Review: Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism

Reading Scholem again from our precarious vantage point in the age of the information revolution, at the moment of the much-trumpeted breaking of a canon, we may detect in his grand evocation of this strange and in many ways quite alien mystical corpus an exemplary pattern of how viable historical change takes place, how the antithetic tensions of life in culture lay against each other without destroying the continuity of the cultural system.

In this regard, Scholem's searching investigation of the twisting paths of Jewish mysticism makes profoundly instructive reading as we approach the millennium. But he also sees sharply that the mystics, impelled by discernible historical circumstances, very often sought to escape the ordeal of history by withdrawing into a realm of ecstasy and, at worst, delusion.

Scholem's magisterial study is hardly intended to promote a nostalgia for mysticism or any illusion that we can embrace it as it was, but he makes us see the essential role it has played in the Jewish story, and indeed in the human story, and he leads us to ponder what other symbolic languages there might be to express our stubborn sense of connection with eternal things.

From the Foreward to Gershom Scholem's Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism
written by Robert Alter
Berkeley, 1995

Gershom Scholem was not a mystic. He was a thorough and compelled educator and researcher who threw himself into an investigation of Jewish mysticism which resulted in Major Trends, a book that is considered to be a major contribution and central tome on the history and nature of the Jewish mystical movements.

Scholem's book is based on the nine Stroock Lectures he presented at the Jewish Institute of Religion in New York in 1938 (Major Trends was published just a few years later) and each chapter stands, more or less, on its own, with just a few strings weaving forward and backward to the other material. The book functions as a whirlwind tour of the history of the various flavors of Jewish mysticism and how they developed, from first century Roman Judea and Merkabah mysticism, through 18th and 19th century and Polish/Ukrainian Chasidism. Suffice it to say, the book covers a vast territory. Unless you are already well versed in the different expressions of Jewish mysticism, don't hope to come away with an easily digested summary of what makes up the different mystic traditions. You can read the book cover to cover, but once you've done so, you'll need to do so again, and then you'll use this book as a reference when exploring one or more of the mystic movements in detail.

My own modest introduction to the Jewish mystic tradition was in reading and reviewing Paul Philip Levertoff's Love and the Messianic Age. Levertoff was a Chasidic Jew who lived in the late 19th and into the mid-20th century and who saw the Gospels, particularly the Gospel of John, as a reflection of his own mystic background as a Chasidim. When I read Levertoff and the FFOZ/Vine of David commentary on his work, I began to see frail glimpses of who the Jewish Messiah is through that unusual and elusive lens and I wanted to see and understand more.

Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism is more; a lot more.

As a non-Jewish Christian and disciple of the Jewish Messiah, I started reading Scholem with an eye on discovering more hidden truths about the Jesus (Yeshua) within his pages and I must say I found those truths...and I didn't.

I have to be careful here. It is easy to find what you're looking for, much like a person panning for gold nuggets, eager to "strike it rich". But does a person searching the river with an eye filled with preconceptions find true gold, or only what looks like gold? That's the dilemma I faced reading Scholem.

I found many dualisms and parallels that seemed to point to Jesus, especially in the earlier mystic traditions, but is he really there? I don't know that I can say "yes" or "no" based on Scholem's rapid and intense coverage of such a broad spectrum of Jewish mysticisms. Right now, I prefer to withhold judgment and to be content learning what there is to learn on Scholem's terms rather than my own. The rest will come, God be willing.

The details of the book are too numerous to document here. I wrote copious notes as I turned each page, but to replicate those notes here would create a novel, not a blog post. The chief benefit of reading Major Trends at this stage of my education is to lay a wide foundation for what comes afterward. I've already started reading my next book, The Way of Kabbalah by Ben Shimon Halevi, and from the very first page, what I had learned from Scholem enabled me to grasp Halevi's description of Kabbalah in a way I couldn't have achieved otherwise (Scholem dedicated two full lectures just to the Zohar).

Scholem seems to leave out no detail or observation as he takes us through history, examining each mystic movement in Judaism. He relates not only the prize, but the peril of pursuing the mystic, and not only the virtues, but the flaws and fallacies of each mystic writer and explorer. As Alter stated in the Foreward, Major Trends is both a Jewish story and a story of human beings striving, sometimes vainly, to pursue God in His "native realm" which lies beyond the boundaries of human perception and existence. Scholem's final lecture ends this way:

The story is not ended, it has not yet become history, and the secret life it holds can break out tomorrow in you or in me. Under what aspects this invisible stream of Jewish mysticism will again come to the surface we cannot tell. But I have come here to speak to you of the main tendencies of Jewish mysticism as we know them. To speak of the mystical course which, in the great cataclysm now stirring the Jewish people more deeply than in the entire history of Exile, destiny may still have in store for us - and I for one believe that there is such a course - is the task of prophets, not of professors.

There's another way to view the course Scholem describes:

If we were Jews because our minds and hearts told us so, then our Judaism would take us only as far as our minds and hearts can know. But we are not. And so, our journey is on eagle’s wings and our destiny beyond the stars.
Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
from his short article, "Not by choice"
Chabad.org

Jewish mysticism is not just a Jewish story but a human story. It's a journey to find God using means that go beyond prayer and study. It's a path that leads us outside of our perceptions and even outside our imaginations, and into a set of worlds fantastic and dangerous. Ezekiel saw such worlds. So did John as he describes in the Book of Revelations. Scholem doesn't tell us how to find the road that takes us to these worlds, but he tells us many stories about the men who did. If you want to learn about the mystics who discovered the trail head into the unknown, reading Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism is a good place to start.

The road is long and often, we travel in the dark.

Writing a Reality Check in Mystic Realms

'Major Trends...' is broken down into nine lectures. He covers everything from the beginings of Jewish mysticism up to modern times. He traces its origen from the Second Temple era, through the apocalyptic/pseudepigrapha period, and right into Jewish gnosticism with the Thrown (merkabah) mysticism. The 'Hekhaloth Books' (hekhaloth: the heavenly halls or palaces the visionary passes through on his way to the seventh heaven where there rises the thrown of divine glory) are well known for the their similarity to standard gnostic works. The caves around Khirbet Qumran are another (Dead Sea Scrolls). He covers all aspects of this; the 'Song of Songs' and its mystical meaning (it was banned until a man reached 40 years old), the Shi'ur Komah (Measure of the Body of God), and all the magical elements that encompassed this, also theurgy, and so on.
Amazon.com review (all spelling errors belong to the reviewer)
of Gershom Scholem's book
Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism

As I mentioned before, I'm a skeptic at heart. A book like this one wouldn't likely catch my attention and certainly wouldn't win any praise from me. So many books like these are fanciful, unbiblical, and simply outright inconsistent with what I know to be true from the Bible. Colton Burpo's story was a refreshing and surprisingly accurate portrait of what awaits each of us whose destiny is Heaven. I read the book with a critical eye, looking for those little details that would prove this story to be at best inaccurate or at worst a fraud. I couldn't find them. His tale seemed honest. His descriptions fit the way a child would describe things, not one whose words had been fed him by an adult. Some of his revelations were simply amazing!
Amazon.com review of Todd and Sonja Burpo's (with Lynn Vincent) book
Heaven is for Real

I know these are two books you wouldn't expect to be quoted side-by-side, but hear me out. There's a reason I'm tossing both of them into the same conceptual bucket.

I was on a Christian blog this morning where the blog writer was touting the virtues of the Burpo's book. For those of you who haven't heard of it (and it's been all over the news), at age four, Colton Burpo suffered a life-threatening incident whereby, according to the book, he "slips from consciousness and enters heaven" (from the Product Description of the book on Amazon). To continue with the description, "He survives and begins talking about being able to look down and see the doctor operating and his dad praying in the waiting room. The family didn't know what to believe but soon the evidence was clear."

After reading the book, one Amazon reviewer, Pastor Micah Mauldin AKA "The Heavy Revy", wrote a response, part of which I quoted above.

Apparently, I'm more skeptical than Pastor Mauldin, because I think it's pretty strange that this child is relating a vision of Heaven that matches so precisely the expectations of modern, western Christianity. If little Colton's experiences were "real", then wouldn't we expect to hear revelations that are unexpected or different interpretations of Heaven than what we have in current Christian doctrine? We know that Colton is being raised in a Christian family and in fact, his father, Todd Burpo, is a Pastor in Nebraska. Frankly, I'd be a lot more convinced of Colton's reports if his parents were atheists or belonged to another faith and he still related a story that matched what we understand of Heaven from the Bible. It's fairly likely that, whatever Colton experienced at age four, as he became older and more verbal, he "filtered" his experiences through the lens of his Christian upbringing as taught by his church and his Pastor father.

Now that I've probably won the "Ebenezer Scrooge" and "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas" awards for most mean-spirited reviewer (and it should be noted that I haven't read the Burpo book), you may be wondering why I bring all this up.

I'm writing a "reality check". In a few of my past blog posts, including A Brief Meeting with the Mystic and Search for the Messiah in Pools of Unknowing, I've presented something of my introductory understanding to serious Jewish Mysticism as I attempt to relate some of the concepts it contains to my understanding of and faith in the Jewish Messiah. I am also very conscious of the human capacity (including my human capacity) for self-delusion and wish-fulfillment. I could hardly suggest that the Burpo family, and the many Christians who find their expectations of Heaven realized in young Colton Burpo, are guilty of "reading between the lines", and still enthusiastically proclaim that mysticism is the method by which we can and must understand Jesus (Yeshua) with complete confidence.

In other words, let's slow down a minute and catch our breath (and maybe I'm the only one who is acknowledging the need to take a breather). At this point in my journey, I'm an investigator or explorer looking at possibilities, not an inventor who's already made a great discovery and is seeking support. Maybe I'm onto something and maybe I'm not. I think I'm on the right track, but it's important to pause and to question the assumptions I'm forming, without getting caught up in the potential of the mystic writings and perceptions to interpret Jesus in a fresh and exciting way.

It occurred to me yesterday that, back in January, I said I was going to strip my faith, or at least my dogma and doctrine, down to its gears, wires, and batteries, but it seems as if faith can't exist in its most raw and basic condition for very long. Already, I'm building a system back up and forgetting my original intention. The whole reason I created this blog (and I've said this more than once) was to question my assumptions and to honestly examine my beliefs. I have to do this with what I'm currently constructing as well as with what I've been deconstructing.

On Derek Leman's blog post Biblical Glimpses into Mystical Horizons, Carl Kinbar made this comment:

For (Max) Kadushin, devekut is should be part and parcel of the holy life. This approach is based on the realization that God is near in everything and does not require that we put aside our lives in order to commune with Him. Thus, we encounter the Word as we are immersed in the written word. We connect with God’s presence in the blessings. Etc. But none of this happens apart from a deep thirst for God that prepares the way for him to show himself to us in new ways even in the midst of the ordinary.

In other words, experiencing God in a "mystic" way doesn't always entail entering into meditative states, taking extreme measures, or experiencing highly "unusual" visions. We can "experience God" in many ways, sometimes just in the ordinary events of our lives, or in prayer, or in acts of charity, or in reading the Bible.

No, I'm not giving up my exploration of Jewish Mysticism as a method of approaching the Messiah, and I'm not surrendering in the midst of my journey into the mystic. But I do want to assure you that I do take a few breaks to stop, look at my surroundings, and make a candid assessment of where I'm coming from, where I'm going, and how I arrived at my current location.

The next time you find yourself in an "Oh Wow! Gee Whiz! That's incredible!" situation, take a moment and make sure that it really is outside the normal realm of existence and that it's coming from God...rather than your expectations, desires, imagination, or your need to have all the pieces of the puzzle fit "just so".

I know that's a strange thing for a person of faith to say (since having faith in God means that, by definition, I believe in the supernatural), especially one who is looking into a mystic tradition, but in exploring the dangerous and potentially hostile unknown outlands, we must keep an anchor in the safe and the known, lest we be swept away into imagination and unreality. The veil between the mystical and fantasy is very much thinner than we'd like to believe.

God is real, but not everything we experience is from God. Sometimes, we are very good authors of our own play. We just fool ourselves about the identity of the playwright.

The road is long and often, we travel in the dark.

Search for the Messiah in Pools of Unknowing

The first phase in the development of Jewish mysticism before its crystallization in the mediaeval Kabbalah is also the longest. It's literary remains are traceable over a period of almost a thousand years, from the first century B.C. to the tenth A.D., and some of its important records have survived...Between the physiognomy of early Jewish mysticism and that of mediaeval Kabbalism there is a difference which time has not effaced.

Gershom Scholem
Chapter 2: Merkabah Mysticism and Jewish Gnosticism
Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism

The first thought I had when I read this passage from Scholem's classic is that this early mystic Jewish tradition occurred within the lifetime of Jesus, the apostle Paul, and later "church fathers", and some the writers during the era of the Gospels and Epistles could possibly have been influenced by such a tradition.

OK, I know you may think that's rather far fetched, but considering the "mystic" nature of John's Gospel as well as the imagery in Revelation, I don't think I'm reaching too far out of the bounds of credibility, particularly considering all (or most) of the early "documenters" of the teachings of the Jewish Messiah were Jewish themselves. Perhaps Yochanan ben Zakkai, who Scholem cites as one of "the most important representatives of mystical and theosophical thought" during the mid-first century era influenced some of the writings about Yeshua (Jesus) and his followers.

All of this, at least in terms of my very limited knowledge, is very thinly connected and anyone even marginally more familiar with the topic (which includes just about anyone familiar with Jewish mysticism) could blow away my arguments and suggestions with a mild sneeze. Still, it's rather compelling to take a look at these tentative connections and consider the possibilities.

Derek Leman, in his recent blog post Biblical Glimpses Into Mystical Horizons makes a few comparisons of his own:

EPISTLES: The one who ascended into the third heaven in 2 Corinthians 12. The uniting of all things in Messiah in Ephesians 1. The one who descended into human form in Philippians 2. The God and Lord of 1 Corinthians 8. The Radiance of His Glory in Hebrews 1. The One in Whom All Things Adhere in Colossians 1 (and the Image of the Invisible God).

Scholem writes:

Thus for example in the "Visions of Ezekiel", which have recently become known, Ezekiel sees the seven heavens with their seven Merkabahs (driven by four chayot or "living creatures"; Isaiah 6:2, Revelation 4:8) corresponding to the seven heavens is still innocent of any mention of Hekhaloth, or chambers, of the Merkabah.

This references Ezekiel's vision (Ezekiel 1:4-26) and definitely recalls the scriptures Leman cites including:

I must go on boasting. Although there is nothing to be gained, I will go on to visions and revelations from the Lord. I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know—God knows. And I know that this man—whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows— was caught up to paradise and heard inexpressible things, things that no one is permitted to tell. I will boast about a man like that, but I will not boast about myself, except about my weaknesses. Even if I should choose to boast, I would not be a fool, because I would be speaking the truth. But I refrain, so no one will think more of me than is warranted by what I do or say, or because of these surpassingly great revelations. Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. -2 Corinthians 12:1-7

Again, I can't say for certain nor to I assert as absolute, the connections I'm proposing here, but novice in mysticism that I am, it certainly sparks some interest. Still, Paul seems to be saying that he has accomplished what many mystics throughout the ages have attempted: a transition (in one form or another) into the realms outside of our own into those that approach the Throne of God...and he returned sane and whole.

I've said numerous times before in other blog posts, that I'm becoming convinced that we cannot understand the teachings of the Jewish Messiah and his early disciples without some ability to look at those teachings through a Jewish mystical lens. This goes beyond an understanding of Torah and Talmud (and possibly flies in the face of Judaism's more "rational" understanding of God), but there are "mysteries" exposed in the Apostolic scriptures that suddenly become more comprehensible if we don't examine them only with a literal and practical microscope. Seeing that Jewish mysticism can trace its origins to the first century B.C.E. (and perhaps before even that), makes it all the more likely that such a tradition found its way into the early Jewish writings describing the person and mission of the Jewish Messiah. How the divine could become a man and dwell among human beings requires belief beyond the physical realm and mysticism is the door that leads to the world where the mysterious can, in some fashion, become known.

I suppose you could just consider me a person who has gone off the deep end and that mysticism is a fool's errand. You wouldn't be alone. From Scholen's book:

If, finally, you were to ask me what kind of value I attach to Jewish mysticism, I would say this: Authoritative Jewish theology, both mediaeval and modern, in representatives like Saadia, Maimonides, and Hermann Cohen, has taken upon itself to task the formulating an antithesis to pantheism and mythical theology, i.e.: to prove them wrong.

Here, we see some of the greatest luminaries among Jewish wisdom and intellectualism standing opposed against the Jewish mystic tradition. Nevertheless, Jewish mysticism has survived such attempts to be extinguished and endures into modern times in Kabbalah and Chasidic Judaism. It occurs to me that the philosophical vs. the mystical approach to God doesn't have to be either/or. They can both co-exist as different perspectives; perceiving God from radically different angles of observation (and participation). And then, there's this:

Levertoff believed that the Gospels and Chasidic Judaism merged seamlessly, and he dedicated his scholarship to demonstrating that conviction. He is said to have best developed his ideas in his major life work, a manuscript on the subject of Christ and the Shechinah. Unfortunately, the book was never published and the manuscript has been lost; however, he presented a lecture titled "The Shekinah Motif in the New Testament Literature" to the Society of the Study of Religions that we may assume represented something of an abstract of the larger work. This short paper provides a glimpse into a compelling and radical attempt to reconcile Jewish mysticism and faith in an exalted, divine Messiah.

Commentary on Paul Philip Levertoff and
Love and the Messianic Age

A rare but direct and living connection between the Chasidim, their mystic understanding of things, and the Gospel of John brought young Feivel Levertoff into discipleship under the great Rebbe Yeshua of Nazareth. He recognized the mystic in the Gospels and in the teachings of the Messiah. In fact, Levertoff thought it was impossible to understand the Jewish Messiah without a mystic understanding.

Where does that leave those of us without that understanding? It leaves us at the doors to the libraries and maybe even the synagogues, daring to enter and striving to learn more.

Knowledge is beyond me; exalted, I am incapable of it. Where can I go from Your Spirit? And where can I flee from Your Presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there; were I to take up wings of dawn, were I to dwell in the distant west, there, too Your hand would guide me, and Your right hand would grasp me. -Psalm 139:6-10

The road is long and often, we travel in the dark.

A Brief Meeting with the Mystic

We have seen that mystical religion seeks to transform the God whom it encounters in the peculiar religious consciousness of its own social environment from an object of dogmatic knowledge into a novel and living experience and intuition. In addition, it also seeks to interpret this experience in a new way. Its practical side, the realization of God and the doctrine of the Quest for God, are therefore frequently, particularly in the more developed forms of the mystical consciousness, connected with a certain ideology. This ideology, this theory of mysticism, is a theory both of the mystical cognition of God and His revelation, and of the path which leads to Him.

Gershom Scholem
Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism

This is part of Scholem's struggle or "quest" to attempt to define mysticism in general and Jewish Mysticism in specific. It's also just a few pages into the first chapter of his classic tome on the latter and my first serious introduction to this topic.

Just about the only time I find free time to read most days is during my lunch hour from work. I walk ten minutes to my local public library, try to find a quiet corner where I'll be undisturbed, and begin to turn the pages and perform an elementary exploration into what most would consider "alien" worlds.

It's slow going.

The concept of mysticism is difficult to define, not because Scholem lacks the skills or understanding, but because the mystic is a difficult vision to relate, particularly as words on a page. It's like trying to describe a world to others that only you can see. It's as if you can peer into a fifth and sixth dimension and then labor to find a vocabulary to relate your perceptions to those of us who can only see in the mundane three-dimensions.

Perhaps it's not that bad, but it's not that easy either. Yet the need to describe the journey is as powerful as the drive to walk the mystic's path. And that drive comes from the need to walk beyond the four walls of ordinary existence and to somehow become involved in a realm where you can touch the hem of God's garment. It's the need to cross a fundamental gap that was built into the universe:

Man becomes aware of a fundamental duality, of a vast gulf which can be crossed by nothing but the voice; the voice of God, directing and law-giving in His revelation, and the voice of man in prayer. The great monotheistic religions live and unfold in the ever-present consciousness of this bipolarity, of the existence of an abyss which can never be bridged.

When I read Scholem's words and tried to envision the abyss, another voice spoke up from a different direction:

“If you stare into the Abyss long enough the Abyss stares back at you.” -Friedrich Nietzsche

While I doubt that Nietzsche intended this expression to be used in the way I'm interpreting it, I sometimes wonder if the abyss he describes is the same one Scholem offers; staring into the abyss between man and God...and having the abyss finally stare back into you?

Is that the mystic's final goal, to be able to have an exchange with the abyss, or is it just the first step on a journey into a larger experience?

This leads us to a further consideration: it would be a mistake to assume that the whole of what we call mysticism is identical with that of personal experience which is realized in the state of ecstasy of ecstatic meditation. Mysticism, as an historical phenomonon, comprises much more than this experience, which lies at its root. There is a danger in relying too much on purely speculative definitions of the term...

Herein lies an introduction to the danger of exploring the mystic; the assumption that whatever you experience personally and subjectively, must be a mystical encounter with God or His Spirit. I add that last part because I have heard so many times in traditional Christian circles of believers relating their encounters with "the Holy Spirit" and that, their internal, subjective, emotive states were interpreted as signs of what the Spirit wanted them to do.

As far as I could tell, the "signs" were telling many of these people to do what they wanted to do anyway, more's the pity.

Of course, I can't completely discount that "the Spirit" communicates while, at the same time, conducting an inquiry into a metaphysical encounter with God; staring at the abyss and summoning a method of crossing. But how do you tell who is truly the recipient of a supernatural encounter and who is simply engaging in wish-fulfillment? Scholem himself proposes that internal, subjective experiences are not enough evidence:

There is no mysticism as such, there is only the mysticism of a particular religious system, Christian, Islamic, Jewish mysticism, and so on.

Moreover, as Evelyn Underhill has rightly pointed out, the prevailing conception of the mystic as a religious anarchist who owes no allegiance to his religion finds little support in fact.

Above all, what encourages the emergence of mysticism in a situation in which these new impulses do not break through the shell of the old religious system and create a new one, but then to remain confined within its borders.

So much for studying Kabbalah without the context of the Jewish faith.

Apparently, there is no such thing as mysticism isolated and apart from an existing and recognized religious system, hence a study of "Jewish Mysticism" as opposed to "Christian Mysticism", "Islamic Mysticism", Greek Mysticism", and so forth. So Scholem, at least in this preliminary forage into locating a definition for his book's topic, presents a context for the mystic, in that he or she must remain within the boundaries of the larger religious organism, which for our purposes, is Judaism. But does the mystic always allow himself to be so contained?

It is hardly surprising that, hard as the mystic may try to remain within the confines of his religion, he often consciously or unconsciously approaches, or even transgresses, its limits.

With the context defined, we see that the main danger to the person desiring to explore mysticism is the risk of crossing the borderland from the mystic to the heretic...and as you might imagine, that dividing line is quite thin and not very apparent at times.

The subject of Jewish Mysticism came up at a class I taught (about the Shabbat) last Wednesday evening and, as an amateur explorer and novice tourist amid the dark alleys and shadowy passageways of the mystic tradition, I couldn't do justice to the questions of some of my students. After all, I'm a mere student myself.

I recently had the advantage of reading and reviewing Paul Philip Levertoff's Chasidic/Messianic text Love and the Messianic Age and the accompanying commentary produced by First Fruits of Zion/Vine of David, so I was able to point the interested parties in that direction.

Beyond that, I'm starting to read Scholem's classic. I suspect it will take awhile, but on the other hand, I must take Scholem's advice to go slow, allow myself to remain grounded by my religious anchors, and cautiously enter into the outer limits of the abyss between man and God, seeking to dispel darkness with an unfamiliar illumination.

The road is long and often, we travel in the dark.