Jewish History in 100 Nutshells by Pasachoff Naomi Littman Robert J

Author:Pasachoff, Naomi,Littman, Robert J. [Pasachoff, Naomi E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781461629115
Publisher: Jason Aronson
Published: 2013-07-11T04:00:00+00:00

In 1993, the small circle of readers of the American Jewish periodical Tikkun suddenly found the name of the publication and of its editor, Michael Lerner, getting wide coverage in the mass media. Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton, it appeared, were committed to the periodical’s “politics of meaning.” While most of Tikkun’s readers were aware that the periodical’s title was the Hebrew word for “repair” or “improvement,” fewer knew of the historical context in which the term was elaborated. The concept of tikkun was popularized among a community of 16th-century Jewish mystics—kabbalists—based in Galilee.

Many of the exiles from Spain, including Marranos, made their way to the Middle East. A large number of them were attracted to the northern Galilee hill town of Safed, to which neither Islam nor Christianity laid claim as a holy site. Perhaps more important, because of its proximity to Syria’s commercial centers, Safed was a good business location. The talmudic and kabbalistic scholars who chose Safed as their home nearly all engaged in trade, whether in textiles, clothing, spices, or grain. For the mystics, Safed had the additional attraction of being close to Meron, site of the tomb of Simeon ben Yohai, whom kabbalists venerated as the author of the Zohar (see nutshell #42). By 1522, Safed easily rivaled Jerusalem as a center for Jewish life.

The difficulties of adjusting to a new home at first absorbed the energies of the refugee community. But as time passed, they began to ask the central question posed by the expulsion: why, if the Jews were God’s special people, was intense suffering seemingly their lot in life? The answer that was formulated in Safed would not only help make sense of Jewish suffering for the generation following the expulsion but would also affect Jewish life and thought down to our own times.

The formulator of the kabbalistic system that provided the answer was Isaac Luria (1534–1572). His interpretation of kabbalah would have an enormous impact on Jewish history. Luria is often called Ha’ARI, a name that is both an acronym and a pun: the acronym makes use of the initial letters of the Hebrew words HaElohi Rabbi Itzhak—the divine Rabbi Isaac; the pun is that ari is the Hebrew word for “lion.” Like a lion’s roar penetrating the silence of the jungle, Luria’s interpretation of the links between cosmic and Jewish history reverberated far and wide.

Lurianic kabbalah, as his system is known, addresses three basic questions: (1) what accounts for the existence of evil? (2) does the exile of the Jews serve a purpose, or is it merely a punishment for their sins? and (3) are Jews only victims, or do they have a more positive role to play in the world? To answer these questions, Luria focused on what he saw as the overlap between Jewish history and the history of the universe.

Luria’s starting point was the moment of creation itself. According to the Zohar, creation began when God sent forth a ray of light that became the sefirot, the emanations of divine light.

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