9 - Mysticism

Summary

MY FASCINATION with Jewish mysticism began when my rebbe in the yeshiva, Rabbi Yitshak Dubov, a prominent Lubavitcher hasid, took me and another boy, on sabbath afternoons, through the intricacies of Habad thought, and sang the Habad melodies full of mystical yearning at the communal meal on these afternoons in the yeshiva. Although, officially, Manchester Yeshiva was a Lithuanian-type yeshiva, looking somewhat askance on mystical fervour, Rabbi Dubov's extra-curricular activities were tolerated. I personally found these activities to be more than a welcome relief from the yeshiva's emphasis on matter-of-fact talmudics. It all came as a breath of fresh air to an impressionable youngster.

My mystical inclinations, whether real or imaginary, were fortified when Rabbi Dubov invited some of the students to his home to meet Rabbi Yitshak Horowitz, known as Reb Yitshak Masmid (masmid is the Ashkenazi Hebrew term used of someone who constantly studies Torah), a leading exponent of mystical theology in the Habad vein. This emaciated figure seemed to us youngsters a typical ascetic (none of us had actually known of this term) whose head reached to the heavens. Reb Yitshak Masmid ate very little but drank heavily in the belief that alcohol could act as a stimulant to the deeper longings of the soul. I recall Reb Yitshak addressing the yeshiva students one night immediately after we had carried out the traditional ceremony of the benediction over the moon (kidush levanah), a mystical rite if ever there was one. In this ceremony, carried out preferably in the open, at the beginning of the month, a benediction is recited in which God is praised for the creation of the moon and the other heavenly bodies. There follows the declaration, recited three times while standing on tip-toe, ‘Just as I dance towards thee [the moon] but cannot reach thee, so may none of my enemies be able to approach me for evil.’ A biblical verse is then recited three times: ‘Terror and dread fall upon them; by the greatness of Thine arm they are as still as a stone’ (Exod. 15: 16). This verse is then recited backwards three times.