Editing Kabbalah (section)

=== Medieval views ===
[[File:Knesset Menorah Spain.jpg|thumb|[[Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain|Golden age of Spanish Judaism]] on the [[Knesset Menorah]], [[Maimonides]] holding [[Aristotle]]'s work]]
[[File:Knesset Menorah P5200009J.JPG|thumb|Kabbalah mysticism on the [[Knesset Menorah]], which shared some similarities of theory with Jewish Neoplatonists]]
The idea that there are ten divine ''[[sephirot]]'' could evolve over time into the idea that "God is One being, yet in that One being there are Ten" which opens up a debate about what the "correct beliefs" in God should be, according to Judaism. The early Kabbalists debated the relationship of the Sephirot to God, adopting a range of essentialist versus instrumental views.{{sfnp|Dan|Kiener|1986}} Modern Kabbalah, based on the 16th century systemisations of [[Moses ben Jacob Cordovero|Cordovero]] and [[Isaac Luria]], takes an intermediate position: the instrumental vessels of the sephirot are created, but their inner light is from the undifferentiated [[Ohr|Ohr Ein Sof]] essence.{{citation needed|date=February 2025}}

[[Maimonides]] (12th century), celebrated by followers for his [[Jewish rationalism]], rejected many of the pre-Kabbalistic [[Hekalot]] texts, particularly ''[[Shi'ur Qomah]]'' whose starkly anthropomorphic vision of God he considered heretical.<ref>Maimonides' responsa siman ([https://www.hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=1730&st=&pgnum=215 117 (Blau)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210420231145/https://www.hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=1730&st=&pgnum=215 |date=2021-04-20 }} / [https://www.hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=1733&st=&pgnum=410 373 (Freimann)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210420205850/https://www.hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=1733&st=&pgnum=410 |date=2021-04-20 }}), translated by [[Yosef Qafih]] and reprinted in his ''Collected Papers'', Volume 1, footnote 1 on pages 475–476; see also pages 477–478 where a booklet found in Maimonides' [[Genizah]] with the text of Shi'ur Qomah appears with an annotation, possibly by Maimonides, cursing believers of Shi'ur Qomah (Hebrew: ארור המאמינו) and praying that God be elevated exceedingly beyond that which the heretics say (Judeo-Arabic: תע' ת'ם תע' עמא יקולון אלכאפרון; Hebrew: יתעלה לעילא לעילא ממה שאומרים הכופרים).</ref> Maimonides, a centrally important medieval sage of Judaism, lived at the time of the first emergence of Kabbalah. Modern scholarship views the systemisation and publication of their historic oral doctrine by Kabbalists, as a move to rebut the threat on [[Halakha|Judaic observance]] by the populance misreading Maimonides' ideal of philosophical contemplation over ritual performance in his philosophical ''[[Guide for the Perplexed]]''. They objected to Maimonides equating the Talmudic [[Maaseh Breishit and Maaseh Merkavah]] secrets of the Torah with [[Aristotelian physics|Aristotelean]] physics and metaphysics in that work and in his legal [[Mishneh Torah]], teaching that their own Theosophy, centred on an esoteric metaphysics of traditional Jewish practice, is the Torah's true inner meaning.{{citation needed|date=February 2025}}

The Kabbalist [[Rishonim|medieval rabbinic sage]] [[Nachmanides]] (13th century), classic debater against Maimonidean rationalism, provides background to many kabbalistic ideas. An entire book entitled ''Gevuras Aryeh'' was authored by [[Yaakov Yehuda Aryeh Leib Frenkel]] and originally published in 1915, specifically to explain and elaborate on the kabbalistic concepts addressed by Nachmanides in his classic [[Nachmanides#Commentary on the Torah|commentary to the Five books of Moses]].{{citation needed|date=February 2025}}

[[Abraham Maimonides]] (in the spirit of his father Maimonides, [[Saadiah Gaon]], and other predecessors) explains at length in his ''Milḥamot HaShem'' that God is in no way literally within time or space nor physically outside time or space, since time and space simply do not apply to his being whatsoever, emphasizing the [[Monotheism|Monotheist]] Oneness of [[Divine transcendence]] unlike any worldly conception. Kabbalah's [[Panentheism]] expressed by [[Moses ben Jacob Cordovero|Moses Cordovero]] and [[Hasidic thought]], agrees that God's essence transcends all expression, but holds in contrast that existence is a manifestation of God's Being, descending [[Divine immanence|immanently]] through spiritual and physical condensations of the divine light. By incorporating the pluralist many within God, God's Oneness is deepened to exclude the true existence of anything but God. In [[Atzmus|Hasidic Panentheism]], the world is [[Acosmism|acosmic]] from the Divine view, yet real from its own perspective.{{citation needed|date=February 2025}}

Around the 1230s, [[Rabbi Meir ben Simon of Narbonne]] wrote an epistle (included in his ''Milḥemet Mitzvah'') against his contemporaries, the early Kabbalists, characterizing them as blasphemers who even approach heresy. He particularly singled out the Sefer Bahir, rejecting the attribution of its authorship to the ''tanna'' [[Nehunya ben HaKanah|R. Neḥunya ben ha-Kanah]] and describing some of its content as truly heretical.{{sfnp|Dan|Kiener|1986}}

[[File:Kabbalistic Prayer Book.jpg|thumb|upright=1.0|Kabbalistic [[Siddur|prayer book]] from [[History of early modern Italy|Italy]], 1803. [[Jewish Museum of Switzerland]], [[Basel]]]]

[[Leon of Modena]], a 17th-century [[Venice|Venetian]] critic of Kabbalah, wrote that if we were to accept the Kabbalah, then the Christian trinity would be compatible with Judaism, as the Trinity seems to resemble the kabbalistic doctrine of the ''[[sephirot]]''. This was in response to the belief that some European Jews of the period addressed individual ''sephirot'' in their prayers, although the practice was apparently uncommon. Apologists explained that Jews may have been praying ''for'' and not necessarily ''to'' the aspects of Godliness represented by the ''sephirot''. In contrast to Christianity, Kabbalists declare that one prays only "to Him ([[Atzmus|God's Essence]], male solely by metaphor in Hebrew's gendered grammar), not to his attributes (sephirot or any other Divine manifestations or forms of incarnation)". Kabbalists directed their prayers to God's essence through the channels of particular sephirot using [[Jewish meditation|kavanot]] [[Names of God in Judaism|Divine names]] intentions. To pray to a manifestation of God introduces false division among the sephirot, disrupting their absolute unity, dependence and dissolving into the transcendent [[Ein Sof]]; the sephirot descend throughout Creation, only appearing from man's perception of God, where God manifests by any variety of numbers.{{citation needed|date=February 2025}}

[[Yaakov Emden]] (1697–1776), himself an Orthodox Kabbalist who venerated the [[Zohar]],<ref name=Jacobs>{{harvp|Jacobs|1995|loc=entry: Emden, Jacob}}.</ref> concerned to battle [[Sabbatean]] misuse of Kabbalah, wrote the ''Mitpaḥath Sfarim'' (''Veil of the Books''), an astute critique of the [[Zohar]] in which he concludes that certain parts of the Zohar contain heretical teaching and therefore could not have been written by Shimon bar Yochai.<ref name=Jacobs/>

[[Vilna Gaon]] (1720–1797) held the Zohar and Luria in deep reverence, critically emending classic Judaic texts from historically accumulated errors by his acute acumen and scholarly belief in the perfect unity of Kabbalah revelation and Rabbinic Judaism. Though a Lurianic Kabbalist, his commentaries sometimes chose Zoharic interpretation over Luria when he felt the matter lent itself to a more exoteric view. Although proficient in mathematics and sciences and recommending their necessity for understanding [[Talmud]], he had no use for canonical medieval [[Jewish philosophy]], declaring that [[Maimonides]] had been "misled by the accursed philosophy" in denying belief in the external [[Practical Kabbalah|occult matters]] of demons, incantations and amulets.{{sfnp|Jacobs|1995|loc=entry: Elijah, Gaon of Vilna}}

Views of Kabbalists regarding [[Jewish philosophy]] varied from those who appreciated [[Maimonidean]] and other classic medieval philosophical works, integrating them with Kabbalah and seeing profound human philosophical and Divine kabbalistic wisdoms as compatible, to those who polemicised against religious philosophy during times when it became overly rationalist and dogmatic. A dictum commonly cited by Kabbalists, "Kabbalah begins where Philosophy ends", can be read as either appreciation or polemic. Moses of Burgos (late 13th century) declared, "these philosophers whose wisdom you are praising end where we begin".{{sfnp|Scholem|1995|p=24}} [[Moses ben Jacob Cordovero|Moses Cordovero]] appreciated the influence of Maimonides in his quasi-rational systemisation.{{sfnp|Jacobs|1995|loc=entry: Cordovero, Moses – especially in Cordovero's view that the truth of Kabbalistic symbols, once grasped, must then be rejected for falsely literal [[Anthropomorphism in Kabbalah|anthropomorphism]]}} From its inception, the Theosophical Kabbalah became permeated by terminology adapted from philosophy and given new mystical meanings, such as its early integration with the Neoplatonism of [[Ibn Gabirol]] and use of Aristotelian terms of Form over Matter.{{citation needed|date=February 2025}}