Prophecy is central to Judaism, for the belief in the divinity of the Torah and the possibility of communication between G-d and man depends on the existence and validity of prophecy. In fact, it is basic to any revealed religion. In previous posts we have discussed how prophets are chosen and the philosophical explanations of prophecy. In this post I briefly address the Kabbalistic view of prophecy.
Probably the most well-known explanation, popularized by R. Arye Kaplan, is that of R. Moshe Chaim Luzatto in KL'CH Pischei Chochma. In Pesach 7, Ramchal writes that prophets "see" sefiros or partsufim, each prophet perceiving the interrelationship of the sefiros in a specific vision, the details of which depend on the seer and are not sefirotic realities, as such. At the same time that a prophet perceives a weave of different interrelationships among the sefiros, he also understand that message of what he sees, that it is representation of processes and dynamics rather than static essences of sefiros, for the sefiros themselves cannot be truly perceived, being above the ability of thought to grasp. Ramchal is very careful in this chapter to guard against a simplistic explanation of the prophetic perception as being that of actual sefiros. One could, for example assume that a vision of a sefira is the image of those objects associated with it; for example, a woman or a house being visual representations of Malchus or rushing waters of Chesed or fire of Gevurah and so on. As I pointed out in another post, early Kabbalistic works, such as Shaarei Orah or Pardes Ch.23, presented a classification of various objects and concepts as embodiments of various sefiros. Ramchal does not want us to fall into such an over simplified concept of prophecy and sets out a much more sophisticated explanation of how the vision of sefiros constitute prophecy.
It came as a surprise to me to find a very strong rejection of the view that prophecy is a vision of sefiros in the R. Moshe Cordovero's commentary to Sefer Yetsira, 1:7. After negating it with strong words, he proceeds to lay out a quite different theory of prophetic perception. Here is a parallel and more explicit passage in Pardes (6:6): "......prophets never saw the essence of sefiros themselves.... the intent is not that prophets grasped the sefiros themselves but that the source of their vision was from sefiros...however, their understanding was from heikhalos (Palaces)." In 24:2, he explains that the sefiros themselves cannot be grasped by any man, even as great as Moshe Rabbeinu. Rather the source of prophecy is in these Palaces, which we can briefly define as pooling of Divine Light along its flow from one Sephira to the next (unfortunately this is not a place for a detailed explanation of this concept). On the simplest level, the Ramak , who preceded the Ramchal, rejected the latter's approach because of his insistence on immateriality of the sefiros, a concern that we saw Ramchal also share. On a deeper level, however, the disagreement between them may depend on the different concept of what sefiros are. Ramchal speaks of sefiros as being Middos (KL"CH, 6), an approach that Ramak rejects in Pardes 4:3, adopting instead the explanation that became universal among later Kabbalists (apparently with the exception of Ramchal) that sefiros are vessels that enclose the divine light. Again, I apologize for not being able to expand upon this disagreement in this brief post that focuses on prophecy.
A different view of prophecy is presented by R. Chaim Vital. He writes (Shaarei Kedusha 3:7): "...thought of a prophet spreads out and rises form level to level, from below to above, until it raches a place of origin of his own soul. (Standing) at that place he "thinks" to lift the light of sefiros to the Infinite (ain sof) and pull from there the returning light from above to below... until it reaches his intellect. It takes its portion in that light according to the amount of origin of his soul in the higher worlds, from there it pulls through the power of the imaginative faculty of Chaya-soul has in supernal worlds. There in his senses there come to be formed things (meaning images) or in his external senses".
Essentially, and as I interpret these words, R. Chaim Vital teaches the doctrine of "deeper is higher". In other words, prophecy arises from the grasping of the depths of one's own soul which are the same levels and identical to those above.This concept, developed to a greater extent by Baal Shem Tov and his disciples posited that the arena of the Lurianic tikkun is within individual's consciousness within, which in any case is identical to the Great Cosmos outside. Prophecy then is delving deeper into the root of one's souls that can then bring images and visions to the sensory and intellectual faculties to result in a complete vision and a prophetic message.
Over an Aspaqlaria, in an early post I discuss the blog's name.The word aspaqlaria is a loan word from the Greek "lapis specularis", a somewhat clear (thus the "spec" root as in "spectacles" or "spectator") stone used in the classical period the way we would use glass brick today to let light into a room. The rishonim dispute the meaning of the word, which appears in the Talmud as a metaphor for wisdom and elsewhere as a metaphor for prophecy. One opinion is that it means "mirror", the other, "a lens".
So, in that blog entry I look at the difference between understanding prophecy to be a kind of mirror and understanding it to be a kind of lens.
Also, is prophecy a way of obtaining a message from G-d, or a way of being better informed by seeing higher realities? The mirror is a means of obtaining the "small still voice" of G-d speaking within one's soul (pardon the shift of metaphor from sight to sound). The lens, a means of seeing an external reality, albeit one the mind forces into metaphoric clothing.
And I thereby try to link the dispute on defining the term to the dispute as to the nature of the 3 men who visit Abraham and the "Man" in the throne on Mt Sinai (or in Ezekiel's chariot).
See http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2004/11/aspaqlaria.shtml and http://www.aishdas.org/mesukim/5764/mishpatim.pdf if you are interested in more detail.
-Micha
Posted by: micha | March 24, 2008 at 04:23 PM