D. Falk, 2002
1. Mysticism
In addition to the following readings below, check out E. Segal’s site: http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~elsegal/Rels463/ , especially the link for Merkabah Mysticism.
1.1.1. Isaiah’s Temple Vision. Isaiah 6. (RSV)
In the year that King Uzzi’ah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and his train filled the temple. 2 Above him stood the seraphim; each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. 3 And one called to another and said:
“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory.”
4 And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. 5 And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”
6 Then flew one of the seraphim to me, having in his hand a burning coal which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 And he touched my mouth, and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin forgiven.” 8 And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here am I! Send me.”
1.1.2. Ezekiel’s Vision of the Chariot Throne. Ezekiel 1:1-14, 22-28; 3:12-13 (RSV)
In the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month, as I was among the exiles by the river Chebar, the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God. 2 On the fifth day of the month (it was the fifth year of the exile of King Jehoi’achin), 3 the word of the LORD came to Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chalde’ans by the river Chebar; and the hand of the LORD was upon him there.
4 As I looked, behold, a stormy wind came out of the north, and a great cloud, with brightness round about it, and fire flashing forth continually, and in the midst of the fire, as it were gleaming bronze. 5 And from the midst of it came the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance: they had the form of men, 6 but each had four faces, and each of them had four wings. 7 Their legs were straight, and the soles of their feet were like the sole of a calf’s foot; and they sparkled like burnished bronze. 8 Under their wings on their four sides they had human hands. And the four had their faces and their wings thus: 9 their wings touched one another; they went every one straight forward, without turning as they went. 10 As for the likeness of their faces, each had the face of a man in front; the four had the face of a lion on the right side, the four had the face of an ox on the left side, and the four had the face of an eagle at the back. 11 Such were their faces. And their wings were spread out above; each creature had two wings, each of which touched the wing of another, while two covered their bodies. 12 And each went straight forward; wherever the spirit would go, they went, without turning as they went. 13 In the midst of the living creatures there was something that looked like burning coals of fire, like torches moving to and fro among the living creatures; and the fire was bright, and out of the fire went forth lightning. 14 And the living creatures darted to and fro, like a flash of lightning. . . .
22 Over the heads of the living creatures there was the likeness of a firmament, shining like crystal, spread out above their heads. 23 And under the firmament their wings were stretched out straight, one toward another; and each creature had two wings covering its body. 24 And when they went, I heard the sound of their wings like the sound of many waters, like the thunder of the Almighty, a sound of tumult like the sound of a host; when they stood still, they let down their wings. 25 And there came a voice from above the firmament over their heads; when they stood still, they let down their wings.
26 And above the firmament over their heads there was the likeness of a throne, in appearance like sapphire; and seated above the likeness of a throne was a likeness as it were of a human form. 27 And upward from what had the appearance of his loins I saw as it were gleaming bronze, like the appearance of fire enclosed round about; and downward from what had the appearance of his loins I saw as it were the appearance of fire, and there was brightness round about him. 28 Like the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud on the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness round about.
Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD. And when I saw it, I fell upon my face, and I heard the voice of one speaking. . . .
3:12 Then the Spirit lifted me up, and as the glory of the LORD arose from its place, I heard behind me the sound of a great earthquake; 13 it was the sound of the wings of the living creatures as they touched one another, and the sound of the wheels beside them, that sounded like a great earthquake.
1.1.3. Dead Sea Scrolls
Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice:
See http://www.mystae.com/restricted/reflections/messiah/xsongs.html
1.1.4. Esoteric Teachings. Hagigah 2:1
[from E. Segal, http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~elsegal/Rels463/TalmudicMysticism.html]
Mishnah Hagigah 2:1
The laws of incest may not be expounded before three persons,
nor the Account of the Creation before two,
nor the Chariot before one
unless the person is wise and able to understand on his own.
Anyone who meditates upon four things, it would be preferable for them if they had not come into the world:
what is above
what is below
what is before
and what is after.
And anyone who has no regard for the honor of their Creator, it would be preferable for them if they had not come into the world.
Tosefta Hagigah 2:1
“The laws of incest may not be expounded before three persons”
–however they may be expounded before two
“Nor the Account of the Creation before two”
however it may be expounded before one.
Palestinian Talmud Hagigah 2:1, 77a
“The laws of incest may not be expounded before three persons”
Rabbi Ba in the name of Rav Judah: This is the view of Rabbi Akiva, however according to Rabbi Ishmael… he teaches the matter.
This can be deduced from the fact that Rabbi ‘Ami was sitting and teaching “There is an admonishment against the active partner as well as against the passive partner.”
This proves that the law follows Rabbi Ishmael.
“Nor the Account of the Creation before two”
Rabbi Ba in the name of Rav Judah: This is the view of Rabbi Akiva, however according to Rabbi Ishmael they expound the matter.
This can be deduced from the fact that Rabbi Judah ben Pazi sat and expounded “In the beginning the world consisted of water in water.”
This proves that the law follows Rabbi Ishmael.
“Nor the Account of the Chariot before One”
Is this also the view of Rabbi Akiva?
It is the view of all, in order that one should know how to have regard for the honour of one’s Creator.
Did not Rav say: “A person may not speak against his teacher unless he has observed and served him”?
How should he behave? In the beginning his teacher introduces the beginnings of verses and he confirms it.
Rabbi Hiyya in the name of Rabbi Johanan: Rabbi had an experienced student, and he expounded one lesson in the Account of the Chariot, which did not agree with Rabbi’s understanding; and he was stricken with leprosy.
Babylonian Talmud Hagigah 11b
…Rav Ashe says: What does “The laws of incest may not be expounded before three persons” mean? –The secrets of the laws of incest may not be expounded before three persons.
What is the reason? –It stands to reason: When two who are sitting before their teacher, one will be discussing it with his teacher while the other is paying attention to them.
But if there are three, then one will be discussing with the teacher while the other two are discussing with one another, and they will not know what their teacher said. This might lead them to permit a prohibited sexual relation…
Babylonian Talmud Hagigah 13a
Rabbi Hiyya taught: But the headings of chapters may be transmitted to him.
Rabbi Zera said: The headings of the chapters may be transmitted only to the head of a court and to one whose heart is anxious within him.
Others say: Only if his heart is anxious within him.
Rabbi ‘Ami said: The mysteries of the Torah may be transmitted only to one who possesses five attributes:
“The captain of fifty,
and the honourable man,
and the counsellor,
and the cunning artificer,
and the eloquent orator” (Isaiah 3:3).
1.1.5. Sefirah Yetzira
[from E. Segal, http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~elsegal/Rels463/Yetzirah.html]
Chapter 1
1. With 32 wonderous paths of Wisdom engraved Yah, the Lord of Hosts, [God of Israel, the Living God, King of the Universe, Almighty God, merciful and gracious, High and Exalted, dwelling in eternity, whose name is Holy, and created His universe with three books, with text (Sepher), with number (Sephar), and with communication (Sippur).
2. Ten Sefirot of Nothingness plus twenty two [foundations] letters: Three Mothers, Seven Doubles, and Twelve Elementals.
3. Ten Sefirot of Nothingness: The number of the ten fingers, five opposite five, with a single covenent precisely in the middle, like the circumcision of the tongue and the circumcision of the membrum.
4. Ten Sefirot of Nothingness: Ten and not nine; ten and not eleven. Understand with Wisdom, and be wise with Understanding. Examine with them and probe them, make a thing stand on its essence, and make the Creator sit on his base.
5. Ten Sefirot of Nothingness: Their measure is ten which have no end. A depth of beginning, a depth of end; a depth of good, a depth of evil; a depth of above, a depth below; a depth east, a depth west; a depth north, a depth south. The singular Master, God faithful King, dominates them all from His holy dwelling until eternity of eternities.
6. Ten Sefirot of Nothingness: Their vision is like the “appearance of lightening”, their limit has no end. His Word in them is “running and returning”. They rush to his saying like a whirlwind, and before His throne they prostrate themselves.
7. Ten Sefirot of Nothingness: Their end is embedded in their beginning, and their beginning in their end, like a flame in a burning coal. For the Master is singular, He has no second. And before One, what do you count?
8. Ten Sefirot of Nothingness: Bridle your mouth from speaking and your heart from thinking. And if your heart runs, return to the place, as it is written, “The Chayot running and returning” (Ezekizl 1:14). Regarding this covenant was made.
9. Ten Sefirot of Nothingness: One is the Breath of the Living God, blessed and benedicted be the Name of the Life of worlds. Voice, Breath and Speech. This is the Holy Breath (Ruach HaKodesh).
10. Two: Breath from Breath. With it engrave and carve twenty-two foundation letters – three, Mothers, seven Doubles, and twelve Elementals – and one Breath is from them.
11. Three: Water and Breath. With it engrave and carve chaos and void, mire and clay. Engrave them like a garden plot, carve them like a wall, cover them like a ceiling.
12. Four: Fire from water. With it engrave and carve the Throne of Glory, Seraphim, Ophanim, holy Chayot, and Ministering Angels. From the three establish His dwelling, as it is written, “He makes His angels of breaths, His ministers from flaming fire” (P salms 104:4).
13. Five: With three of the simple letters seal “above”. Choose three and place them in His great Name: YHV. With them seal the six extremities. Face upward and seal it with YHV.
- Six: Seal “below”. Face downward and seal it with YVH.
- Seven: Seal “east”. Face straight ahead and seal it with HYV.
- Eight: Seal “west”. Face backward and seal it with HVY
- Nine: Seal “south”. Face to the right and seal it withn VYH.
- Ten: Seal “north”. Face to the left and seal it with VHY.
14. These are the Ten Sefirot of Nothingness. One is the Breath of the Living God. Breath [from Breath], Fire [from water, and the extremities], up, down, east, west, north and south.
Chapter 2
1. Twenty-two foundation letters: three Mothers, seven Doubles, and twelve Elementals. The three Mothers, AMSh, their foundation is the pan of merit, the pan of liability, and the tongue of decree deciding between them.
2. Twenty-two letters: Engrave them, carve them, weigh them, permute them, and transform them, and with them depict the soul of all that was formed and all that will be formed in the future.
3. Twenty-two foundation letters: They are engraved with voice, carved with breath, and placed in the mouth in five places: AChHO, BVMP, GYKO, DTLNTh, ZSShRTz.
4. Twenty-two foundation letters: They are set in a circle as 231 Gates. And this is the sign: There is no good higher than delight (ONG), and there is no evil lower than plague (NGO).
5. How? Weigh them and transpose them, Aleph with each one, and each one with Aleph; Bet with each one, and each one with Bet. They repeat in a cycle. Therefore, everything formed and everything spoken emanates in one name.
6. From substance out of chaos and make nonexistence into existence. Carve great pillars out of air that cannot be grasped. This is the sign: One forsees, transposes, and makes all creation and all words with one Name. And a sign of this: Twenty-two objec ts in a single body.
Chapter 6
1. Three are the fathers and their offspring, seven are the planets and their hosts, and twelve are the diagonal boundaries. And the proof of this, true witnesses, are the Universe, the Year, and the Soul. He decreed Twelve, (Ten), Seven and Three and He a ppointed them in the Teli, the Cycle, and the Heart. The three are fire, water, and breath: fire above, water below, and breath, the decree that decides between them. A sign of this is that fire upholds water.
Mem hums, Shin hisses, and Alef is the decree that decides between them.
2. The Teli in the Universe is like a king on his throne, the cycle in the Year is like a king in the province, the Heart in the Soul is like a king in battle.
“Also every desire, one opposite the other was made by God” (Ecclesiastes 7:14). Good opposite evil, good from good, evil from evil. Good makes evil recognizable, and evil makes good recognizable. Good is kept for the good, and evil is kept for the wicked .
3. Three: Each one stands alone. Seven are divided, three opposite three, with a decree deciding between them. Twelve stand in war: three who love, three who hate, three who give life, and three who kill. The three that love are the heart, the ears and th e mouth; the three that hate are the liver. the gall bladder, and the tongue. And God, the fathful King dominates them all. One over three, three over seven, and seven over twelve, and all of them are bound, one to another.
4. And when Abraham our father gazed, he looked, saw, delved, understood, engraved, carved, permuted and depicted, and he was successful. And the Master of all, Blessed be He, revealed Himself to him, and took him in His bosom, [kissed him on the head, and called him, “my Beloved”]. He made a covenant with him between the ten toes of his feet-this is the covenant of circumcision-and between the ten fingers of his hand-this is the covenant of the tongue. He bound the twenty-two letters to his tongue and re vealed their foundation. He drew them in water, burned them in fire, agitated them with breath. He ignited them with seven planets, and directed them with twelve constellations.
1.2. Magic
1.2.1. Aramaic Magic Bowls
Aramaic Demon Bowls:
http://www.lib.umich.edu/pap/magic/def2.html
http://www.lib.umich.edu/pap/magic/def2.display.html
1.2.2. Amulets:
http://www.lib.umich.edu/pap/magic/def1.html
http://www.lib.umich.edu/pap/magic/def1.display.html
1.3. Rabbinic Magic
1.3.1. R. Hanina b. Dosa. Bavli Taanit 25a
[A famous miracle-working rabbi of the first century CE.]
On one Sabbath eve at twilight [R. Hanina] saw his daughter sad. He said to her: “Why are you sad?” She replied: “I exchanged my vinegar can for my oil can, and I kindled the Sabbath light with vinegar (and it will be extinguished).” He said to her: “My daughter, why should this trouble you? He who commanded the oil to burn will also command the vinegar to burn.” The vinegar burned all day until after Havdalah (the end of the Sabbath)
Once Hanina’s wife said to him: How long are we to go on suffering so much: He replied: “What shall we do?” She said, “Pray that some of what is stored up for the righteous in the world-to-come be given you here and now.” He prayed, and [from above] there emerged the semblance of a hand which gave him a leg of a golden table. That night in a dream he saw each of the other righteous men [in the world-to-come] dining at a table with three legs but he and his wife were dining at a table with only two legs. So he said to his wife: Are you content to have all of the righteous dine at three-legged tables, will you and I dine at a table with one of its legs missing?” She said: “What shall we do? You have no choice but to pray that the leg be taken away from you.” He prayed and it was taken back. The sages taught: The latter miracle was greater than the former; for we have a tradition that Heaven gives but never takes back.
[cited from http://www.jhom.com/topics/miracles/ben_dosa.htm#7]
1.3.2. R. Yohanan b. Zakkai.
[Yohanan ben Zakkai was a leading rabbi of the late 1st c. CE, who helped reconstruct Judaism after the War with Rome]
A heathen once asked Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai: These things you do appear like acts of witchcraft. You bring a red heifer, slaughter it, burn it, beat it down to a powder, then take the ashes; and if one of you is defiled by a dead body, you sprinkle two or three drops and say to him, You’ve been cleansed.
Said Yohanan to the heathen, Has a demonic spirit ever taken possession of you?
The heathen replied, No
Yohanan said to him, have you ever seen anyone possessed by a demonic spirit?
Indeed the heathen replied
What do you do in such a case, Yohanan asked him. The heathen said: we bring certain roots, kindle them, let the smoke rise under him; then we spray water on the demonic spirit and it flees.
Said Rabban Yohanan to him: Why don’t your ears listen to what your own mouth is saying? That demonic spirit is the spirit of uncleanness as it is written, “And also I will remove from the land the prophets and the unclean spirit,”
When the heathen took off, Yohanan’s disciples said to him: Master, him you could put off with a straw argument; what have you to say to us however?
Yohanan said to them: By your life! It is not the corpse that makes unclean, and it is not the waters that make clean. But this all is a decree of the Holy One, blessed be He. The Holy One, blessed be He, declared, I have proclaimed a statute, I have decreed a decree, and you are not permitted to transgress what I have decreed. “This is the ritual law that the Lord has commanded”
[from Judah Goldin, The Magic of Magic and Superstition; cited from http://www.mtholyoke.edu/~cemulshi/whatis.html]
1.3.3. R. Simon b. Yochai. Bavli Meilah 17a–b
[A rabbi of the 2nd c. CE. By demonstrating his power over a demon, he is granted his request of the emperor to repeal a law against the Jews]
Once the kingdom issued a decree not to observe the Sabbath, not to circumsize the sons, and to have relations with menstruating women… They said: Who will go to abrogate the decrees? Let Rabbi Simon go since he is learned in miracles… He was greeted by [the demon] Ben Tamalyon: Do you want me to come with you? Rabbi Simon wept and said: How is it that the maidservant of Father Abraham’s household had an angel come three times and I not once; let the miracle come by any means. The first one he came to was the daughter of the emperor. When he came there, he said: Ben Tamalyon leave!, Ben Tamalyon leave! And as he was called, he left. He was told: request whatever you want. Go to the storehouse and take whatever you want. He found the document, took it and tore it up.
[cited from http://faculty.biu.ac.il/~barilm/exorcism.html]