It is utterly impossible to contract the immense wealth of Jewish mysticism into the space of a few entries, and such silliness was never any part of my intention. For a comprehensive grasp of this phenomenon, my suggestion to the reader is to engage in a pointed and intense study of this subject.
As far as my purpose is concerned, this last entry is dedicated to something totally unusual: an exploration of how Jewish mysticism, culminating in the Kabbalah, can actually account, in the theosophical sense, for the Divinity of Jesus Christ, as the Infinite and Unknowable God in a man’s finite body. The concept of the ten Sefirot and the nine emanations was the starting point for the concepts of Tzimtzum and Gvul, which, I believe, lead us exactly in that direction. Needless to say, I am not trying to score a theological point here, on behalf of Christianity. My philosophical credo is speculation for its own very important sake.
In my teasingly perplexed entry Christian Theology As A Philosophical Challenge, in the Religion section, I have marveled at the intricate complexity of Christian theology, as reflected in such intellectual puzzles as the multiplicity of oneness in the Trinity, or the harmony of incompatibility in the two hypostases of Christ, to name just these two.
The highest irony, however, lies in the fact that the best theosophical argument ever made on behalf of the Christian theological dogma belongs to the Jewish mystics of the Kabbalah.
Earlier on in this section, while discussing the significance of Sefer Ha-Bahir, I made this comment:
“Bahir contains the earliest effort to characterize the ten Sefirot of Sefer Yetzira as manifestations of God’s powers. These awesome powers are not attributes, but hypostases of God (another uncanny conceptual link to the Christian ideas of the Trinity and of the two hypostases of Christ). These hypostases are inseparable from the One God, but each possesses a personality of its own. (Once again, this argument parallels the idea of the multiplicity of oneness, contained in the Christian concept of Trinity!)”
The mystical concepts of Tzimtzum and Gvul, representing the contemplations of the Kabbalah thinkers, and above all of the great Isaac Luria, are particularly remarkable in their philosophical capacity to explain the complex phenomenon of Jesus Christ. Just as Nietzsche, with his magnificent introduction of the Creative Child concept, reveals an unexpected affinity with Christianity, even though each of them is climbing up their own path to the summit, so does the concept of God contracting His Infinity of Self into certain finite manifestations, unexpectedly perhaps even for the Jews themselves, renders the weird and incomprehensible Christian idea of the Infinite God making His appearance in the human body of Jesus more palatable than even the brightest Christian theologians could ever have expected to make their own case for.
(This theme also resonates with Nietzsche’s mystical vision of philosophical unity, like this Kantian Ding-an-Sich, which I comment on, in my entry on Jenseits-20.)
Now, a little more on the subject of tzimtzum, as represented in the so-called Lurianic Kabbalah, which is a collection of Isaac Luria’s (of the Tikkun Olam fame) teachings, compiled after his premature death by the already mentioned Hayim Vital. Three main components are essential to Luria’s theosophy, which unfolds before our eyes the whole history of the world: its past, present, and future,--- as creation, degeneration, and redemption.
Retracing these stages in reverse order, redemption is represented by the tikkun olam; degeneration by the shevirat ha-kelim, the breaking of the vessels, and now the original act of creation is represented by God’s withdrawal into Himself, or his contraction, tzimtzum, thus making room for the material world, which is about to be created. Incidentally, creation itself is accomplished by a thrust of God’s infinite light into the vacated space, where the light becomes trapped in finite receptacles that break under such stress, and so on.
(Part II follows next.)
As far as my purpose is concerned, this last entry is dedicated to something totally unusual: an exploration of how Jewish mysticism, culminating in the Kabbalah, can actually account, in the theosophical sense, for the Divinity of Jesus Christ, as the Infinite and Unknowable God in a man’s finite body. The concept of the ten Sefirot and the nine emanations was the starting point for the concepts of Tzimtzum and Gvul, which, I believe, lead us exactly in that direction. Needless to say, I am not trying to score a theological point here, on behalf of Christianity. My philosophical credo is speculation for its own very important sake.
In my teasingly perplexed entry Christian Theology As A Philosophical Challenge, in the Religion section, I have marveled at the intricate complexity of Christian theology, as reflected in such intellectual puzzles as the multiplicity of oneness in the Trinity, or the harmony of incompatibility in the two hypostases of Christ, to name just these two.
The highest irony, however, lies in the fact that the best theosophical argument ever made on behalf of the Christian theological dogma belongs to the Jewish mystics of the Kabbalah.
Earlier on in this section, while discussing the significance of Sefer Ha-Bahir, I made this comment:
“Bahir contains the earliest effort to characterize the ten Sefirot of Sefer Yetzira as manifestations of God’s powers. These awesome powers are not attributes, but hypostases of God (another uncanny conceptual link to the Christian ideas of the Trinity and of the two hypostases of Christ). These hypostases are inseparable from the One God, but each possesses a personality of its own. (Once again, this argument parallels the idea of the multiplicity of oneness, contained in the Christian concept of Trinity!)”
The mystical concepts of Tzimtzum and Gvul, representing the contemplations of the Kabbalah thinkers, and above all of the great Isaac Luria, are particularly remarkable in their philosophical capacity to explain the complex phenomenon of Jesus Christ. Just as Nietzsche, with his magnificent introduction of the Creative Child concept, reveals an unexpected affinity with Christianity, even though each of them is climbing up their own path to the summit, so does the concept of God contracting His Infinity of Self into certain finite manifestations, unexpectedly perhaps even for the Jews themselves, renders the weird and incomprehensible Christian idea of the Infinite God making His appearance in the human body of Jesus more palatable than even the brightest Christian theologians could ever have expected to make their own case for.
(This theme also resonates with Nietzsche’s mystical vision of philosophical unity, like this Kantian Ding-an-Sich, which I comment on, in my entry on Jenseits-20.)
Now, a little more on the subject of tzimtzum, as represented in the so-called Lurianic Kabbalah, which is a collection of Isaac Luria’s (of the Tikkun Olam fame) teachings, compiled after his premature death by the already mentioned Hayim Vital. Three main components are essential to Luria’s theosophy, which unfolds before our eyes the whole history of the world: its past, present, and future,--- as creation, degeneration, and redemption.
Retracing these stages in reverse order, redemption is represented by the tikkun olam; degeneration by the shevirat ha-kelim, the breaking of the vessels, and now the original act of creation is represented by God’s withdrawal into Himself, or his contraction, tzimtzum, thus making room for the material world, which is about to be created. Incidentally, creation itself is accomplished by a thrust of God’s infinite light into the vacated space, where the light becomes trapped in finite receptacles that break under such stress, and so on.
(Part II follows next.)
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