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- This is a report on a series of lectures given
- by Moshe Idel at the University of Washington
- (Seattle) about a year ago. I have divided
- report into three posts, one for each lecture.
-
- These are not verbatim transcripts: they are
- summaries of the sort that might be made by
- anyone from notes made during the lecture. Not
- everything is included, and most of what Idel
- said is summarized. I have tried to indicate
- where I missed things, and what I missed. The
- initial material is from the flier that was
- passed out to everyone before the lectures.
-
- Moshe Idel is in no way responsible for my
- reports of his lectures. I have done my best to
- be as accurate as I could. At the same time, I
- should hope that I'm not infringing on his
- copyright by reporting what he said. --Such are
- the mysteries of the copyright law!
-
-
-
-
-
-
- THE SAMUEL & ALTHEA STROUM
- LECTURESHIP IN
- JEWISH STUDIES
-
- Moshe Idel
-
- PARDES:THE QUEST FOR SPIRITUAL
- PARADISE IN JUDAISM
-
-
-
- April 16
- Primordial Wisdom: The Philosophers' Quest
-
- April 18
- Primordial Light: The Ecstatics' Quest
-
- April 22
- PARDES: Between Sefirot and Demonology
-
- The Core of the "Pardes" Tradition: Tosefta
- Hagigah 2:3-4
-
- Four entered the Orchard (Pardes): Ben Azzai,
- Ben Zoma, Akher and Rabbi Aqiva. One peeked and
- died; one peeked and was smitten; one peeked and
- cut down the shoots; one ascended safely and
- descended safely.
-
- Ben Azzai peeked and died. Concerning him
- Scripture says: "Precious in the eyes of he
- Lord is the death of His loyal ones" (Ps. 16.
- 15).
-
- Ben Zoma peeked and was smitten. Concerning him
- Scripture says: "If you have found honey, eat
- only your fill lest you become filled with it
- and vomit" (Prov. 25:16).
-
- Akher peeked and cut down the shoots.
- Concerning him Scripture says: "Do not let your
- mouth bring your flesh to sin, and do not say
- before the angel that it is an error; why
- should God become angry at your voice, and ruin
- your handiwork" (Eccl. 5:5).
-
- Rabbi Aqiva ascended safely and descended
- safely. Concerning him Scripture says: "Draw
- me, let us run after you, the King has brought
- me into His chambers" (Song I:4).
-
- Lecture I: Primordial Wisdom: The Philosophers'
- Quest
- Tuesday 16 April 1991, 8:00 pm.
-
- [This is a precis summary; reporter's comments
- are in square brackets; otherwise text should be
- taken as an attempt to transcribe the gist of
- what the speaker actually said. The result is a
- rather dry, compressed text; typographical
- devices have been used to break it up and make
- it more readable. Some of these may not
- transpose well to Net text. I have tried to
- regularize the spellings of Hebrew terms, but
- I'm afraid I've probably let a number of them
- vary all over the map.]
-
- [The first lecture was something of a Society
- event; there was quite a collection of The
- Better Sort, who actually toughed it out through
- much of the first lecture, if only for the sake
- of the reception afterward. Idel's lecture (in
- thoroughly accented English) made fewer
- concessions than one might imagine to a non-
- specialist audience. These lectures are usually
- edifying cultural events, but Idel used the
- opportunity to go over material he was working
- up for a book. imposing countenances, who had a
- reception for themselves and the speaker
- afterward.]
-
-
- First, some general observations in an attempt to
- locate the Pardes legend in its context.
-
- 1: Biblical and Rabbinic Judaism were exoteric in
- nature: Judaism was seen as being open, to both
- the elite and the vulgus [the crowd, common
- people, hoi polloi] on the same basis. The idea
- was that the knowledge and practice were to be
- spread, and could be spread, to all levels of the
- Jewish nation, and that study of the Torah was
- open to all. Religious life was not regarded as
- dangerous.
-
- 2. This might seem like belaboring the obvious,
- but it was not obvious if seen in the context of
- contemporary cults and religions, in either the
- world of early Judaism (with the nature religions
- of neighboring nations) or in the Hellenistic
- world (with its mystery religions). Judaism
- insisted on rules binding on all members, and on
- public rites, as exemplified by the need for a
- quorum to legitimize certain rites. It was
- collective, group-oriented, and "nomian," [cf.
- "antinomian"] that is, oriented toward practicing
- a nomos, i.e., the Torah. The attitude toward the
- Commandments was summed up in the saying, "You
- shall live by them."
-
- 3. Thus, in a sense, that Judaism was relatively
- egalitarian [the speaker actually said
- "equalitarian"]. The Law was (in principle)
- available to and incumbent upon everyone, and the
- Law, the nomos, was the standard. Religious
- practice was collective, public, non-sectarian,
- and not dangerous.
-
- This then is how one can describe the first
- phases of Judaism, the Biblical and what might be
- called the Classical (i.e. Rabbinic-Midrashic)
- phases.
-
- But there were also other types of Judaism,
- cultivated in smaller circles, as exemplified by
- the Hekhaloth literature. These involved
- contemplation of the Divine vehicles, or the
- Divine stature, and involved non-Halakhic
- techniques for transcending common experiences in
- favor of achieving a strong but dangerous result:
- the experience or vision of the Merkavah, or of
- the Divine body or glory. One finds these efforts
- expressed in some very ancient texts, which also
- link them with dangers and the paying of a high
- price. These efforts lead to awful [or aweful]
- encounters with angels; their result is the
- experience of a tremendum. It seems to have been
- less than delightful, and it was reserved for the
- very few.It is presented in terms that constitute
- both the statement of an ideal and a warning
- against embarking on a quest for it.
-
- One of the key exemplary texts is the account of
- the four sages, the four upright persons, who
- entered the Pardes, the Orchard or Garden, all but
- one of whom were severely damaged by the
- experience despite their excellent qualities.
- This cannot be taken as a historical document,
- despite the fact that these four did live at
- approximately the same time. This is not a report
- of historical events; it should be taken as a
- collection of traditions about the effects of
- entering the Pardes. Two results were positive:
- one person died, but remained loyal; one (Rabbi
- Aqiva) remained safe. Two results were negative:
- one person went mad; the other became a heretic.
- Instead of reading this as a biographical
- account, we should read it as a typological
- account, one describing types of experiences and
- the types of effects those experiences can have.
- From its first appearance, this crucial text was
- not historical, but exemplary.
-
- This text is used in different ways in different
- settings. In mystical literature, it is used to
- point out dangers that can befall the mystic. In
- Talmudic-Midrashic sources, it is used to point
- out the dangers and achievements that are related
- to speculations, rather than to experiences. The
- interpretation of the account depends on the
- context in which it is used; thus it is a mistake
- to try to establish a single "genuine" meaning
- common to all versions.
-
- This account is, then, a parable whose
- significance is not explicated, as in Kabbalah:
- the Pardes is an unexplained parable for an
- unrevealed secret. There is a crucial vagueness
- here, and one must make the assumption that this
- sort of vagueness does not represent a defeat but
- an opportunity - to introduce new meanings to an
- open text, as in Umberto Eco's account of reading
- texts as open texts. [Cf. Umberto Eco, The Open
- Work.] The Pardes be comes a generalized metaphor
- for the danger zones of religious experience, seen
- as something which is good for the few, but
- pernicious for others.
-
- The Pardes story, then, has been (re)interpreted
- in a variety of directions; here, we are
- interested in patterns of interpretation proposed
- in the Middle Ages (though the history of the
- interpretation of the story could be continued
- onward from there).
-
- Today, we talk about Maimonides and the
- philosophical tradition.
- Next: about the ecstatic tradition.
- Last: about (a) the Divine Sefiroth and (b) the
- encounter with the demonic.
-
- In all three streams of interpretation, the
- vagueness of the basic story contributed to the
- richness of the resulting interpretations.
-
- After the Classical (Rabbinic) period, Judaism
- underwent two major changes, one of which was its
- transformation into an esoteric religion (at least
- as understood by some elite masters), a religion
- having two levels. An esoteric understanding of
- Judaism was a shared feature of various
- traditions: the Kabbalah, the classical
- philosophical schools (e.g. Maimonides), and the
- Hasidi Ashkenaz and other medieval mystical
- groups. This move involves [though the speaker
- did not overtly label it, the second change] the
- atomization of the collective or the group. The
- group is important as a mystical tool in some
- forms of Kabbalah, but it plays a restricted role.
- The core aim of personal redemption, or the
- achievement of individual perfection, moved to the
- forefront. To understand the underlying secrets,
- and to behave in accordance with them: this was
- crucial to the Jewish elite in the middle ages.
- It was a cult of individual attainment, which
- involved the reading of its sources as secret
- messages hidden in canonical scriptures, messages
- connected to the goal of salvation.
- There were two models for salvation in those
- scriptures: salvation as attaining the End, or as
- returning to the Origin. Thus the effort to
- obtain salvation meant either hastening the end
- (collectively, this involved messianism), or
- reaching back to a lost paradise that had been
- existing since the beginning. This is why the
- concept of Paradise is important in understanding
- the meaning of the Pardes, even though they were
- not originally as closely connected is it might
- seem.
-
- "Pardes" actually means an orchard. The actual
- term for "Paradise," in the sense of the Garden of
- Eden, was Gan Eden, which in the Septuagint was
- translated by the Greek word for Paradise
- [deriving originally from Persian], from which
- there was a backward linkage to the Hebrew word
- Pardes. The two ideas, originally different, came
- to explain or amplify each other. Thus, the
- dangers associated with Gan Eden [the angel with
- the flaming sword] and Pardes also converged:
- both came to represent dangerous ideals, and ideal
- dangers.
- The Pardes story then came to have as a subtext
- the story of Paradise (Gan Eden). It became a
- common effort of medieval commentators to explain
- the story of Paradise by means of the story of
- Pardes. The attempt to escape ritual and return
- to Paradise was a threat to Judaism as a religion
- [i.e., as a religion based on ritual and the Law];
- thus, it could not be proposed openly as a goal.
- Any attempt to enter Pardes then was an entry into
- a dangerous zone. Classical Judaism was not
- escapist: that is, it did not involve an attempt
- to transcend history. The transcendental ideal
- could stand as an ideal for the few, but it was an
- ideal that was dangerous to (or if adopted by) the
- many; it thus had to be reserved to the few to
- stop escapist religious trends.
-
- Maimonides' interpretation, in summary, took
- perfect philosophy as the wisdom of Adam, lost but
- retrievable by some (perfect) persons, e.g., R.
- Aqiva. To be in Paradise, from this point of
- view, was to be a philosopher. Philosophy is
- perfection in the present; Paradise is perfection
- in the past and in the future. The ideal of
- philosophy is to exist in continuous
- contemplation. When the Primordial Man fell: he
- was [or became] unable to stay in the state of
- perfect philosophy.
- The Pardes story, however, points out a path of
- return, and suggests an analysis of Judaism as a
- project of return to perfect philosophy. It
- points out both techniques and possible problems.
- The first part of Maimonides major Halakhic work
- is where he explains the meaning of Pardes - but
- of course, since he was a Rabbi, he doesn't
- explain it openly. He mentions that it is a
- matter of the [four?] key "themes dealt with in
- the preceding chapters," leaving the reader to
- select which of the many themes are the key
- themes. Though all four of the characters in the
- story were great men of Israel, not all had the
- capacity to grasp the subject clearly. For him,
- then, the Pardes is linked to speculation: it is
- something to be known, something that must be
- grasped clearly, rather than a mystical
- experience. Maimonides states that it is not
- proper to walk in the Pardes without being filled
- with bread and meat, i.e., knowledge of what is
- permitted and forbidden, i.e., without having had
- a solid Rabbinic education. Why is this? Because
- knowledge of these things gives composure to the
- mind. Maimonides presents Jewish law as a way of
- achieving a certain stability, a mastery of lust
- and imagination. The Commandments are a sine qua
- non, the basis for the requisite composure.
- The Law, then, gives one the possibility of
- calming the mind, of mastering imagination and
- lust, in order to be able ... to study Aristotle.
- By which he meant, to study the Physics and
- Metaphysics.
- This study has two major dangers. One is the
- cognitive or classical or Aristotelian: a
- misunderstanding of physics and metaphysics due to
- imaginative distortion of reality. One's
- understanding [or the clarity of one's
- understanding] can be spoiled by one's [non-
- rational] inclinations.
- There is also the Platonic danger: the
- political implications better not understood by
- the masses, as in Book l [Book XII] of the
- Metaphysics.
-
- Not all of the four Masters, then, were calm
- enough, educated enough, to grasp Aristotelian
- metaphysics.
-
- There are two ways of understanding Maimonides'
- position here: one exoteric, the other esoteric.
- The exoteric understanding would take the
- historical Adam as the perfect philosopher,
- brought down into a fallen state by the last
- remnants of desire and fantasy. Thus our current
- condition of isolation from philosophic truth
- would be the historical result of Adam's fall.
- The esoteric reading, however, is that the state
- of the Primordial Man is always open to us, always
- available at any time - as, too, is the sin of
- Adam. In principle, at least. Kafka has an
- interpretation of the expulsion from Paradise that
- can be taken as a key to the esoteric reading of
- Maimonides' position. According to that
- interpretation, the Expulsion from Paradise is
- final, and life in this world is irrevocable. It
- is eternal in nature. [I.e., it is an event "in
- eternity," rather than in history.] At the same
- time we are continuously in Paradise, whether we
- realize it or not. Thus neither the Expulsion nor
- the Paradisal state are historical events: they
- are structures of experience open to each of us.
- This is also, by the way, the Kabbalistic
- interpretation developed by Abulafia, who was the
- first to treat the Pardes as an ongoing
- experience. His interpretation was very similar
- to Kafka's. "Anyone who enters Pardes has to
- enter in peace and exit in peace."
-
- This spiritualistic reading, that the Pardes is
- not a matter of history but is open to anyone,
- proposes a spiritualistic typology, a scheme of
- typical experiences or states that can be
- actualized at any time. History becomes
- unimportant. By studying Bible, Talmud, Kabbalah,
- philosophy, we become aware of what can happen in
- experience.
- This reading seems to do justice to certain
- passages in Maimonides about people "of the rank
- of R. Aqiva." History disappears: The Bible,
- Talmud, Aristotle - all speak about inner
- experiences related only to the elite because they
- are dangerous, but which are to be pointed out to
- the masses to orient them, to give them the sense
- that Judaism is more than its ritual.
- This approach still assumes that there is
- danger, but Judaism is here seen as trying to cope
- with the problem of the dangerous ideal. The
- ideal may be dangerous, but it is to be
- cultivated. This formulation becomes a way of
- balancing ritualistic approaches against the
- explosion of metaphysical speculations that might
- endanger the observance of the ritual.
- The aim is not merely to propose philosophy but
- to use Aristotelian psychology and metaphysics to
- point to meditations on secret Judaism, to
- introduce a new paradigm for understanding
- Judaism. Thus, Maimonides was able to begin a
- tradition of interpretation (which lasted from
- about the 14th to the 18th centuries) which took
- ritual as means of introduction to philosophy.
- This interpretation fortifies the place of ritual,
- yet puts it in its place, shows that it is not
- final. It is needed, but in a way to be
- transcended - by the few, for whom a higher ideal
- is needed, that of the Pardes.
-
- Next time, we talk not about philosophic
- speculation but about ecstatic experience, the
- encounter with a terrible Light, the Primordial
- Light.
-
- QUESTIONS
-
- Question: The aim is to master the corporeal,
- which if not understood will distort one's
- grasp of reality? Then for Maimonides there
- was a specific absolute reality?
- Answer: Yes. He believed a certain metaphysics
- was true. His was not a modern,
- Heideggerian philosophy. For him, God was
- the sum of the intelligibilia, as was the
- case for other medieval philosophers. God
- was taken as the great intelligence. There
- was a negative theology, but there was also
- a positive theology.
-
- Question: What about the Pardes story and the
- Ari?
- Answer: A very complex issue - and another story.
-
- Question: Kafka wrote about Maimonides-
- A: Not about Maimonides, but Genesis.
- Q: Genesis then. If the expulsion is eternal...
- A: We are expelled all the time from Paradise,
- but it is here. We are out and in at the
- same time. It is a matter of each of us.
- That is why the Fall is not final.
-
- Q: The Halakha becomes then a means - is it time-
- bound? May there be other means at other
- times for Maimonides?
- A: Halakha remains necessary all the time. It is
- not like a ladder. Desires are always
- present. Halakhic discipline is not simply
- preliminary: it is needed all the time - it
- too is eternal. [Cf. the Great Chain of
- Being, or Crowley's understanding of
- initiatory hierarchy.]
-
- Q: Why is this in the Mishne Torah, not in the
- Guide?
- A: To Maimonides, the code of behavior is an
- introduction to the Pardes. He starts with
- the Pardes, only then to go on to talk about
- the Law. The Pardes is integral to the
- Mishne Torah.
- Q: What then does the RamBam have to say about
- the Messiah?
- A: There is only one hint - Perfect Philosophy is
- Paradise, personal salvation. Each of us
- then is his own Messiah, and we don't need
- another Messiah - as individuals. As a
- collective, it is another story. The
- Messiah is needed to embody a certain
- political, social, et cetera, state.
- Q: And Halakha is a mechanism to reach that
- experience?
- A: Yes.
-
- Q: What about the discussion of the Castle in the
- Guide?
- A: In III:51 of the Guide of the Perplexed,
- Maimonides mentions Ben Zoma - among rabbis
- expert only in Halakha, unable to understand
- metaphysics. Thus they are outside the
- castle.
-
- Q: Is there any significance in this to the fact
- that some of Maimonides' students were not
- Jewish, but Muslim?
- A: I'm not aware of any advanced students who
- were Muslim. There were Muslims who were
- followers, who studied the Guide...
- Q: But there was a Muslim who studied Aristotle
- with Maimonides; we have diaries...
- A: I don't know about that.
- Q: Esotericism was widespread-
- A: But Maimonides was not in Baghdad.
- Q: This was in Egypt...
-
- Q: What is the nature of danger in the Kabbalah?
- A: Danger is associated with individual
- initiative. Danger enters with the desire
- for the paranormal, for the transcendent
- experience, the desire to go beyond the
- communal experience.
-
- Q: What about the use of PARDES as a code [an
- acrostic] for the four ways of interpreting
- the Torah?
- A: It did become that, but only later, long after
- Maimonides, with Kabbalists in Spain and
- Italy. But there is a huge amount of
- material available, and I had to select it
- very even inside this narrow topic in order
- to be able to give a manageable lecture.
- There is material for a year's worth of
- lectures for any of these topics.