Jewish Mysticism

34 entries

Person · Jewish Mysticism○

Isaac of Acre

A fourteenth-century Kabbalist who personally investigated who actually wrote the Zohar, decades after it began circulating as an ancient text.

Who they wereHe is the earliest known witness in the dispute over the Zohar's authorship, and reportedly heard that the author's own widow said her husband wrote it himself. His account survives only quoted inside a much later printed book — the entire modern debate rests on a source read at one remove.

Read this entry

Passage · Jewish Mysticism○

The Four Who Entered the Orchard

Four entered the Orchard: Ben Azzai, Ben Zoma, Acher, and Rabbi Akiva.
Ben Azzai looked and died.
Ben Zoma looked and lost his mind.
Acher looked and cut down the saplings.
Rabbi Akiva entered in peace and departed in peace.

— Babylonian Talmud, Chagigah 14b

An early rabbinic story of four sages who undertook a mystical ascent, with only one emerging unharmed.

The passageOne died, one lost his sanity, one abandoned the faith, and only one returned safely — the earliest rabbinic account of the dangers of mystical ascent. Scholars have argued for decades whether it describes a literal heavenly journey or a warning about dangerous scriptural interpretation; the text does not say.

Read this entry

Being · Jewish Mysticism○

The Qliphoth

In Kabbalistic thought, the 'shells' or husks representing impure, unbalanced spiritual forces opposed to the divine order.

Who they wereThe concept genuinely originates in classical Kabbalistic texts and was developed further in the Lurianic doctrine of broken vessels. The now-popular tidy diagram of a ten-part 'inverted tree' with individually named demonic rulers, however, is a twentieth-century occult construction, not a classical Kabbalistic scheme.

Read this entry