Tree of Souls

by Howard Schwartz

  4Genesis Rabbah 8: 7. See “The Council of Souls,” p. 160. Note that there is a strong biblical echo of the Council of Souls in Psalm 89:7-8, which depicts God as the head of a council of other gods, which are referred to as kedoshim, i.e., “holy ones”: For who in the skies can equal the Lord, can compare with the Lord among the divine beings, a God greatly dreaded in the council of holy beings, held in awe by all around him? In rabbinic literature the Council of Souls seems to have been replaced by the idea of the heavenly court, consisting of angels. In the Talmud, it is clearly stated that “God does nothing without consulting His heavenly court.” Thus the tradition of the Council of Souls may well have been replaced by that of the heavenly court, which is less threatening in that its members consist of angels rather than other divinities. Nevertheless, God continues to consult it, something one would not expect of an all-powerful God.

  5Note that the definition of “mythology” offered here does not attempt to determine if biblical or subsequent narratives are true or false, i.e., historically accurate or not. And, emphatically, the use of the word “myth” is not offered to mean something that is not true, as in the current popular usage.

  6Deuteronomy 18:10-12.

  7See p. 529 for a diagram of the Ten Sefirot.

  8Sefer ha-Zikhronot. See The Chronicles of Jerahmeel, edited by Moses Gaster. While Sefer ha-Zikhronot dates from the late Middle Ages, the basic tradition about ten things that had a kind of “special creation” is already found in the Mishnah, in Avot 5:9, dating from the second century. This involves a different list, and they are said to have been created at dusk on the sixth day of Creation rather than prior to the Creation. But the basic idea is there. Also, some talmudic sources list seven things created before the Creation of the world. See “Seven Things Created Before the Creation of the World,” p. 74. There are also ten utterances of God employed to bring the world into being (B. Avot 5:1).

  9Each of the ten things that “rose up in the thought” of God represents one of the ten mythic categories: Jerusalem=Myths of the Holy Land; the souls of the patriarchs=Myths of Heaven; the ways of the righteous=Myths of the Holy People; Gehenna=Myths of Hell; the Flood=Myths of Exile; the stone tablets=Myths of the Holy Word; the Sabbath=Myths of the Holy Time; the Temple=Myths of Creation (as the location of the Temple was the starting point of creation); the Ark=Myths of God; the light of the world to come=Myths of the Messiah.

  10See “God Considers Ending All Existence,” p. 40.

  11The Hekhalot texts are not technically part of the Pseudepigrapha in that they are not focused on accounts of biblical figures, but rather on rabbis such as Rabbi Akiba and Rabbi Ishmael. For more about the Hekhalot texts, see The Hidden and Manifest God: Some Major Themes in Early Jewish Mysticism by Peter Schäfer.

  12B. Bava Metzia 59b. See “The Rabbis Overrule God,” p. 67. The Hebrew term nitzhuni means “defeated,” or, in a legal sense, “overruled.”

  13“Myth vs. Symbol in the Zohar and in Lurianic Kabbalah” by Yehuda Liebes, in Essential Papers on Kabbalah, edited by Lawrence Fine, p. 212.

  14See “God and the Spirits of the Unborn,” p. 140.

  15See “The Dew of Resurrection,” p. 504.

  16See “God’s Presence at the Red Sea,” p. 385.

  17See “The Term Kivyakhol and its Uses” in Biblical Myth and Rabbinic Mythmaking by Michael Fishbane, pp. 325-401.

  18“On Reading the Midrash” by Henry Slonimsky, p. 6.

  19This verse is usually rendered, “I am the Lord your God,” where “the Lord” replaces YHVH, the primary name of God, which is rendered in English as Yahweh. Traditionally, it was forbidden to pronounce YHVH, so Adonai (God) or ha-Shem (the Name) are used instead. However, these substitutions obscure Yahweh’s mythic identity, and thus they are a part of the demythologizing trend in Judaism. In this book both “Yahweh” and “the Lord” have been used to translate YHVH.

  20See the diagram of the Ten Sefirot, p. 529.

  21See Kabbalah: New Perspectives by Moshe Idel, pp. 137-141.

  22Responsa Ribash no. 157. See Decoding the Rabbis by Marc Saperstein, p. 269, note 95, where the term for the ten-fold God is rendered as “the Decimity.”

  23Zohar 2:118a-118b, 3:69a, 3:97a. See “Lilith Becomes God’s Bride,” p. 59.

  24Many scholars have detected a strong Gnostic strain in Sabbatianism, the version of Judaism propounded by Shabbatai Zevi, the seventeenth century messianic pretender, and his followers. Lurianic kabbalah, which itself has a Gnostic strain, was the intellectual background of the Sabbatian movement. For Abraham Cardozo, one of the most prominent Sabbatians, the Creator-God of Judaism is an entity distinct from the Supreme Being (“First Cause”), and inferior to the Supreme Being. This is not far removed from the Gnostic view that the God of the Hebrew scriptures is the evil demiurge, distinct from a higher God who is good. However, for Cardozo, the lesser being is the one who is truly God, and that ought to be worshipped. Cardozo’s doctrine is of a limited God, requiring human assistance and susceptible to near-death and rebirth. See Sabbatai Sevi by Gershom Scholem and Abraham Miguel Cardozo: Selected Writings, translated by David J. Halperin, especially pp. 64-67.

  25Meor Enayim. Here the Shekhinah is identified as Knesset Yisrael, the Community of Israel, which is one of the many names of the Shekhinah. See footnote 27, p. lxxix for a discussion of these names. This Hasidic text is a commentary on Zohar 3:93a, which speaks of how God and the Community of Israel are separated, and quotes Zechariah 14:9 to describe how their reunion will restore God’s wholeness: In that day there shall be one Lord, and His name one. And the Zohar adds: “But one without the other is not called one.” Of course, since Knesset Israel also refers to the people of Israel, this also suggests a marriage between God (the Groom) and the People of Israel (the Bride). In fact, both readings are correct, so closely bound are the identities and fates of the Shekhinah and the people of Israel. They are perceived not as two entities, but two faces of the same entity. See “The Wedding of God and Israel,” p. 305.

  26B. Sota 17a.

  27In the index of his book, The Sabbath in the Classical Kabbalah, pp. 334-336, Elliot K. Ginsburg lists 79 symbolic identities associated with the Shekhinah, including Ark, bed, Bride, candle, chamber, Community of Israel, darkened mirror, darkness, daughter, diadem, dove, field, flame, garden, gate, heart, Holy of Holies, Jerusalem, moon, mother, princess, queen, rose, Sabbath, sister, soul, spring, Tabernacle, temple, throne, tree, well, and womb. The extensive nature of this list reveals the indispensable role of the Shekhinah in kabbalistic thought. For the famous allegory of the Shekhinah as a lovely maiden in a palace, see Zohar 2:98b-99a. For the allegory of the hind, see Zohar 3:249a-249b.

  28See pp. 47-66.

  29Maimonides, Hilkot Avodat Kohanim 1:3; Shulhan Arukh, Yorah De’ah 246. See “On the History of the Interdiction Against the Study of Kabbalah Before the Age of Forty” (Hebrew) by Moshe Idel. AJS Review 5(1980) 1-20 (Hebrew section).

  30Sippurei Ma’asiyot.

  31B. Betzah 15b-16a. See “The Second Soul,” p. 310.

  32See Hayim Vital: Sha’arei Kedushah 3, Sha’ar ha-Gilgulim, Introduction 2, and Sefer ha-Gilgulim 5. Vital defines possession by ibbur as follows: “If a person does his utmost to purify himself, so that the very root of his soul is revealed to him, he may become impregnated with the soul of a Tzaddik, living or dead, who will help him to completely transcend himself. For examples of ibbur tales, see “A Kiss from the Master” in Gabriel’s Palace: Jewish Mystical Tales, pp. 79-80 and “The Tefillin of the Or Hayim” in the same book, pp. 117-118.

  33For more about Asherah, see note 3, p. 78.

  34Biblical monotheism is often described as “exclusive monotheism,” meaning that it denies the existence or at least the relevance of any deities other than the One. David J. Halperin suggests that the Greeks also had a monotheism, which he calls “inclusive monotheism,” in which the Many are acknowledged as legitimate aspects of the One. Halperin suggests that the K
abbalah is a form of “inclusive monotheism,” in which the Many are the sefirot, and the “One” is the deity whom the sefirot define. This provides a clue to the nature of monotheistic mythology in Judaism, at least as far as the kabbalah goes.

  35In Zohar 1:22a this myth is described in terms of the interaction of the sefirot: the Shekhinah, identified as the sefirah Malkhut, is reunited with the male aspect of God, identified by the sefirah Tiferet. This is a typical example of the kind of sefirotic interaction that kabbalists regard as underlying every mythic process, especially those involving God and the Shekhinah. Discussion of these sefirotic processes has been kept to a minimum in this book, which focuses instead on the interaction of divine figures and forces from a mythic perspective. Note that the sefirotic view of these processes largely eliminates their mythic dimension and transforms them into the interaction of divine emanations (although it could be argued that divine emanations are themselves mythic). For kabbalists, the mythic and sefirotic views were considered equally valid, and they were permitted to exist simultaneously.

  36Tikkunei ha-Zohar, Tikkun 21:59b-60a; Tikkun 63:94b.

  37B. Shabbat 19a.

  38In Gnosticism, a highly dualistic doctrine that flourished in the early centuries CE, this world is the creation of a lower, evil deity, known as the “demiurge,” who functions both as a Creator-God and World-ruler. Above this deity there is a remote, benevolent Deity, superior to the demiurge and to the demiurge’s flawed and evil creation, a Deity whom the Gnostics perceived as the source of the human soul and the only hope for salvation. In Plato’s Timaeus, the demiurge is the “artisan” (what the Greek word literally means), who created this perfect cosmos. To the Gnostics, the cosmos is evil, and therefore the demiurge/creator is evil. The “good” God in Gnosticism, who is opposed to the demiurge, is an extracosmic deity, who comes to redeem the human soul from bondage. Accounts of ruling figures such as Metatron in Jewish tradition indicate a Gnostic influence, where God represents the good, higher God, and Metatron (or another ruling figure) represents a demiurgic figure. Indeed, Metatron is sometimes identified as the “lesser Yahweh.” Yet, while there is clear evidence, especially in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the some of the texts of the Pseudepigrapha, such as The Book of Jubilees and The Testaments of the Patriarchs, of Gnostic thinking in Judaism, it is important to recognize that Gnosticism requires that the Demiurge be evil, and this is not the case in Judaism. Also, in some non-Jewish Gnostic sects, the God of the Hebrew Scriptures is identified as the evil demiurge, and His commandments the arbitrary rules of an enslaving tyrant—a doctrine deemed heretical by the Christian Church. For more information on Gnosticism and its many permutations, see Gnosticism by Hans Jonas. For the relationship of Gnosticism to Judaism, see Alexander Altmann, “The Gnostic Background of the Rabbinic Adam Legends” in his Essays in Jewish Intellectual History, pp. 1-16. For the primary Gnostic texts see James M. Robinson, ed., The Nag Hammadi Library: A Translation of the Gnostic Scriptures.

  39B. Sanhedrin 38b.

  40The two roots of kabbalah are Ma’aseh Bereshit, the Mysteries of Creation, i.e., the study of Creation as presented in Genesis, and Ma’aseh Merkavah, the Mysteries of the Chariot, i.e., the study of Ezekiel’s vision in the first chapter of the Book of Ezekiel.

  41Although most of these enthronement myths are found in the Pseudepigrapha—thus outside the official teachings of Judaism—some of them, such as those about Metatron and Jacob, derive from standard rabbinic sources. See “The Enthronement of Adam,” p. 131, “The Metamorphosis and Enthronement of Enoch, p. 156, “Jacob the Divine,” p. 366, “The Enthronement of Moses,” p. 388, and “King David is Crowned in Heaven,” p. 395, and “The Enthronement of the Messiah,” p. 487. For a discussion of the role of the demiurge and its parallels in Judaism, see p. 1 of the Introduction.

  42Bava Batra 74b; B. Ta’anit 10a. Also Numbers Rabbah 18:22.

  43De Somniiss 1:76.

  44Zohar 1:15a. See “The Cosmic Seed,” p. 93.

  45See “The Shattering of the Vessels and the Gathering of the Sparks,” p. 122.

  46The primary Lilith text derives from Alpha Beta de-Ben Sira, dating from around the ninth century. Additional myths about Lilith can be found in “Myths of Hell,” pp. 213-243.

  47See “Adam the Hermaphrodite,” p. 138.

  48Zohar 3:29a.

  49See “The Heavenly Man,” p. 124.

  50Adam is also prominent in the Gnostic texts found at Nag Hammadi. Seth, Adam’s son, is also portrayed in Gnostic texts as a divine figure. It is interesting to note that Seth is not the subject of much Jewish mythic speculation.

  51See “Adam Kadmon,” p. 15, “The Heavenly Man,” p. 124, “Adam the Giant,” p. 128, and “Adam the Golem,” p. 127.

  52See “God Consults the Angels about the Creation of Adam,” p. 132.

  53Midrash Tanhuma, Bereshit 1.

  54Zohar 2:150b.

  55See Hell in Jewish Literature by Samuel J. Fox, which offers hundreds of examples of the punishments of Gehenna.

  56Isaac Bashevis Singer wrote a story about this, “Sabbath in Gehenna.” See Gates to the New City: A Treasury of Modern Jewish Tales, edited by Howard Schwartz, pp. 185-189.

  57There are also special punishments awaiting those so evil that their souls are not permitted to descend to Gehenna in the first place. These punishments include the eternal wandering of a wicked soul, forever chased by avenging angels, or the transmigration of especially evil souls into various beasts. Evil souls who attempt to escape this fate sometimes enter into the body of a living person and take possession as a dybbuk that must be exorcised. See S. Ansky’s folk drama, The Dybbuk, which includes an authentic portrayal of the rabbinic exorcism ceremony.

  58See the discussion of the kaddish, pp. lxix-lxx.

  59Even today, yeshivah students devote more time to the study of the Talmud, the rabbinic discussions about law and legend, than to study of the primary text, the Torah.

  60See “Death and Rebirth at Mount Sinai,” p. 259.

  61This is a method known as Gematria, which is still very much in use. Note that Hebrew letters also have a numerical value, for the alphabet served as both letters and numbers. Thus aleph, the first letter, is 1, and bet, the second letter, is 2, etc.

  62See “The Torah Written on the Arm of God,” p. 252.

  63Ta’amei ha-Mitzvot by Rabbi Menahem Recanati, “Introduction.” See “God, Torah, and Israel” by Abraham Joshua Heschel in Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity, pp. 191-205.

  64Adir ba-Marom by Rabbi Moshe Hayim Luzzatto, p. 61.

  65The classical expression of the view that the words of Torah are the names of God is at the end of Nachmanides’ introduction to his Torah commentary. It is also found Zohar 2:90b.

  66Zohar, 2:60a.

  67Mishnah Avot 5:22.

  68Otiyyot de-Rabbi Akiba; Yalkut Shim’oni; Zohar 1:2b. See “The Letters of the Alphabet,” p. 250.

  69See “The Primordial Torah,” p. 265.

  70See “The First Tablets,” p. 266.

  71Zohar 1:149a.

  72B. Shabbat 88a and other sources. See “God Offers the Torah to Israel,” p. 264.

  73There are prescribed biblical passages that are written in parchment and included inside of tefillin and mezuzot.

  74B. Shabbat 119a, B. Bava Kama 32b. See “Greeting the Sabbath Queen,” p. 310. This suggests there may have been an idea of the feminine side of God in rabbinic literature. See The Immanence of God in Rabbinical Literature by J. Abelson.

  75Zohar 1:55b.

  76Ketubah le-Shavuot from the Sephardi Mahzor. The text of this ketubah, or wedding contract, is a hymn written by Israel Najara, one of the disciples of Rabbi Isaac Luria of Safed. This liturgical poem, which is found in the Sephardic prayer book for Shavuot, is based on the verses “And I will betroth you to Me in loving kindness, and in compassion. And I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness; and You shall know the Lord” (Hos. 2:21-22), and “I will make a new covenant with the hou
se of Israel” (Jer. 31:31). See “The Wedding of God and Israel,” p. 305.

  77See The Last Trial by Sholem Spiegel and “Seeing with the Sages: Midrash as Visualization in the Legends of the Aqedah” by Marc Bregman.

  78Genesis 5:21-24.

  79Legum Allegoriarum 3:218-19 by Philo; De Somniis 2:10 by Philo; De Congressu Eruditionis Gratia 1:7-9 by Philo; De Cherubim 43-47 by Philo; De Fuga et Inventione 166-168 by Philo; De Ebrietate 56-62 by Philo. See “God Begat Isaac,” p. 336.

  80Zohar 1:79a, 3:168a. See “The Souls of Converts,” p. 433.

  81See “Jacob the Angel,” p. 364 and “Jacob the Divine,” p. 366.

  82See “Abraham Never Died,” p. 348, “Jacob Never Died,” p. 370, “Moses Never Died,” p. 394, and “King David is Alive” in Gabriel’s Palace, pp. 139-141.

  83B. Berakhot 3a, Song of Songs Rabbah 6:5. See “The Creation of the Temple,” p. 420.

  84Nachmanides, Perush Ramban al ha-Torah on Deuteronomy 11:11.

  85B. Ketubot 111a.

  86Likutei Etzot, Eretz Yisrael 1, 2, 3, 8, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19.

  87Orot, Jerusalem 1950, p. 9. For other examples of Rav Kook’s view of the Land of Israel, see Orot pp. 20, 77, 88-89, 100-104, 151; Hazon Hage’ullah pp. 69-70, 78, 85. See too Abraham Isaac Kook: The Lights of Penitence, The Moral Principles, Lights of Holiness, Essays, Letters and Poems translated by Ben Zion Bokser. See also “Off Center: The Concept of the Land of Israel in Modern Jewish Thought” by Arnold M. Eisen in The Land of Israel: Jewish Perspectives, edited by Lawrence A. Hoffman, pp. 263-296.