RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Cabala
constituted the remainder of the alphabet, symbolized the twelve activities of man: sight, hearing, smell, speech, eating, cohabitation, toil, walking, wrath, laughter, reflection, and sleep. The numerical value of the letters, moreover, rendered numbers sacred, so that twelve, for example, typified the twelve tribes, the twelve months, and the twelve signs of the zodiac. Subsequently gematria was divided into arithmetical and figurative, the first considering the letters according to their numerical value and the latter devoted to the mode of writing the letters.
A second exegetical system was the notarikon, the acrostic use of the letters in such a way that each letter of a word formed the initial letter of a new word. The third method was ziruf, the combination of letters, and the fourth was temurah, the creation of new words by the permutation and interchange of letters. The names of God were special subjects of cabalistic jugglery, since they were no longer the means whereby God had emerged from his concealment and become manifest to the understanding, but were now agencies to work upon the intelligible powers and to perform miracles of all kinds. The most marvelous powers were ascribed to the divine tetragrammaton YHWH. Whosoever possessed the true pronunciation of this name might come into relation with the upper world and receive revelations from the All-Soul. Each letter of the name was portentous. The yodh represented the Father as creator, 13. Magic and the double he the upper and lower Powers of Mother, while the waw typified the the Tetra- creation. Through permutation of grammaton. the letters of the tetragrammaton was obtained a wealth of divine names, to which, in like manner, were ascribed miraculous powers. Iu the " practical " Cabala these new names played an important part, being used in formulas, amulets, and conjurations, their correct enunciation and the gestures with which they were spoken being leading factors in all these operations. In like manner, the twelve-lettered, twenty-twolettered, twenty-four-lettered, and seventy-twolettered name contained great mysteries, influenced the Supreme Being and averted threatening doom, while the names of the angels were subjected to similar manipulation. The net result was the total loss of any comprehension of the actual meaning of the text of the Bible.
The history of the Cabala comprises a period of a thousand years, since its beginnings may be traced to the seventh century, while its last adherents belonged to the eighteenth. This lapse of time may be divided into two periods, the first from the seventh to the thirteenth century, and the second from the fourteenth to the eighteenth. From the seventh to the ninth cen- 14- The tury flourished the mysticism of the Early Merkabah, devoted to descriptions of Period of " the great and small halls," and dethe Cabala, scribing the throne of God and his court of angels according to Byzantine models. God the Infinite, the sefiroth, and transmigration are still unknown, and the authority cited on all occasions is the Tanna Ishmael ben Elisha, who
flourished in the first and second centuries a.d. The juggling with the alphabet is represented by the " Alphabet of Rabbi Akiba," which treats of the letters according to name and form, and connects them with all manner of moral and religious teachings. With the appearance of the Sefer Yezirah (" Book of Creation ") in the eighth century, the mystery of the Throne-Chariot gave place to the mystery of the creation, and a cosmogonic element was introduced which increased steadily in importance in the subsequent period. Here the doctrine of emanation appears in the form in which it had originated in Alexandria. The twenty-two letters are connected, moreover, with the ten divine emanations, and thus form the thirty-two paths of esoteric wisdom and constitute the basis of all things. God is not only the creator, but also the sustainer and ruler of the world. 15. The The letters of the alphabet are " real Sefer powers " which underlie all phe- Yezirah. nomena, while their permutation and their evaluation, like their connotation, are of importance. The Sefer Yezirah is the earliest work which unites cabalistic speculation in a systematic whole. According to it there are four basal principles, emanating in order from each other — spirit, spirits, primeval water, and primeval fire, all united by the three dimensions and their antitheses into a decade. All things are in continual flux, dissolving old combinations and forming new ones, while throughout phenomena rules the law of antitheses, which are united by the mean between them. A remarkable work of the same period is the Sefer Raziel, which teaches the influence of the planets and the figures of the zodiac on the earth. The angel Raziel here takes the place of Metatron, the angel of the presence, as he who possesses and communicates astrological and astronomical mysteries.
In the thirteenth century the crystallization of the Cabala began and the doctrine of the sefiroth was fully developed. To the same period probably belongs the composition of the " Luminous Book," also called the " Midrash of Nehunya ben ha- Kanah," which teaches the main outlines of metempsychosis, while the ten divine emanations, which are not yet called sefiroth, but ma'amarim (" commands "), appear as categories pos- 16. Crystal- sessed of creative force and connected lization of with the attributes of God. A tendthe Cabala, ency toward visionary prophecy was impressed upon the Cabala by Abraham ben Samuel Abulafia (d. about 1304), who laid special stress on a knowledge of the divine name as determined by the exegetical methods of gematria, notarikon, ziruf, and temurah, while his pupil Joseph ben Abraham Gikatilla devoted himself to the mysteries of the alphabet, which he brought into close association with the doctrine of the sefiroth. The cabalistic speculation begun by Isaac the Blind reached its climax in the Zohar, apparently written by Moses ben Shem-Tob of Leon (d. 1305). If the Sefer Yezirah be called the Mishnah of the Cabala, the Zohar is its Talmud. Ostensibly it is a midrashic commentary on the pericopes of the Pentateuch, but practically it is