Radical Judaism_ Rethinking God and Tradition - Arthur Green [106]
56. In God in Search of Man (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1955), p. 112, Heschel translates the birah doleqet of Bereshit Rabbah 39:1 as a “palace full of light” rather than a “burning tower.” Is it the urgency of a world on fire or the beauty of a world full of light (or both?) that brings us to religious awareness?
57. The emphasis on human activity geared toward redemption is particularly strong in Lurianic Kabbalah. Scholem saw this as leading quite directly to the Sabbatian messianic outbreak of the seventeenth century (and, by implicatioin, also to Zionism). But this sense of human responsibility for redemption is also carried over into modern Judaism. While modern justice-driven liberal rabbis quote mostly from the prophets, their sense of the need for human deeds may historically be more directly rooted in the mind-set of later Kabbalah. Nothing epitomizes this more than the transition from tiqqun as a key term of the mystics to the revival of tiqqun ‘Olam as a way of expressing the Jewish obligation to “repair the world.” On the modern usage see Gilbert Rosenthal, “Tikkun ha-Olam: The Metamorphosis of a Concept,” Journal of Religion 85:2 (April 2005): 214-240.
58. My favorite messianic text is probably that of Rabbi Nahman's Liqqutey MoHaRaN II:61, translated in my Tormented Master (University, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1979), pp. 321f. Nahman's redeemer is a messiah of the mind, one whose consciousness is so expanded as to comprehend all of geohistory as but a moment.
GLOSSARY
Adam Kadmon. Primordial man; in Kabbalah, the depiction of the ten sefirot in anthropic form or, in Lurianic teaching, a pre-sefirotic emanation of divinity.
Adonay. “My Lord;” a circumlocution substituted for the tetragrammaton Y-H-W-H, pronunciation or writing of which is forbidden.
Aggadah. “Narrative, tale;” the narrative portions of the rabbinic corpus.
Ahavah. “Love;” religiously, the love of God, referring both to humans’ love for God and God's love for the world.
‘Akedah. The binding of Isaac, recounted in Genesis 22.
Akiva. Rabbi of the late first to early second century CE, martyred by the Romans c. 135.
Aleph. The first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Not pronounced unless accompanied by a vowel sign. Anokhi. “I am;” the opening word of the decalogue.
‘Atiqa. “The elder;” the figure of God as an old man, based on the visions of Daniel. In Kabbalah, ‘atiqa is associated with the highest sefirah, preceding hokhmah, the first point of particular existence.
Ayin. “Nothing;” the designation of the highest of the ten sefirot, indicating that it underlies or precedes all forms of particular existence.
Ba'al Shem Tov. Israel ben Eliezer (1700-1760), the first central figure associated with Hasidism, around whose image the movement crystallized.
Ben Azzai. Simeon ben Azzai, sage of the early second century CE, a companion of Rabbi Akiva.
Berakhah. “Blessing;” the characteristic form of classical Jewish prayer, opening with the Hebrew phrase “Blessed are You Y-H-W-H our God, universal Ruler.”
Bereshit. The opening word of the Hebrew Torah text, usually (but imprecisely) rendered as “In the beginning.”
Bet. The second letter of the Hebrew alphabet, also used to indicate the number 2.
Da'at. “Knowledge.” In Kabbalah, da'at serves as a third sefirah in those systems where keter is considered too recondite to be counted among the ten. In Hasidism, the term is used to refer to religious awareness or consciousness of God's presence.
Derash. “Homily;” the homiletical interpretation of Scripture characteristic of rabbinic tradition.
Devequt. “Attachment;” the joining of the soul to God