The Kuzari and Early Kabbalah: Between Integration and Interpretation regarding the Secrets of the Sacrificial Rite

Abstract

The proper place of Judah Halevi’s thought in the initial emergence and subsequent development of medieval kabbalah has been the subject of debate for centuries. The general consensus has it that the Kuzari was not much more than a convenient repository of terms. This study measures the extent of Halevi’s impact on early kabbalah by using the Kuzari’s reasons for the sacrificial rite as a test case.

Halevi offered an exoteric, more rationalistic explanation and alluded to an esoteric one. Catalonian kabbalists in fact engaged for generations with these two reasons offered by the Kuzari, displaying a shared yet variable approach to Halevi’s thought. Unsurprisingly, some grabbed the low-hanging fruit by interpreting Halevi’s esoteric reason, which he refused to disclose, in terms of theosophical kabbalah. More unexpected, however, is the possible conceptual indebtedness of the earliest Catalonian kabbalists, like Ezra of Gerona, to Halevi’s theurgic conception of the commandments and doctrine of the Godhead. Of particular interest, too, is the fact that later generations of kabbalists interpreted the Kuzari using paradigms they also employed in their conceptualization of theosophical kabbalah, such as astral magic or neoplatonic psychology and spiritual eschatology.

Halevi’s work was not simply scavenged for its well-wrought nomenclature. If one looks closely, evidence for the Kuzari’s significant and lasting imprint can be found throughout kabbalah: in the doctrine of the Godhead, in the theurgic conception of religious ritual, in the development of an esoteric interpretation of religious praxis, in the establishment of an esoteric reading of Sefer yeẓirah, and more.

Introduction

Going on eight hundred years, scholars both traditional and academic have tried to ascertain where the thought of the venerated medieval philosopher Judah b. Samuel Halevi (1075–ca. 1141) fits in the unfinished puzzle of kabbalah’s emergence. Interest in the question intensified during the Italian Renaissance, when the seminal figures Judah Moscato and Azariah de Rossi documented parallels between the Kuzari, Halevi’s magnum opus, and medieval kabbalistic literature, ¹ but thereafter it reduced to a simmer. ² In the nineteenth century, the question became a burning one again, as scholars of Wissenschaft des Judentums assembled their sweeping histories of Judaism that perforce encompassed kabbalah’s appearance. ³ While they were mostly dismissive of any perceived connection between Halevi’s thought and early kabbalah, ⁴ a minority was receptive to the possibility that medieval kabbalah owed some debt to Halevi. ⁵ Slightly later, a handful of scholars resuscitated the older, opposite theory that the Kuzari contains kabbalistic ideas that must have preceded it. ⁶

In the mid-twentieth century, Gershom Scholem (1897–1982) staked out a middle position. In his highly influential scholarship, he affirmed a general connection between Halevi’s thought and kabbalah but judged its impact negligible. ⁷ The Kuzari, Scholem claimed, was familiar to the esotericists of Provence (“the first kabbalists”) and was actively used by the Geronese kabbalists (“their successors”). ⁸ This fit his broader position on the inception of kabbalah: little of the light from the luminaries of Muslim Spain—Halevi included—was absorbed by kabbalah, and both late antique (and mostly “Gnostic”) material and the roughly contemporary, anonymous circles of Provence made a much larger contribution to its development. To use Adam Shear’s characterization, Scholem and his disciples viewed the Kuzari as contributing to kabbalah in mainly a terminological capacity. ⁹ His was the predominant view until the 1990s, when several studies presented conceptual (and in some cases textual) affinities between early kabbalah and medieval Jewish philosophical literature, including the Kuzari. ¹⁰ Although more research is required on this, the Kuzari might have been a source for the kabbalistic notion of theurgy, the influence of humankind on the Godhead. ¹¹ This deserves consideration especially given Shlomo Pines’s (1908–1990) famous supposition that Halevi drew deeply from hermetic thought, via Arabic magical material that included Isma‘ili works, in order to explain core Jewish rituals theurgically, particularly in terms of drawing forth the ruḥaniyyot (“spiritual beings”). ¹²

The present study reassesses the question of Halevi’s relationship with Spanish kabbalah by using the Kuzari’s reasons for the sacrificial service as a test case. Halevi offered an exoteric, rationalistic explanation of the sacrifices and alluded to an esoteric one. Kabbalists active in Catalonia treated this material in two different ways that are emblematic of their general approaches to the Kuzari. They either absorbed Halevi’s formulations and ideas into their own speculation, even declaring so explicitly, or they interpreted them kabbalistically, especially the esoteric rationales he refused to disclose. The earliest kabbalists in Catalonia (and not, pace Scholem, in Provence) did not merely esteem Halevi’s facility of expression and borrow some of his terminology for their own purposes but treated the Kuzari as a foundation for their esoteric doctrines. Their Geronese successors continued to engage with the Kuzari in new and interesting ways, and around the turn of the fourteenth century, the interpretation of the Kuzari according to the principles of kabbalistic theosophy was in full swing. Halevi’s esoteric explanations of commandments like the animal sacrifices and veiled references attracted Catalonian theurgical kabbalists like moths to the proverbial flame.

This sustained kabbalistic engagement with the Kuzari over many generations should serve to reorient our thinking surrounding Halevi and the formation of early theosophical kabbalah. The varying and sometimes even contradictory approaches of kabbalists to his Kuzari point to its more significant role in the development of kabbalistic thought than previously believed. And if one dips beyond the verbal surface and scans the deep structures underneath, the lasting impact of Halevi’s ideas can be seen throughout kabbalah: in the doctrine of the Godhead, in the theurgic conception of religious ritual, in the development of an esoteric interpretation of religious praxis, in the establishment of an esoteric reading of Sefer yeẓirah, and more. It is therefore time to write Halevi (back) into the narrative of kabbalah’s formative period.

The Kuzari and the “Earliest Kabbalist”: Ezra of Gerona

One of the earliest kabbalistic writings in our possession is a brief but fascinating letter by Ezra b. Solomon of Gerona (fl. early 13th cent.) addressed to one Abraham. It is extant in partial or complete form in three manuscripts, ¹³ which preserve Ezra’s abbreviated responsa to a range of questions put to him by this questioner. ¹⁴ The questions concern the connection between a series of theological, cosmogonical, and theurgical issues in kabbalah and the Judeo-Arabic philosophical legacy of al-Andalus—the writings of Solomon Ibn Gabirol (mid-11th cent.), Judah Halevi, and Moses Maimonides (1138–1204). In his response to the fifth question, which concerns the rationale behind commandments that have no overt reason in Scripture, Ezra enumerates the “divine (’elohiyyot) commandments,” which include the offering of sacrifices. His concise response can be divided into three parts, each of which draws on a distinct source:

The reason for the sacrifice has already been explained by the Khazarian rabbi. ¹⁵ When [Scripture] says le-’ishay (Num 28:2), everything difficult is resolved. It is the fire (’esh) that undergoes change according to its davar, ¹⁶ that is, the primordial elements, for everything (davar) ¹⁷ in accordance with its [degree of] rarefaction returns to its elemental source.

The Sages said in Torat kohanim:

“‘Olah, for the sake of ‘olah”—the light of the Shekhinah that ascends to the place whence it was hewn.

“’Isheh, for the sake of ’isheh”—these are the embodied devarim.

“Reaḥ, for the sake of reaḥ”—the spiritual (ruḥaniyyim) within the embodied.

“Niḥoaḥ, for the sake of naḥat ruaḥ”¹⁸—the light of the intellect that descends¹⁹ onto the attributes.

“La-YY”—for the sake of the one who made the world.” ²⁰

The priest would be exacting in his intention to draw forth the Will through oral and instrumental song, thereby bringing close (le-qarev) and unifying the spirit (ruaḥ) with the attributes. This is the language of qorban, for the spirit descends to draw close (mitqarev) and become one with the holy forms. ²¹

Ezra states explicitly that the first section (above) is taken from the beginning of the rabbi’s answer to the king’s question about the reasons for the sacrifices, the Hebrew coming from Judah Ibn Tibbon’s (1120–ca.1190) masterful translation of Kuzari 2.26. Ezra’s contribution is to identify “the fire” undergoing change with the elemental fire. This is consistent with Halevi’s own view: he distinguishes between “visible, manifest fire” (al-nār al-ẓāhirah al-mašhūrah) and “ethereal, rarified fire” (al-nār al-laṭīfah) in the context of the sacrifices. ²² Instead of reading this as a mere translation of Halevi’s language into the terminology of theosophical kabbalah, I think it more accurate to say that he used this quote from the Kuzari in support of—or perhaps even as the basis of—his own kabbalistic interpretation of the sacrificial rite, which centers on the principle of returning the rarefied devarim to their “elemental source.” ²³

The second section is a running elucidation of the Sifra’s parsing of a biblical refrain concerning the sacrifices. ²⁴ Here, Ezra further develops this principle of the devarim returning to their source. Another work written by Ezra, a commentary on Song of Songs (misattributed in certain manuscripts and in print to R. Moses Nahmanides), reveals that this elucidation originated in a tradition he attributed to “the Ḥasid,” an antonomasia for R. Isaac b. R. Abraham (Rabad) of Posquières (late 12th–early 13th cents.):

“‘Olah, for the sake of ‘olah”—the tenth attribute that ascends on high to the place of its origin.

“’Isheh, for the sake of ’ishim”—our master the Ḥasid of blessed memory explained, the embodied devarim.

“Reaḥ, for the sake of reaḥ”—the spiritual within the embodied.

“Niḥoaḥ, for the sake of naḥat ruaḥ”—the drawing forth (hazmanat) of Teshuvah, which is ‘the hiding place of His might’ ” (Hab. 3:4).

“La-YY, for the sake of the one who made the world.” ²⁵

It seems, then, that in his response to his questioner, Ezra combined a brief exegetical tradition attributed to Isaac the Blind ²⁶ with the notion of the devarim returning to their point of origin, which is based on his reading of the Kuzari. This also would account for the change he made to that tradition, replacing “Teshuvah, which is the hiding place of His might” with “the light of the Intellect that descends on the attributes.”

The third section, which discusses drawing forth the divine spirit and unifying it with the sefirot, referred to as the “holy forms,” might in fact be the earliest unmarked quotation of the Bahir (§78): “Why is it called a qorban? Because it draws together (meqarev) the holy forms … as it is written: ‘he descended’ (Lev 9:22), which is translated in the Targum as u-neḥat. The spirit descends and becomes unified with those holy forms.” ²⁷

Returning to the first section, our proposal that Ezra mentioned the Kuzari because he was meaningfully incorporating its rationale, rather than treating it as a text for kabbalistic interpretation, may find support in his commentary on Talmudic aggadot preserved in manuscript. It opens with the same line from the Sifra but this time unaccompanied by Isaac the Blind’s explanation. It continues:

“To bring close (le-haqriv) to Me” (Num 28:2)—it does not say “to come close (le-qarev) to Me,” because it is the altar that receives first and returns each and every thing (davar) ²⁸ to its elemental source. All the flora and fauna need the primordial powers to grow and flourish, and ultimately they return to them. This is [the meaning of] “they shall go up on [the] Will (raẓon), which is My altar” (Isa 60:7). Observe how settled this verse is according to kabbalah, and how confusing and disordered it is in the popular interpretation. ²⁹ …

The priest knew how to direct his attention to draw forth the devarim during the service through vocal and instrumental song, for in them the soul (neshamah) derives pleasure and becomes more rarefied. This is clear. Niḥoaḥ is the language of descent; the Targum for “he descended” (Lev 9:22) is u-neḥat. By means of the sacrifice the spirit would descend and unite with the holy forms, drawing close (mitqarev) through the sacrifice. That is why it is called qorban. ³⁰

There is considerable overlap between this passage and the second and third sections of the letter. The middle portion of this commentary appears to be an elaboration of Ezra’s conception of the sacrificial rite, according to which the devarim return from the bottom of the sefirotic tree up to the top where the “primordial powers” are located. The reader will recall that in the letter this idea is juxtaposed with the Kuzari’s reasons for the sacrifices, which I do not believe is incidental.

Yet a fourth iteration of this explanation of the esoteric workings of the sacrifices appears in similar language in Ezra’s explication (be’ur) of the 613 commandments that emerge from the Decalogue (henceforth: Be’ur). ³¹ There, he enters into great detail, explaining all the categories of sacrifices, in the course of which he emphasizes the principle of “appeasing the inner, spiritual (ruḥaniyyim) devarim”; that is, the sacrificial offering repairs damage caused to the sefirot by human beings. ³²

All told, four texts from a variety of genres show a carefully thought out approach to the sacrificial rite, which integrates three esoteric reasons from as many sources. They are: the returning of the ethereal, elemental fire to its source, based on the Kuzari; the somewhat enigmatic direction of the sacrifice to embodied and spiritual divine powers, attributed to a tradition of the Ḥasid; and the drawing down of the divine power to the “holy forms,” taken from the Bahir. ³³ This synthesis marks Ezra’s unique explanation of the sacrificial logic that would come to be widely disseminated. ³⁴

Additionally, the evident link between Ezra’s terse epistolary response and his more extensive treatment in his commentary on Song of Songs makes it reasonable to assume that the former came first. Perhaps he initially wrote more esoterically to specific initiates and only later devoted his energies to disseminating kabbalah. ³⁵ Only in the longer version do we learn that he was quoting Isaac the Blind’s interpretation in the letter, although he had replaced the original theosophical nomenclature, “the tenth attribute” (Malkhut) and “Teshuvah” (Binah), with “the light of the Shekhinah” and “the light of the intellect.” It is noteworthy that Ezra uses this pair of terms in the proximity of a quote from Halevi, because elsewhere Ezra quotes the Kuzari (1.109) approvingly for distinguishing between “intelligible light” (al-nūr al-ma‘qūl) and “sensible light” (al-nūr al-maḥsūs). ³⁶ In formulating his own approach to the secret rationale of the sacrificial rite, perhaps Ezra sought to borrow Halevi’s terminology while charging it with theosophical meaning.

The two ontologically distinct lights in fact appear in Halevi’s own discussion of the sacrifices in Kuzari 2.25–26. Halevi writes that the animal sacrifices, meal offerings, and incenses were not intended for God’s benefit but to maintain harmony among the “living, godly people” by establishing a connection with the elemental fire, the most rarefied and sublime element in nature. The “well-arranged order” (ḥusn al-niẓām) prepares reality for the “divine matter” (al-’amr al-’illāhī) ³⁷ to “rest in an exalted sense” (ḥulūl tashrīf), and enables it to “to emanate light, wisdom, and understanding” (‘an al-ifāḍati ‘alayhi nūran wa-ḥikmatan wa-ilhāman). ³⁸ Halevi also differentiates quite finely between existents, especially those described as lights, associated with the various temple implements. Aside from the copper and golden altars, to which the manifest and ethereal fires respectively cleave, there are the shewbread table, to which the divine efflux and “embodied blessings” (al-khayrāt al-jasadiyyah) are bound; the candelabrum that bears “the light of wisdom and inspiration” (nūr al-ḥikmah wa-’l-ilhām); and the Urim and Thummim to which clings the “the light of prophecy” (nūr al-nubuwwah). Halevi provides an account of how the “divine matter” rests on all creation and how a range of fires and divine lights adhere to aspects of reality.

It is my contention that Ezra did not cite the Kuzari in the first part of the letter simply because he selected a specific line to shoehorn into his own theory, owing to some fortunate likeness in language or in concept. Rather, Ezra’s entire kabbalistic account of the Godhead and divine emanation is significantly indebted to Halevi’s conception of God and the activity of these various entities. He had all this in mind as he reworked the Ḥasid’s tradition, leading to his incorporation of “the light of the Shekhinah” and “the light of the intellect” alongside the original distinction between the “spiritual devarim” and the “spiritual within the embodied.” ³⁹

Other kabbalists aside from Ezra drew on Halevi’s thought in discussing the mystery of the sacrificial rite. Halevi concludes his discussion of the sacrifices with an unusual declaration about the limitations of his lengthy, rationalistic explanation. This, he says, is intended for those “who investigate and analyze,” relying on ta‘aqqul and baḥt, whereas a “more secret and higher” (akhfā wa-a‘lā) reason is reserved for the elite. ⁴⁰ As we will see below, Catalonian kabbalists also provided exoteric and esoteric reasons, and even considered their own kabbalistic interpretation the “secret and higher” reason that Halevi refused to disclose.

The Kuzari in Nahmanides’s Treatment of the Sacrifices

Moses Nahmanides (ca. 1194–ca. 1270), Ezra of Gerona’s illustrious rabbinic contemporary, famously discoursed the reasons for the sacrificial rite in his Torah commentary. On the exoteric level, he vigorously rejected Maimonides’s rationalization of the sacrifices while adopting, in some fashion, the astral model of the noted Bible commentator, and thinker, R. Abraham Ibn Ezra (ca. 1090–ca. 1165). ⁴¹ At the same time, Nahmanides believed in an esoteric kabbalistic explanation, to which he characteristically was only willing to allude. ⁴²

Less well-known is Nahmanides’s literary sermon of allusive kabbalistic material titled Torat ha-Shem Temimah, which might have been a precursor to the kabbalah of his Torah commentary. ⁴³ It not only resembles Ezra’s letter in its brevity and allusiveness, but it too treats Kuzari 2.25–26 in a discussion of the reasons for the sacrificial rite. ⁴⁴ Nahmanides mentions Ibn Ezra’s astral theory approvingly but notes its limitations and the need for “another reason,” the one supplied by theosophical kabbalah. Although he deems both valid, he privileges the esoteric reason over the exoteric one. ⁴⁵

I propose that Nahmanides does not mention Halevi’s reason merely for the sake of variety but to indicate that he is using it to develop his esoteric, theurgic reason for the sacrifices. Recall that Halevi said the purpose is to cause the “divine matter” to “rest in an exalted sense” within reality, and Nahmanides, too, talks about the resting of the Shekhinah achieved through the sacrificial rite. ⁴⁶ Although the Kuzari wasn’t a major source of Nahmanides’s thought, Halevi’s conception of God did contribute to Nahmanides’s notion of the soul emanating from a divine source and to his account of cleaving to the Shekhinah. ⁴⁷ We will return to the legacy of Nahmanides’s kabbalah and its encounter with the Kuzari below.

Traces of the Kuzari in Kabbalistic Works Attributed to R. Azriel of Gerona

Ezra of Gerona’s kabbalistic explanation of the sacrificial rite in his commentary on the Talmudic aggadot does not seem to have left any trace in Azriel of Gerona’s (fl. mid-13th cent.) own such commentary. ⁴⁸ Still, texts concerning the secrets of the sacrificial rite are attributed to Azriel. One manuscript of early Spanish kabbalah contains a collection of five short expositions of the sacrificial rite produced by different kabbalists, the last of which is attributed to Azriel. ⁴⁹ Four of these pieces, including the one attributed to Azriel, are also included in Me’irat ‘enayim of R. Isaac of Acre (late 13th–mid-14th cents.), who knew of more than twelve kabbalistic explanations, but the one attributed to Azriel is cited anonymously and a different anonymous piece is attributed to Azriel instead. ⁵⁰ We will refer to the author of this passage as Pseudo-Azriel. Some of these pieces were later reworked by R. Bahya b. Asher of Saragossa (ca. 1255–ca. 1340), ⁵¹ R. Menahem Recanati (ca. 1250–ca. 1310), ⁵² and the author of a supercommentary on Nahmanides’s kabbalistic allusions published under the name of R. Meir b. R. Solomon Abusahulah. ⁵³

The five passages are all elaborations of the same kernel, clear evidence of the intense kabbalistic literary activity taking place in mid-thirteenth-century Catalonia. This kernel, as it happens, might have been based partly on Ezra’s reasoning detailed above, in the form of an explication of Lev 1:9 based on the very same Sifra. ‘Olah refers to the sacrifice’s rise from “ascent (illuy) to ascent”; ’isheh marks the sublimation of the sacrifice into fire, “after the smoke finishes rising”; reaḥ is the next stage when “the fire and sparks completely expend themselves and become spirit (ruaḥ) again”; and niḥoaḥ is the final stage when the rising spirit unites or becomes mixed with the supernal divine spirit. ⁵⁴ The five versions distinguish themselves from one another in their explanations of this transcendence, which include: the elevation of the human being’s base desire, via the animal’s soul, to the supernal Will, so that it is “appeased to fulfill his will concerning the matter for which the sacrifice was brought”; ⁵⁵ the “ascent” by means of one’s thought; ⁵⁶ bringing together the “lower will” that is connected to the “power of multiplicity” with the “supernal will” that is connected to the “power of unity,” in order to achieve “a complete unification of the ten sefirot”; ⁵⁷ and more.

For our purpose of investigating Halevi’s presence in early kabbalah, let us return to Pseudo-Azriel, according to whom the sacrifice is meant to facilitate the cleaving of “the offeror’s consciousness and soul” with the Holy Spirit. The offeror unites with the sacrifice “through a single intention,” to the point where the distinction and separation of their “forms” (dimyonim) is nullified and they are brought into harmony through their return to a single source. ⁵⁸ The sacrifice’s success depended on the offeror’s ability “to direct the attention and the offering of every single piece of meat, every type of suet, and every drop of blood to its root source,” that is, to its supernal root. ⁵⁹ This also explains why certain organs were not offered on the altar: “It is known that they would not offer the brain, heart, lung, or dividing membrane that serves the heart.” ⁶⁰

The Hebrew used here is drawn from Ibn Tibbon’s translation of Halevi’s long commentary on Sefer yeẓirah in Kuzari 4.25. Halevi noted the absence of these four from Sefer yeẓirah’s list of twelve organs that correspond to the twelve “simple” letters and defined the lung and dividing membrane as “servants” of the heart. ⁶¹ He went on to explain why the only parts of the animal offered come from the stomach cavity beneath the diaphragm:

Furthermore, the organs below the dividing membrane have a secret, for they are the primordial nature. The membrane divides the elemental world from the animal world, in the same way the neck divides the animal world from the rational world (‘ālam al-nuṭq), as Plato mentioned in the Timaeus. ⁶² The primordial elements (al-ma‘ādin al-’ūlā) belong to the elemental world, which is the source of existence, because thence the seed emerges, and there the fetus is formed among the four elements.

From there the Creator chose the offered parts: the suet, the blood, the lobe of the liver, and the two kidneys. He chose neither the heart nor the brain <nor the lung> nor the membrane. The secret is very profound and explanation is forbidden (wa-’l-sirr ’aḡmaḍ wa-’l-sharḥ maḥẓūr). It has already been said: “One may not expound Sefer yeẓirah ⁶³ except on certain conditions, which are rarely met.” ⁶⁴

According to Halevi, all organs and limbs offered on the altar belong to the anatomical region that corresponds to the “elemental world,” which contains the “root of being” and of multiplicity. ⁶⁵

Having read this passage, Pseudo-Azriel was also aware of the profound secret that Halevi would not divulge, which also appears here. He reasoned:

Perhaps they would not offer them because they are dedicated to the cogitation of the intellective soul (ha-nefesh ha-ḥakhamah), nothing precedes them, and they are one—one head, one brain, one heart, and one membrane. ⁶⁶ The point is that the sacrifice (qorban) was intended to bring together (le-qarev) and unify the separate forms (dimyonot) in a single form and a single source. ⁶⁷

The diaphragm and its superior organs, of which humans have only one each, possess two characteristics: they are not dependent on the activity of a preceding organ, and they are involved in “the cogitation of the intellective soul.” Pseudo-Azriel begins with an explanation that matches the exoteric one offered in the Kuzari, but then he integrates it with his own theosophical reasoning, according to which the offeror’s intention negates the multiplicity of forms and returns them to their single point of origin. ⁶⁸

Interestingly, Ezra of Gerona offers a similarly brief reason for offering the limbs and organs of the sacrifice in his Be’ur. According to him, they all “conspire in sin and lead man off the good path,” and as partners in sin they must be returned to their source in order to effect atonement:

Therefore “the kidneys”—the source of counsel—“and the fat that is atop them, which is by the loins, and the lobe” that protects “the liver,” ⁶⁹ and the suet were all burned up and returned to their elemental source, in order to atone for man’s sin produced by the thought of the kidneys, the desire of the liver, and the fat of the heart. The blood is likewise sprinkled <on the altar> to atone for man’s soul, which subsists in the blood. ⁷⁰

This view is quite close to Pseudo-Azriel’s, which itself is based on the Kuzari. This provides further support for our claim that Ezra esteemed Halevi’s views and used them as a conceptual foundation for his own.

Finally, let us turn to Sha‘ar ha-sho’el, a work about the sefirot composed in question-and-answer format that has been attributed by both tradition and the academy to Azriel. ⁷¹ The author takes the sacrifices to be a prime example of Scripture confirming the existence of the sefirot. The scent that rises from the sacrifices expresses, to his thinking, the order of the sefirot according to the ontological distinction between three worlds: “the natural, the sensible, and the intelligible.” As he puts it:

and certainly the sacrifices, about which it is written: “My sacrifice, My bread, My fires, My pleasing aroma” (Num 28:2), … this attests that there is something distant that draws close from davar to davar until it reaches the supernal power. ⁷²

This conception of the sacrificial rite resembles other kabbalistic ones current in Catalonia, particularly Ezra’s basic model. In this work, too, there is an overt connection to the Kuzari through the author’s extended usage of one of Halevi’s expressions: “the root of faith is the root of rebellion.” ⁷³ In its original context, Halevi labeled as rebels those who rely on “common sense” (qiyās) and believe that rituals of astral magic, such as ritual sacrifice, can draw down rūḥānīyāt, spiritual existents susceptible to magic. ⁷⁴ The faithful, on the other hand, merit complete and lucid divine knowledge (‘ilm ’illāhī) that derives from the “divine matter” (al-’amr al-’illahī). Nevertheless, both have a single root. This, I submit, gestures toward the position that a certain symmetry exists between astral magic and kabbalistic theurgy, such that the validity of the former is not necessarily undermined by the latter. ⁷⁵ This issue is explored in more depth in the next section.

The “Davar of the Godhead” in an Early Synthesis of Astral Magic with Geronese Kabbalah

Yet another composition that displays significant use of Halevi’s explanation of the sacrifices is the so-called Ta‘amei ha-miẓvot nusaḥ bet (hereafter: STM/B), an anonymous kabbalistic commentary on the reasons for the positive commandments that follows Maimonides’ enumeration. Based on its reception of earlier sources and its own subsequent reception, we can say with reasonable confidence that it was composed during the second half of the thirteenth century in Catalonia or Aragon, and that its author made a pioneering effort to synthesize the various streams of Geronese kabbalah. ⁷⁶

The author of STM/B devotes more space to the sacrificial commandments than to any other, ⁷⁷ and he also uncharacteristically deviates from Maimonides’s enumeration by inventing a new ritual category: “to sacrifice our flesh, blood, and fat to the Lord, so that He will atone for us and for our souls.” ⁷⁸ In explicating this, he adapts material from his main sources without attribution, primarily the above citation from Ezra of Gerona’s Be’ur. He is especially enamored of the ideas of returning the primordial forces to their elemental source and of the priest theurgically drawing forth the Will. Essentially, he presents Ezra’s theory with mostly minor changes but also makes one major addition: the attainment of noetic cleaving to God through the offering of the sacrifices. ⁷⁹

In his discourse on the commandments, the author reproduces about half of Halevi’s long explanation of the sacrifices from Kuzari 2.26 in Judah Ben Kardaniel’s (rather than Ibn Tibbon’s) translation, but he attributes it to “a scholar who gave a natural reason for the sacrifices.” ⁸⁰ He is interested in the principle Halevi developed:

the entire layout (tavnit) of the Tabernacle and the Temple was not arranged—Heaven forfend!—for some need of the One who dwells there, but for the honor, splendor, and greatness of the davar of the Godhead manifest there. [In order to] bring it closer to the intellect, the davar of the Godhead can be compared to the intellective, speaking soul that rests in the natural body. ⁸¹

Notably, he ends by saying that “there are great difficulties with this reason for whoever wants to raise them” and that he prefers kabbalistic explanations. He copies the rest of Kuzari 2.26 elsewhere in connection with the commandment to shoulder the ark, where he again expresses reservations about the rationalistic explanation, this time likely channeling Halevi himself: “there is something more sublime and exalted than this regarding the vessels.” ⁸² Although he refrains from fully approving the exoteric reasons he quotes from Halevi, he does incorporate certain elements in his own kabbalistic interpretation. More specifically, he splices the idea of the “divine matter” extending throughout reality and the adherence of the concealed fire and light of wisdom to the temple implements with his conception of the cleaving achieved through the sacrifices. ⁸³ He considered these ideas of Halevi to be compatible with the theosophical kabbalah of the first Geronese kabbalists.

The author of STM/B exhibits similar ambivalence vis-à-vis Nahmanides’s treatments of the sacrifices in his Torah commentary. While he gets behind Nahmanides in his assault on Maimonides’s historical-pedagogical explanation of the sacrifices in his Guide of the Perplexed (3.46), he does not quote Nahmanides’s own allusions to the theosophical secret in his comment on Lev 1:9. Instead, he repeatedly invokes Nahmanides’s discussion of the necromantic practice of offering incense to demons, which appears in a comment on Lev 17:9. ⁸⁴ In his long discussion about the sacrifices, the author writes :

If I were to see that you are learned and well-versed in tradition, whose heart will not incline to an incorrect opinion, I would reveal to you some of the purpose of the sacrifices, and what efficacy there is for the powers through their offering. For it is surely known through the science of necromancy, ⁸⁵ in connection with the spiritual powers to which they would offer incense in order to cleave their intellects to them and to perform an action through them. I have seen but a smidgeon of this science, having found writing about the dead and the deadly spirit of their power; about the spirits in the air that incite and fulfill man’s will, sometimes for ill; and also about the captains of the abdomen (shalishe ha-beṭen) that move by air on account of their power, on Monday or Thursday nights. ⁸⁶

While necromancy retains the usual meaning of consulting the dead, the author further uses it in two broader senses that match Nahmanides’s usage. First, it includes demonolatry, to which the author adds a noetic dimension: “to cleave their intellects to them.” ⁸⁷ Second, it subsumes astrolatry, for which the practitioner must know astrology, geography, and cosmology, especially the “seven separate intellects” that move the seven planetary spheres he terms “forms” (ẓurot) in Aristotelian fashion. ⁸⁸ He again adds the notion of cleaving to supernal powers. In order to provide a firm foundation for this notion of cleaving via a kind of astral magic, he quotes a recipe for activating an open-air altar from a source available in his milieu:

Whoever wants to perform an act through them, must take a virgin maiden younger than eleven years of age. He must dress her in white clothes, not of silk or embroidery; she must fast every day for nine days; and he must immerse her in standing water that is not flowing on an incline or moving. On each day he takes incense of frankincense, and he must fumigate a single round house with a small opening. After nine days pass, he must prepare another place aligned with the central point of the sphere and build an open-air altar there out of earth alone, without iron or wooden tools. It must be eleven handbreadths tall, and it must be square, with horns like chicken feet. Then he takes a brilliantly white cock, and the maiden who was immersed in water takes, slaughters, and burns the cock entirely—from head to toe—with its plumage. He must pronounce the name of the spirits and the name of the forms (ẓurot) that they call in their language qrqṭš, ⁸⁹ and he must offer the incense in their name. I found it written that he will see a name ⁹⁰ descending in the likeness of the form (ẓurah) of a foot, hand, or another human limb. Through it he can inquire of the dead and into their nature, so that they do his bidding and whatever he asks of them. ⁹¹

While he does go on to condemn this sort of recipe as “words of folly,” in the same breath he emphasizes its usefulness for understanding the sacrificial rite:

we can learn from them [about] cleaving to supernal powers. If you make a concerted effort, you will understand the essence of the sacrifices, and how the attributes and spirits suckle from the essence of the sacrifices … and how they descend down to the earth. ⁹²

Here, again, he underscores the notion of mystical cleaving to supernal powers, which is the means by which astral magic operates according to the author. This cleaving, which he characterizes as mental or noetic, is the interface between the Godhead emanated through the sefirot and the earthly plane, the axis by which they can affect one another.

The author of STM/B relies on Nahmanides’s account of magical and demonological practices and divinations, ⁹³ all the while completely ignoring his allusions to a theurgic, theosophical mystery behind the sacrifices. ⁹⁴ This selectiveness fits into a trend witnessed among Nahmanides’s supercommentators, some of whom used hermetic paradigms in their explanations and even, at times, considered them to be the concealed kabbalistic secret. ⁹⁵ Works like STM/B throw open a window on a phenomenon that demands more scholarly eyes: the interpretation of theosophical kabbalah in terms of astral magic at a relatively early date in Catalonia. ⁹⁶

The author of STM/B employs the paradigm of astral magic to establish a certain conception of mystical cleaving through the sacrificial rite, which he contrasts to Halevi’s exoteric reason concerning the indwelling of the “divine matter.” Is it possible that he thought this was the esoteric reason Halevi refused to reveal? This is a tantalizing possibility, particularly because scholars have shown that Halevi was steeped in hermeticism and theurgic conceptions of ritual through the mediation of Arabic magic. ⁹⁷ An affirmative indication may lie in the fact that when he continues his quote from the Kuzari in his discussion of shouldering the ark, he juxtaposes Halevi’s exoteric explanation with his own theosophical, theurgic conception:

All this is the statement of the rabbi of blessed memory, yet there is something else more exalted and sublime than this regarding the vessels. Let us return to our discussion and say that the voice which emanated from the Glory of the Lord would come via the channels of Ḥokhmah into the hollow of the ark, and from the ark another Glory was emanated which reached the cherubs, and from the cherubs it would reach the tent of meeting. As it says: “He heard the voice speaking to him … from between the two cherubs, and it spoke to him” (Num 7:89)—“voice … to him,” voice implies two voices…. I cannot reveal more to you because I know that the ark was hidden while the holy implements were not hidden; only it was hidden in its place. Do not look behind you. Remember that the soul of the babe exited at the place of the ark. Understand this. ⁹⁸

This account of the emanation of the divine Glory, explicitly an alternative to the one proposed by Halevi’s rabbi, might be the product of the author’s attempt to decipher Halevi’s secrets using Halevi’s own doctrine of the Godhead and understanding of religious praxis, and at the same time founded on the assumption that kabbalistic theosophy holds the key to opening Halevi’s esoteric lock. ⁹⁹ The author of STM/B also cites the Kuzari in connection with the commandment to give the foreleg, cheeks, and abomasum to the priest. First, he supplies general reasons for the superiority of these over other limbs and organs, relying partially on Maimonides’s reasoning in Guide 3.39, which is also cited in Nahmanides’s Torah commentary on Deut 18:3. But the rationalistic explanation falls short: “Know that there is another matter behind the [priestly] gifts that I do not wish to reveal.” ¹⁰⁰ Then he copies in a free adaptation, rather than word for word, ¹⁰¹ a portion of Halevi’s long commentary on Sefer yeẓirah discussed above, where he explains why only abdominal organs below the diaphragm are offered on the altar. Here, again, he uncovers a reason purposely concealed in the Kuzari, namely, “because all of these are partners in creation and in sin.” ¹⁰² This explanation meshes the Kuzari’s explanation, that the offered parts are located in the part of the body that corresponds to the natural world and the root of being, with Ezra’s kabbalistic reason in his Be’ur, that these internal organs abet the soul in sin. ¹⁰³ As such, the author of STM/B clearly believed that Halevi’s hidden reason could be discovered using the writings of the first Geronese kabbalists. The larger takeaway is that the phenomenon observed here exemplifies a broader hierarchizing approach to the reasons behind religious praxis, in which rationalistic ones are not rejected but read as a basic layer of meaning that subsumes, while simultaneously veiling, kabbalistic meanings. ¹⁰⁴

The “Power of the Godhead” in the Neoplatonic Exposition of Nahmanidean Kabbalah

Joshua Ibn Shu‘eib (fl. early 14th cent.), a disciple of Solomon b. Abraham Ibn Adret (Rashba) who was himself a disciple of Nahmanides, crafted an entire literary sermon on the Torah reading of Va-yikra concerning the reasons for the sacrifices. ¹⁰⁵ In the course of the sermon, Ibn Shu‘eib relates to rationalist reasons proposed by a number of medieval thinkers. He declares his own point of departure to be the position of Nahmanides, enriched by what he learned from Ibn Adret:

I heard in the name of my teacher Rashba of blessed memory that the matters concealed in the Torah concerning the sacrificial rite and the like indicate their sublimity, for what is concealed and hidden indicates its substance—the substance of the Godhead, for its essence and affairs are hidden from all mankind and even from angels. He would further say that it is perplexing that some Torah scholars want to explain the commandments using the intellect, because the secrets of our Torah and the esoteric commandments are beyond rationality…. Indeed, our sublime commandments are beyond rationality and are known only to whomever God has favored with an endowed intellect, as the prophets possessed, and transmitted them to the Sages orally. ¹⁰⁶

Ibn Shu‘eib therefore claims that the reasons proposed by rationalist thinkers like Abraham Ibn Ezra, Maimonides, and Jacob Anatoli were intended only “to make the matter approachable to the intellect”; these thinkers had another reason they did not reveal. ¹⁰⁷ This esoteric reason, according to Ibn Shu‘eib, is the kabbalistic one to which Nahmanides alluded in his Torah commentary whose source is prophecy and tradition.

In the midst of this discussion, Ibn Shu‘eib refers to Halevi’s reason for the sacrifices as he seeks to lay bare the secret rationale behind the sacrificial rite. Like the author of STM/B, he uses Ben Kardaniel’s translation of the Kuzari, ¹⁰⁸ but he completely rewrites the dialogue between the king and the rabbi. ¹⁰⁹ Although the conceptual kernel—“how the power of the Godhead rests on the sacrifice”—is from Halevi, in his free adaptation he replaces the harmonistic account of the temple service with an explanation of the “natural philosophers” grounded in astral magic. ¹¹⁰ In Ibn Shu‘eib’s thinking, this hermetic approach, which he inserted through sophisticated revision of the rabbi’s words, was Halevi’s esoteric reason but not the truly secret one: ¹¹¹

God forbid that I should declare that there is no more exalted and sublime reason than this, for there is undoubtedly a different meaning to this in the possession of the sages of Israel, who have received it from the prophets and from the Sages and require no other meaning. But I say this for whomever has not attained the lofty level of our Torah and desires to partake of its wisdom, in order to make it approachable to the intellect. ¹¹²

This concealed meaning was transmitted esoterically among kabbalists and has to do with connecting the spiritual and physical through shekhinah, the indwelling of the Godhead. ¹¹³ He goes on to explain this approach for most of the refashioned response of the rabbi to the king, in which he interleaves Halevi’s original principles with those pertaining to the eschatology and recompense of the individual soul found in Nahmanides’s Sha‘ar ha-gemul. ¹¹⁴ Importantly, he concludes:

Thus we are able to understand from the sacrifices that the indwelling (shekhinah) of the Lord is the soul of Israel, and Israel is like the body; all are responsible for one another and are connected as one through the limbs of the body…. In the same manner that the soul draws close to the body through food and drink yet does not itself eat and drink, so the indwelling (ha-shekhinah) does not draw close (mitkarevet) to Israel except via the sacrifice (qorban) together with the sanctity of the Land, the altar, and the priests. Therefore, Scripture called the sacrifice “My bread … my pleasing aroma” (Num 28:2). ¹¹⁵

These words, which Ibn Shu‘eib wedges into the mouth of Halevi’s rabbi, draw a parallel between the resting of the “divine matter” and the soul being drawn close to the body. Great emphasis is placed here on the indwelling of the Godhead through the offering of sacrifices. Nevertheless, this is all merely an analogy for the profound kabbalistic explanation that Ibn Shu‘eib never fully reveals, sticking to his principled refusal to decode Nahmanides’s kabbalistic allusions for his readership. ¹¹⁶ As such, even the exposition Ibn Shu‘eib attributed to the esoteric layer of the Kuzari (drawing close to the divine indwelling through the sacrifice) remains “exoteric” in relation to the hidden, unarticulated explanation of theosophical kabbalah. According to our proposal, Ibn Shu‘eib takes the same stratified approach in his interpretation of both Halevi and Nahmanides, offering explicit explanations based on hermetic or neoplatonic thought and holding back the kabbalistic ones.

Another case of Ibn Shu‘eib rewriting the script for Halevi’s rabbi is found in his literary sermon for the Torah portion of ’Emor. In his hands, the discussion in Kuzari 4.25 balloons into an entirely new dialogue between king and rabbi. ¹¹⁷ Halevi asserted that the kidneys have the power to improve reasoning, on which basis Ibn Shu‘eib states that the soul resides in the brain, the heart, and the kidneys, and that the latter, although one of the menial organs, are involved in human mental activity. Unlike the other kabbalists, Ibn Shu‘eib does not appear to deal with Halevi’s esoteric allusion here, nor does he make a connection to Nahmanides’s own esoteric allusions.

Conclusion

The range of kabbalistic sources reviewed above gives the lie to the long-standing assertion that the Kuzari only had an ill-defined, mainly terminological influence on the “first kabbalists” active in Provence and on their “successors” in Spain. The test case chosen here shifts the center of early kabbalah to Catalonia and reveals a more sophisticated picture of kabbalistic interaction with Halevi’s work. Not mere individuals but several generations of Catalonian kabbalists had recourse to Halevi’s writings on the sacrificial rite. In the early decades, they treated Halevi’s thought as a genuine source of theosophical speculation about religious praxis—both ancient and current. Their immediate successors continued to draw on his conceptual paradigms in developing their own key kabbalistic views. Later still, kabbalists were drawn to his esoteric allusions, which they interpreted using the principles of theosophical, theurgic kabbalah. These modes of interaction with Halevi’s thought, which extended continuously over a century, were not exclusive but complementary, and they inform us of a shared approach toward Halevi’s thought in Catalonia.

As shown above, Spanish theosophical kabbalah and Halevi’s thought converged in four main areas. First, with respect to the very notion of theurgy and the conceptualization of its workings, kabbalists were well aware of Halevi’s position and even adopted it as a foundation for their own. Second, and in connection with the preceding point, kabbalistic theosophy was shaped by Halevi’s theory of the Godhead and the indwelling of the “divine matter.” The rendering of Halevi’s Judeo-Arabic leitwort, al-’amr al-’illāhī, as the one-to-one Hebrew devar/koaḥ ha-’elohut or in a more paraphrastic manner is not a superficial, terminological move but a deep, conceptual one. These kabbalists essentially conceived of the sacrificial rite as the “divine matter” coming to dwell in creation and added their own emphasis of man’s noetic cleaving to the Godhead or the reverse. In addition, the second and third generations of Catalonian kabbalists interpreted the Kuzari using paradigms they simultaneously employed to explicate the esoteric doctrines of theosophical kabbalah: the hermetic paradigm of astral magic (STM/B) and neoplatonic psychology and spiritual eschatology (Ibn Shu‘eib). In both examples, the esoteric element of Halevi’s discussion served as fertile ground for exegetical developments, which long preceded trends that would intensify at the beginning of the Renaissance. At the same time, the reaction resulting from these kabbalists bringing Halevi’s conceptual substrate into contact with other paradigms and worldviews might have actually exposed the building blocks of Halevi’s own thought, which one can see are made of the same stuff from which the medieval kabbalists fashioned their own doctrine of the Godhead. The incidence and importance of Halevi’s thought in Catalonian kabbalah attest to the need for a reevaluation of the role played by Andalusian, Judeo-Arabic philosophy in kabbalah. Third, not only did Kuzari’s hand shape these foundational doctrines of theosophical kabbalah, it also outlined a general approach to the commandments. Halevi posited a fundamental distinction between rationalistic rationales and esoteric ones, which contributed to the kabbalists’ own hierarchizing approach. They also were quick to interpret Halevi’s undisclosed, esoteric reasons in terms of theosophical kabbalah. Fourth, in this connection, there is a more specific need to reevaluate the role played by the Kuzari (alongside other sources) in the creation of a medieval genre of radical interpretations of Sefer yeẓirah.

In light of the foregoing, we would do well not to consider Halevi as a kind of amicable neighbor whom kabbalists called upon only when they needed to borrow a teaspoon or two of words. Rather, he was a revered sage and long-standing mentor whom they often visited and whose profound ideas they pondered, incorporated, and even built upon. It is my hope that the framework and findings of this study can serve as a guide for investigating further test cases in eponymous and anonymous kabbalistic works, particularly those in manuscript that await exhaustive treatment.