University
of Nebraska Press
Shofar
- Books Received
Shofar
- Advertising &
Mailing List Info
Shofar
- Book Reviews |
Concealment and Revelation: Esotericism in Jewish Thought and Its Philosophical Implications, by Moshe Halbertal, trans. Jackie Feldman. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007. 200 pp. $32.95.
By tracing the construct of esotericism from the Rabbinic to the medieval period Moshe Halbertal offers an important and illuminating contribution to understanding the course of Jewish intellectual history. He is a professor of Jewish thought and philosophy at Hebrew University and originally published this study in Hebrew in 2001. It follows his monograph on the late thirteenth-century Provencal talmudist and Maimonidean, R. Menahem ha-Meiri. One of the admirable features of Halbertal’s current presentation is its scope. He offers substantial selections from significant primary sources, many of which have hitherto not appeared in English. For this reason alone the book is worthwhile for the general readership. It is also greatly enhanced by the accompanying insightful analysis. With equal facility Halbertal edifyingly discusses an impressive panoply of Jewish mystics, philosophers, and exegetes.
Concealment consists of 168 pages of text followed by 21 pages of informative endnotes and is divided into 17 compact chapters and an introduction. With the exception of the last and longest one, each chapter is approximately 10 pages in length. Accordingly, one can easily traverse every section in a relatively short time. In the “Introduction” Halbertal lays out the pervasive nature of esotericism in society: “Esotericism . . . is a tendency to view canonical texts, social phenomena, or even individual behavior as a form of coded manifestation that intentionally conceals something deeper and more meaningful that only the few can decipher” (p. 1).
As one would anticipate, throughout the book Halbertal is in dialogue with Leo Strauss and his pioneering work, Persecution and the Art of Writing, originally published in 1952. “At the root of the elitist political esoteric outlook, as Leo Strauss developed it, is the idea that social order will collapse under complete conditions of transparency” (p. 3). Ultimately, however, Halbertal’s primary criticism of Strauss is that it is too myopic, in that for Strauss the primary motif for esotericism in Maimonides and his fellow travelers is self-defense. “The philosopher protects himself and the society by going underground” (p. 137). According to Halbertal, this overarching explanation is too limited to adequately explain Jewish esotericism in its fullness, which is a much more expansive and complex phenomenon than addressed by Strauss.
In chapter 1, “The Paradox of Esotericism,” Halbertal opens with the foundational mishnah from Hagigah 2:1 concerning restrictions on public discussions of both cosmogony and the Divine realm. As the book unfolds it is intriguing to discover that successive luminaries including Abraham ibn Ezra, Maimonides, Nachmanides, and Abba Mari each highlighted this key text, but interpreted it differently. Initially Halbertal presents two distinct perspectives on esotericism in rabbinic texts. One approach posits the notion that “[t]he secret of God’s essence is encrypted in the Holy Scriptures, and the knowledge of these secrets grants man possession of magical powers” (p. 9). A second tack was promoted by R. Akiva, whereby “nonconventional exegetical criteria must be applied to the sacred scriptures, since the text possesses absolute semantic fullness” (p. 10).
Halbertal concludes the first chapter by introducing a seminal theme that is one of his major contributions to the topic, namely what he characterizes as “the esoteric paradox” (p. 12). He convincingly demonstrates that although the purported intent of the esoteric enterprise is to restrict the content of the special realm of knowledge to an inner circle of cognoscenti, it is fundamentally uncontrollable. Anyone can assert that a particular teaching constitutes an authentic esoteric doctrine of the religious tradition. If challenged, the proponent can simply claim that the reason that it isn’t commonly accepted is precisely that it has been hidden. Esotericism can even be used to promote doctrinal subversion and heresy. “We should be reminded that, because of the preferential status of the esoteric, heretical positions acquire a status as the inner core of religion and even as the loftiest pinnacle of religious life” (p. 45).
Chapters 2 through 15 trace discussions of esotericism through a wide expanse of sources, from the rabbinic narratives concerning the ascent into pardes, followed by a foray into Heikhalot literature, Abraham ibn Ezra’s advocacy of astrology and hermetic magic, Maimonides’ Aristotleanism, early Kabbalah, and eventually Maimonideans like Shmuel ibn Tibon and Abba Mari. Whereas ibn Ezra posited two groups, the outsiders and the cognoscenti, Maimonides sets up a double tension between the uneducated masses and the traditional scholarly elite on one hand and the latter and the exclusive circle of esotericists to whom the Guide is directed. An additional aspect of the Maimonidean approach is to focus on equivocal terms in Scripture, whereby two different messages are being simultaneously transmitted to two distinct audiences. Halbertal also asserts that in his work Maimonides is constantly testing the boundaries of esotericism. “Maimonides builds and breaches the walls of secrecy simultaneously” (p. 52).
In his discussion of early Kabbalah in the first half of the thirteenth century, Halbertal examines the opposing tendencies of adepts like Azriel of Gerona and Yaakov bar Sheshet who adopted an expansive approach to disclosing kabbalistic secrets, versus Isaac the Blind and Nachmanides who tried unsuccessfully to restrict the dissemination of this material. For Azriel the only topic that was off limits was the ayn sof or infinite and ineffable aspect of the Godhead. Halbertal characterizes Yaakov bar Sheshet as promoting Kabbalah “as knowledge of an open nature, which the reader may expand through analogies and reasoning, just as Torah scholars do with revealed matters” (p. 79). In an ironic twist Asher ben David, the nephew of Isaac the Blind, felt compelled to defend his uncle’s conservative approach and maintain the doctrinal purity of the Kabbalah by penning some of the most detailed kabbalistic treatises of the time. This constitutes an excellent example of the book’s titular theme of “concealment and revelation.” Another fascinating aspect of Halbertal’s presentation was the quixotic attempt by Abba Mari in the early fourteenth century to rein in more radical Maimonideans, by appealing to Nachmanides’ successor Shlomo ibn Adret for support. The latter was an arch-conservative kabbalist and staunch opponent of all philosophy. It is at this point in Halbertal’s narrative that the parallel universes of Kabbalah and Jewish Aristotleanism collide.
Chapter 16, “Esotericism, Discontent and Co-Existence,” constitutes the book’s initial conclusion. Therein Halbertal argues that the esoteric enterprise of the Middle Ages was a response to an acute crisis in faith. “The biblical and rabbinic understanding that history, law, and nature are expressions of the covenantal relationship between two personalities, God and Israel, became an inadequate picture for the medieval Jewish esoteric elites” (p. 139). Here and previously Halberal contends that in traditional Judaism the purpose of ritual is to please God. Under the influence of a Hellenistic worldview, mediated by medieval Arabic scholasticism, Jewish esotericists—philosophers and kabbalists alike—developed theoretical systems predicated upon the principle of causality, whereby intellectual pursuits attempt to activate the Divine. One could argue instead that the primary motive of both the kabbalists and philosophers was to commune with the Divine.
The final chapter is essentially a 25-page self-contained essay. It is a wide-ranging philosophical musing on the nature of esotericism in which Sartre, Rousseau, Walter Benjamin, Camus, Heidegger, Wittengenstein, and many others are introduced to explore different modes of esotericism. In sum, Halbertal’s book is so rich and rewarding that as soon as one finishes reading it, one is left with the desire to come back to it again—sooner than later.
Mark Verman
Department of Religion
Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio
|
