italian Chayim Vital Calabrese (born 1543, died 1620), whose father, a copyist of the scrolls of the Law, had traveled to Palestine from Italy. Vital had learned nothing thoroughly in his younger days; he had only gained a smattering of the Talmud and mystic lore. He possessed a wild, extravagant imagination, and a decided inclination for adventure and sensation. For two years and a half Vital had occupied his time with alchemy and the art of making gold. From this mystic art he turned to Lurya's Kabbala. It is not known which of these two men first sought the other, but it is certain that each, without wishing it, deceived the other. Together they visited desolate places and graves, particularly the grave of Simon bar Yochaï, the feigned author of the Zohar, in Meïron. This was Lurya's favorite spot, because there he fancied he could draw down upon himself the spirit of this supposed chief of the mystics. Now and again Lurya sent forth his disciple to conjure up spirits, and for this purpose delivered to him certain formulas made up of the transposed letters of the name of the Deity. Of course, evil spirits fled before Vital's gaze, whilst good spirits attached themselves to him, and communicated their secrets.

It was Vital who spread sensational reports concerning the extraordinary, almost divine gifts of his master, and of his power over departed and living souls; doing so, it appears, with an artful calculation of effect and publicity. Lurya, once so isolated, now found himself surrounded by crowds of visitors; Kabbalists, young and old, came to listen to the new revelation. Several disciples attached themselves to him, and he communicated to them his confused thoughts, assigned to each the original Adamite soul that dwelt in him, the transmigrations which it had undergone before its present corporeal existence, and its functions on earth. It never occurred to these people, already enmeshed in the Kabbalistic net, to doubt the truth of these communications. The disciples that gathered round him Lurya formed into two classes: the "initiated" and the "novices."

Mystical conversations and notes, the interviewing and summoning of spirits, formed the occupation of Lurya and his followers. In short, Lurya was on the eve of founding a new Jewish sect. On the Sabbath he dressed in white, and wore a fourfold garment to symbolize the four letters of the name of God. The underlying fact of all his revelations and exertions was that he was the Messiah of the race of Joseph, the forerunner of the Messiah of David's line. This, however, he only furtively hinted to his disciples. His delusion was that the Messianic period would commence at the beginning of the second half of the second period of a thousand years since the destruction of the Temple, i. e., in 1568.

The sudden death of the mystic, at the age of thirty-eight, conduced still more to his glorification. Death is wont to transfigure natures like his, and veneration for them increases as years roll on. With Eastern exaggeration, his disciples regarded him as even more than a worker of wonders; they called him the "Holy and Divine," and sought, for their own glory, to win adherents for him and his visionary extravagances. They declared that, if Lurya could only have lived five years longer, he would have improved the world so effectually, that the Messianic period would certainly have begun. Abraham Abulafia, who had evolved a Kabbalistic medley from his own consciousness, was declared a heretic, and persecuted. Isaac Lurya, who had done the same thing with the Zohar as a foundation, was almost deified.

After Lurya's death, Vital Calabrese came to the fore. He immediately usurped a kind of authority over his fellow-disciples, pretended that Lurya on his deathbed had appointed him his successor, and, in feigned obedience to a dying request of his master, took away from them the written notes given them by Lurya. Vital let it be understood that he was the Messiah of the race of Joseph. However, some disciples did not pay any attention to this, and forthwith taught in various countries what they had received from Lurya himself. This was especially done by Israel Saruk in Italy, whither he had traveled.

The harm that the Kabbalistic doctrines of Lurya caused in Jewish circles is inexpressible. Judaism became surrounded with so thick a husk of mysticism, that it has not even yet succeeded in entirely freeing itself, and showing its true kernel. Through Lurya's influence there was formed, side by side with the Judaism of the Talmud and the rabbis, a Judaism of the Zohar and the Kabbala. For it was due to him that the spurious Zohar was placed upon a level with, indeed higher than, the Holy Scriptures and the Talmud.