From Theosophy To Midrash Lurianic Exege PDF

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FROM THEOSOPHY TO MIDRASH:

LURIANIC EXEGESIS
AND THE GARDEN OF EDEN
by
SHAUL MAGID
Until now, the academic study of Lurianic kabbala has largely pursued
three roads of inquiry. The first, following Scholem, has been the study of
Lurianic kabbala as a mystical and eschatological response to the historical
events of the Jewish expulsion from Spain in 1492, an event viewed as the
root of the mystical heresy of Shabbtai Tzvi.1 The second pathway has been
the scholarly analysis of Lurianic teaching as the most extreme example of
kabbalistic theosophy, surpassing both the Zohar and Cordoverean Kabbala in
its intricate and complex delineation of the cosmic world.2 The third approach
This paper is in loving memory of my father, Gershon Hayyim ben Schmuel, who left this
world the 28th of Tishrei, 5756. May he rest in peace in the upper Garden of Eden.
1. The messianism of Lurianic kabbala, according to Scholem, is what may be called a
temperate messianic utopianism against the apocalyptic messianism of Solomon Molkho (ca.
1500-1532) and David Reuveni (d. 1538?). Scholem devoted numerous studies to the typlogies
of Jewish messianism and their centrality to Judaism, particularly through the study of Lurianic
texts. See G. Scholem, "Toward an Understanding of the Messianic idea in Judaism," in
The Messianic Idea in Judaism (New York, 1971), pp.1-37; idem, "The Messianic Idea in
Kabbalism," pp. 37—48, and "Redemption Through Sin," pp. 78—141. For a general evaluation
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0364009400009223
of these typologies, see J. Dan, "Gershom Scholem and Jewish Messianism," in Gershom
Scholem: The Man and His Work, ed. P. Mendes-Flohr (Albany, N.Y., 1994), pp. 73-86, esp.
82-86.
2. See I. Tishby Torat Ha-Ra ve Ha-Kelippah b 'Kabbalat Ha-Ari (reprint ed., Jerusalem,
1991); Ronit Meroz, "Redemption in the Lurianic Teaching" (diss., Hebrew University, 1991).
AJS Review 22/1 (1997): 37-75 37

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38 SHAUL MAGID
has addressed the unusually complicated task of deciphering, categorizing,

and pointing out the voluminous manuscripts of Luria's students, a literary
oeuvre which is as diverse as it is complex.3 While all of these are important
and contribute to the overall understanding of what is the most influential
kabbalistic doctrine since the Zohar,41 would like to approach the Lurianic
material from a different perspective.
While R. Hayyim Vital's Etz Hayyim5 has justifiably been considered
the foundational presentation of the Lurianic system, its popularity has
overshadowed various other Lurianic texts which offer unique and innovative
approaches to kabbalistic theosophy, particularly in the area of scriptural
interpretation. Anyone who enters the complex world of the Etz Hayyim, and
its compendium "Eight Gates," will quickly realize that these are texts which
have little regard for Scripture and are not founded on what we may call
normative rabbinic and/or the early theosophic kabbalistic tradition.6 By this I
mean that theosophic kabbala,fromthe school of Gerona through the Zohar, is
This focus would also include the effect of Lurianic kabbalism in Europe. On this see J. Avivi,
"The Writings of the Ari in Italy Before 1620" [Hebrew], Aley Sefer 11 (1984): 134-191, and
M. Idel, "Perspectives of Kabbala in the Second Half of the 18th Century," Journal of Jewish
Thought and Philosophy 1 (1991): 55-114.
3. This field of inquiry has been the major focus of Joseph Avivi's work Binyan Ariel:
Introduction to the Homilies of R. Isaac Luria [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1987) and the first part
of Ronit Meroz's dissertation. See also M. Pachter, "Katnut and Gadlut in Lurianic Kabbala"
[Hebrew], Mehkarei Yerushalayim 10(1992): 171-210.
4. Scholem argues in "Tradition and New Creation in the Ritual of the Kabbalists," On
Kabbala and Its Symbolism (New York, 1965), p. 135, that Lurianic kabbala changed the face
of Judaism in all its aspects, theoretical as well as practical. Even in light of Moshe Idel's
critique of Scholem's emphasis on the overarching influence of Luria's teachings, I think this
asssertion still stands. Cf. Idel in Hasidim: Between Magic and Ecstasy (New York, 1995),
chap. 2.
5. The Etz Hayyim has a complex and somewhat dubious history. Although it consists of
R. Hayyim Vital's writings, it was collected and edited by his son R. Shmuel Vital in Damascus
after R. Hayyim's death. There are two editions to this work, "the early edition," called Etz
Hayyim madurah kama, and the later edition, called madurah batra. For a comprehensive study
of the bibliographical history of Vital's writings, see Avivi, op. cit, and R. Moshe Ya'akov
Hillel's preface to R. Ya'akov Hayyim Zemah's Kehillat Ya 'akov (Jerusalem, 1992), pp. 11-60.
Cf. Yizhak Isaac ben Ya'akov, 'Ozar Seforim (Vilna, 1880), p. 446, # 514.
6. I refer specifically to theosophic kabbala to exclude the ecstatic school of Abraham
Abulafia and Joseph ibn Gikitillia, whose writings are not founded on Scripture or framed
midrashically. Moshe Idel addresses this issue in his study of kabbalistic hermeneutics. Cf.
Kabbala: New Perspectives (New Haven, 1988), pp. 215 ff. This is not to say that both
Abulafia and Gikitillia were not interested in exegesis. This is surely not the case. Abulafia's
LURIANIC EXEGESIS AND THE GARDEN OF EDEN 39
structured midrashically, using Scripture as a basis for its kabbalistic exegesis.

Though it is based on the theosophic system of the Zohar, the Etz Hayyim
quotes the Zohar infrequently and cannot be viewed as an interpretation of
the Zohar in the way we normally think of commentary. Even as we have
Lurianic texts which are quasi-commentaries to the Zohar,7 the Etz Hayyim
corpus cannot be included as one of them. Not only is the Zohar absent from
the Etz Hayyim, Scripture itself rarely enters into the purview of Lurianic
discourse, and when it does, it is adduced only to illuminate a point in the
theosophic system. It is perhaps no wonder that Lurianic kabbala met with
so much controversy among traditionally educated Jews. One well-equipped
with the tools of Talmud and Midrash will find himself hopelessly lost in the
Lurianic maze of terms and concepts which indeed seem extraneous to any
normative understanding of Torah.8 One enticed by an interesting reading
of a verse or a zoharic passage will soon be thrown into the dark abyss of
Lurianic lexicography.
more popular work, Shevah Netivot Ha-Torah, published by Adolf Jellinek in Philosophie
und Kabbala (Leipzig, 1854) is devoted almost entirely to the elucidation of Abulafia's seven
methods of interpretation. See the analysis in M. Idel, Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics
in Abraham Abulafia (Albany, N.Y., 1989), pp. 82-125. On the lack of hermeneutic studies
in kabbala, see Y. Liebes, "New Directions in the Study of Kabbala" [Hebrew], Pe 'amim 50
(1992): 159-161.
7. In particular, see Vital'sSAa 'arMamareiRashbi (Jerusalem, 1898) and Zohar Ha-Rakiyah
(Koretz, 1785), which is a much later collection of Lurianic material on zoharic passages. Recent
scholarship has divided Luria's creative output into two periods. The early period (while he
still lived in Egypt) was comprised largely of interpretations of zoharic passages. The later
period (his final two years in Safed) produced another element of his teaching consisting of
the development of his overarching theosophic system and its relationship to the human realm.
Cf. Y. Liebes, "Myth vs. Symbol in the Zohar and in Lurianic Kabbala," in Essential Papers
in Kabbala, ed. L. Fine (New York, 1995), p. 228. Various pupils of R. Moses Cordovero
who were influenced by Luria did compose commentaries to the Zohar. See, for example, the
commentaries of R. Abraham Azulia and R. Abraham Galante, collected in the four-volume
'Or Ha-Hama (Parmishlan, 1896-98), and R. Shalom Buzalgo's Mikdash Melekh, 5 vols.
(Amsterdam, 1750).
8. David Weiss-HaLivni theorizes that "Midrash represents distance from God, a clinging
to words of the past at a time when the living present word is not forthcoming any longer. It
substitutes divine intervention, through either revelation or prophecy." See Midrash, Mishnah,
and Gemara (Cambridge, Mass., 1986), p. 16. If this is so, what are we to do with the Lurianic
tradition, which, according to our working hypothesis, may indeed be "post-midrashic" in that
it no longer feels obligated to justify its understanding through midrashic means? Can we
posit that the Lurianists, at least some of whom believed they were standing on the cusp of
the messianic era, viewed their activity as a return to the "pre-midrashic," prophetic mode of
40 SHAUL MAGID
Yet, while the systematic presentation of Lurianic cosmology in Etz

Hayyim, Sha'ar Hakdamot and Mevo Shearim is void of any systematic
exegesis, various other Lurianic texts use the impressive theosophic formu-
lations of the Etz Hayyim corpus as a theosophic meta-text as they once
again turn to Scripture and reread the biblical narrative in light of these
Lurianic assumptions. The meta-text is the Lurianic system itself, born
independent of Scripture9 yet commanding the authority of revelation. The
Lurianic meta-text is not a symbolic reading of Scripture but is posited as
the content of revelation which is embedded in the narrative of the Bible,
now viewed as its symbolic representation. Yehudah Liebes has noted that
various fundamental components of the zoharic/Lurianic theosophic system
may have been drawn from earlier mythic constructs, some of which may have
been rooted in Antiquity.10 The interesting element here is that the zoharic
adaptation of these models becomes, for the Lurianists, an independent cosmic
text, one which represents the fully revealed "text of revelation" necessary to
bring about redemption."
Even when Lurianic kabbala functions exegetically, it does so in an
unconventional fashion. Whereas the Zohar's theosophical world-view largely
arises from its reading of Scripture,12 Lurianic kabbala imposes theosophy on
discourse? A more definitive conclusion to this query would require a more in-depth analysis
of the material than I have undertaken at this juncture.
9. The Lurianic system itself emerges largely out of the Lurianic reading of Zohar, which
itself is often based on Scripture. Y. Liebes notes, "The Ari's procedure is to juxtapose myths
that are to be found scattered throughout the Zohar and to combine them into a complete and
complex system.... he [the Ari] incorporates all of them [the Zohar's myths] in one overarching
structure, through a mutiplicity of fine detail and a succession of stages." See, Liebes, "Myth
vs. Symbol," pp. 225, 226.
10. See Yehudah Liebes, "The Kabbalistic Myth as Told by Orpheus," in his Studies in
Jewish Myth and Jewish Messianism (Albany, N.Y., 1993), pp. 65-92, esp. pp. 84-87.
11. Talmud Torah (Torah study) as a redemptive act is a central part of the Lurianic
discussion. In this sense, a distinction may be drawn between earlier kabbalistic hermeneutics
(e.g., Sefer Ha-Bahir, Nahmanides, Abulafia and perhaps the Zohar) and the Lurianists. For the
Lurianists, kabbalistic exegesis (according to the principles set up by Lura via his disciples) is
a messianic act, the final act of redeeming Scripture from its concealed state.
12. This idea has been recently developed by E. R. Wolfson in "Beautiful Maiden Without
Eyes: Pesah and Sod in Zoharic Hermeneutics," in The Midrashic Imagination, ed. M.
Fishbane (Albany, N.Y., 1993), pp. 155-204 idem, "The Hermeneutics of Visionary Experience:
Revelation and Interpretation in the Zohar," Religion 18 (1988) and E. Segal, "The Exegetical
Craft of the Zohar," AJS Review (1992): 31-48. "The Zohar is, of course, structured not as a
treatise on mysticism or the theory of the sephirot, but as a talmudic midrash, distinguished
Scripture rather than interpreting theosophy out of it. Whereas the Zohar may
develop its theosophic framework from midrash, Lurinaic kabbala reverses
the zoharic program: Lurianic kabbala moves from theosophy to midrash.13
As Elliot Wolfson has recently argued, zoharic hermeneutics engage in the
classic midrashic interplay of peshat and drash, often using rabbinic midrash
intertextually as it weaves its theosophic world-view.14 According to Wolfson,
by its use of the classical petiha structures" (p. 33). Although this may be an overstatement, I
think that, particularly as compared to Lurianic kabbala, the Zohar still resides in the frame of
midrashic thinking. A more nuanced approach may be that of Scholem when he says, "Here
again the Zohar strikes a different note: throughout it reflects the homiletic viewpoint and
remains closely bound to the Scriptural text. Often an idea is not so much extrapolated and
projected into the Biblical word but rather conceived in the process of mystical reflection upon
the latter." See Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (New York, 1961), p. 205. Wolfson makes
a more radical claim that the Zohar is actually far more concerned with peshat than classical
midrash. See Wolfson "Beautiful Maiden Without Eyes," pp. 185—190. On the midrashists
relation to peshat, see W, Braude, "Midrash as Deep Peshat," in Studies in Judaica, Karaitica
and Islamica Presented to Leon Nemoy on his Eightieth Birthday, ed. S. R. Brunswick (Ramat
Gan: 1982), pp. 31-38, Menahem Haran, "Midrashic Exegesis and the Peshat, and the Critical
Approach to Bible Research" [Hebrew], in Studies in Judaica ed. M. Bar-Asher (Jerusalem,
1986), pp. 75 ff.
13. Joseph Dan recently argued that Kabbala in general is far less systematic in its
hermeneutics than rabbinic (midrashic) exegesis. Cf. Dan, "The Language of Creation and Its
Grammar," in Tradition und Translation: Zum Problem der interkulturellen Ubersetzbarkeit
religioser Phanomene, ed. C. Elias (Berlin and New York, 1994), p. 56, "Even the mystics picked
and chose; common misconception notwithstanding, some of the most important kabbalistic
schools and works did not use many of the midrashic exegetical methodologies, including that of
gematria. The identification of Jewish esotericism and mysticism with midrashic hermeneutics
is a partial one, and the Sefer Yezeria is the earliest expression of the selectivity employed by
Jewish thinkers in their adoption of their own traditions concerning language." Although Dan
is correct vis-a-vis Sefer Yezeria and the Hekhalot literature, the kabbalists in Gerona and the
Zohar do indeed employ many of the exegetical tools of the Talmud and Midrash. Dan's point
is important in that the kabbalists did not feel bound by those rules even when they adopted
them. In Lurianic kabbala, we see a more severe abandonment of those exegetcial tools which
I believe is partially due to the fact that the true Torah (the Torah of the Tree of Life) is not
embedded in the Garments of Torah but exists outside it.

14. Wolfson's argument is even further nuanced in the following statement concerning
earlier mystical literature: "While Scholem's observation that the Hekhalot texts are not
midrashic expositions of biblical passages is basically correct, his further claim that these
texts are descriptions of a religious experience for which no sanction is sought in the Bible is
questionable." Cf. Wolfson, Through a Speculum That Shines (Princeton, 1995), p. 123. For
Scholem's position, see Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, p. 46.
42 SHAUL MAGID
it is not that the sod interpretation is in contradistinction to the peshat in

the Zohar, but it is rather a deepening of the peshat or, as he puts it,
a "hyperliteralism."15 In any case, it appears certain that the Zohar read
Scripture quite seriously and that it thus constitutes a kabbalistic midrash of
sorts. Whatever the relationship between peshat, drash and sod may be in
the Zohar, it utilizes classic exegetical tools which are deeply rooted in the
rabbinic tradition.16
15. See Wolfson, op. cit., p. 167 and Zohar 2.257b, "[Mishna is the] secret which is within,
for one learns there the essence of everything," quoted in Wolfson, "Beautiful Maiden Without
Eyes," p. 197, n. 105. This is, of course, opposed to the later strata of the Zohar, Tikkunei Zohar
and Ra 'ayah Mehemna, where the sod interpretation and the peshat are indeed adversarial.
On this see P. Giller, The Enlightened Will Shine (Albany, N.Y., 1993), pp. 59-81. Although
the Lurianists rarely take a position on these purely ideological issues, R. Hayyim Vital, in
his Introduction to Sha 'ar Ha-Hakdamot, seems to adopt an adversarial stance closer to the
Tikkunei Zohar than the one suggested by Wolfson in the Zohar itself. Vital's Introduction is
printed in the Etz Hayyim, Mekor Hayyim edition (Jerusalem). As we will see in the body of
this paper, Vital's stance on the relationship between peshat and drash may indeed be a window
into the attitude of Lurianists toward reading Scripture in general.
16. Perhaps the most classic example of this is found in Zohar 3.152a, where the "stories
of the Torah" are the garments, the precepts (mitzvot) are the "body of Torah," and the "soul
of Torah" or the "real Torah" is the esoteric teachings of the Zohar. Contemporaries of Luria
in sixteenth-century Safed often take a more sober view of the relationship between peshat
and sod, similar to the view espoused by Wolfson vis-a-vis the body of the Zohar. See, for
example, R. Shlomo Alkabez, Ayelet Ahavim (Venice, 1522), p. 8b, "There is nothing in the
allegorical level of meaning which denies the literal or the secret or the homiletical. All are
one, as illustrated by the image of the tree employed by Rashbi." Alkabez is referring to Zohar
3.202a, where the author of the Zohar uses the image of a tree to describe the four levels of
meaning in the Torah. ". . . one who busies himself [with Torah] continuously is likened to
the verse in Psalms 1:2, Rather the teaching of the Lord is his delight, and he studies that
teaching day and night. Not like dry wood but like a tree planted beside a stream of water.
(Psalm 1:3). Just as a tree has roots, bark, pulp, branches, leaves, flowers and fruit... all the
words of Torah have peshat, drash, hints [remez] of the heights of wisdom, gematria, hidden
secrets and secrets that are more hidden. Non-kosher and kosher, impure and pure, forbidden
and permitted. From here and outward the branches spread out to all sides like [the branches]
of a tree. If it were not [like this], the Torah would not be the Wisdom of Wisdom." The
image of the tree in this passage unifies the various methods of interpretation as well as the
muti-layered message in the Torah. It appears from here that peshat and sod are complementary
rather than contradictory, reflecting an integrative relationship rather than the adversarial one
we see in the Tikkunim and in R. Hayyim Vital's Introduction to Sha 'ar Hakdamot. For more
on this among sixteenth-century Safed kabbalists other than Vital and Luria, see M. Pachter,
"The Concept of Devekut in the Homiletical Ethical Writings of 16th Century Safed," Studies
in Medieval Jewish History and Literature II, ed. I. Twersky (Cambridge, Mass., 1984), pp.
While deconstructionist and intertextualist readings of midrash may be

applied in the case of the Zohar, they cannot, in my view, be invoked as
the basis for the study of Lurianic hermeneutics.17 Even as the Zohar still
uses categories of peshat, drash and sod, only minimally seeing the three as
adversaries rather than partners, these categories are overcome in the Lurianic
corpus. There is little sense of an open-text, "deepening of peshat" or hyper-
literalism in Lurianic exegesis. On the contrary, Lurianic kabbala imposes an
independent theosophical system on Scripture (albeit one developed largely
by the Zohar itself), and thus claims to render a closed-text reading. What I
mean by "closed-text reading" is that the Lurianists offer us what they believe
to be a fully revealed or uncovered text. Mystically understood, midrashic
and kabbalistic reading is oriented toward revealing the concealed layers of
meaning embedded in Scripture. While the "hyperliteralism" suggested by
Wolfson regarding the Zohar may indeed serve as the basis of Lurianic reading
and may still appear in some form, I would suggest that Lurianic kabbala
seeks to go beyond even the zoharic deeping of peshat to present a mythic
rendering of Judaism which is all but independent of Scripture. Following
this theosophic system, which is the body of Vital's Etz Hayyim and most
of the compendium "Eight Gates," the exegetical portions of the Lurianic
corpus use what I have deemed this "meta-text" to show how Scripture is, in
essence, a symbolic rendering of this theosophic construct. In this light, the
Lurianic interpretation of Scripture is not bound by the midrashic method of
exegesis as a way of attaining legitimacy and acceptance. Daniel Boyarin,
in his thesis of intertextuality, argues that the midrashic enterprise is that of
"filling in the gaps" of the narrative by infusing other verses which yield
various "new" readings of the verse in question. In Boyarin's words, "The
171-230, esp. 177—185. For a more comprehensive discussion on Alkabez, see B. Sack, "The
Mystical Teaching of Shlomo Alkabez" (diss., Brandeis University, 1977).
17. I am referring to Daniel Boyarin's Intertextuality and Midrash (Bloomington, 1991),
Susan Handelman's The Slayers ofMoses (Albany, N.Y., 1982), pp. 51-83, and Steven Fraade's
From Tradition to Commentary (Albany, N.Y., 1989). I do not intend to take a stance on the
viability of such an enterprise, only to point out that Lurianic material cannot, in my view,
be read using these methods as they are now. As to other important sources for the rabbinic
(midrashic) reading of Scripture, see S. Lieberman, "Rabbinic Interpretation of Scripture," in
Hellenism in Jewish Palestine (New York, 1950), pp. 47-82, reprinted in Essential Papers on
the Talmud, ed. M. Chernick (New York, 1994), pp. 429-459; Jonah Frankel, "Hermeneutical
Questions in Aggadic Stories" [Hebrew], Tarbiz 47 (1978): 139-172; and idem, "Bible Verses
Quoted in the Tales of the Sages," Scripta Hierosolymitana 22 (Jerusalem, 1971).
44 SHAUL MAGID
midrash realizes its goal by means of a hermeneutic of recombining places

of the canonized exemplar into a new discourse."18 This is not the case
in Lurianic exegesis. In this case, the theosophic "text" perceived as the
fully uncovered esoteric Torah of Sinai filtered through the Zohar, fills in
the gaps of Scripture by placing scriptural passages in the the framework
of its non-scriptural shevirah-sin-tikkun modality.19 To fully understand the
intent of Lurianic kabbala, one must accept that its mythic and symbolic
world is as authoritative as the Sinaitic revelation itself. This Truth cannot be
challenged by exegetical flaws or misreadings. The body of knowledge that
serves as the intertext for Lurianic kabbala is not a text in the conventional
sense nor is it the product of scriptural exegesis the likes of which we see
in the Zohar.20 It is presented independent of tradition and, as such, cannot
be challenged by tradition.21 In Sha'ar Ha-Pesukim, Sha'ar Ha-Likkutim
and Likkutei Torah,22 the texts which serve as the focus of this study, the
"new" meta-text, presented as the text which has been illuminated by the
1,8. Boyarin, Intertextuality and Midrash, p. 40.

19. By this I mean that the backbone of Lurianic kabbala, i.e., the creation of the world
through zimzum and its rectification through the gathering of the divine sparks which are
embeded in the kelipot, has no scriptural base, nor do the Lurianists appear interested in
justifying this process through Scripture.
20. It is interesting to note that even as the mythic models in Lurianic kabbala largely
emerge from the Zohar, the Lurianic authors do not frequently refer to the zoharic discussion
where they are rooted.
21. See, Betty Roitman, "Sacred Language and Open Text," in Midrash and Literature, ed.
G. H. Hartman and S. Budick (New Haven, 1986), p. 75, "This [the kabbalistic] reading presents
itself then as radically severed from any context; it is autonomous and invariable, chosen from
among what the kabbalah considers the values founding the world" (pp. 166-167). Roitman's
idea of kabbala as "autonomous exegesis" is well taken, although I think in this presentation
she is not sensitized enough to the differences in kabbalistic approaches to Scripture. Her notion
of taking the vertical framework of emanation from the Infinite to the finite and applying it
horizontally to the textual discourse of Scripture is true both in the Zohar and the Lurianists
in varying degrees. For more on this type of approach, see R. Schatz, "Kabbala: Tradition or
Innovation" [Hebrew], in Masu 'uot: Studies in Kabbala and Jewish Thought in Memory of
Professor Ephrayim Gottlieb (Jerusalem, 1994).

22. The composition and authorship of these texts are difficult to determine. The texts
authored by the circle of R. Isaac Luria can be largely divided into two main categories. The
Etz Hayyim and the "Eight Gates" are collected teachings of R. Hayyim Vital which were
edited and compiled by his son, R. Shmuel Vital, in Damascus after his father's death. These
comprise most of the texts whose title bears the word Sha 'ar (gate). The other category of early
Lurianic material are texts composed and/or compiled by a variety of students, R. Ya'akov
Hayyim Zemah, R. Meir Poppers, R. Joseph Ibn Tabul, R. Israel Saruk, R. Nathan Shapira,
R. Benjamin Ha-Levi, R. Moshe Zakuto and R. Moshe Yonah (among others). Many of these
theosophic system of shevirah-sin-tikkun, is now integrated into the "Garment

of Torah," i.e., the narrative itself. Scripture is now viewed as a symbolic
representation of the mythic world of Lurianic cosmology, which now serves
as the text itself.23 Whereas the Zohar may be viewed as a symbolic reading
of Scripture, I would suggest that Lurianic kabbala transforms Scripture into
a symbolic rendering of the reality of the cosmic universe. I am not aware
of any other instance in the history of Jewish literature where a commentary
on Scripture (in this case, the Zohar) becomes so powerful and authoritative
that it replaces that which it interprets (the biblical narrative). I do not mean
that Scripture is overcome, but that it is eclipsed by the Zohar's cosmic
rendition as formulated and concretized by the Lurianic school.24 In a sense,
the Lurianic authors read Scripture as a symbolic rendition of their meta-text,
texts begin with the term Sefer (book) in their title rather than Sha 'ar. This is a general rule,
although there are exceptions. The text Sha 'ar Ha-Pesukim is thus seen as part of the Vitalian
"Eight Gates." The origin of Sefer Ha-Likkutim is a bit more complex. R. Meir Poppers, in
Derekh Etz Hayyim (Karetz, 1782), p. 69, calls Sefer Ha-Likkutim and Sefer Derushim part of
the "early edition" of the Lurianic corpus. We know that the first edition of Sefer Ha-Likkutim
(published under that title) was edited by R. Benjamin Ha-Levi, a student of R. Hayyim Vital
and R. Elisha Gavashtala. See R. Meir Poppers, "Introduction" to Derekh Etz Hayyim, p. lb.
Likkutei Torah,firstprinted in Zalkawa in 1775, consists largely of the second section of R.
Meir Poppers' NofEtz Hayyim in combination with portions of Poppers' Derekh Etz Hayyim,
which itself includes parts of R. Ya'akov Hayyim Zemah's Ozrot Hayyim, Adam Yashar and
Sefer Derushim. In sum, the three texts which will serve as the basis of our analysis emerge
from three different sources in the Lurianic circle. Sha 'ar Ha-Pesukim isfromR. Hayyim Vital
via his son R. Shmuel. Sefer Ha-Likkutim is a collection of Palestinian material edited by R.
Benjamin Ha-Levi, and Likkutei Torah is the product of R. Meir Poppers. Each text exhibits a
slightly different personality. Sha 'ar Ha-Pesukim is very detailed and is largely caught up in
the endless minutiae which are characteristic of Vital's Etz Hayyim and the "Eight Gates." Sefer
Ha-Likkutim is clearly a collection of various authors in that the drashot are not consistent in
either style and/or content. Likkutei Torah is the most ordered, systematic and exegetical. It
does not dwell on the details of the system itself as much as the verse it seeks to interpret. In a
sense, it is the most accessible to a non-initiate into the system, very characteristic of R. Meir
Poppers' other writings (excluding perhaps his editing work in Pri Etz Hayyim).
23. Isaiah Tishby seems to have been aware of this move when he says, " In Lurianic
kabbala, on the other hand, the tendency is to accommodate the Biblical story to the myth of
the breaking of the vessels and the fall of the sparks." I. Tishby, "Gnostic Doctrines in Sixteenth
Century Jewish Mysticism," Journal ofJewish Studies 6-3 (1955): 151.
24. See M. Idel, Kabbala: New Perspectives (New Haven, 1988), p. 217," Moses Cordovero
and Isaac Luria, the two great experts on zoharic literature, succeeded in combining these
disparate symbols into relatively comprehensive and coherent conceptual systems, whose
influence on Jewish theosophy was tremendous."
46 SHAUL MAGID
which itself is built on zoharic exegesis. Their project is to begin where the
Zohar left off; to completely subsume the biblical narrative into the cosmic
meta-text it receives from the Zohar.
This point is structurally crucial and must now be fleshed out. Alfred
North Whitehead, in a discussion about the relationship between symbol and
language, states as follows,
Why do we say that the word "tree"—spoken or written—is a symbol to us

of trees? Both the word itself and trees themselves enter into our experience
on equal terms; and it would be just as sensible, viewing the question, for the
trees to symbolize the word.25
Whitehead's point here is important for our understanding of symbolic

interpretation in general. It has often been suggested that the symbol functions
to represent something which could not otherwise be known.26 This is often
contrasted with metaphor, which uses one representation to expose something
which may be difficult to understand but is not by definition unknowable.27
Hence, it has been argued that metaphorical interpretation is preferred by
25. Alfred North Whitehead, Symbolism and Its Meaning (Virginia, 1927), p. 11.
26. This is close to the definition offered by I. Tishby. See his "Ha-Semal ve Ha-Dat
b'Kabbala" in Netivei Emunah u 'Minut (Ramat-Gan, 1964), p. 13.
27. To a large degree, this is the position on metaphor which Moshe Idel adopts in his study
of kabbalistic hermeneutics in Kabbala: New Perspectives, pp. 200-249. See, for example,
p. 203, "As we know, symbols are intended to help one perceive that which is difficult
to comprehend." Idel contends that symbolic interpretation, i.e., theosophic Kabbala, uses
symbols to attain a "gnosis of higher dynamics," while "ecstatic kabbala strives to attain an
experience of the Divine." To a large degree, Idel draws his position on symbol from Ernst
Cassirer's four-volume magnum opus, The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms (New Haven, 1955).
Using such a formulation, Idel is correct in asserting symbolic rendering as non-unitive and the
ecstatic non-symbolic rendering as unitive experience or unio mystica. Idel argues that symbolic
interpretation prevents the individual from moving beyond the symbolic framework he creates.
However, I think this limits considerably the experiential component in Lurianic kabbala and
the access to the transcendent one receives through the theosophic approach. An alternative
model for the use and place of symbolism appears in the work of Karl Jaspers, whose study of
"ciphers" has not received as large an audience in the English-speaking world as Cassirer. See
his Philosophy III (Chicago, 1971), especially from p. 113. For example, "In cipher script the
symbol is inseparable from that which it symbolizes. Ciphers bring transcendence to mind . . . I
would compare a cipher with transcendence, but transcendence only appears to me in a cipher
script; it is not the cipher script" (p. 124) Using Jaspers' model, the symbol becomes the cipher
when it contains and transmits the transcendence it symbolizes. Without that, it is just a symbol.
This differs from Idel (and Cassirer) in that (1) symbols (when properly read as ciphers) are
not tools of communication—they are carriers of transcendence, and (2) as Jaspers notes, "It
philosophers while symbolic interpretation is preferred by the mystics. The

mystic, in attempting to reveal experience of the divine as Absolute and thus
unknowable, or at least non-communicable, must yield to symbol as a mode of
discourse.28 In the case of a kabbalistic reading which is exegetical in nature, I
would agree in part that the symbolic framework is the product of the exegete
(i.e., the result of the act of reading) and does not replace the narrative.
However, as I argued above, in Lurianic exegesis the cosmic world is not
read out of Scripture but imposed on it. In the context of symbolic reading,
one might say that Lurianic cosmology views Scripture as the symbolic
rendering of itself.29 Drawing upon Whitehead's example, this would be
tantamount to regarding the actual tree as the symbol for the word "tree".
This pattern is especially true in non-exegetical theosophic Kabbala, where
little attempt is made to detect the theosophy within Scripture. Symbolic
reference, which occurs when "some components of [an] experience elicit
consciousness, beliefs, emotions, and usages, respecting other components
of experience,"30 is different in Lurianic exegesis than it is in the exegetical
kabbala of Gerona or the Zohar. One could argue that in the Zohar, the reading
takes reality to reveal transcendence." Fundamentally, Jaspers would probably disagree with
Idel that any unitive experience is possible without ciphers. I think that we should consider
whether Jaspers' model better represents the theosophic world of the Zohar and Luria than the
Cassirer model suggested by Idel. For a reading of Scholem's approach to this issue, see N.
Rotenstreich, "Symbolism and Transcendence: On Some Philosophical Aspects of Gershom
Scholem's Opus" Review of Metaphysics 124 (1978): 604-614.
28. On this see Frank Talmage, "Apples of Gold: The Inner Meaning of Sacred Texts in
Medieval Judaism," in Jewish Spirituality I, ed. Arthur Green (London, 1986), pp. 313—355, and
Michael Fishbane, "The Teacher and the Hermeneutical Task: A Reinterpretation of Medieval
Exegesis," Garments ofTorah (Indiana, 1989), pp. 112-120.
29. Yehudah Liebes has recently countered Scholem and Tishby's description of Lurianic
"symbolic language" and argued that Lurianic kabbala is largely mythic rather than symbolic.
His defintion of myth is as follows, "[mythic language is] the direct reference to the divine
entity itself, which is available on the same plane of awareness and meaning as are all other
observable phenomena." Cf. Liebes, "Myth and Symbol" p. 213. I agree in principle with
Liebes that Lurainic cosmology is not symbolic in the way it is defined by Scholem, Tishby
and recently by Idel (in a critical vein). I believe that the Lurianic system is presented in a way
in which it becomes accessible to human experience and invites human participation. In this
essay, I have retained the word "symbolic" rather than "mythic" yet I view the symbol in light
of Jaspers cipher model as opposed to Cassier's more conventional understanding. That is, the
symbol is not divorced from human experience but is the conduit for that very realm which the
symbol represents.
30. Whitehead, Symbolism and Its Meaning, p. 8.
48 SHAUL MAGID
of Scripture elicits components of experience which motivate the author to

offer theosophic interpretations of a verse or narrative.31 Even if this is the
case, zoharic theosophy emerges naturally from the depths of Scripture itself.
Fundamentally, the Zohar is a pious reader of Scripture. Therefore, its point
of departure is the text itself, and symbolic reference occurs when the text
elicits states of consciousness which emerge as a theosophical interpretation.
Lurianic exegesis does not function in the same way. If anything, the
Lurianists are readers of the Zohar as text, which they equate with Scripture.
R. Hayyim Vital, in his Introduction to Sha 'ar Ha-Hakdamot, stresses that
it is only through the Zohar (as the authentic Kabbala) that the Torah can
be understood. Vital does not adopt the integrative stance vis-a-vis peshat
and sod which is presented in the body of the Zohar. Following the position
of Tildcunei Zohar and Ra 'ayah Mehemna, Vital argues that sod and peshat
are irreconcilable.32 He states explicitly that those who do not learn the
wisdom of Kabbala have no portion in the World to Come, and repeats the
position of the Tikkunei Zohar, which likens the students of "Mishna" (the
exoteric Torah) to slaves, and the students of Kabbala to Adam (men).33
However, unlike the Zohar, the Lurianists, at least of the Vitalian school, are
not reading the Zohar as the Zohar reads Scripture. The Zohar views the
biblical narrative as the Garment of Torah and its reading as the Soul that
lies within that Garment.34 Thus the symbolic (kabbalistic) reading does not
oppose the exoteric Torah but is concealed within it.35 The Zohar does not
need to see sod in contradistinction to peshat?6 It believed it had achieved
the highest possible level of exegesis by penetrating the exoteric Garment of
31. This is what Scholem implies in Major Trends. See above, n. 14.
32. R. Hayyim Vital, Introduction to Sha 'ar Ha-Hakdamot, Etz Hayyim, Mekor Hayyim
ed., p. 4.
33. Ibid., p. 3a, "Behold, it is impossible to rise to the highest realm without the study of
the Zohar, according to one's capability and limitations." Cf. Tikkunei Zohar, p. 13a
34. See Daniel Matt, Zohar: Book of Enlightenment (New York, 1983), Introduction.
35. This seems to be implicit in Scholem's assertion that "The Torah is conceived [by the
Zohar] as a vast corpus symbolicum representative of that hidden life in God which the theory
of the Sephirot attempts to describe." See Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, p. 209.
36. This is largely based on Elliot Wolfson's thesis concerning the relationship between
peshat and sod in the Zohar. I believe that the discussion in Vital's Introduction to Sha'ar
Hakdamot in light of the position presented by Wolfson vis-a-vis the Zohar draws an important
parallel between the two bodies of literature. That is, Lurianic kabbala is a new phase in
kabbalistic hermeneutics based on the principles of the Zohar but moving beyond them. This is
also the position of Liebes in his, "Myth and Symbol," pp. 223—226.
Torah, illuminating the "Soul of Torah."37 The Lurianists no longer have to

read Scripture as did the Zohar before it. In inheriting the theosophic system
which is the Soul of Torah, the Lurianists are now left with both the Garment
and the Soul, and must impose the Soul on the Garment to attain its final
illumination and redeem the Torah, as it were, from its final bondage as
symbol.38
The distinction between these two postures may be seen in the two very
different messianic visions in the Zohar and Lurianic kabbala, and the part
each played in the messianic drama. Whereas the Zohar believed that it had
revealed the Soul of Torah from within the garment, another dimension (the
Soul of the Soul of Torah—the messianic Torah) still needed to be revealed.
R. Shimon and his circle may have viewed their creative product as the bridge
between the torah of the rabbis and the messianic Torah which would emerge
later.39 The Lurianic school was far more messianic in its presentation. Its
intent was to complete the process the Zohar had begun and redeem or perhaps
nullify Scripture by viewing it exclusively within its theosophic construct.
Although Vital never says so explicitly, it appears that the Lurianic circle
understood its torah to be the Soul of the Soul of Torah alluded to in the
Zohar.40
In an attempt to put kabbalistic hermeneutics in dialogue with medieval
philosophical and midrashic exegesis, scholars have suggested that mystical
exegesis arises out of a conflict between literal and theosophical truth just
as philosophical exegesis arises out of the conflict between literal and
37. See Zohar 2.99a and the discussion on the term "garment" in the Zohar in D.
Cohen-Alloro, The Secret of the Garment in the Zohar [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1987), pp. 69 ff.
38. See R. Hayyim Vital's Introduction to Sha 'ar Hakdamot printed in Etz Hayyim, p. 4d,
"When [the Torah] is in the World of Emanation it is called Kabbala, for there it is removed
from all the garments which are calledpeshat. This [is the meaning of] the verse (Cant. 5:3) /
have taken off my robe." See also E. Wolfson, "Maiden Without Eyes," p. 198 n. 116.
39. For a comprehensive treatment of this issue, see Y. Liebes, "The Messiah of the Zohar:
On R. Shimon bar Yohai as a Messianic Figure," in Y. Liebes, Studies in the Zohar (Albany,
N.Y., 1993), pp. 1-85, esp. pp. 43-63.
40. R. Hayyim Vital states explicitly that one should refrain from all kabbalistic literature
after Luria and only study his writings, which are "a full and complete transmission," as opposed
to kabbalistic literature from Nahmanides onward, which are only "partial transmissions." See
Vital's Introduction to Sha 'ar Hakdamot, pp. 4a-b.
50 SHAUL MAGID
philosophical truth.41 The metaphorical and/or symbolic method enables the

reader to alleviate the apparent discrepancy between Scripture and Truth
by regarding Scripture as, in some sense, a vessel whose content is not
immediately visible. While this formulation describes pre-Lurianic exegetical
kabbala, I would suggest a different model for Lurianic kabbala exemplified
in the following text.
Why does the Torah start with a beit and not an aleph? 42 Behold, the
Ten Commandments begin with an alepk—anochi—to teach that there are
two dimensions (behinot), peshat and sod. The Torah that God "delights in"
(mishta 'ashed)43 and that which the righteous learn in the Garden of Eden is
the realm of sod. This is the first Torah which was placed in the Garden of
Eden. This is to teach you that "Zot ha-Torah"u is the second Torah, which
41. On this see R. Schatz, "Kabbala: Tradition or Innovation" [Hebrew] and A. Altmann,
"Maimonides' Attitude Toward Jewish Mysticism," in Studies in Jewish Thought: An Anthology
of German Jewish Scholarship (Detroit, 1981).
42. This question originates in rabbinic literature. See, for example, in Genesis Rabba
1:10, "R. Yona states in the name of R. Levi, 'Why was the world created with a beit and
not an alephi Just as a beit is closed on the side and open in the front, so too we have no
permission to search after that which is above, that which is below, that which is in the front
[or, inside], and that which is behind." While the midrash uses the form of the letter beit to
argue against esotericism, the Lurianic text cited uses the numerical value of beit (2) to argue
for the authenticity of esotericism, suggesting that another "hidden" Torah was also given at
Sinai.
43. The use of this term in the Zohar and Lurianic kabbala is highly ambiguous. The initial
treatment of the word ignored the apparent sexual implications. Cf. Scholem, Kabbala (New
York, 1974), p. 132 and idem, "The Name of God and Linguistic Theory of the Kabbala,"
Diogenes 80 (1973): 181. Yehudah Liebes suggested the possibly erotic imagery of the term in
Sarugian kabbala. Cf. "Zaddik Yesod 'Olam—A Sabbatean Myth" [Hebrew], Da'at 1 (1978):
105 n. 167. This was further substantiated by Ronit Meroz in her "Redemption in the Lurianic
Teaching," p. 93. A recent reappraisal of the term in Lurianic kabbala has been posed by E. R.
Wolfson in Circle in the Square (New York, 1995), pp. 69-70 and n. 173, 175.1 would like to
thank Prof. Wolfson for making me aware of the breadth of this discussion. This term also plays
an inportant role in Cordeverian kabbala. See B. Sack, Sha 'arei Ha-Kabbala shel Ha-Ramak
(Jerusalem, 1995), pp. 73-77 and n. 82.

44. This is a reference to the verse "This is the Torah [Zot Ha-Torah] which Moses placed
before the Jewish people." By the word zot, this text implies that another Torah exists beside
the one mentioned in the verse. The word zot and its derivations also refer to God Himself
in kabbalistic literature. See R. Ze'ev Wolf of Zhitomir, 'Or Ha-Meir (Karetz, 1798 reprint
Jerusalem, n.d), vol. 1, p. 119a, "God [Ha-Kodesh Barukh Hu] is named zeh (lit. this), as it
is written, There zeh (He) stands behind our waW (Song of Songs 2:9) and the discussion in
Betty Roitman, "Sacred Language and Open Text," pp. 159-178.
embodies it. Therefore the Torah begins with a beit, which is the second Torah,
which is embodied in peshat like a beit, which is second in the aleph beit.*5
That there are two Torahs,46 one exoteric and one esoteric, is already found
in the Zohar.47 Ideationally, the Lurianists do not differ from the Zohar in this
regard. However, whereas the Zohar focused on the two-Torah theory and
sought to elucidate one with the other by reading the Soul of the Torah out
of the Garment of Torah, the Lurianists attempt to tranform the Garment by
de-symbolizing the narrative, i.e., to subsume the beit of Bereshit in the aleph
of Anochi. To de-symbolize the text in this sense is to reverse the midrashic
enterprise which opens the text to a plurality of readings. The Lurianists
claim to have attained the definitive reading of Scripture by having revealed
its theosophic meaning (also revealed at Sinai or before)48 by imposing that
meaning onto the exoteric symbol which is our biblical narrative. For the
Lurianists, the two Torahs have become one, not by reading one out of the
other, as may be the case for the Zohar, but by infusing the essence (the
45. Likkutei Torah (Vilna, 1880), p. 4b. There are many rabbinic parallels to the use of the
letters aleph and beit. Cf. Genesis Rabba 1:4, where the second letter, beit, is used to create
this world and the letter yod (the tenth letter) is used to create the World to Come. For an
alternative kabbalistic reading which may be based on the above passage, see R. Yizhak Isaac
Haver, "Drush le Shabbat Teshuva" in 'Ozrot R. Yizhav Isaac Haver (Jerusalem, 1990), p. 1,
"Therefore the verse begins, Bereshit [two beginnings] God created. . . The verse begins with
[the letter] beit to hint that the creation was divided into two realms; that God created two
beginnings. These [two] are the two roots, one the root of goodness and the other the root of
evil. They are the heaven and the earth. They also light and darkness, the good inclination and
the evil inclination."
46. The two-Torah theory is rabbinic in origin, although it is radically reformulated by the
mystics. Cf. Avot d'Rebbe Natan a 15, b 29, B. Talmud Shabbat 31a and Sifrei Deuteronomy
351, "Thus Agnitus the hegemon asked Rabban Gamliel and said to him: How many Torot were
given to Israel? He answered: Two, one in the mouth (b 'al peh) and one in writing (b 'chtav).
For a later version which adds a midrashic element to this discussion, see Midrash Ha-Gadol,
(Jerusalem, 1972), Deuteronomy, p. 764.
47. For a discussion on this, see G. Scholem, "Good and Evil in the Kabbala," The Mystical
Shape of the Godhead (New York, 1991), pp. 56-88; idem, "The Crisis of Tradition in Jewish
Messianism," The Messianic Idea in Judaism (New York, 1971), pp. 68 ff., and P. Giller,
The Enlightened Will Shine (Albany, N.Y., 1991), pp. 59-81. Scholem's discussion focuses
particularly on the way the pristine Torah of the Tree of Life is interpreted by the Sabbatean
school.
48. Of course, it makes a significant difference whether the esoteric Torah was revealed at
Sinai or before. In either case, however, for the Lurianists the biblical narrative serves as the
symbolic manifestation of the esoteric theosophic teaching.
52 SHAUL MAGID
esoteric Torah) into its symbolic formulation (the exoteric Torah—the biblical
narrative). In a sense, the Lurianists do not read Scripture but rewrite it, as it
were, by de-symbolizing it in order to complete this transformation and thus
hasten the redemption. The process of de-symbolization begins by accepting
the Zohar as the authoritative reading of Scripture, as the final phase in the
history of exegesis which builds the cosmic meta-text by means of reading.
The Lurianic kabbalists thus begin with these two distinct narratives: (1)
the exoteric biblical narrative, which the Zohar itself calls the "Garment
of Torah," and (2) the mythic world created by the Zohar's reading of the
biblical narrative. The Zohar becomes the fully "revealed text," and the
Torah is its symbolic representation. The final stage of redemptive reading
is then to read the concealed/symbolic narrative solely through the lens of
its revealed counterpart. This process, which I have suggested is the nature
of Lurianic reading, I have called de-symbolizing which is reversing the
midrashic enterprise.
According to this formulation, there is no longer any discrepancy between
peshat and sod. Even when Vital argues that they are irreconcilable, I
would suggest that his stance is post-polemical, for it emerges from a
Weltanschauung in which peshat has been overcome by sod and subsumed
within it. The Bible as narrative had already been transformed by the
Zohar into the map of cosmic process. For the Lurianic circle, the Zohar
had reconciled the incongruity between the esoteric and exoteric Torah that
served as the initial impetus for exegetical kabbalism. However, the midrashic
method of the Zohar still leaves the Bible intact, i.e., the Bible is still an
open-text. Although its soul may have been revealed, its garment remains. For
the Lurianists, the full transformation of Scripture had not been completed
by the zoharic program. It is my contention that Lurianic exegesis views
itself as coming to complete this transformation, achieving the final tikkun
of Scripture by "redeeming" it from its symbolic garb. Before showing how
this takes place in the Lurianic reading of the sin of Adam and Eve, we must
become acquainted with some of the essential components of the Lurianic
system.
The complexity and multi-variant nature of Lurianic theosophy makes it

a difficult if not impossible task to summarize. However, I will attempt to
briefly map out certain key "movements and players" in the system which
will become exegetical tools when the texts in question turn to Scripture.
These movements and players are the characters which act out the rupture
of creation and its restitution in tikkun. In order to understand how Lurianic
kabbala sought to close the text by de-symbolizing it, an understanding of the
cosmic meta-text which achieves this final tikkun must first be known. Lurianic
kabbala generally works on two planes and in two modes simultaneously.
There is a vertical plane which can be seen in the emanationist theory of the
four worlds and its sephirotic counterpart, which it adopts largely from the
Zohar and earlier Kabbala. However, the emanationist nature of the vertical
mode is complemented by a horizontal set of relationships, largely in the
area of yihudim, or the erotic union of the male parzufim with their female
counterparts.49 The structure of parzufim, which is largely Lurianic in origin,
also contains both a vertical as well as a horizontal dimension. Overall there
are twelve parzufim, only six of which are central. Three of the parzufim,
Arikh Anpin, Abba and Imma, do not exist in all four worlds, although, as
will be explained later, they extend to the lower worlds.50 The three higher
49. Although the sexual character of the cosmic world is central in the Zohar, Lurianic
kabbala develops this notion much further. The parzufim are sephirotic constructs which form
the backbone of the Lurianic system. Each world contains various parzufim, most having
male and female counterparts which facilitate tikkun through erotic intercourse (yihudim) and
subsequently filter divine effluence into the supernal world below it. For a more comprehensive
definition, cf. G. Scholem, Kabbala (New York, 1974), pp. 140-144, and L. Fine, "The
Contemplative Practice of Yihudim in Lurianic Kabbala," in Jewish Spirituality II ( New York,
1989), pp. 64-98. See also Mevo Shearim, Gate II, Part 3, chap. 4, pp. 13a-d, and R. Joseph
Hayyim of Baghdad's Da'at Tevunot (Jerusalem, 1965), pp. 46a ff. On the development of
yihudim in Kabbala before Luria, see Mark Verman, "The Development of Yihudim in Spanish
Kabbala," Mehkarei Yerushalayim 8 (1989): 25-41.
50. The parzufim of Atik Yomin (or Atika Kadishd) and Arikh Anpin are the most nuanced
and complex as they are enveloped in Abba and EmmafromAzilut on down. The most concise
introduction to these parzufim can be found in Ozrot Hayyim (Makor Hayyim ed. Jerusalem),
Sha'arAtik, pp. 18c—22b. Cf. Etz Hayyim II Gate 12, chap. 5, pp. 51d ff. The two lower portions
on Abba and Imma are viewed as separate components called Israel Saba and Tevunah. See
Ozrot Hayyim, pp. 23c-24d, and Etz Hayyim I Gate 14, chap. 1. Cf. Sha'ar Ha-Kavannot, p.
23d, where R. Hayyim Vital views the split of Abba and Emma in the context of the split of
Zeir Anpin to two parzufim (Israel and Jacob) and Nukva as Rachael and Leah. Apparently, all
of the pazufim which are solidly in Azilut (excluding Atik and Arikh) have two components, an
upper half and a lower half. This is largely due to the fact that the upper half serves to carry the
everflow (shefa)fromwhat is above it, and the lower halffiltersthat shefa into what is below it.
54 SHAUL MAGID
sephirot of Keter, Hokhma and Binah correspond loosely to the three parzufim
in worlds where these parzufim are not present.51
Each parzuf or sephirah contains both light and vessel, both of which are
mobile. However, and this is a central idea in the entire system, the vessel
can exist without the light but the light cannot exist without the vessel. The
descent, contamination or shrinking of a vessel forces its corresponding light
to find another home. This is usually accomplished by ascending to a realm
above where it can be contained, safe from the kelipot which (as we will
see) threaten the entire system.52 Even when sparks of light descend with
the vessel, they cannot function actively in any framework of tikkun, but
remain largely inactive until redeemed in the process of tikkun.53 However,
the influence of a higher parew/on a lower sphere can be accomplished by a
third element, the element of ha 'arot, which are hints or reflections of light
which can exist in the vessel of a lower sphere. Whereas light ascends as the
result of some change in the vessel, the ha 'arah often descends, creating a
protective layer in the lower worlds against the infiltration of kelipot.54 What
51. According to the Lurianic model, the three higher sephirot {Keter, Hokhma and
Binah) are the components which receive mohin from the reahn above and inject that higher
consciousness into the rest of the cosmic body. The place of the sephirah Da 'at, for example, is
complex in that it is the catalyst where the mohin flow from the higher three to the lower seven.
Thus, in a proper transference, the five hasadim first flow through Da 'at and leave a remnant
of their light in Da 'at, which then serves to sweeten the five gevurot when they descend. The
result of the sin is viewed in this context as causing the gevurot to descend through Da 'at first,
thus serving as a destructive force nullifying the possibility of completing the tikkun. Cf. Etz
Hayyim II Gate 25, Drush 2, pp. 2c-6b, and Sha 'ar Ha-Kavannot, Drush 7 of Passover (which
is Drush 1 ofSephirat Ha-Omer), pp. 83d-84a, "The days of the Omer are the days ofjudgment
(dinim). Therefore, the dinim/gevurot (in the state of smallness) descend into the body of Zeir
Anpin during the seven weeks of the Omer. Afterward, on Shavuot, which is the day oiMatan
Torah, the hasadim (which were still in Da 'at of Zeir Anpin) finally descend into the body of
Zeir Anpin [and thus sweeten the gevurot—my addition]." According to this reading, the reahn
of judgment only exists when the gevurot descend without first being affected by the hasadim.
52. The reahn of Azilut remains above the power of the kelipot. Thus any light which
remains there or ascends to Azilut is considered safe. Cf. Mevo Shearim, p. 12b, "However,
there is also a birrur (clarification) in the lights of the 288 sparks which descend into the world
of Beriah with their vessels . . . But this is not the case of light which remained in Azilut.
Understand this well and always remember it, for it is a fundamental principle in all of Azilutl"
53. The light and/or sparks are in need of mayyim dehurin from above which can only be
activated by mayyim nukvin (from below) resulting from human action.
54. For an interesting rendering of the notion of ha 'arot and reshimu (remnant of light),
see R. Moshe Hayyim Luzatto, "Klah" (138) Pitkhei Hokhma (Bnei Brak, 1992), pp. 16-17
and 69.
is important in the Lurianic scheme is not to see the parzufim as independent

bodies of divine light, but to show how each parzuf is the carrier of a
higher light, filtering that higher light to the lower worlds. This is particularly
important regarding the trans-^z//«; parzufim of Atik Yomin and Arikh Anpin.
Although these higher parzufim are too pure to descend into the four worlds
beginning with Azilut, it is imperative that they are carried into the realm of
creation and become part of the creative process of tikkun without having
suffered any damage in the rupture resulting from zimzum. S5This can be seen
in the following reason given to the classical question as to why the Torah
begins with the letter Beit;
The first head (Ha-Rosh Ha-Rishori) is not embodied at all in Azilut. It {Azilut)
only contains the second head, the existence of Hokhma. As a result, the Torah
begins with "Bereshit" ( B-Reshit—two heads) to hint that even though the
First Head in not included (in Azilut) and thus not Reshit, it too is included in
it [in creation]. Azilut only begins with the Second Head {Hokhma).56
The interface of all of the dimensions solidifies the continuum which

safeguards the entire system against dualism. Yet, the realm of divine life
above Azilut and thus above creation must also be maintained as a safeguard
against the claim of pantheism. The above text from Sefer Ha-Likkutim
continues to read the double use of the letter Alef in et Ha-Shamayim ve et
Ha-Aretz to mean that that which appears to be two (i.e., land and heaven)
really both contain the One (x). Read back into the system, this reading
implies that Hokhma and Binah, which correspond to heaven and earth in the
narrative, appear as fragments in the system both of which emerge from the
trans-Azilut character of the One. Thus, although the parzufim are separate
components, they function as carriers and catalysts of a higher realm, one
which, due to its purity and sanctity, could not even take an active part in the
creative process. Lurianic emanationism does not focus solely on the building
of one from the other but rather the construction of the lower realm as it
interfaces with the higher.
The parzufim are by nature static rather than dynamic, although the
worlds and the various components in each world do indeed interact. In fact,
55. The status of these trans-Azilut parzufim is complex. Some Lurianic texts suggest that
the rupture of shvirat ha-kelim caused damage even in these higher parzufim. However, most
texts suggest that, even if they were affected, the damage was minimal.
56. Sefer Ha-Likkutim, p. 2a. For a similar formulation, cf. Tikkunei Zohar, tikkun 5, p. 19a.
56 SHAUL MAGID
interaction and interface is the backbone of the entire system. This interaction
has both a vertical and a horizontal component. The vertical interface takes
place by the descent or ascent of a particular part of a parzuf, never the entire
parzuf, as a response to a change in the cosmic structure brought about by
mitzvah or transgression.57 The normal flow from one realm to the next is
carried by two sets of dynamic or fluid components. The first is inherent in
the nature of the system, called the five hesadim and the five gevurot (zoharic
in origin; see sources). These components which carry divine effluence from
one world to the next and from one parzuf to the next are, in a sense, the blood
of the cosmic body. The corresponding vertical flow of "masculine waters"
(mayyim dekhuriri) and "feminine waters" {mayyim nukviri) flow between the
supernal world and our world. The latter arouses the descent of the former
by its elevation, which is the consequence of cosmic sexual union (yihud).
This union, which is facilitated by prayer and the performance of mitzvot,
elevates the mayyim nukvin, which then initiate the descent of the mayyim
dekhurin from above.
The overarching concept in Lurianic kabbala is the notion of yihudim, or
sexual unions, through which divine effluence is transferred from the male
to the female. After the proper period of gestation, this effluence emerges (is
born) and facilitates tikkun. Lurianic kabbala has an impressively optimistic
vision of history and nature.58 The past, i.e., that which was damaged or
blemished, reenters the womb for a period of gestation and emerges revived,
stronger than it had been prior to the damage. Union happens both vertically
57. There are three terms in Lurianic kabbala to determine damage in the cosmos, blemish
(p 'gam), nullification (bitul), and death (mitah). Blemish and nullification usually refer to the
downward movement of a part of a parzuf which nonetheless remains in its indigenous world,
usually in Azilut. Death occurs when an element descends into a lower world. It is thus unable
to be retrieved without the process of human action. For example, the term used for the effect
of the rising kelipot in Keter is blemish (p 'gam), in Abba and Emma it is nullification (bitul)
and in Zeir Anpin and Nukva it is death (mitah). Cf. Mevo Shearim, Gate II, Part I, chap. 4, p.
7a-b.
58. See G. Scholem, Devarim beGo, vol. 1 (Tel Aviv, 1976), "After the Exile From Spain"
[Hebrew], pp. 262-270; E. R. Wolfson, "From Sealed Book to Open Text: Time, Memory
and Narrative in Kabbalistic Hermeneutics," in Interpreting Judaim for a Postmodern Age, ed.
Steven Kepnes (New York, 1996), pp. 145-178; and Moshe Idel, "Kabbalah on History: A
Variety of Approaches," presented at the conference "Jewish Attitudes Toward and Conceptions
of History," Harvard University Center for Jewish Studies, October 4 and 5, 1994. But see
Tishby, "Gnostic Doctrines," pp. 151—152, where he suggests that Lurianic kabbala is, in many
respects, more pessimistic than the ancient gnostic doctrines it resembles.
and horizontally. The horizontal union reflects the sexual act. The vertical
union of inter-parzufian interface mirrors the union of parent and child,
where a certain dimension of divine effluence is transferred vertically from
one realm to another. In both cases, union is the source not only of tikkun
but of shevirah as well. This happens essentially for two reasons. In the case
of the horizontal sexual union, damage occurs from the change in position
of the partners in the act of union. When not in a state of union, parzufim
stand back to back as to protect each other from the kelipot, for the back side
of each cosmic component is that which is most susceptible to the kelipot.
Sexual union, however, is itself predicated on vulnerability. Paradoxically, in
Lurianic kabbala the transmission of influence from any realm to that which
is below it can only take place in a state of its nakedness {m 'guleh). As
long as any parzuf is embodied or enveloped, it is inaccessible as well as
not vulnerable to any destructive forces. Thus the consciousness of Abba,
which descends to Zeir Anpin, enveloped in Imma, cannot complete the
construction of Zeir Anpin thus necessitating the activity of Adam and Eve.59
Another critical element here, one which will be pivotal in the Lurianic
reading of the first sin, is time. Time functions as a natural process of tikkun,
creating "safehavens," as it were, for the interface of parzufim. Sin is largely
the result of miscalculation, desire being the element which challenges the
constructive role of time. If the kelipot have not been adequately purified
or the parzufim adequately strengthened, the kelipot will attack the exposed
back of the parzuf during the face-to-face encounter of sexual union and
subsequently become empowered by the holiness it would receive from its
attachment to that parzuf. Thus, as the parzuf, through union, attempts to
create and extend tikkun downward, the kelipot seek to ascend and to extend
the damage of shevirah upward. In its natural state the cosmic world contains
the static dimension of the worlds and the parzufim along with the dynamic
dimension of hasadim and gevurot, mayyim nukvin and mayyim dakhurin,
each set carrying the necessary components of tikkun to their respective
destinations. The mobility of the parzufim themselves, manifest as either
blemish, nullification or death, is the sign of cosmic dysfunction resulting
from transgression, exposing elements of the divine world which are preyed
upon by the kelipot.
As noted earlier, although the Lurianic system is oriented toward the
delineation of a cosmic map, its symbolic construct should not be seen as
59. See Sha 'ar Ha-Pesukim, p. 4b-c.

58 SHAUL MAGID
divorced from human participation and experience. As opposed to various

forms of ecstatic kabbala which abandoned the symbolic system in favor of
a direct experience of the divine realm, I believe that the Lurianic kabbalists
use the symbolic system as a conduit for mystical experience. Thefluidparts
of the system (mayyim nukvin and mayyim dekhuriri)flowfreelybetween the
divine realm and the mundane world. Yehudah Liebes has recently argued
that the direct encounter with the divine realm in Lurianic kabbala points to its
mythic rather than symbolic character. Although this may be the case, I have
chosen to retain the symbolic structure, using the cipher model suggested by
Karl Jaspers, which views the symbol as the vehicle for the experience of the
transcendent and not merely a representation of that which is beyond human
experience.60
The above synopsis only refers to the central concepts which will come
into play when we turn to the biblical story of Adam and Eve. As is the way
of Lurianic kabbala, at least in its Vitalian presentation, each component and
concept contains endless details, so that any attempt to offer a comprehensive
overview is by definition flawed. As we will presently see, the Lurianic
exegetes begin their reading of Scripture within its full-blown meta-textual
cosmic system. No attempts are made to verify components of that system by
means of reading Scripture. It is this unabashed confidence in the authority
of its theosophic system which suggests that Lurianic kabbala, built on an
understanding of the Zohar as the sole exegetical authority, moves beyond the
Zohar as it turns to redeem Scripture from its status as a garment, embodying
the soul of the soul of Torah; the Torah of the messiah.
The mechanics mentioned above also relate primarily to the nature of
the world and its relation to the cosmos after the Sin. Lurianic kabbala sees
cosmic history in three phases. The first phase of the process of creation
is the initial emanation and rupture in the form of zimzum and shevirah.
This yielded a flawed creation that should have been rectified during the first
week of Creation. The second phase is introduced by the sin in the Garden
of Eden, an act which transformed the already deficient creation by causing
dysfunction in the cosmos. The damage caused by this event surpassed the
60. See above, n. 27.

fragmentation resulting from the zimzum, for it could no longer be restored

by means of a natural process.61 The difference between Creation 1 (the
first week—before the sin) and Creation 2 (our world) is that the process of
restitution or tikkun in Creation 1 was woven into the fabric of nature itself.
The unfolding of the creative process as it is depicted in the first chapter of
Genesis was a process of tikkun which, had Adam and Eve not sinned, would
have culminated on the first Shabbat. The second .stage of transformation,
the first Sin, moved the world to a state where it could no longer proceed on
the path of tikkun naturally. Humanity, the perpetrators of this transformative
act, became the essential component in undoing the natural state of tikkun by
means of the six days of Creation and its culmination in Shabbat.62 One very
telling example of the important distinction between shevirah and sin is the
Lurianic response to the classic question of how Adam, before the Sin, could
have had the desire (Yezer Ha-Ra) to eat from the tree. This is addressed
by making a fundamental distinction between two forms of the demonic in
Lurianic cosmology: Dinim, and Kelipot, and their companion within the
human being, the Yezer Ha-Ra.
Know: Before the sin of Adam there was no Yezer Ha-Ra and Kelipah in the
world, only Dinim which emerged as the result of Shevirat Ha-Kelim. The
Dinim found that the body of the serpent was prepared to house them after
they departed from Zeir Anpin . . . and descended below. They did not find
any place to rest until the emergence of the serpent, who was willing to receive
them, as it is written in Etz Hayyim ... Those powers of Dinim were connected
to Zeir Anpin and Nukva in order to be purified and sanctified. They departed
(as the result of the shevirah), were sent downward and only found a place of
rest in this serpent. It was the result of these Dinim that the serpent was jealous
of Adam because of Eve and placed poison in her after which she ate from the
tree...«
61. For more on this, see Tishby, Torat Ha-Ra ve Ha-Kelipah, p. 91, "The starting point
of the changes which occurred in the first sin must be understood under the assumption that
the first damage in the Life of God was not caused by man but before it and even before he
was created." I agree with Tishby's contention here and only want to elaborate that Lurianists
want to draw a strong connection between the zimzum to which Tishby refers and the sin, a
connection which Tishby implies but never fully develops.
62. See Etz Hayyim I, Gate 36, chap. 1, p. 45d.
63. Sefer Ha-Likkutim 4a.
60 SHAUL MAGID
Here we are introduced to the direct relationship between the shevirah

and the sin which is vital in understanding the Lurianic reading of Genesis
3.M First, the distinction is made between three elements of evil, only one of
which (Dinim) existed before the sin as the result of the shevirah. Kelipot,
the post-sin form of evil external to man as well as the Yezer Ha-Ra, evil
that is within man as the result of the sin, were both activated by the sin
itself.65 However, a more provocative suggestion is made here. It appears from
this text and other supporting material that the serpent's evil nature resulted
from the Dinim which found a resting place in him. These Dinim came into
existence as the result of the shevirah, which occured before the creation of
the Garden. Shevirah resulted in sending thefivegevurot away from kedusah,
thus yielding Dinim.We are not privy here to the nature of the serpent before
that moment, nor do we know what made the serpent fit to shelter the Dinim.
The important notion here is that the possibility of the sin is a direct result
of the shevirah, which caused the separation of Nukva from Zeir and sent
the Dinim to rest in the body of the serpent. The entire notion of Dinim here
is the transformation of Nukva when she is no longer protected by her male
counterpart.66 As we will see below, this process repeats itself as the result
64. Schblem alludes to this important connection when he says, "According to Lurianic
Kabbalah, it is true, the breach did not originate with man, but was inherent in the structure of
divine being (and hence to an immeasurably greater degree in the structure of created being)."
Cf. "Tradition and Creation in the Ritual of the Kabbalists," p. 127. Buber also understood the
significance of this point in Lurianic kabbala when he said, "In the history of man the history
of the world repeats itself. That which has become free overreaches itself. The 'Fall into Sin'
corresponds to the 'Breaking of the Vessels.' Both are signs of the necessary way." See his
"Spirit and Body of the Hasidic Movement," The Origin and Meaning ofHasidism (Princeton,
N.J., 1988), p. 123. Although both Scholem and Buber never fully developed this point, it is
pivotal in understanding how the zimzum and shevirah are the groundwork for Adam and Eve's
sin.
65. This phenomenon in Lurianic kabbala was noted by Martin Buber when he said,
"Late kabbalistic teaching, within the framework of which hasidism developed, removes the
penetration of evil back into the event of creation itself. Thefire-streamof creative grace pours
itself out in its fullness over the first primal shapes, the 'vessels'; but they do not withstand
it, they 'break in pieces'—the stream showers an infinity of 'sparks', the 'shells' grow around
them, the lack, the uncleanness, the evil has come into the world." Buber uses this image to
suggest that for the kabbalists and the hasidim, it was not man alone who needed redemption
but the world as well. Cf. M. Buber, "Spinoza, Sabbatai Zvi, and the Baal-Shem," in The Origin
and Meaning ofHasidism (Princeton, N.J., 1960) p. 101.
66. She is protected by being attached to her male partner. Thus, before the Sin, the world
of Asiah is called Nukva of Yesirah. Her independence is the sign of her vulnerability. It is
interesting to note that the tikkun serves as the reversal of this independence. After the tikkun,
of the sin. The Dinim in the serpent could not survive independently because
they needed to be fed by the divine element (kedusha) in Adam. Hence,
they rested in the serpent but could not thrive and influence the creation.
In a sense, Adam, by eating from the tree, reversed the result of shevirah.
Unless these Dinim could be somehow reunited with their divine source, they
would remain stagnant and inactive. By ingesting the fruit, Adam and Eve
ingested the Dinim, empowering them, as it were, and allowing them to act
as an independent entity. The result of the sin was the transference of the
Dinim from the serpent through Eve and then into Adam, where they were
empowered.67 The nature of the Yezer ha-Ra and the Kelipot are active forms
of the Dinim once they are ingested into Adam and Eve.68
Seeing how much the shevirah (which has no precedent in the biblical
narrative) is integral to the notion of sin in Genesis, it is no surprise that almost
every Lurianic text, exegetical or not, begins by describing the zimzum and
shevirah, both of which occurred before Genesis 1:1. Without this, according
to the Lurianists, the entire Torah remains incomprehensible. The nature of
sod here carries a different nuance from that which is suggested by those
who have written about zoharic hermeneutics. For the Lurianists, a proper
understanding of the true meaning of Torah requires the knowledge of an
event that not only takes place before Genesis 1:1 but is in no way implied
in the narrative itself. There can be no exegetical method to uncover an
event which occurs before the advent of the text itself! As far as I know,
the Lurianic texts do not even attempt to offer any exegetical tools to get at
zimzum. Yet what is implied here is that without zimzum, the serpent, the sin
and subsequently the entire Torah can never be de-symbolized and thus never
fully revealed. Thus Lurianic kabbala begins with the event before Genesis
1:1, i.e., zimzum and shevirah, and picks up again describing the sin and the
she is called ateret ba 'alah. The word crown (ateret) is not used here to imply the head but
rather the final adornment. Thus the sephirah malkhut is often called ateret yesod. What is
implied is that she becomes subsumed in her male partner, losing her status as a separate
component.
67. See Etz Hayyim II, Gate 34, chap. 2, Principle 17, p. 47a.
68. What is implied here is that the union (yihud) of Adam and Eve (which was, in essence,
the sin itself) was necessary to empower the dinim, which remained inactive as long as they
were not in contact with human beings. However, whereas Eve ingested the dinim, or as the
Lurianic exegetes would have it, was inseminated by the serpent, she alone did not have the
creative force to empower them. This only occurred as the result of her sexual union with
Adam.
62 SHAUL MAGID
banishment from the Garden. In a sense, the entire narrative of the six days
of creation in Genesis 1:1—31 serves largely to present the order of nature
which was the process of tikkun, a process aborted as the result of the Sin. It
is thus not surprising that Lurianic texts which deal primarily with exegesis
spend far less time on Genesis 1 than do other commentaries. For them, the
beginning of the process is zimzum, which is not exegesis at all, since it
occurs prior to Genesis 1:1 and continues with Adam, Eve and the serpent,
the three agents of the second process of creation. The remainder of Scripture
maps out the process of tikkun as it unfolds in Genesis, the drama of human
civilization, and subsequently the Jewish people.
Following this line of thinking, the Jewish people were presented with a
symbolic rendition of this map of tikkun in the form of Scripture. However,
many classical kabbalistic texts suggest that the meaning of the symbolic
representation, i.e., the doctrine of Kabbala, was a tradition that predicated
Sinai, going back either to Abraham, Enoch or Adam.69 Therefore, according
to some kabbalistic theories, the Kabbala is not like the Oral Law, which was
traditionally understood as being revealed concomitantly with the Written
Law. Rather, the entire Revelation was the symbolic encoding of the ancient
esoteric tradition of tikkun. Whatever we may conclude from a historical
perspective, phenomenologically many Kabbalists, the Lurianists included,
worked under the assumption that their teaching preceded the Torah as we
know it and believed that the Pentateuch was its symbolic representation.
When they turn to exegesis, their intent is to de-symbolize Scripture in order
to reveal its true nature and thusfinalizethe process of tikkun by enlightening
the garment, as it were, and thus rendering the garment as symbol, obsolete.
IV
The nature of Lurianic reading is subtle in at least two ways. Differing

from classical midrash, including the Zohar, the Lurianists do not begin by
explicitly asking exegetical questions. That is, they do not begin with a verse
69. See, for example, in R. Meir Ibn Gabbai's Avodat Ha-Kodesh (Jerusalem, 1973), p. 77,
and R. Abraham Isaac of Granada (?), Brit Meukha (Jerusalem, 1958/59), pp. 2a-b. Vital argues
in his Introduction to Sha 'ar Ha-Hakdamot that Luria received a direct revelation from Elijah
which had not beeen transmitted in full since Nahmanides. Hence, he warns against studying
from previous kabbalistic sources (excluding Nahmanides) to avoid confusion. The Zohar is,
of course, considered the product of R. Shimon bar Yohai.
or a phrase and then point out the problems which arise from that verse or
phrase. However, as we will see, their questions are similar to those asked
by midrashic texts in one way and different in another. As we argued above,
the Lurianists are attempting to de-symbolize the Torah. In doing so they
appear to begin with the assumption that everything in its present form needs
interpretation. There is no peshat or clarity in any dimension of the narrative.
Therefore, they do not need to point out difficulties in the way that midrashists
do, because their assumption is that everything is, by definition, unclear. Yet,
we see that Lurianic exegetes do address issues which also appear to the
midrashists as problematic.
We may begin with the underlying purpose of creation. As stated above,
the Lurianists read Genesis 1:1 as an event which was preceded by the rupture
of the vessels resulting from zimzum and shevirat ha-kelim. Following the
normative line of interpretation, the Lurianists accept that the center of
creation is the creation of humankind, who can, through free will, repair the
damaged world and bring it to its fruition.70 However, this question unfolds in
a theosophic manner by introducing one of the most controversial concepts
in kabbalistic thought: the existence and status of the sephirah Keter.71
Surprisingly, according to the three texts we will discuss, the entire tikkun of
creation before the sin is subsumed in the completion of the highest dimension
(keter) of the lowest component (nukva) of ZeirAnpin in the lowest world of
Yesirah.12 As we stated earlier, the interface between parzufim embodies the
70. The notion of zimzum as the distancing of God from creation is viewed by many
kabbalists as the foundation of free will. Cf. R. Yizhak Isaac Haver's Pithei Shearim (Tel
Aviv, 1989), pp. 4a-b. Haver, a student of the Gaon of Vilna and the kabbalistic school of
R. Menahem Mendel of Sklov, appears to read the zimzum as literal rather than metaphorical.
Haver's position on zimzum is largely an adaptation of R. Moses Hayyim Luzatto. See his
Kelah (138) Pithei Hokhma (Bnei Brak, 1992), especially nos. 24, 25, 26, pp. 59—72. The early
Hasidic rendering, which sought to stress the immanence of God rather than His transcendence,
opts for a more metaphorical reading of zimzum. This would exclude R. Nahman of Bratzlav,
who also renders zimzum in a literal fashion. See his Likkutei MoHaRan (Jerusalem, 1976)
1:64 and 11:12. For more on this, see Tamar Ross, "Two Interpretations of Zimzum: R. Hayyim
of Volozhin and R. Schneur Zalman of Liady" [Hebrew], Mehkarei Yerushalayim 2 (1982):

153-169.
71. On this, see Moshe Idel, "On the Concept of Zimzum in Kabbala and Research"
[Hebrew], Mekharei Yerushalayim 10 (1992): 59-103.
72. It is not at all clear whether we are speaking of Keter of Nukva or Zeir Anpin of
Yesirah of the entire Nukva of Zeir Anpin. In Sha'ar Mamrei Rashbi (Jerusalem, 1991), parshat
kedoshim, p. 36b, we have the following description, "You already know that Nukva of Azilut
is called the Garden of Eden and only his [Adam's] throat [garon] was in the Garden. Below
64 SHAUL MAGID
entire fabric of a coordinate cosmic world. The Lurianic assumption, which is

now used to answer the question as to why humankind was created, is that an
essential dimension of the consiousness of parzuf Abba could not decend to
complete the construction of Keter of Nukva of Zeir Anpin. The completion
of this tikkun had to include a descent into the netherworld (the world of
Asiah below Yesirah) to uplift the mayyim nukvin which existed there as the
result of the shevirah. It was only Adam and Eve who, as the lowest part of
the cosmic world, could accomplish this.
The seven kings [who died] are ten, which is like the seven palaces which are
really ten. The upper palace embodies three, and the lower palace embodies
two, as was explained. Afterward, when Zeir Anpin and its Malkhut are purified
. . . the portion attributed to Malkhut will be purified and repaired. Behold:
Malkhut will still remain "back to back." The reason is that the other parts
above did not require the actions of human beings but could be repaired
through thought alone. But the sod of the mayyim nukvin of Malkhut needs
human action, since it is in the depths of kelipot, the secret of Asiah which is
the secret of Malkhut and harsh Dinim. It is there that the kelipot are rooted.
The mayyim nukvin could not be repaired until Adam came and, through his
actions and prayers, sifted the thorns from the vineyard. Through him all the
mayyim nukvin was elevated.73
In this text the world of Asiah (action) is the place where only action rather
than thought can uplift and repair the damage of the Sin and the shevirah. For
this reason, the Lurianists maintain, the bodies of Adam and Eve (the part of
that [i.e., the rest of his body] was outside the Garden in this way. His entire body was in the
lower sephirot of Yesirah and the first four sephirot of Asiah." However, as we will see later,
the world of Asiah before the sin was called Malkhut (Nukva) of Yesirah. which separated from
Yesirah (its male partner) as the result of the sin. The importance of Adam's already being in
Asiah, even though it had yet to descend into the kelipot, is that he had to be rooted in that
world in order to be able to function there after the sin. See also the different descriptions of
this realm in Sha 'ar Ha-Pesukim, p. Id [middle] and Sha 'ar Ha-Likkutim, p. 9a.
73. Sefer Ha-Likkutim, p. 51 bottom. In this text I intentionally translated the term ibirrur)
in a number of ways. I used either "purified," "cleansed," "sifted" or "elevated." In truth
the term encompasses all four meanings. I used them interchangeably depending on what I
determined best represented the meaning of its usage in that particular context. For Scholem's
understanding of birrur in Lurianic kabbala, cf. "Tradition and New Creation in the Ritual of
the Kabbalists," On the Kabbala and Its Symbolism (New York, 1965), p. 129.
them which acts) must be rooted outside the Garden (i.e., below Yesirah) in
order to accomplish their task.
The union of Abba and Ima (the supernal parents ofZeirAnpin and Nukva)
was interrupted as the result of the shevirah, and thus the consciousness
(mohin) of Abba which is embodied in the womb of Imma could not
reach its final destination. 74 The six days of creation are viewed as a
process of strengthening after which the union could have been resumed,
the consciousness missing could have reached its destination via the proper
interface, and creation might thus have reached its conclusion.
In attempting to understand how the exile from the Garden is in some
way a punishment for the sin, the Lurianic reading again begins in a purely
theosophic manner. The cosmic world before the Sin was comprised of three
and not four worlds, Azilut, Beriah and Yesirah, {Asiah was considered Nukva
of Yesirah). The first world is not read out of the narrative, but is imposed
on it. The terms for the two lower worlds, Beriah and Yezirah are drawn
from the verbs used in Scripture to describe the creative act and transformed
into proper nouns. The missing world of Asiah (action as an independent
entity) plays a crucial role in the Lurianic solution to the exile from Eden.
The question as to whether Eden was a physical part of creation is never
taken seriously among the Lurianic kabbalists. For the Lurianists, Asiah as
an independent entity emerged as the result of the sin. It is the world outside
Eden, the Garden being the world of Yezirah.75 It is exile and punishment
because Adam and Eve were created in Yezirah.16 Adam and Eve are called
Nukva of Yezirah to denote that they stand on the cosmic border, as it were,
74. The reason that Abba could not integrate into the consciousness of Zeir Anpin was that
it needed to enter the middle channel of Zeir, through Da 'at, Jiferet, Yesod. This could not
be done because Imma (who carried Abba within her) was only embodied by the first third of
Tiferet of Zeir. Below that she would be exposed and thus be vulnerable to the Dinim which
resulted from the shevirah. Thus Abba remained inside Imma until the sin that resulted in the
artifical and ill-timed exposure of Abba to the Dinim, which caused the descent of Asiah from
its place as Nukva of Yesirah to the depths of the kelipot.
75. In Likkutei Torah, p. 13b, it is called Nukva of Azilut.
76. Note in the text from Sha 'ar Mamrei Rashbi, p. 36d, quoted above that they were
created in Yezeriah and Asiah, although the text in question does not mention Asiah until after
the sin. This is probably due to the fact mentioned above that Asiah was Nukva of Yezeriah (or,
in some texts, Azilut) and thus not independent until after the sin.
66 SHAUL MAGID
and are thus the only dimensions in Yezirah which are directly suseptible to
the source of Dinim which resulted from the rupture.77
The world of Asiah before the Sin is called Nukva of Yesirah, denoting
that it is not an independent entity and is sustained by its male counterpart.78
Thus, even as Adam and Eve are born in the world of Asiah (while it was
still a part of Yesirah), it is still not a world which is embedded in the kelipot
and is thus not called exile.79 The sin results in a comprehensive cosmic
shift downward, beginning with the separation of Nukva of Yesirah from the
body of Yesirah, making it into the independent world of Asiah. 80Adam and
Eve, whose birthplace is in that very realm, descend with it and thus leave
the Garden of Eden.81 More accurately, the Garden disappears once Nukva
77. It is also significant that the serpent (called in Etz Hayyim, Shadai) was also rooted in
this realm and thus served to house the Dinim. Cf. Etz Hayyim II, p. 47a.
78. The notion here that Asiah (malkhut, the feminine) is independent only as a result of
the sin and that the feminine will be subsumed in the male after the tikkun reflects a trend in
earlier kabbala. This has recently been argued by Wolfson in his study, "Women—Feminine as
Other in Theosophical Kabbala: Some Philosophical Observations on the Divine Androgyne,"
in The Other in Jewish History and Thought, ed. L. J. Silberstein and R. L. Cohn (New York,
1994), pp. 166—204. Wolfson argues that in medieval theosophic kabbala, the ideal state is
when the female is integrated into the male, and "in the moment of union, [the female] is turned
around so that she stands face to face with the masculine attribute of mercy. In this regard,
however, her otherness is effaced as she becomes reintegrated into the male" (p. 190). The
Lurianists have a slighly different locution in that both male and female are equally "back to
back" and simultaneously turn toward each other in union. However, I think Wolfson's theory
holds up in the Lurianic rendering in the case that Nukva of Yesirah is an appendage of the
male Yesirah and only independent as the result of sin. Thus, the independence of the feminine
in this case is not desired nor is it permanent. For a further discussion of this in medieval
theosophic kabbala, see Wolfson, "Erasing the Erasure: Gender and the Writing of God's Body
in Kabbalistic Symbolism," in idem Circle in the Square: Studies in the Use of Gender in
Kabbalistic Symbolism (Albany, N.Y., 1995), pp. 49-78. I would like to thank Prof. Wolfson
for providing me with the manuscript before its publication.
79. See Likkutei Torah, p. 13b, where Adam's body parts are decribed as encompassing
Eretz Yisrael (Yesirah), Babylonia and "faraway lands." Cf. Sha 'ar Mamrei Rashbi, p. 37b, on
the talmudic statement in Sanhedrin 38b that most of Adam was bom in Eretz Yisrael but his
buttocks were from outside (Hutz I 'Aretz).

80. This somewhat reflects the stance of the Bahir, where the female is a part of the male
body of Adam. Cf. Sefer Ha-Bahir, ed. R. Margaliot (Jerusalem, 1978), pars 168 and 172.
81. The biblical Garden of Eden is divided into two theosophical realms, the upper garden
and the lower garden. The upper garden embodies the world of Beriah (more specifically
yesod of Beriah) and the lower garden is malkhut of Asiah. These two realms are central in
the Lurianic nocturnal ritual of tikkun hazot. Cf. Pri Etz Hayyim, pp. 81d-82b, R. Ya'akov
Hayyim Zemah, Nagid u Mitzvah (Parmeshlan ed.), p. 12, and R. Emmanuel Hai Rikki, Mishnat
of Yesirah becomes an independent feminine entity cut away from her male
partner.82 This reading of the exilefromEden in Genesis 2froma theosophical
perspective yields a framework with which to understand the transformation
of creation and the challenge of humanity in its "Brave New World." The
Lurianists do not offer a midrashist understanding of the narrative in this
particular reading but rather de-symbolize the narrative by infusing it with
theosophical meaning. That is, the biblical narrative is understood only as a
symbolic representation of the cosmic map. The essence behind the symbol
becomes illumined as the Lurianic exegetes read the narrative through the
prism of their cosmic world.
The paradoxical nature of humanity, standing between heaven and earth,
as it were, is the source of many discussions among kabbalists, philosophers,
and midrashists who derive their world-view from their reading of Scripture.
The Lurianists are no different, although they only use Scripture to illuminate
the problem (in a symbolic way) and then proceed to "reveal" the paradox
as it unfolds in their theosophic world-view. This next text, a classic case
in Lurianic problem-solving, addresses the question of the paradox of the
cosmic root of Adam and Eve and the reason why they represent the pivot of
creation and the source of its demise.
Therefore [as the result of the rupture] Zeir Anpin and Nukva were back to
back. If they were face to face, the kelippot would have grabbed onto their
backs. The mayyim nukvin [that which is elevated as the result of the sexual
act] would have been elevated as the result of the strength of the dinim, which
would have taken with them the kelippot as w e l l . . . However, for Zeir Anpin
and Nukva to unify and thus give birth to Adam, they had to be face to face,
yet this was impossible [for the reason just explained]. . . . What did they
do . . . they passed on their mayyim nukvin to their respective malkuiot [the
lowest portion of each parzuf, which has no active element and thus remains
stationary] and rose to their palaces [the root of their existence, i.e., the place of
theparzufim Abba and Imma]. They rose to their chuppah in the palace of Abba
Hasidism (Jerusalem, 1985), pp. 67b-70a. Cf. my "Conjugal Union, Mourning and Talmud
Torah in R. Isaac Luna's Tikkun Hazot," Da 'at 36 (1995): xvii-xlv.
82. This is touched upon by Yoram Jakobson in "The Aspect of the Feminine in Lurianic
Kabbala," in Gershom Scholem's "Major Trends": 50 Years After (Tubingen, 1994), pp.
239—255. However, I think that Jakobson did not adequately address the fact that, from our
texts, the independent staus of the female only emerges as the result of the sin, even though
Eve was created before the sin.
68 SHAUL MAGID
and Imma, where the kelipot have no power. There they united [face to face], as
it is said, "And the Lord God fashioned the rib [zelah]" (Genesis 2:22).83 This
whole episode can be understood with the introduction [just explained].84. . .
Behold, before the birth of Adam and Eve the mayyim nukvin of malkhut [of
Zeir and Nukva] were not sufficiently pure. Therefore the mayyim nukvin of
Binah were used for the union in the palace of Abba and Imma. . . . However,
as a result [of the use of that higher mayyim nukvin], Adam and Eve would
have emerged too pure and elevated [and thus unable to perform the tikkun in
the kelipot below Yesirah]. Therefore, Zeir Anpin and Nukva had to descend to
their original place in order to bring down the souls that would be Adam and
Eve [and thus humanity]. As a result, they had to return back to back to give
birth to Adam and Eve. This is what it means when we say that the souls of
Adam and Eve emerged from Zeir Anpin and Nukva back to back. If they were
able to generate Adam and Eve face to face [in the palace of Adam and Eve],
Adam and Eve would have emerged complete and all of the worlds would have
been perfected . . . 8 5
83. See also Sha'ar Ha-Pesukim, p. 4a; Sha'ar Ha-Kavannot, Drush Rosh Ha-Shana 1,
p. 91; and 'Olat Tamid (Jerusalem, n.d.), "Drush Rosh Ha-Shana." This verse is also used
to. describe the need for sexual union and the recitation of tikkun hazot only after midnight.
Adam's sleep is understood as the elevation of his consciousness to the parzuf'of Arikh Anpin
in order to create Eve. Cf. Pri Etz Hayyim, p. 81 c, and Sha 'ar Ha-Kavannot. p. 52a. For another
interpretation of this verse which introduces the two wives of Adam (Lilith and Eve), the first
representing ezem (bone—Lilith and Leah) and the second representing basar (flesh—Eve and
Rachel), see Etz Hayyim, Gate 39, chap. 2, p. 61a. The correlation between the two wives of
Adam and the two wives of Jacob is an important motif in Lurianic reading. Cf. ibid. 60d and
Etz Hayyim, Sha'ar Ha-Kelallim, chap. 13. For earlier conceptions of Lillith, see Joseph Dan,
"Samael, Lilith, and the Concept of Evil in Early Kabbala," reprinted in Essential Papers on
Kabbala, ed. L. Fine (New York, 1995), pp. 154-178.
84. The sleep which Adam experienced (Genesis 2:21) is read by the Lurianists to mean
that Adam was, in a sense, re-created in the palace of Abba and Imma concomitant with Eve.
85. For other readings similar to this, cf. Etz Hayyim II Gate 36, chap. 4, Gate 39, chap.
1, Sha 'ar Mamrei Hazal, Sha 'ar Ha-Kelipot, chap. 3, and the important discussion in Sha 'ar
Ha-Kavannot, pp. 57b-58a. The distinction between the temporal union of Zeir and Nukva and
the continuous union of Abba and Imma (in that they are above the power of the kelipot) is
highly nuanced. Cf. Sha 'ar Ha-Kavannot, "Drush Layla 3," pp. 53a-b, where this distinction is
seen through the evening prayer service (ma 'ariv). "When the Temple existed, the upper union
{Abba and Imma] was "face to face" in order to bring forth new souls. After its destruction,
our prayers can only [reinstate that union] temporarily to bring forth new souls 'back to back.'
Therefore, we say the Shema prayer during the evening prayer to unify Abba and Imma and
through that union unify Zeir Anpin and Nukva. Afterward, during the Eighteen Benedictions,
their children [i.e., Zeir Anpin and Nukva] are unified, as is known."
This descriptive analysis, couched in the complex jargon of Lurianic

theosophy, implicitly offers an explanation for the paradoxical nature of
humanity, which is rooted in the mystery of the birth of Adam and Eve.
Adam and Eve needed simultaneously to contain the sanctity of divinity and
to be able to descend and elevate the sparks of holiness embedded in the
shards of creation resulting from shevirat ha-kelim. This is a classic kabbalistic
formulation developed, among other places, in the Zohar. Here the paradox is
read into the nature of their birth. It is not insignificant that the birth formula is
used throughout, even as the biblical narrative only uses the term "formation"
(yesirah). While non-kabbalistic exegetes may feel uneasy about using the
terminology of birth to describe creation, which implies two parents, the
Lurianists are not bothered by the apparently dualistic implications.86 From
their perspective, the very language of the Torah's opening verse, which
begins with a beit rather than an aleph, justifies a dualistic ontology.87
The Lurianic contribution to the zoharic reading is that humanity's
paradoxical status is perched between the fruit of the cosmic sexual union
and gestation which produced humankind. The union and conception took
place in an unnatural realm (the palace of Abba and Imma). In order to avoid
the destructive element of the kelipot, the birth took place in the proper
location, but the parents (Zeir Anpin and Nukva) were "back to back," and
thus not conventionally united. The lofty nature of Adam and Eve results
from their conception in the sanctified palace of the higher parzufim of Abba
and Imma, while their imperfect nature and, of course, the sin result from the
imperfect coupling of their cosmic parents, Zeir Anpin and Nukva at the time
of their birth. Adam and Eve thus embody the paradox of creation itself: the
sanctity of union which cannot be sustained. To understand the paradoxical
nature of the sin, the Lurianists first need to describe the paradoxical nature
of Adam and Eve emerging from their conception and birth. Even though the
human inclination for sin (yezer hard) does not emerge until after the sin,
86. The nature of male and female cosmic intercourse is far more complex than stated in the
body of the present study. For more comprehensive treatments, see G. Scholem, "The Feminine
Element in Divinity," in The Mystical Shape of the Godhead (New York, 1991), pp. 140-196;
E. R. Wolfson, "Female Imaging of the Torah: From Literary Metaphor to Religious Symbol,"
in From Ancient Judaism to Modern Intellect in Quest of Understanding: Essays in Honor of
Marvin Fox (Atlanta, 1989), vol. 2, pp. 295-305; and Yoram Jacobson, "The Aspect of the
Feminine in the Lurianic Kabbala." Directly relevant to our concerns, see Sha 'ar Ha-Pesukim,
p. 5a.
87. See above, p. 63.
70 SHAUL MAGID
the cosmic root of their souls leaves open the potential for improper action.88
This is not only a psychological analysis, as some have suggested, but an
ontological one as well.
In Lurianic kabbala, this bifocal cosmic root sets Adam and Eve on
the margin of creation even as they carry the weight of creation on their
shoulders. Nothing in this reading has any foundation in the biblical text.
Beginning with the use of the term "birth" rather than "formation," the
Lurianists create a scenario whose formulation is outside even the widest
reading of the narrative.89 While much of the theosophic structure used here
is adopted from the Bahir, and even more so from the Zohar, Scripture plays a
more pronounced role in both of these earlier texts, each ultimately reading its
theosophic framework back into the biblical narrative. But whereas the Bahir
and the Zohar exhibit allegiance to the text and to the midrashic method,
neither is evident in the Lurianic material. Yet the Lurianists would claim
that without their reading, the entire story of the Garden of Eden and the
Sin cannot be understood. Whereas the kabbalistic midrashist of the Bahir
and the Zohar may still believe that the answers to the questions which the
Torah raises are embedded in the narrative and have to be revealed through
88. The nature of evil and sin is a highly complex network of ideas in Lurianic kabbala.
For a comprehensive treatment, see Tishby, ToratHa-Ra ve Ha-Kelipah. As is well known, the
Sabbatean heretics based their stance of the necessity of sin to facilitate tikkun on Lurianic texts,
and indeed a precedent for such readings does exist. The need to descend in order to repair is
a fundamental principle in the Lurianic understanding of the creation (birth) of Adam and Eve
and the fulfillment of mankind. Cf. Mevo Shearim, pp. ISc-d. Obviously the Sabbateans read
it quite literally and thus may have fallen victim to the dangers of kabbalistic literalism which
so many warned about. See Scholem, "Redemption Through Sin," in The Messianic Idea in
Judaism (New York, 1971), pp. 78-141. The notion of descent for the sake of ascent is also
quite common in Hasidic readings of Lurianic material, although the Hasidic rendering does
not practically take the individual out of the halakhic context as it did in radical Sabbateanism.
On this see Yehuda Leibes, "Ha-Jikkun Ha-Kelali of R. Nahman of Bratslav and Its Sabbatean
Links," in Studies in Jewish Myth and Jewish Messianism (Albany, N.Y., 1993), pp. 115-150,
esp. pp. 128-150
89. The use of the term birth in medieval kabbala vis-a-vis cosmogony may be founded
on Sefer Yezera 3:2, "Three Mothers: Aleph, Mem, Shin, A great secret covered and sealed
with six rings. And from them emanated air, water, fire. And from them born fathers, and
from the fathers descendants." Compare with Sefer Yezera 6:1. This image may be rooted in
Exodus Rabba 15:22, "The waters conceived and gave birth to darkness; fire conceived and
gave birth to light; spirit (ruah) conceived and gave birth to Wisdom." For an explanation of
the midrashic image of birth, see R. Azriel of Gerona, Perush Ha-Aggadot le-Rav Azriel, ed. I.
Tishby (Jerusalem, 1943), pp. 86-91.
LURIAN1C EXEGESIS AND THE GARDEN OF EDEN 71
a theosophic rendering of the text itself, the Lurianists do not seem to feel
the need to justify their theosophic reading by midrashically reading it back
into the text. They do not wish to reveal the text, they seek to transform it.
The theosophic framework which they inherited from the Zohar is the Text,
Scripture being its symbolic representation. Their reading is not sod contra
peshat or sod as the deepening of peshat—it is sod as peshat.
The meaning ascribed to the two trees in the Garden of Eden similarly
reflects Lurianic kabbala's understanding of biblical objects as symbols of
the theosophic world. The dichotomy between the Tree of Knowledge and
the Tree of Life is used as a leitmotif 'in the Zohar, particularly the Tikkunim,
to differentiate between the exoteric Torah (Tree of Knowledge) and the
esoteric Torah (Tree of Life). 90 The Lurianic texts devoted to exegesis are
not as interested in how these objects (the two trees in the Garden) were
used for polemical purposes but rather how they were defined as part of the
Lurianic world-view and then read back into the narrative.91 In the following
two Lurianic examples, the Tree of Knowledge is radically interpreted in
90. See Tikkunei Zohar, pp. 99a, 106c and 107a/b. Cf. P. Giller, The Enlightened Will
Shine: Symbolization and Theurgy in the Later Strata of the Zohar (Albany, N.Y., 1993), pp.
59-80. On the two trees as symbolic of the unredeemed world and the redeemed world, see
Scholem, "Toward an Understanding of the Messianic Idea in Judaism," in The Messianic Idea
in Judaism, pp. 22—23.
91. See Vital's Introduction to Sha 'ar Hakamot, p. Id, "To those hokhmei ha-peshat who
are not interested in the 'true wisdom' which is called Etz Hayyim and Eternal Life and busy
themselves only with peshat, saying that the Torah deals only with peshat, God forbid, which
is called Etz Ha-Da 'at Tov ve Ra. On them the sages say that they know neither good nor evil.
Because they are not interested in Etz Hayyim, God does not help them. They study the simple
Etz Ha-Da 'at Tov ve Ra, turn it into evil, making the impure pure, forbid the permissible and
make that which is not kosher, kosher. Many mistakes come from them." See ibid., p. 4d,
"Thus I have called this work according to my name the book of Etz Hayyim and also on this
awesome wisdom, the wisdom of the Zohar, which is called Etz Hayyim and not Etz Ha-Da 'at."
This startling reformulation of the anti-peshat tradition of Tikkunei Zohar is striking in that
R. Hayyim Vital was not living in a polemical age vis-a-vis the status of Kabbalah. It is also
worth noting that Vital, before meeting Luria, composed a book entitled Etz Ha-Da 'at, although
its title may have come only after his "conversion" to kabbala. Also, as Elliot Wolfson has
pointed out in "Maiden Without Eyes," the position of the main body of the Zohar is far more
integrative vis-a-vis peshat and sod. Therefore, such a severe position was not necessary to be
a devoted follower of the Zohar. In light of my contention regarding the way Lurianic texts
72 SHAUL MAGID
order to put it in direct relationship with Adam and Eve, the serpent, and the
transformation of the Garden of Eden. The deficiency in the cosmos reflects
the inability of the consciousness {mohin) of Abba to enter and become a part
of Keter of Nukva of Zeir Anpin (some say just Keter of Zeir Anpin) which
impedes the completion of creation.
Adam was commanded not to do anything before its proper time but only
according to the order of time {seder ha-zemanim). This is what is [meant
when it is] written, Do not eat from the Tree of Knowledge—Good and
Evil . . . (Genesis 2:17). This is the explanation: The nature of the Tree of
Knowledge must first be known. Know that Da 'at itself is the middle between
Hokhma and Binah.92 The Tree of Life is [the realm] of Zeir Anpin which
takes its consciousness (mohin) from Hokhma and Binah, which are called
Life (Hayyim) as it is known. However, the Tree of Knowledge is [the realm]
of Zeir Anpin which receives its consciousness (mohin) from [the sephirah]
Da 'at. You already know that Hokhma and Binah of Zeir Anpin [i.e., the mohin
from Imma] descend within it (Zeir Anpin) through its [right and left] channels,
Hokhma through the right channel until Nezah, and Binah through the left until
[the sephirah] of Hod. These two [streams] of mohin are enveloped in Nezah
and Hod of Imma and are closed within them. Consequently no part of these
mohin emanates out, and the externals [the kelipot] cannot gain sustenance
from them. . . . However Da 'at of Zeir Anpin is exposed because Yesod of
Binah [the middle channel] only reaches to the breast of Tiferet [the first third
of Tiferet of Zeir Anpin]. Below that the hasadim [of Imma] are exposed and
thus are vulnerable to the externals [kelippot] who take from them and grab
onto them. Therefore, there was no fear about eating from the Tree of Life,
only from the Tree of Knowledge. . . . Therefore at that time [the sixth day of
creation], when the mohin of Abba had not yet entered into Zeir Anpin, there
was a commandment not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge . . .93
read Scripture, I think the more radical Tikkunei Zohar position makes more sense for Vital.
For other Lurianic sources which work according to this assumption, see Sha 'ar Ha-Mitzvot
(Jerusalem, 1980), p. 83, and R. Meir Poppers ed., Pri Etz Hayyim (Jerusalem, 1980), p. 356.
For the more synthetic position of R. Moshe Cordovero, see 'Or Yakar to Ra 'aya Mehemna
(Jerusalem, 1987), p. 5:87, and Wolfson "Maiden Without Eyes," p. 172.
92. It is not unusual for the sephirotic terminology of Hokhma and Binah to be used to
represent the parzufim Abba and Imma.
93. Likkutei Torah, p. 4d.
This explanation raises certain questions which need to be addressed.

First, the Tree of Knowledge is envisioned as the very dimension of the
cosmic world which is in need of repair. As mentioned above, the nakedness
or exposure to the elements is the realm where danger lies. The Tree of
Knowledge becomes Nukva of the world of Yesirah, the potentiality of Asiah
which has yet to become manifest. By interpreting the Tree of Knowledge
as the middle channel of Zeir Anpin which is in the state of vulnerability,94
the author sets the stage for the relationship between Adam, Eve and the
Tree even before there was a commandment not to eat from it. Whereas
non-Lurianic readings view this episode as a test of man's obedience to
God's Will, the Tree of Knowledge here is viewed ontologically as the "soft
spot" of the entire creation in need of rectification in its proper time (in
the seder zemanim). The deficiency in the Tree of Knowledge results from
having been exposed from Tiferet through Yesod. In this rendering the entire
creation revolves around the Tree itself and not around God's command not
to eat of it. There appears to be a striking similarity between the Tree of
Knowledge and Adam and Eve. As we stated above, humankind contains the
inherent contradiction of having been conceived "face to face" in an artificial
place and birthed "back to back" in the proper place. Thus they contain an
inherent disunity while also being the result of cosmic unity. The dangerous
but necessary confrontation between the Tree of Knowledge and Adam and
Eve results from their similar compositions.95
The status of the Tree of Life is highly ambiguous in this narrative. There
is no commandment not to eat of the Tree of Life, though I am unfamiliar
with any tradition that says explicitly that it would have been permissible or
even desirable to have eaten from it. In our text, the Tree of Life represents
the "safe haven" of the successful emanation of life from the parent to the
94. As stated earlier, the vulnerability is the result of its being exposed to the kelipot by
not being embodied by the sephirot of Zeir Anpin. The paradoxical nature of the entire system
is that the shefa from above must enter into that which is below it, but must do so in a manner
in which it is protected. However, if it is protected it cannot fully faciliate tikkun. Thus the
light must eventually venture out but do so when the kelipot have been adequately weakened
and/or the light becomes strong enough to remain untainted. This entire process would have
been completed through time but, after the sin, must be aided by human action.
95. Cf. Zohar 1.27a. In this regard the Zohar differs fundamentally from our Lurianic texts
in that the Zohar understands the middle channel (Da 'at—Tiferet—Yesod) as the Tree of Life.
Moreover, in Tikkunei Zohar, the middle channel is represented by the Patriarch Jacob, who is
deemed "shalem" (complete).
74 SHAUL MAGID
child (Imma to Zeir). Protected by the garments (levushim) of Imma, this

Tree poses no threat to the restitution of the world, nor is it vulnerable to
the destructive elements of the outside forces (dinim and kelipoi). Thus, the
author of our text can state explicitly, "There was no fear of eating from
the Tree of Life." In fact, the Tree of Life in kabbalistic polemical literature
is the Kabbala (for Vital, the Zohar), which should be ingested. The Tree
of Knowledge, the serpent, and Adam and Eve all share similar dimensions
of deficiency, which is not the case with the Tree of Life. Yet the verse
which follows the account of the sin justifies moving Adam and Eve out of
the Garden, which implies that, as a result of the sin, the Tree of Life now
presents itself as a danger. And said YHVH ELOHIM, man is now like one of
us to know good and evil. And now, perhaps he will send his hand and take
also from the Tree of Life and eat from it and live forever (Genesis 3:22). Did
the Tree of Life pose a danger in the Garden prior to the sin? Although I have
found no Lurianic reading of Genesis 3:22, a number of possibilities exist.
The Tree of Life was described as the full integration of Imma into Zeir
Anpin. Had the sin not occurred, the Tree of Knowledge (the deficient middle
channel) would have assumed the same status as the Tree of Life (the right
and left channels). Indeed, lest they live forever (Genesis 3:22) implies that
the Tree of Life represents the final tikkun of creation and the full union with
God. However, could the warning against Adam and Eve attaining eternal life
have implied that the Tree of Life itself was now vulnerable? One possibility,
according to the Lurianic exegetes, is that the sin affected the entire cosmic
order up to Arikh Anpin of Azilut. It was not only that the exposed element
of Imma (and Abba within her) was preyed upon by the kelipot, but that the
entire system, even the Tree of Life, came tumbling down. Another possibility
is the fear that Adam and Eve would have eaten from the Tree of Life and,
as a result, achieved immortality. This immortality would have made them
unable to facilitate the tikkun, for death as a form of descent is an integral and
necessary element in the entire Lurianic process.96 Death implies embedding
the divine spark into the place of its absence in order for rebirth to occur.97
96. Luria's positive view of death reflects and deepens the rabbinic view. See R. Meir's
drash on me'od and mavet in Genesis Rabba 9:5. Cf. a similar reading in Exodus Rabba 31:10.
97. Thus, the notion of multiple pregnancies and rebirth in the form of gilgulim are so
important in Lurianic kabbala. For an analysis of ibur in Lurianic kabbala, see M. Pachter,
"Katnut and Gadlut in Lurianic Kabbala" [Hebrew], pp. 172—184.
If death is removed from the life of Adam and Eve, as Genesis 3:22 implies,
tikkun becomes impossible.98
In sum, I have tried to show how the nature of Lurianic exegesis begins
with a body of knowledge independent of Scripture which I have called its
meta-text. The meta-text needs no exegetical justification, as the Lurianists
maintain that it was revealed concomitant with the exoteric Torah at Sinai. The
implication here is that the biblical narrative is the symbolic representation
of this meta-text. The definitive meaning of the exoteric Torah does not
lie within the narrative itself, as was suggested by the Zohar. Rather, the
Lurianic meta-text stands outside the exoteric text, yet only by means of its
integration into the narrative can the true meaning of the narrative be revealed.
Moreover, the implication of this theory is that without the meta-text, the
Torah cannot be understood at all! Using the eschatological language of this
circle, by imposing the meta-text on the narrative the Lurianists claim to have
redeemed the text by having de-symbolized it. This theoretical construct was
exhibited as it unfolded in the paradoxical nature of Adam and Eve, their
ontological symmetry with the Tree of Knowledge and their relationship to
the Serpent. The meta-text was imposed on the biblical narrative to close
the text by offering what the Lurianists determined was, dare I say, its final
reading.
Jewish Theological Seminary

New York, NY
98. The image of death is viewed according to Lurianic kabbala as the central motif for the
prayer of supplication (tahanun) which follows the Eighteen Benedictions in the morning and
afternoon prayers. Cf. Sha'ar Ha-Kavannot, p. 47a. The Zohar speaks of the "Tree of Death"
which the Zaddik must surrender to in the moment of supreme ecstasy in order to complete a
particular tikkun. Cf. Zohar 3.120b. See also Y. Liebes, Studies in the Zohar, pp. 63-74, and
M. Fishbane, The Kiss of God: Spiritual and Mystical Death in Judaism (Seattle 1994), pp.
106-120.

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What is the author's perspective on studying Lurianic Kabbalah?

What is the author's perspective on studying Lurianic Kabbalah?

How does the author describe Lurianic exegesis?

How does the author describe Lurianic exegesis?

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FROM THEOSOPHY TO MIDRASH:

AJS Review 22/1 (1997): 37-75 37

has addressed the unusually complicated task of deciphering, categorizing,

LURIANIC EXEGESIS AND THE GARDEN OF EDEN 39

structured midrashically, using Scripture as a basis for its kabbalistic exegesis.

Yet, while the systematic presentation of Lurianic cosmology in Etz

LURIANIC EXEGESIS AND THE GARDEN OF EDEN 41

embedded in the Garments of Torah but exists outside it.

it is not that the sod interpretation is in contradistinction to the peshat in

LURIANIC EXEGESIS AND THE GARDEN OF EDEN 43

While deconstructionist and intertextualist readings of midrash may be

midrash realizes its goal by means of a hermeneutic of recombining places

1,8. Boyarin, Intertextuality and Midrash, p. 40.

Professor Ephrayim Gottlieb (Jerusalem, 1994).

LURIANIC EXEGESIS AND THE GARDEN OF EDEN 45

theosophic system of shevirah-sin-tikkun, is now integrated into the "Garment

Why do we say that the word "tree"—spoken or written—is a symbol to us

Whitehead's point here is important for our understanding of symbolic

LURIANIC EXEGESIS AND THE GARDEN OF EDEN 47

philosophers while symbolic interpretation is preferred by the mystics. The

of Scripture elicits components of experience which motivate the author to

LURIANIC EXEGESIS AND THE GARDEN OF EDEN 49

Torah, illuminating the "Soul of Torah."37 The Lurianists no longer have to

philosophical truth.41 The metaphorical and/or symbolic method enables the

(Jerusalem, 1995), pp. 73-77 and n. 82.

LURIANIC EXEGESIS AND THE GARDEN OF EDEN 51

The complexity and multi-variant nature of Lurianic theosophy makes it

LURIANIC EXEGESIS AND THE GARDEN OF EDEN 53

LURIANIC EXEGESIS AND THE GARDEN OF EDEN 55

is important in the Lurianic scheme is not to see the parzufim as independent

The interface of all of the dimensions solidifies the continuum which

LURIANIC EXEGESIS AND THE GARDEN OF EDEN 57

59. See Sha 'ar Ha-Pesukim, p. 4b-c.

divorced from human participation and experience. As opposed to various

60. See above, n. 27.

LURIANIC EXEGESIS AND THE GARDEN OF EDEN 59

fragmentation resulting from the zimzum, for it could no longer be restored

Here we are introduced to the direct relationship between the shevirah

LURIANIC EXEGESIS AND THE GARDEN OF EDEN 61

The nature of Lurianic reading is subtle in at least two ways. Differing

LURIANIC EXEGESIS AND THE GARDEN OF EDEN 63

of Volozhin and R. Schneur Zalman of Liady" [Hebrew], Mehkarei Yerushalayim 2 (1982):

entire fabric of a coordinate cosmic world. The Lurianic assumption, which is

LURIANIC EXEGESIS AND THE GARDEN OF EDEN 65

buttocks were from outside (Hutz I 'Aretz).

LURIANIC EXEGESIS AND THE GARDEN OF EDEN 67

LURIANIC EXEGESIS AND THE GARDEN OF EDEN 69

This descriptive analysis, couched in the complex jargon of Lurianic

LURIAN1C EXEGESIS AND THE GARDEN OF EDEN 71

LURIANIC EXEGESIS AND THE GARDEN OF EDEN 73

This explanation raises certain questions which need to be addressed.

child (Imma to Zeir). Protected by the garments (levushim) of Imma, this

LURIANIC EXEGESIS AND THE GARDEN OF EDEN 75

Jewish Theological Seminary