A Gateway to the Kabbalah by Rabbi Wernick Eugene A.;

Author:Rabbi Wernick, Eugene A.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 4578332
Publisher: United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism

NOTES

1. See Scholem, Major Trends, 127.

2. Temurah is done easily in Hebrew, because the twenty-two letters of the alphabet are treated as consonants. The most used system of temurah is “ATBASH,” in which the first letter is changed to the twenty-second letter, the second letter is changed to the twenty-first letter, and so on. See Fred Skolnik and Michael Berenbaum, eds., Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd edition, vol. 7 (New York: Macmillan Reference USA and Jerusalem: Keter Publishing, 2007), “Gematria,” 424–447.

3. See Scholem, Major Trends, 138–144.

4. Ibid., 139.

5. A Bodhisattva (a being who has attained the high degree of spiritual perfection immediately below that of a Buddha) is the basis of countless magic forms. By the power generated in a state of perfect concentration of mind, he may at one and the same time show a phantom—the tulpa (written “sprulpa”)—of himself in thousands of millions of worlds. He may create not only human forms, but any forms he chooses, even those of inanimate objects. The theory sanctioned in these lines by the highest authority of official Lamaism is identical with that expounded in the Mahayanist literature, where it is said that an accomplished Bodhisattva is capable of effecting ten kinds of magic creations. The power of producing magic formations, tulkus, or less lasting and materialized tulpas, does not, however, belong exclusively to such mystic exalted beings. Any human, divine, or demoniac being may be possessed of it. The only difference comes from the degree of power, and this depends on the strength of the concentration and the quality of the mind itself. See Alexandra David-Néel, Magic and Mystery in Tibet (London: John Lane Company, 1931), 115.

6. See Moshe Idel, The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia, trans. Jonathan Chipman (Albany, New York: SUNY Press, 1988), 179–227, for a full exposition of sexual imagery in the works of Abulafia.

7. Imbibing from Rabbi Eleazar of Worms the use of gematria and notarikon, Abulafia assumed the pen name of Raziel (“secrets of God”), which is the same sum of the Hebrew letters as in the name Abraham. He then replaces and adds letters and gets from the sum of his calculations of the name Abraham the word for limbs in Hebrew (aivarim), which is 248; this is, according to tradition, the number of positive commandments found in the Torah. Since Abraham was the reputed author of Sefer Yetsirah, Abulafia asserts that this is the key to the fundamentals of the Jewish faith. See Amnon Gross, ed., M’tzaref HaSekhel v’Sefer HaOt (Jerusalem: Aharon Barzoni and Son, 2001), http://www.hebrewbooks.org/49748; printed from manuscripts from Hebrew University.

8. See Scholem, op. cit., 146–155. Translated from a manuscript, this is an intimate description of the rapture of an anonymous student of Abulafia. It is well worth the reading for an inside account of the achievement of what Abulafia taught. See also Idel, The Mystical Experience.

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