The Mystical Dance: A Rendezvous of Levinas, Jewish Mysticism and Genesis 1 from a Hebrew Catholic Perspective
Brother Gilbert Bloomer
Sergei Khudekov often told his Ballet students: "We have forgotten
to pray to God with our feet. We have forgotten that once in the great past a
divine being touched us and we were nearer to God."[1] Jacob Meskin, in an article about the
great French Jewish philosopher and thinker Emmanuel Levinas, writes about
philosophical thought as “the choreography of the dance of real life” to which
Levinas makes an important contribution in a post-Shoah world.[2] This ‘choreography of
thought’ transcends the reality of the dance and links the dancer to the
tracings (reshimu) of the ‘beyond’
from where inspiration flows. This ‘beyond’ is at the same time primordial and
eschatological. Levinas links it to the terms ‘immemorial past’ and ‘ethical
transcendence’[3].
Levinas’ concepts are enriching all areas of post-modern Christian theology.
This article seeks to read Genesis 1 mystically using the concepts of Jewish
mystical thought and the philosophical concepts of Levinas. I do this in order to
demonstrate that the Jewish source of Levinas’ major ideas also find their
origin in a mystical Jewish reading of the ‘immemorial past’ of Genesis 1 which
may aid in the development of a distinct Hebrew Catholic theology and
spirituality. Using Levinas and Jewish thought I ‘wrestle’ with the text for a
deeper ‘Hebrew Catholic’ encounter with the text of Genesis 1 through the
paradigm of a mystical Dance or Tango, in order to bring forth new insights and
understandings that will enrich this Hebrew Catholic endeavour or dance in the
spirit.[4]
The Mystical Dance of the Cherubim
This essay will not
outline a systematic and ontological explanation of the philosophical thought
of Levinas. To do so would be to totally misunderstand Levinas who disliked
‘totalities’ and the ontological priority in Western/Greek philosophy. Levinas
can only be truly understood by those who are able to think mystically,
intuitively and laterally. Like the Stag leaping across the mountains, in the
Song of Songs,[5]
one must leap intuitively from concept to concept to glimpse a trace of that’
knowing’ (daat) which is beyond all knowing.[6] At the heart of Levinas’ thought is the
encounter with the face of the mysterious ‘other’. The concept of the face is
also important in both Biblical and Jewish thought from which Levinas draws his
concepts. The face is also important in many forms of dance such as the Ballet
and the Tango. The cherubim atop the
Ark of the Covenant allude to Levinas’ ethical focus.[7] The space between the two faces of the cherubim
(and their embracing wings), when they are facing each other, is considered in
Judaism the holiest space on earth.[8]
This is the mystical dance space. When the Jewish people practiced loving
kindness (chesed) then the angels
faced one another and Israel was blessed and the Divine Voice spoke between the
faces of the cherubim [9] (one face is male and one
face is female according to Jewish teaching [see Rashi]). When Israel sinned
the cherubim would look away from
each other and their purifying gaze would fall upon the people. This movement
of faces and wings is seen as a form of mystical dance. This face to face
contact and rendezvous reminds one of the Latin American dance, the Tango, in
which the dancers demonstrate an intensity as much through the face to face
encounter as to the dance steps.
The Hebrew Catholic dimension
The Messiah Jesus who is
the Jewish Lord of the Dance[10] also stressed the priority
of love and mercy in his parables and teachings, and this compassionate mercy
must be central for any development of a Hebrew Catholic theology or
spirituality. Levinas would seem to provide a dance –like post –modernist way
of philosophising that leads one back to the biblical and ethical priority of
loving kindness and mercy, which is important for all believers- Jews and
Christians. His concepts can also be used in a Hebrew Catholic theology as part
of a philosophical choreography for encountering the truths of faith that is
relevant to the post-Shoah and post-modernist generations. Those who are locked
into a systematic, vertical, argumentative and modernist mindset will become
lost and dizzy in the twirls and leaps of this mystical and Levinasian
approach.
Hebrew Catholics are
also known as Catholic Jews, Jewish Catholics or Jews in the Church. They are
Catholics of Jewish background/ancestry who desire to preserve their personal
and corporate religious-ethnic-identity as Jews and Catholics. Father Aidan
Nichols a leading British Catholic theologian speaks of the role of the Jews in
the Church:“Since Judaism is not in the fullest sense a different religion from
Christianity, there can be and are such a thing as Hebrew Catholics, Jews who
have entered the Church but with every intention of maintaining their Jewish
heritage intact…Hebrew Catholics…have a special place in the Church; their
association enables them to experience a common identity as the prototype of
the Israel of the end, and not merely a random collection of assimilated
Jews…”.[11] Father Aidan holds
that “Judaism’s distinctive continuing light can add to the Church an
orthopractic concern with mitzvoth,
the divine precepts, whose actualization is a sign that makes present the
Creator’s reign... and so consecrating it to God through human agency.”[12] Cardinal Leo Burke,
the President of the Apostolic Signatura (High Court of the Vatican), stated in
an interview in 2010 to the Association of Hebrew Catholics:
...There
should not be anything in Jewish practice which is in itself a denial of the
Catholic faith because everything that our Lord revealed to His chosen people
was in view of the coming of the Messiah. So all of those rituals and practices
understood properly are going to be able to be carried out and practiced by
Hebrew Catholics, once again, with a fully Catholic faith...[13]
Another leading Catholic theologian and liturgist was Father Louis Bouyer
who wrote:
...Judeo-Christianity cannot be considered a
transitory phase of abolished Christianity, forever surpassed by
pagano-Christianity, which would have triumphed over it. The Christian
synthesis must always be renewed by renewing its contact with the primary and,
in a sense, definitive expression of the Gospel, in the categories and forms of
Judaism.
Judeo-Christianity,
as Paul and Peter recognized and proclaimed, remains forever the mother form of
Christianity, to which all other forms must always have recourse. It is
therefore a weakness for the Church that Judeo-Christianity, from which it was
born and from which it cannot free itself, no longer subsists in her except in
tracings. It can be believed that she will not reach the ultimate stage of her
development except by rediscovering it – fully living in her....[14]
Glenn Morrison’s concept of a ‘Trinitarian praxis’, based on an encounter
of Levinas and Catholic theology,[15] would be another stage in
this mystical dance. Morrison endeavours to use the philosophical ideas and
concepts of Levinas as a launching pad in order to leap like a mystical ballet
dancer and go beyond Levinas into the heart of Christian Trinitarian theology.[16] Morrison writes:
“Practically doing theology with Levinas will mean that we have to go beyond
his thinking into other contexts...Theology needs to make a radical move with
philosophy – to utilize it but not to be finally constricted by it...the spirit
of Levinas’ philosophy invites us to use its language and unique ideas in new
contexts...”.[17]
Morrison using the ethical focused concepts of Levinas leaps into the ‘beyond’
of his Trinitarian praxis of ethical transcendence, eschatology and Eucharistic
life. A Hebrew Catholic theological use of Morrison’s Trinitarian praxis united
with a mystical understanding of Genesis 1 could provide philosophical/
theological paradigm for a Eucharistic –centred Hebrew Catholic spirituality.
This intimate mystical dance or struggle between Philosophia and Theologica,
oral and written, male and female, faith and reason, Judaism and Catholicism,
ethical transcendence and eschatology begets its Eucharistic fruit of Adoratio (Eucharistic adoration) which
leads to new mystical and Torah insights that for the Hebrew Catholic leads to
a deeper and richer Eucharistic-centred Torah-observant way of life.
In a sense the mystical Tango is also the dance and
encounter of Second Temple Judaism and Gentile (Greek) philosophy which
eventually brought forth two children, post- Second Temple Rabbinic and
Talmudic Judaism and Gentile Christianity. The modern Hebrew Catholic movements
bud forth from this Tango-like mystical encounter or struggle of Rabbinic
Judaism and Gentile-dominated Catholicism. Most Jewish people who become
Catholics, in my experience, have a dance-like mystical struggle and encounter
first and only after this do they begin the encounter and struggle with the
text of Scripture, which in turn strengthens their new found faith in the
Messiah.[18] It is only later that one
realises that it was all part of a bigger mystical and divine choreography of
the eternal and infinite dance of life.
Wrestling with the Text and the Enigma
Levinas writes of the continual ‘struggle’ by Jewish
students and thinkers with the letter of the text to bring out the living
dimension of the text[19]. This alludes to the story
of Jacob wrestling with the angel in a face to face encounter (panim l’panim)[20] and to Moses striking the
Rock which is the Well (be’er) of
Miriam[21] in order to bring forth
new Torah insights and understandings (biur).[22] This wrestling dynamic or
dance is reflected in the Jewish Yeshivah methodology of two students wrestling
with the text of the Talmud together. Leonard Cohen’s famous song speaks of
dancing to the end of love (an eschatological focus) and ‘Enigma’ (an 80’s Pop
Group) sings of the ‘Return to Innocence’ (in the immemorial past or primordial
time). Here I also wrestle with the text in order to understand Genesis 1 in
its deeper hidden dimensions, in order to attain its inner light and to return
to the innocence, goodness and ethical transcendence of the beginning.
Levinas speaks of “a wisdom
older than the patent presence of a meaning in the writing. A wisdom without
which the message buried deep within the enigma of the text cannot be grasped.”[23] The Rabbis often translate
‘Bereshit’ (In the Beginning) as ‘In
or With Wisdom’ linking it to the verse “the beginning of wisdom is fear of the
Lord”[24]. Levinas sees that concept
of the Enigma (Mystery/ Raza) as
beyond knowing “because it is already too old for the game of cognition,
because it does not lend itself to the contemporaneousness that constitutes the
force of time tied in the present, because it imposes a completely different
version of time.”[25]
He links this with the concept of ethical transcendence when he states that
“morality is the Enigma’s way”.[26]
The Light and the Vessel
Genesis1:3 begins: “And God said (saying), Let there
be light”. Levinas also speaks of the concepts of ‘the said’ (amar) and ‘saying’ (yomer).[27] This is similar to the
idea in the Jewish mystical book of “Bahir” of the ‘blessed’ (barukh) and ‘blessing’ (bereikah), and the ‘filling’ (malei) and ‘full’ (meleat). The ‘said’, ‘blessed’ and ‘full’ being the vessels that
receive the light. The light itself is ‘saying’, ‘blessing’ and ‘filling’.[28] We can extend this to ‘song’
and ‘singing’, ‘dance’ and ‘dancing’. This is the light of the first day of
darkness in Genesis 1 that was hidden away in Miriam’s well, in the under text
of the Hebrew text[29], at twilight. This vessel,
dancing with the light that is Miriam’s Well, is the “Face upon the Waters”-
the primordial waters of the well. The light she receives is the light of the
Messiah.[30] This mystical or
primordial ‘twilight’ (two lights as one) represent the mystery of the
Incarnation and Annunciation in the ‘immemorial past’ at the beginning (bereshit). This is the light and spirit
of the Messiah blazing forth as the conceptual “face upon the deep” who hovers
or interacts with Miriam the conceptual “face upon the waters” and is
encompassed in the darkness of the primordial mystical womb of Miriam’s well. Levinas
in his work “Totality and Infinity” seems to allude to these two lights in the
concept of the ‘face’ (panim) when he
writes that the face spreads light in which the light is seen. Ephraim Meir
believes that Levinas is referring to Psalm 36:10- “In Thy light do we see
light”.[31] Chief Rabbi Alexandre
Safran teaches:
The days of the Messiah will be accompanied by the
light of the Messiah. This will materialize from the place where God
“concealed” it on the very first day of Creation “for the sake of those who
devote their energies to the torah” (by studying it deeply and observing its
mitzvot, in fear and love of God who ordained them), for the sake of the
Tzaddikim, the “righteous”. The light of the First Day was intended to unite
with the light of That Day, of the End of Days. It is the light of the first
day of creation, the “light of the Torah”, which reveals the Creator’s
“intention” in creating the world, and the objective to which he is directing
his creation...[32]
For the Hebrew Catholic this has Messianic, Eucharistic and Marian
applications. The ‘light of the Torah’
is Messianic or eschatological, the ‘Creator’s intention’ is Marian or ethical
transcendence and the ‘objective to which creation is directed’ is Eucharistic.
Even Gen 1:3 by itself has this Triune pattern. “Let there be (yehi/ fiat)” is Marian (ethical transcendence or trace-like bluepint in
the immemorial past), “light” (or/lux) is Messianic (eschatology or the
future hidden light) and “and there was light” (vayhi or/ et facta est lux) is Eucharistic life (in the present here and now).
Naphtali, the Bride and the Dance
The ‘face upon the waters’ circling[33] the ‘face upon the deep (tahom)’ in Genesis 1:2 represents this
wrestling or struggle or circle dance, that brings forth the hidden light or
blessing. The concept of the spiral circle dance is also associated with Miriam
dancing with the women at the Red Sea.[34] It also alludes to the
Jewish bride (kallah) circling her
bridegroom (khatan) in the Jewish
wedding ceremony.[35]
This is part of the mystery of “a woman shall encompass a man”[36] as a mystical besieging or
wrestling in prayer by the Mother (Woman) (symbolised by Rachel) that produces
a ‘son’[37] who will continue the
dance of life.
The Bahir[38] discusses this in the
context of the mystery of Naphtali in Genesis 30:7-8, Deuteronomy 33:23 and
Genesis 49:21. The phrase ‘naftuley elohim niftalti im-akhoti’ in
Genesis 30:7-8 means “I influenced
(or wrestled) with God, I influenced with my sister”. Deuteronomy 33: 23 states: “And to Naphtali
saying Naphtali satiated with Divine Will and Filling is the blessing of YHVH ”
[naftali s’ba ratzon u-maley birkat YHVH].
Genesis 49: 21 refers to Naphtali as a female deer (Hind), “Naphtali is a hind
let loose delivering beautiful sayings”.
The male Naphtali (male concept of written Torah) through a dance-like
wrestling process (naftuley) becomes
the liberated or freed female Naphtali (represented by the joyful leaping
circle dance of Miriam and the leaping of the Hind ) who delivers beautiful
sayings (the oral Torah as feminine). This is linked to the concept of Israel
(Jacob) wrestling with God for the blessing that will be the feminine ‘Kneset Yisrael’ (Community or Lady of
Israel) as God’s Bride. The Hebrew Catholic goes ‘beyond’ the Rabbinic
understandings of this conceptual and mystical feminine ‘Presence’ to a Marian
and Sophiological understanding and application that is both Messianic and
Eucharistic.
This mystery of the
female face (over/upon the waters) circling the male face (over/upon the deep)
is the ever new mystery (enigma) in the immemorial or primordial time (charos time) that seeks to interface
with this world (in chronos
time). In Judaism ‘chronos time’ only begins with the creation of Adam and Eve on day
six.[39] This dance-like wrestling
process is also associated with virginal and mystical nuptial union or coupling
that is divine intimacy. The dance of the Cherubim
is also perceived in nuptial imagery. Chief Rabbi Safran writes of this
wrestling or struggling dance process in the context of Devekut (Cleaving).[40] Levinas often stresses
that the mystical union where one is totally dissolved in the other (nirvana and other eastern concepts) is
not the Jewish understanding (nor indeed the Catholic). Safran writes:
... In truth, the supreme goal of the Hasid is Devekut; he yearns to “cleave” to God,
to be near to Him, he longs to be with Him...by the study of Torah he seeks to
“cleave” to Him...the Hasid observes the mitzvoth
not to gain advantage from them, but to be be-zavta, “together with”, to be an
associate with Him who has given them...The Hasid mitpallell, “prays” ...to “cleave” to Him, for prayer is Devekut: “naftulei Elokim niftalti” (cf. Targum Onkelos to Gen. 30:8: “I
struggled in prayer with God”)...[41]
The Womb before the Dawn and the Man of Knowledge
The female ‘face upon the waters’ is also the ‘Womb
from before the Dawn’[42] and the male ‘face upon
the deep’ is the Yesod or Foundation
(represented by the male phallus) mentioned in Proverbs 10:25 as the “Tzadik is the foundation (yesod) of the World”.[43] The nuptial act in this world is a form of
this wrestling dance in which the man (ish)
encompasses the woman (isha). In this
world of the fallen senses if a woman encompasses a man (dominates him) in a
physical sense then it is perversion and the sin of Lilith, but in the mystical
and immemorial time the woman spiritually and virginally encompasses the man
(male) to produce spiritual and immaculate seed (or beautiful sayings[44]).[45] Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, writing in a manner
that Levinas would have approved, states: “You must know that time does not
exist of itself, and that days are made only of good deeds. It is through men
who perform good deeds [for the sake of others] that days are born, and so time
is born.”[46]
This is linked to the proto-evangelium of Genesis 3:15 about
the “seed” and the woman (isha) who
will crush the head of the serpent. The seed (zera) is the man (ish)
who will come as the Messiah[47] and Jewish Lord of the Dance[48]. Kabbalah calls the
Messiah “ish ha-daat” (the man of
knowledge) and he personifies the “sod
ha-daat” (the secret or mystery of knowledge).[49] Daat is the so-called 11th Hidden Sefirah
(Emanation/Attribute). This, for the Catholic Jew, alludes to the Hidden
Messiah of the House of Bread (Beit-lechem).
This ‘mystery of knowledge’ alludes to the ‘mystery of the Divine Will’
mentioned by St Paul in Ephesians[50]. Safran tells us that it
is through ‘daat’ that the Messiah
will obtain the revelation (gillui)
of this hidden mystery. This Messianic ‘gillui sod ha-daat’ (revelation or
manifestation of the mystery of knowledge) will lead to the ‘gillui Shekhinah’[51] (manifestation of God’s
Presence through the female (isha)).
Safran writes: “Then the “Mystery of Mysteries”, God himself, will be seen and
heard through his Torah, with which He is One...Then we shall see the “Words”
of God illuminated in all their depths”.[52]
Mystery of Mysteries is
‘Sod haSodot’ in Hebrew and ‘Raza de Razin’ in Aramaic. The Syriac
churches refer to the Catholic concept of sacrament as ‘Raza’ and the Eucharist as ‘Razin’
(the plural of Raza).[53] In order to comprehend these ‘mysteries’
(Enigmas/ Razin) more fully it is necessary
to return to what Levinas calls the immemorial past (bereshit) in Genesis. The Zohar’s section on “Raza d’Razin” speaks of the wisdom of the faces (panim) and the wisdom of the hand (yad)
that are both alluded to in Genesis 1, when read according to the mystical or
anagogical level (Raza/ Sod). The Jewish Church applied these
concepts to one’s personal face encountering the face of the Hidden Messiah in
the Eucharist that was made present through the hand/hands of the priest. This
was the priestly lifted offering (terumah)
of the New Covenant. Safran perhaps unwittingly reveals that this ‘Raza de Razin’ (Sacrament of the
Eucharist) is God Himself. The Mother of the Messiah encompasses the Messiah,
who is ‘ish ha-daat’ and ‘Adam Kadmon’ (Primordial Man), with her
own flesh or humanity. As the Isha (Woman)[54] she also encompasses him
with the mystical dark waters of her womb at the foot of the Cross (tav) that manifests as darkness upon the
earth.[55] At the Cross he is the ‘Ish Makhovot’ (Man of Sorrows).[56]
The Sayings and the Sefirot
The idea of the written Torah (the Word) as male and
the oral Torah as female (the Voice) that precedes, accompanies and proceeds,
like an intricate and choreographed dance, is common in Jewish thought.[57] The Voice (Bat Kol) is the feminine vessel for the ‘sound’(tz’lil) just as the song (shirah) is a vessel for the melody (niggun). Meskin writes:
...the said always tries to capture the saying, even
though this very saying, by virtue of its transpiring in what Levinas calls an
immemorially different time, cannot ever be fully recuperated within the said.
Moreover, it is after all the saying which launches the said and puts it into
circulation-even if by writing this very said right now, I have necessarily
left the dimension of saying behind. Indeed, the dimension of the saying is not
a "place in which" one can ever "be." The saying resounds
or echoes outside of place and outside of time, in a way that destabilizes the
secure position we take up in the said, in our conceptual truths, in our
knowledge. Yet this very destabilizing may inject a certain ethical, outward
directedness into the said, perhaps sensitizing us to the other, and allowing
us to use our position, our placement on the earth for his or her sake...[58]
The Jewish mystical writings, based on the Jewish mystical book called ‘Sefer Yetzirah’, refer to the Sefirot as
‘sayings’ (ma’amarot).[59] These ‘beautiful sayings’
were sung forth at Creation (Bereshit)
and are associated in Kabbalah as the ten sayings of Genesis 1. These ten can
also be seen as ten ‘dance steps’ that are the one Divine Dance.
The 32 mentions of ‘Elohim’ (God) in Genesis 1 is linked to
the ten sefirot or sayings and the 22
letters of the Hebrew alphabet. In the Sefirotic array the Sefirot are connected with these 22 paths (Netivot).[60] The soul, drawn by the hidden melody and
song, dances its way through the paths of the divine Heart. There are a number
of different ways of presenting this in Jewish sources. There is the Tree of
Life, Adam Kadmon (Divine or
Primordial Man), the divine Heart, the Menorah,
Lightning Flash, Nehushtan (Bronze
Serpent), Mystical Rose, Divine Face, Mystical Diamond or Crystal, the Horns of
the Stag, Hannukiot and the steps of
the Divine Dance. In the sefirotic array
the diagonal lines are made up of the 12 elemental letters of the Hebrew
alphabet. The horizontal lines in the array of the Divine Heart are the 7
double letters and the three vertical letters and called the mother letters.[61] The gematria of Heart (Leb)
is thirty two[62]
and the gematria of Glory (Kabod) is thirty two. The first letter
of the Torah is Beth (2) and the last
letter is Lamed (30)- together they
reveal that the Torah is the divine Heart (LB).[63] And this Heart leaps with
joy in the Divine Dance with his Hasidim like the Stag of the “Song of Songs”
leaping upon the mountains[64].
The Levinasian Trace and Totality
The Levinasian concept of ‘immemorial past’ is
connected to the concept of ‘trace’. Levinas associates the idea of the trace
with his concept of the encounter with the face of the ‘Other’. He also links
this with the concept of the “He”.[65] In the Jewish understanding of the Primordial
mysteries the trace is called ‘reshimu’
. The ‘reshimu’ is the impression or
trace of the Divine Light that withdrew from the Creation in order to allow the
Creation to exist.[66] The Hasidic tradition
stresses that this idea is a metaphorical concept and not to be taken in a
literalistic manner. This trace is encountered in all things for it is the
hidden Divine Will in all. This trace is
like an empty bottle of scent which still retains a hint of its former
fragrance. This is the forgotten dance
steps from the great past which we almost remember but never quite attain.
In a sense, in the
immemorial past, the uncreated Divine Light blazed and danced forth as the “Let
there be Light” and created “and there was light” which encompassed and hid
this created light in the darkness of Miriam’s Well. A trace of this light (the
reshimu) remained and allowed free
will and the possibility of choosing for good or evil on the second day of
darkness[67] of the Creation week in
Genesis 1. [68] Rabbi Ginsburgh of the Gal Einai Institute
writes:
...The reshimu is the consciousness
of knowing that one has "forgotten." It is the consciousness which
arouses one to search for that which he has lost, the awareness that God is
"playing" with His creation, as it were, a Divine game of "hide
and seek." A forgotten melody lingers in the back of one's mind, and
although he is unable to remember it he continuously searches for it, and
whenever he hears a new melody (that might be it) it is the reshimu which
tells him that it is not... [69].
Most likely, due to Levinas’ experience of the Shoah, he perceives any
philosophy based on power, force or ‘totality’ as dangerous. Safran speaks of
the light that blazed forth on the first day of creation, withdrawing, as God’s
power became manifest.[70] The ‘withdrawing’ left the
‘reshimu’, in which God’s power and
glory were hidden. This veiling or hiddenness allowed for freedom of choice and
the uniqueness of each person.[71] Each one has the right to choose one’s own
unique choreography and dance style. Levinas believes that the revelation, word
or saying received in the interiority of the person urges one to leave his
natural egoistical self and embrace one’s uniqueness.[72]
One should not confuse
‘fullness’ (malei) with ‘totality’.
‘Fullness’ is about depth (deep calling to deep) and interiority (pnimi) whereas ‘totality’ (Kolal) is about breadth and exteriority
(makif). Pnimi (inner face or interiority) is similar to the word panim (face). A ‘totality’ leads to an oppressive
uniformity and conformity, whereas ‘fullness’ leads to unity and uniqueness.
When any institution claims a ‘totality of truth’ then oppression and lack of
freedom follows. Nazism and Communism are examples of such ‘totalities’. The
beauty of the Dance and its unique dancers then becomes ugly goose-stepping in
the unison of totalitarianism.
The Levinasian Concept of Illeity
Levinas speaks of Traces and Illeity[73] in regards to this hidden
trace in all creation. Illeity is the
concept of He-ness (from the French word Il
for He) which is closely connected to the idea of trace (reshimu). Levinas writes on the “Trace of the Other”:
...If the signifyingness of a trace consists in
signifying without making appear, if it establishes a relationship with
illeity, a relationship which is personal and ethical- is an obligation and
does not disclose, and if, consequently, a trace does not belong to
phenomenology, to the comprehension of the “appearing” and the
“self-dissimulating”, we can at least approach this signifyingness in another
way by situating it with respect to the phenomenology it interrupts....[74]
Levinas uses the term ‘He’ (Il
or Illeity) which in Hebrew is ‘Hu’. This concept of ‘Hu’ represents God’s transcendence and
its trace or reshimu of the Divine
Will in the commandments. In many Jewish Blessings the second part sees a
switch to the third person ‘His’ from the second person ‘thou’ for addressing
God. For example: “Blessed art Thou,
O Lord our God, King of the universe, who has sanctified us with His commandments...”.[75] Jewish prayer often uses the exclamation
Barukh Hu (Blessed is He). The Bahir teaches that the term for “without form” bohu is the primordial source for bo hu (‘He is in it’ or ‘In (with) it is
he’). From formlessness comes form.[76]
Jesus referred to
himself as “Ani Hu” (I am He) in
John’s Gospel. Tohu (void/ chaos)
could be read as Tav Hu. The ‘tav’ in the ancient Hebrew-Phoenician
alphabet was in the cruciform like our English letter ‘t’. It is this tav (cross) that will stand in the void
and confront the ideology of the void with the mark (tav) or sign (ot) of the
Cross (Tzelab) that brings salvation
(a turning of evil into good).[77] This concept of the ‘tav’ as ‘terumah’
(priestly offering of first tithes) is hidden in the darkness of the first well
of the text beginning with the ‘tav’
of Bereshit (In the Beginning) and
counting 26 letters 4 times. 26 is the number of YHVH in gematria. In the
‘return to innocence’ (tam) one has
to pass by the evil and faceless darkness of the void of the second day by
beholding (hineni) the ‘Tav’ and re-entering the ethical light
of the first day hidden in the darkness of Miriam’s Well.
The Deep and the Void
The concept of passivity in Levinas may represent
the face over the abyss or deep (tahom)
which is ‘within’ and ‘beyond’ the darkness of Miriam’s Well. This ‘tahom’ (deep) which transcends or is
beyond even the light of the first day of Creation (but is in a sense present
in its reshimu) should not be
confused with tohu (the void or Avadon).
However the withdrawing that leaves the ‘reshimu’ also opened the possibility for the creation of Hell in
the void on the second primordial day. One of the rabbis of the Talmud asks;
“...Why was the expression ‘that it was good’ not said concerning the second
day of Creation? Because on that day the fire of hell was created.”[78] The Jewish mystical book
of the “Zohar” tell us “Out of the
conflict [of the second day] aroused by the left [sitra ahra or the evil side], emerged Hell. Hell aroused on the
left and clung.”[79]
This void becomes the void of Hell of the fallen angels (klippot of the
breaking of vessels). Sometimes I think that Levinas and some other Jewish
writers do indeed confuse the two and this may be why he is so fixated on the
fear of death in the face of the ‘other’. When he encounters the face of the
‘other’ he perceives the ‘void’ (tohu)
rather than the ‘deep’ (tohom).
At the heart of the mystical call to radical
joy is the concept of ‘deep calling to deep’ [tehom el tehom kore][80] like a divine Tango. This same Psalm 42 also speaks of the ‘face
of God’ (p’nai Elohim)[81] and the ‘salvations of his
face’ (y’shuot panaiv)[82] and the “salvation of my
face” (yeshuot p’nai). The first yeshuot contains a ‘vav’ which represents the male and the second one is missing the ‘vav’ representing the female. These two
faces may refer to the second set of two faces in Genesis 1 –the ‘face over the
rakia (expanse)’[83] and the “face over all the
earth”[84]. These two appear after
the hidden “Yeshua” in the well of
the text beginning with the yod in Elohim in Genesis 1:17.
A Stranger in a Strange Land and the One Act of
Creation
The Jewish concept of exile (galut) also seems to play a place in Levinas thought. In the face
to face encounter and the encounter with the Other (transcendent God) one is
taken out of the comfort of one’s narcissistic “home” into exile from the self.[85] This is of course once
again rooted in the idea of ‘the light that withdrew’ and the ‘reshimu’ or trace. In a metaphorical
sense God as the Infinite Light went into ‘exile’ but at the same time remained
hidden in the world as the concealed light in all things. Already the concept
of being a stranger in a strange land and the journey into galut is reflected in the three wells (based on 26 x4) of the text,
of Terumah, Miriam and Yeshua. The
light of the three fiats (yehiot) of
Creation, Redemption and Sanctification are exiled or hidden in these wells
until the world is able to receive their light. In ‘chronos time’ these are the exiles of Egypt, Babylon and Rome
(Edom).
Levinas stressed the
importance of command and the commandments (mitzvoth) which one beholds in the
encounter with the face of the ‘Other’ as an ethical imperative.[86] The Jewish mystical
traditions associate the ten ‘sayings’ of Genesis 1 with the ten ‘words’ or
commandments of Sinai. Safran writes that the Torah is a “mitzvah” (commandment) of God. This divine commandment transcends
human reason. The Jewish mystical tradition seeks to penetrate deeply into the
depths of its meaning (sound its depth).[87] Luisa Piccarreta, a
Catholic mystic, calls this primordial ‘mitzvah’
the ‘one act’ of Creation that contains all acts.
Beholding, Goodness and the Passion
Hilary Putnam discusses the Levinas’ French term “me voici” as an equivalent to the Hebrew
term “hineni” (behold). Putnam writes
that it is very difficult to comprehend what Levinas means by ‘me voici’. Nevertheless, if one translates the French
word into the Hebrew concept of ‘hineni’
(behold) it becomes clearer. Putnam believes that it is from the story of the Akeidah (or Binding) of Isaac that
Levinas draws this concept.[88] As an observant Orthodox
Jew, Levinas would have read the account of the Akeidah each day in his morning prayer. While using the Akeidah as a prism we can follow the
dance of light back to Genesis 1 to the expression “God Saw” (literally ‘God
shall see’) as the concept of Hineni
(Behold) has a visual element. These primordial ‘beholdings’ are closely
associated with “goodness”. However the second day is missing this ‘beholding’
and ‘goodness’. This is the time of the breaking of the vessels and the fall of
the angels. Hidden in the secret of the second day is the void which will
manifest itself in the 20th century as the Shoah. It was here before
the void that God chose (bachar)
Israel. One meaning of ‘bachar’ is
connected with the concepts of dividing and examining which links it to the
second day when separations and divisions occurred in the primordial and
immemorial past. In a sense God foresaw the passion or sufferings of Israel and
its Messiah in the midst of the void’s infestations within history. Levinas
writes:
...but which marks the religiosity of Israel: the
feeling that its destiny, the Passion of Israel, from bondage in the land of
Egypt to Auschwitz in Poland, its holy History, is not only that of a meeting
between man and the absolute, and of a faithfulness; but that, if one dare say
so, it is constitutive of the very existence of God...[89]
God delighted in his choice of Israel (and its Messiah and his Mother)
and Israel was to be the elect or chosen people. Ephraim Meir writes:
...Connected to Levinas's idea of election is the
"passion" of Israel and of all the elected ones, who bear the
suffering of other beings and whose tears are counted by God. In his
religious-ethical thought, Levinas highlights that "all the heavenly gates
are closed except those through which the tears of the sufferers may pass"
(Babylonian Talmud Berakhot 32b and Babylonian Talmud Baba Metzia 59b).
Suffering is of course not the aim of a lofty life, but suffering on behalf of
the suffering of the Other is the hallmark of a life worthy of being lived...[90].
The Sages of Israel such as Rebbe Nachman refers to the “Suffering soul
of all Israel” as Miriam (bitter
seas). This Mother of Sorrows is the Shekhinah
who regularly appears weeping and wailing for her son Israel at the Kotel
(Wailing or Western Wall). Every Jewish son receives his election (bachar) as an Israelite through the
tears of his Mother giving birth. This weeping Kneset Yisrael is first alluded to in the primordial and immemorial
time in Genesis 1:10 where the Aramaic text calls the ‘gathering of the waters’
‘kneset maya’ and the Latin ‘congegationesque aqarum’ called ‘maria’.
This gathering (kneset or mikveh) of waters alludes to Miriam’s
Well which the Latin Vulgate connects to the concept of Maria (Mary) as the
Seas of Wisdom (Sophia). In a sense every Jewish Mother is a type of Miriam.
The Messiah Jesus (Yeshua) received not only his election and identity as a Jew
through his mother Miriam (Mary) but also his humanity. Israel is chosen for
ethical service to others and to proclaim God’s glory.[91]
The Nearness of God and Transcendence
The concept of Devekut
(Cleaving ), Korban (a sacrifice
that brings God near) and atzilut (Nearness)
in the Jewish understanding of the Divine intimacy of face to face encounter
between the soul and God is at the heart of the Jewish understanding of
mystical oneness with God. Ephraim Meir writes that for Levinas “nearnesss to
the Other and the height of the Most High go together”[92]. Transcendence of God as
the Ultimate Other that is beyond the human limits of understanding ‘being’ (yesh) is important in Levinas’ thought.
This transcendent God who is the Ayin Sof (Infinite) is encountered in Genesis
1 in the ‘reshimu’ left in the story and text. This ‘reshimu’ is the vehicle which allows the
Presence (shekhen) of God to manifest
in his Creation without destroying it.
The Presence or
Immanence (Nearness) of God is the ‘fullness of God” but not the ‘totality of
God’. For Levinas this transcendent face of the Other is not the Incarnation of
God.[93] He is speaking here of the
higher transcendent face of the Kabbalah called ‘Arikh Anpin’[94]- the long or distant face
before its descending and becoming a vehicle for man as ‘Zeir Anpin’ (the short or near face). ‘Arikh Anpin’ as the transcendent face is the disincarnate[95] or preincarnate only found
in Creation through the trace (the divine will in all things). All
manifestations (gillui) and dwellings
(shekhen) of God are through the Zeir Anpin as the immanent face of
God-this is the mystery of the Incarnation and the Korban[96]. This incarnate face we
perceive (behold) in the face of the ‘other’(our fellow human). When we
‘behold’ the ‘Other’ within the ‘other’ we are called to cry out “That’s Good!”
(‘Ki-tov’). This transcendent God in Judaism and in Genesis 1 is called Elohim. This reveals that Genesis 1 is
not to be read as a description of the literal creation of the physical
universe but as a trace of a description of the conceptual or metaphoric
blueprint (umanuta) of the Divine
Desire and Will to Create. This is the Primordial Torah and the Primordial Adam
of the immemorial time. This is the primordial choreography of the dance of
life. The Immanent God and the physical creation is described in Genesis 2
where God is referred to as YHVH Elohim
who is the Zeir Anpin. YHVH
represents in Kabbalah the God who descends as ‘blessing’, ‘filling’ and
wisdom. Kabbalah presents him in the image and likeness of a man (Adam Kadmon/ Yosher) and Adam haRishon
(the first Adam) was made in the likeness and image of this primordial Man.
The yod (of YHVH) represents the
Head, the first heh (of YHVH) the
arms, the vav (of YHVH)the body or torso and the final heh (of YHVH) the legs. The letters are often drawn as flames of
fire representing the dancing man (ish)
of fire (aish). The dancing Hasid is
a living image of this man (ish) who
is fire (aish). The Messiah as ‘Ish ha daat’ is ‘Aish ha Torah ‘(Fire of the Torah) and Sar ha Torah (Prince of the Torah) who
gave the Torah to Moses with flaming letters hidden in the midst of fire, cloud
and smoke on Mt Sinai.
Meir writes that:
“...Judaism at its best and Levinas’s ethics as prima philosophia testify to an ethical space where height as well
as nearness meet....”[97]. In the immemorial time (charos time) of Genesis 1 this ethical
space is foreseen when ‘heaven and earth’ meet in the person of the Messiah who
is the ‘Ish ha-daat’ (the man of the
hidden messianic knowledge).[98] For the Catholic Jew this
ethical space manifests or incarnates at Sinai with the giving of the Torah
with its commandments and active ethics of concern for love of God (Other) and
fellow man (other). Fresh from his Resurrection the Messiah (who is now outside
chronos time and in Eternity)
manifests at Sinai, in the Tabernacle in the wilderness, in the pillar of cloud
and fire, in the cool of the evening in the Garden of Eden, in the Holy of
Holies of the Temple and in all the Eucharistic hosts throughout history. These
are all ethical spaces where height (transcendence) and nearness (immanence)
meet in the person of the hidden and resurrected Messiah. This Messiah in his person is the God-Man who
is all Good. Levinas himself speaks of the term “Resurrection” in “Totality and
Infinity”.[99]
James Hatley writes: “Levinas surprisingly uses the term “Resurrection” to
characterise how each succeeding generation lends time its very significance by
revealing eternity- which is to say, the interruption of time’s continuity by
the infinite - as time’s ‘principal event’.”[100]
Kabbalah and Levinasian Sources
It is rather obvious to me that many of the ideas of
Levinas do indeed draw, either directly or indirectly, from the Kabbalistic
traditions of Judaism contrary to the opinion of some scholars.[101] Levinas obviously gives a
priority to the Talmud and the Talmudic methodology from which he then
understands other aspects of Jewish wisdom. It is not the mystical ideas of the
Kabbalah that he doesn’t like but the priorities and actions of certain
practitioners and students of Kabbalah and Hasidism. James Hatley writes:
“...But how can one ignore the wealth of references to biblical, kabbalistic
and Talmudic sources running through Levinas’ philosophical works?...”[102].
Levinas according to
Peperzak insists that ‘intimacy with God’ means obedience to his commandments
(mitzvot).[103]
There were many occultic kabbalists who focus their priority on the theosophic
nature of Kabbalah which turns Kabbalah into a form of Gnosticism. Levinas is
right to insist on the priority of Torah study and mitzvot. Rebbe Nachman of Breslov himself warned
against those who divorced Kabbalah and Hasidut from its foundation in Talmud
Torah and mitzvot. He referred to them
as Jewish Torah-scholar demons who built
fantasies in the air.[104] Unless mysticism is
rooted in the interpretations of the written text and leads to an ethical
priority on holiness and care and concern for others then it is dangerous.
Levinas is concerned
when he sees Kabbalah and Hasidut being used for religious thrills similar to
the ancient pagan mystery religions, the recent Nazi revival of the Nordic gods
and the outbreak of occultic and Gnostic new ageism both within and without the
Jewish community. These religious systems or totalities are based on
subjectivity of the human mind and Levinas seeks to base the existence of God
and ethics and morality outside the subjective self. He perceives the dangers
of a spirituality cut off from our humanness in the physical creation to follow
the violent emotional and often irrational enthusiasms of those who turn
religion into myth and magic[105]. His concern for
orthopraxy leads to orthodoxy and true intimacy with the divine and others. In
fact in Levinas book “Beyond Verse”, he discusses the Kabbalah of Rabbi Isaac
Luria (the Ari) in a positive way as taught by Rabbi Chaim Volozhiner.[106]
The Joy and Discipline of the Dance
Safran links this concern with the ethical nature of
the mitzvot. He teaches that this
life has to be linked with the “Beginning of Time” in Bereshit “when ‘the world was water in water’ and the ‘spirit of
the Messiah moved on the waters’ and to lead it to the ‘end of time’, the
messianic days... ”[107]. It is in fulfilling the commandments with pure
devotion of heart (kevanah) that will
make Israel worthy of the uniting of the primordial time with the messianic age
of restoration. Safran also stressed the concept of joy in performing the mitzvot. Levinas seems to so stress
one’s obligation to mitzvot that he
forgets the importance of joy and even radical joy in their performance. This
joy is linked by Safran to the transcendent face of God (Ayin Sof):
...‘Joy before God’ is sustained by the Ein Sof, the Infinite, who in His
goodness, ‘each and every day renews the Primal Works’[108]... This joy is nourished
by Him who each and every day radiates from the Torah which he revealed. Thus
this joy is constant and ever new...it is transformed from a joy, manifested
‘before God’ sustained and fed by the Ein
Sof, into a joy felt “in God”...Thus, their joy becomes their
rendezvous...”.[109]
This rendezvous or encounter with the faces of the ‘other’ leads us back
to Bereshit where the ‘other’
received the image and likeness of the ‘Other’ (God). To ‘behold’ my fellow man
is to ‘behold’ the primordial face of the ‘other’ in Eternity which reveals the
face of the ‘Other’ (transcendent Infinite God). In the face of the ‘other’ I
see my choreography of the wild cleaving dance of life- the mystical tango. For
we all ‘know’ that it takes ‘two to tango’ and an intense focus on the ‘other’
dancer can lead us into a mystical and real encounter with the transcendent
‘Other’ in the dance of dances. As every ballet dancer knows, in order to dance
well one needs discipline and joyful perseverance that transcends the pain. In
the dance of the spirit the Torah is the choreography, the mitzvot are the discipline that leads to joyful perseverance.
The Dance Continues
This struggle or dance
with the text of Genesis 1 from a mystical perspective has sought to
demonstrate, using Levinas and his Jewish sources, the possibilities for a
Hebrew Catholic theology and spirituality rooted in ethical transcendence. I
could not go into too much detail about any one concept of Levinas, due to the
wide range of material that needed to be included in this article. Levinas
despised totalities and I don’t intend to provide a totality for Hebrew
Catholic theologies or spiritualities. A vibrant Hebrew Catholic theology and
spirituality would also need to draw on Hasidic Judaism especially the
teachings of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov. This would especially provide the
musical ‘melody’ to the dance and the rich teaching of the Catholic mystics
would help develop the ‘song’ that accompanies the melody for the Mystical
Dance. This article has thus used the post –modernist concept of bricolage,[110]
which is a gathering or gleaning from many sources in a lateral and mystical
way for an encounter or rendezvous with the wisdom of the ‘other’. Rather than
a vertical and argumentative discourse, this article seeks to be a circular and
spiral dance in which the dancers encounter each other in the different aspects
of the choreography. At times this mystical dance, like the Tango, seems like a
struggle or a wrestling but in reality it is part of the transcendent
choreography of the Divine Dance. Let the primordial and mystical dance go on!
Author: Brother Gilbert Bloomer is a ‘Little Eucharistic Brother of
Divine Will’ with the ‘Apostles of Perpetual Adoration’ a public Association of
Christ’s Faithful. He is presently studying his Master of Arts in Theology at
Notre Dame University in Fremantle. He has a Bachelor of Arts from the University
of Western Australia and a Graduate Diploma of Education from the Australian Catholic
University. As a Catholic of Jewish background and ancestry and a descendant of
Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, he is interested in the development of Hebrew
Catholic spiritualities and theologies from a mystical perspective.
[1] This saying was
attributed by my step-grandmother, Madame Nadine (Mirceva) Wulffius, to her
teacher Sergei Khudekov the great historian and balletomane of the Russian
Imperial Ballet.
[2] Jacob Meskin,
“The Jewish transformation of modern thought: Levinas and Philosophy after the
Holocaust” Cross Currents 47.4
(Winter 1997/1998), 505.
[3] Glenn Morrison,
A Theology of Alterity: Levinas, von
Balthasar and Trinitarian Praxis (Pittsburg: Duquesne University Press,
2013), 3.
[4] The purpose of this analysis is for theological
reasons and an enrichment appropriate for Catholics and Hebrew Catholics not as
an apologetical or argumentative approach to convince those of other religious
traditions of the truths of Catholicism.
[5] Song of Songs
2:8
[6] This is a
concept found in both Jewish Kabbalah and the Carmelite spirituality of St John
of the Cross
[7] David Patterson,
“Emmanuel Levinas: A Jewish thinker” Between
Reason and Revelation: the Logic of the Semitic dimension in Philosophy
(Apr.-Dec 2006), 603-4.
[8] Patterson,
“Emmanuel Levinas: A Jewish thinker”, 603-4.
[9] Patterson, “Emmanuel
Levinas: A Jewish thinker”, 604.
[10] Paul Bernier, Eucharist:
Celebrating Its Rhythms in Our Lives (Notre Dame, Indiana; Ave Maria
Press), 65.
[11] Aidan Nichols, Epiphany:
a theological introduction to Catholicism (Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 1996), http://www.christendom-awake.org/pages/anichols/epiphany/epiphch14.htm.
[12] Nichols, Epiphany:
a theological introduction to Catholicism, http://www.christendom-awake.org/pages/anichols/epiphany/epiphch14.htm.
[13] “An Interview
With Archbishop Raymond L Burke” The
Hebrew Catholic No. 88, (Winter 2010-2011), 34.
[14] Louis Bouyer, The
Church of God: Body of Christ and Temple of the Spirit (USA: Fransican Herald Press, 1982), 568.
[15] Morrison, “A
Theology of Alterity: Levinas, von Balthasar and Trinitarian Praxis”, 226-7.
[16] Morrison, “A
Theology of Alterity: Levinas, von Balthasar and Trinitarian Praxis”, 213.
[17] Morrison, “A
Theology of Alterity: Levinas, von Balthasar and Trinitarian Praxis”, 213.
[18] Hebrew Catholics
do not believe in proselytizism (manipulated or forced conversion) of
non-Catholic Jewish people. Many including myself and Father Elias Friedman
(founder of the Association of Hebrew Catholics) do not believe in any form of
active evangelisation that targets Jewish people as a group at this stage of
salvation history. Hebrew Catholics seek to provide a Jewish space in the
Church for those Jewish people and their descendants who have freely already
embraced the Catholic faith and who believe it is right to preserve their
Jewish identity and election as individuals and as a group.
[19] Meskin, “The
Jewish transformation of modern thought: Levinas and Philosophy after the
Holocaust”, 514.
[20] Gen 32:22-31.
[21] see Louis
Ginzberg , The Legends of the Jews Volume
3 (Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1998).
[22] Moshe Shlomo
Emanuel, Divine Design (New
York: Targum Press, 2006), 200.
[23] Emmanuel
Levinas, In the Time of the Nations
(London, Athlone Press, 1994), 38.
[24] Prov 9:10.
[25] Emmanuel
Levinas, Basic Philosophical Writings
(USA: Indiana University Press, 1996), 75.
[26] Levinas, Basic Philosophical Writings, 76.
[27] See Zohar
2:131a
[28] Bahir 3 in
Aryeh Kaplan, (trans), The Bahir
(United States of America: Samuel Weiser, Inc., 1979).
[29] There are three
‘wells’ in the Hebrew Text of Genesis 1 formed by counting 4x26. YHVH has four
letters and YHVH is 26 in Jewish gematria. The first subtext well begins with
the last letter ‘tav’ of Bereshit (In the Beginning) the first word of Genesis
1 – it spells out TeRuMaH. The second subtext well begins with the last word of
Gen1:2 hamayim (the waters) from the last letter ‘mem’- it spells out MiRYaM.
The third subtext well begins in the word Elohim in Gen 1: 17 beginning with
the ‘yod’ – it spells out YeShUaH.
[30] Chief Rabbi
Alexandre Safran, Wisdom of Kabbalah (Jerusalem/New
York: Feldheim Publishers, 1991), 84.
[31] Ephraim Meir,
“Judaism and Philosophy: Each other’s Other in Levinas” Modern Judaism, Vol. 30 #3 (Oxford University Press, October 2010),
350.
[32] Safran, Wisdom of Kabbalah, 84.
[33] Proverbs 8:26
‘Circle over the face of the deep’, Job 26:10 “circle over the face of the
waters’
[34] Rav Kalonymous
Kalman HaLevi Epstein, Miryam’s Circle
Dance http://www.orot.com/circledance.pdf
[35] Psalm 19:5-6
[36] Jer 31:22.
[37] Gen 30:7-8.
[38] Bahir 3. In Aryeh Kaplan, (trans), The Bahir.
[39] Patterson,
“Emmanuel Levinas: A Jewish thinker”,
604.
[40] Safran, Wisdom of Kabbalah, 49.
[41] Safran, Wisdom of Kabbalah, 49.
[42] Psalm 110:3
From the womb before the dawn I have begotten you (translation from the
Catholic Breviary).
[43] Zohar 1:16b in
Daniel C Matt (translator), The Zohar:
Pritzker Edition Vol. 1 (California: Stanford University Press, 2004), 125.
[44] Gen 49:21.
[45] Milah in Hebrew
refers to both circumcision (phallus) and word (tongue).
[46] Patterson,
“Emmanuel Levinas: A Jewish thinker”, 604.
[47] Raphael Patai, The Messiah Texts: Jewish Legends of Three
Thousand Years (Detroit, Michigan: Wayne State University Press, 1979),
269.
[48] Bernier, Eucharist:
Celebrating Its Rhythms in Our Lives, 65.
[49] Safran, Wisdom of Kabbalah, 86-87.
[50] Eph 1:9.
[51] Safran, Wisdom of Kabbalah, 86.
[52] Safran, Wisdom of Kabbalah, 86.
[53] Rev William
Thoma “The Sacramental Theology of the Assyrian Church of the East”
http://news.assyrianchurch.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/The-Sacramental-Theology-by-Rev-William-Toma-1.pdf
[54] John 19:26-27.
[55] Luke 23:44-45.
[56] Isa 53:3.
[57] Safran, Wisdom of Kabbalah, 5-6.
[58] Meskin, “The
Jewish transformation of modern thought: Levinas and Philosophy after the
Holocaust”, 514.
[59] Rabbi Aryeh
Kaplan, Sefer Yetzirah: The Book of
Creation: In Theory and Practice, (San Francisco: Weiser Books, 1997), 5-7.
[60]Kaplan, Sefer Yetzirah: The Book of Creation: In
Theory and Practice, 5-7, 10-13.
[61] Kaplan, Sefer Yetzirah: The Book of Creation: In
Theory and Practice, 26-32.
[62] Kaplan, Sefer Yetzirah: The Book of Creation: In
Theory and Practice, 9.
[63] Kaplan, Sefer Yetzirah: The Book of Creation: In
Theory and Practice, 9.
[64] Song of Songs
2:8-9.
[65] Emmanuel
Levinas, “The Trace of the Other”, Deconstruction
in Context (1986), 355-357.
[66] Rabbi Yitzach
Ginsburgh, Basics in Kabblah and
Chassidut Reshimu
<www.inner.org/worlds/reshimu.htm>
[67] The first three
days of Creation are three days of darkness as the light created on the first
day is hidden away and the lights of the Sun, Moon and stars are revealed on
the fourth day.
[68] Rabbi Yechiel
Bar Lev, Song of the Soul: Introduction
to Kabbalah, http://www.yedidnefesh.com/kaballah/song/index.htm
[69]Ginsburgh, Basics in Kabblah and Chassidut
<www.inner.org/worlds/reshimu.htm>
[70] Chief Rabbi
Alexandre Safran, Wisdom of Kabbalah, 88.
[71] Emmanuel
Levinas, Entre Nous: Thinking of the
Other, (New York: Columbia University Press,1989), 193-196.
[72] Ephraim Meir, Levinas’s Jewish Thought: Between Jerusalem
and Athens (Jerusalem: The Hebrew
University Magnes Press, 2008), 185.
[73] Levinas, “The
Trace of the Other”,356.
[74] Levinas, “The
Trace of the Other”,356.
[75] Siddur. The
Siddur is the Jewish Prayer Book.
[76] Bahir 2. In
Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, The Bahir.
[77] The path
between Malkut/ Shekinah (kingdom/ Presence) and Yesod/ Tzadik (Foundation/
Righteous) in the sefirotic array is called the path or way of the Tav.
[78] Babylonian
Talmud, Pesakhim 54a.
[79] Zohar 1:17b in
Matt (translator), The Zohar: Pritzker
Edition Vol. 1, 128.
[80] Ps 42: 8.
[81] Ps 42:3.
[82] Ps 42:6,12.
[83] Gen 1:20
[84] Gen 1:29
[85] Meir, “Judaism
and Philosophy: Each other’s Other in Levinas”, 351.
[86] Meir, “Judaism
and Philosophy: Each other’s Other in Levinas”, 351.
[87]Safran, Wisdom of Kabbalah, 11.
[88] Hilary
Putnam Jewish Philosophy as a Guide to Life: Rosenzweig, Buber,
Levinas, Wittgenstein (USA; Indiana University Press, 2008).
[89] Emmanuel
Levinas, Beyond the Verse, (London:
Continuum, 2007), 6.
[90] Meir, “Judaism
and Philosophy: Each other’s Other in Levinas”, 352.
[91] Adriaan T
Peperzak, “Judaism and Philosophy in Levinas” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion Vol 40 #3
(Dec.1996), 133.
[92] Meir, “Judaism
and Philosophy: Each other’s Other in Levinas”, 357.
[93] Emmanuel
Levinas, Totality and Infinity,
(Netherlands: Kluwer Publishers,1991), 79.
[94] Ginsburgh, Basics in Kabbalah and Chassidut, Arich Anpin
http://www.inner.org/worlds/arich.htm.
[95] Emmanuel Levinas,
Totality and Infinity, 79.
[96] Rabbi Yitzach
Ginsburgh, Basics in Kabbalah, Yesod
http://www.inner.org/sefirot/sefyesod.htm
[97] Meir, “Judaism
and Philosophy: Each other’s Other in Levinas”, 357.
[98] Safran, Wisdom of Kabbalah, 86-87.
[99] Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 284.
[100] James Hatley,
Generations: “Levinas in the Jewish Context” Philosophy and Rhetoric Vol. 38 #2 (2005), 185.
[101] Peperzak,
“Judaism and Philosophy in Levinas”, 126.
[102] Hatley,
Generations: “Levinas in the Jewish Context”, 174.
[103]Peperzak, “Judaism
and Philosophy in Levinas” , 127.
[104] Likutey Moharan
1:28 in Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, Likutey
Moharan Vol 4 (Lessons 22-32), (Jerusalem/NewYork: Breslov Research
Institute, 1993), 173-199.
[105] Peperzak,
“Judaism and Philosophy in Levinas” , 129.
[106] Levinas, Beyond the Verse, 148-163.
[107] Safran, Wisdom of Kabbalah, 158-159.
[108] The ‘Primal
Works’ are the Maaseh Bereshit (Works of Creation) described in Genesis 1.
[109] Safran, Wisdom of Kabbalah, 170-71.
[110] Liesbeth
Korthals Altes, “A Theory of Ethical Reading” Theology and Literature: Rethinking Reader Responsibility (Palgrave
Macmillan; Gordonsville VA, USA, 2006), 17.
