Ancient interpreters contemplated the substance of manna, a food that traverses the chasm between divine and mundane realms, falling from heaven to be consumed on earth. In kabbalistic thought, the Zohar presents manna as granting the desert generation an embodied experience of knowledge of God; such an opportunity is available to mystics in everyday eating and throughbirkat ha-mazon(Grace after Meals).
Categories:
Beha’alotcha
Beshalach
No items found.
No items found.
The Israelites Collecting Manna from Heaven, Rudolf von Ems (Austrian, 1200 – 1254) The J. Paul Getty Museum,L.A.
Soon after the Israelites leave Egypt, God rains manna rain down from the sky on a daily basis to provide them with food:
שמות טז:ד וַיֹּאמֶר יְ-הוָה אֶל מֹשֶׁה הִנְנִי מַמְטִיר לָכֶם לֶחֶם מִן הַשָּׁמָיִם וְיָצָא הָעָם וְלָקְטוּ דְּבַר יוֹם בְּיוֹמוֹ…
Exod 16:4 And YHWH said to Moses, “I will rain down bread for you from the sky, and the people shall go out and gather each day that day’s portion…
טז:יג …וּבַבֹּקֶר הָיְתָה שִׁכְבַת הַטַּל סָבִיב לַמַּחֲנֶה. טז:יד וַתַּעַל שִׁכְבַת הַטָּל וְהִנֵּה עַל פְּנֵי הַמִּדְבָּר דַּק מְחֻסְפָּס דַּק כַּכְּפֹר עַל הָאָרֶץ. טז:טו וַיִּרְאוּ בְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וַיֹּאמְרוּ אִישׁ אֶל אָחִיו מָן הוּא כִּי לֹא יָדְעוּ מַה הוּא וַיֹּאמֶר מֹשֶׁה אֲלֵהֶם הוּא הַלֶּחֶם אֲשֶׁר נָתַן יְ-הוָה לָכֶם לְאָכְלָה…
16:13 … In the morning there was a fall of dew about the camp. 16:14 When the layer of dew lifted, and look, on the surface of the wilderness, lay a fine and flaky substance, as fine as frost on the ground. 16:15 When the Israelites saw it, they said to one another, “Man hu?” (“What is it?”) for they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, “That is the bread which YHWH has given you to eat….
The Bible is rather unclear about what this food actually is: Exodus describes its taste as “like a sweet wafer,”[1] while Numbers describes it as tasting like לשד השמן, possibly “rich cream” (NJPS) though it could also mean “oily cake” (NRSV) or “butter cake” (HALOT).[2]
Psalm 78 emphasizes the food’s heavenly origin:
תהלים עח:כג וַיְצַו שְׁחָקִים מִמָּעַל
וְדַלְתֵי שָׁמַיִם פָּתָח.
עח:כד וַיַּמְטֵר עֲלֵיהֶם מָן לֶאֱכֹל
וּדְגַן שָׁמַיִם נָתַן לָמוֹ.
עח:כה לֶחֶם אַבִּירִים אָכַל
אִישׁ צֵידָה שָׁלַח לָהֶם לָשֹׂבַע.
Ps 78:23 So He commanded the skies above,
He opened the doors of heaven
78:24 and rained manna upon them for food,
giving them heavenly grain.
78:25 Each man ate the bread of angels;[3]He sent them provision in plenty.
In short, manna is not like ordinary bread; it is the bread of angels, which falls miraculously from heaven at God’s command, to nourish the Israelites in the wilderness.
Complaint about Manna
And yet, in the book of Numbers we learn that not all the people are happy with the manna, as consuming the same food every day for forty years is dull:[4]
במדבר יא:ו וְעַתָּה נַפְשֵׁנוּ יְבֵשָׁה אֵין כֹּל בִּלְתִּי אֶל הַמָּן עֵינֵינוּ.
Num 11:6 Now our gullets are shriveled. There is nothing at all! Nothing but this manna to look to!”
The complaint here is offered against the background of a kind of “fuzzy nostalgia” about the variety of food available in Egypt, mirage-like memories that seduce them into griping about the manna that descends for them miraculously every day and ignoring the fact that in Egypt they were slaves.
If the Israelites in the story were less impressed with the manna than one would have hoped, later readers found the manna to be an amazing miracle, and the story of the manna has inspired exegetes through the ages to contemplate the substance, experience, meaning, and spiritual potential that accompanied this food.
Allegorical Explanation: Philo and John
The Second Temple period philosopher, Philo of Alexandria (ca. 25 B.C.E – 50 C.E.), understood the manna from heaven as symbolizing wisdom (On the Changing of Names [De Mut. Nom.], 259-60):
Of what food can He rightly say that it is rained from heaven, save of heavenly wisdom which is sent from above on souls which yearn for virtue…
Chapter 6 of the Gospel of John (early 2nd cent. C.E.) ratchets up the significance of the metaphor of heavenly bread by presenting Jesus as the “authentic” bread of life:
47 Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and [still] they died. 50 This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.[5]
Jesus is saying that the manna was physical sustenance that kept the Israelites alive temporarily, whereas he is the real “bread from heaven,” and only belief in him will ensure a person’s eternal life.[6]
Thus, in the Hellenistic sources, the manna is understood as simple food on one level, but as an allegory for something more than this on a deeper level. In Philo, it is an allegory for how the Israelites received wisdom from God; for the Gospel of John, it is an allegory for how a person’s acceptance of God’s “real” bread from heaven, procures life everlasting.
Manna for Torah Study
The rabbis do not read the manna as an allegory, but as real food provided by God so that the Israelites would not have to toil for their food, and would have the opportunity to study Torah. Thus, in the Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael, a third century halakhic midrash on Exodus, we read (Petichta to Vayhi Beshalach, Lauterbach trans.):
…אמר הב”ה אם אני מביא עכשיו את ישראל לארץ מיד מחזיקים אדם בשדהו ואדם בכרמו והם בטלים מן התורה אלא אקיפם במדבר ארבעים שנה שיהיו אוכלין מן ושותין מי הבאר והתורה נבללת בגופן
…But God said: “If I bring Israel into the land now, every one of them will immediately take hold of his field or his vineyard and neglect the Torah. But I will make them go round about through the desert for forty years so that, having the manna to eat and the water of the well to drink, they will absorb the Torah (lit. the Torah will be assimilated into their bodies).[7]
God’s supporting Israel with manna gave this generation the unique opportunity to study Torah full time.[8] Moreover, the phrase “Torah absorbed in their bodies” implies something mythical/mystical/magical about the manna itself; perhaps the purity or holiness of the manna facilitates the Israelites’ absorption of Torah.
Magical Manna
The Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael further claims that the manna had magical properties (Vayisa 3):
אל תיקרי אבירים אלא איברים לחם שנטוח באיברים אמר להם המן הזה שאתם אוכלים נטוח באיבריכם
“Do not read abirim (Ps 78:25), angels (or nobles), rather eivarim, limbs. He said to them, ‘This manna that you eat will be absorbed into your limbs.’”
According to this, manna is the perfect food that gets absorbed into the body entirely, with no extraneous material. In other words, the Israelites would not have needed to defecate while in the wilderness as long as they ate only manna.
Based on various derashot that will not be unpacked here, the Babylonian Talmud (Yoma 75a-76a) lists a number of other magical properties of the manna such as:
- Precious stones and jewelry fell along with it:
אמר רב יהודה אמר רב…: מלמד שירד להם לישראל עם המן תכשיטי נשים… …אמר רבי יונתן: …מלמד שירדו להם לישראל אבנים טובות ומרגליות עם המן.
Rav Yehudah said in the name of Rav…: “This teaches that women’s jewelry came down with the manna for the Israelites…” …R. Jonathan said: “…This teaches that precious jewels and pearls descended with the manna for the Israelites.”
- It has multiple flavors:
טעם כל המינין טעמו במן
They tasted all flavors when tasting the manna.
- It rained down in enormous proportions:
מן שירד להן לישראל היה גבוה ששים אמה
The manna that fell for the Israelites was taller than sixty cubits (=90 feet).
The rabbis here confect the manna as a supernatural and magical phenomenon. These interpretations catch the rabbis in a more fanciful mode, aggrandizing the manna hyperbolically to spin an appealing tale. In fact, Sa’adia Gaon declares that supplying food in the wilderness for all the Israelites for forty years was the greatest miracle of the exodus story (Book of Beliefs and Opinions, introduction, part 6):
הרי לדעתי ענין אות המן המופלאה שבכל האותות
For in my opinion, the sign of the manna is more impressive than any of the other signs.[9]
Manna and Idealized Eating in the Zohar
The interpretation of manna as a magical food with spiritual import takes a great leap forward in the Zohar(13th c.),[10] the Jewish tradition’s most influential kabbalistic text.[11] The Zohar operates with an exegetical style that can be described as mystical midrash, which is both systematic and dynamic, with bumps in the literary text—including details of the Torah’s letter-size, cantillation notes, and ambiguous syntax—all serving as springboards for esoteric interpretation.
On eating the manna, the Zohar stresses ontological transformation, viewing the consumption of manna as a method for internalizing divine wisdom, a transmuting of holiness into corporeality, for those who were scions of faith:
כל אינון בני מהימנותא נפקי ולקטי ומברכאן שמא עלאה עליה וההוא מנא הוה סליק ריחא ככל בוסמין דגנתא דעדן דהא ביה אתמשך ונחית לתתא. שויוה לקמיהו, בכל טעמא דאינון בעו הכי טעימין ומברכין למלכא עלאה וכדין מתברך במעוי והוה מסתכל וידע לעילא ואסתכי בחכמתא עלאה.[12]
All those scions of faith went out and gathered and blessed the supernal Name over it. That manna emitted a fragrance like all the spices of the Garden of Eden, since it had flowed through there in descending. Once they placed it in front of them, they tasted whatever taste they desired and blessed the supernal King. Then it was blessed in each one’s belly, and he would contemplate and know above, gazing upon divine Wisdom.
The manna contains wisdom which enters the person who consumes it. The explanation for this process of descent of divine overflow and its materialization on earth derives from the Neoplatonism that exerts a prominent influence upon kabbalistic thought.[13]
In Neoplatonism, all divine being, holiness, blessing, and light flows down from recondite reaches within the Godhead through a series of stages (sefirot) that comprise Divinity; from there they proceed further through subdivine realms, including the angelic.[14] It is in this interstitial place that one finds the Garden of Eden—a site within a spiritual, rather than earthly, topography.[15] Once it is consumed, and the scion of faith has blessed God for the delicious many-flavored manna, the once-ethereal manna receives an influx of divine emanation in response, and divine blessing penetrates and permeates the manna-eater, turning his belly into a site of sanctity.[16]
With body transformed, the individual manna-eater can turn attention towards divine wisdom, a spiritual attainment that surpasses straightforward knowledge of Torah given at Sinai. In other words, mystical plenitude is an extension of physical plenitude, engendering a psychosomatic experience, of ensouled or spiritualized body—a translation of physical experience into mystical encounter.[17]
This is why the desert generation is considered special:
ועל דא אקרון דור דעה, ואלין הוו בני מהימנותא ולהון אתיהיב אורייתא לאסתכלא בה ולמנדע ארחהא.
Therefore they were called Generation of Knowledge. These were scions of faith, and to them was given Torah, to contemplate her and know her ways.[18]
Nevertheless, this was only how the manna affected the scions of faith. For those Israelites who were not scions of faith, the passage explains, the manna would have the opposite effect:
ואינון דלא אשתכחו בני מהימנותא מה כתיב בהו, (במדבר י”א: 8) שטו העם ולקטו וגו’. מאי שטו, שטותא הוו נסבי לגרמייהו בגין דלא הוו בני מהימנותא.
Of those who were not found to be scions of faith, what is written? The people would roam around and gather it…(Numbers 11:8).[19] What is the meaning of would roam around (shatu)? They acquired foolishness (shatuta), because they were not scions of faith.[20]
Manna from heaven turns out to be a potent foodstuff, giving divine wisdom to the faithful and divine foolishness to the unfaithful. In fact, the passage opens with R. Shimon bar Yochai claiming that God actually used the manna to distinguish between the faithful and the unfaithful:
רבי שמעון אמר ת”ח עד לא יהב קב”ה אורייתא לישראל אבחין בין אינון בני מהימנותא ובין אינון חייביא דלאו אינון בני מהימנותא ולא קיימי באורייתא. ובמה אבחין להו, במן כמה דאתמר.
Rabbi Shimon said, “Come and see: Before the blessed Holy One gave the Torah to Israel, He distinguished between the scions of faith and the wicked who were not scions of faith and would not abide by the Torah. How did He differentiate them? By the manna, as has been said.[21]
The Mysticism of Divine Blessing in Every Meal
This psychosomatic ideal in the context of eating appears in the Zohar’s treatment of the classic halakhic problem related to Birkat ha-Mazon (Grace after Meals), namely, how halakha determines when a person is sated:
פתח רבי חייא ואמר ואכלת ושבעת וברכת את יי’ אלהיך (דברים ח). וכי עד לא אכיל בר נש שבעא וימלא כריסו לא יברך ליה לקב”ה.
Rabbi Hiyya opened, saying, “When you have eaten and are sated, you shall bless YHWH your God” (Deuteronomy 8:10). Now is a person really not going to bless the blessed Holy One unless he eats to satiation and has filled his belly?
According to Jewish law, one recites the Grace after Meals upon consuming an olive’s-volume of bread, rather than after actual satiety.[22] If so, Rabbi Hiyya wonders, why does the verse specify satiety as the trigger?
אי הכי במאי נוקים ואכלת ושבעת ובתר וברכת.
If so, how can we establish “when you have eaten and are sated,” and then, “you shall bless”?
Responding to the contradiction between Scripture and norm, he contends that the blessing should follow upon either satiety, or a contemplation-induced satiety.
אלא אפילו לא ייכול בר נש אלא כזית ורעותיה איהו עליה וישוי ליה לההוא מיכלא עקרא דמיכליה שבעא אקרי
Well, even if a person eats only as much as an olive, and his intention is upon it and he considers that food his essential food, it is called satiation,
דכתיב פותח את ידיך ומשביע לכל חי רצון (תהלים קמה). ומשביע לכל חי אכילה לא כתיב אלא רצון, ההוא רעוא דשוי על ההוא אכילה שבעא אקרי.
as is written: “Opening Your hand and sating the intention of every living thing” (Psalms 145:16). It is not written “and sating the appetite of every living thing,” but rather “the intention”—the intention that he focused on that eating is called satiation.
According to halakha, eating an olive-sized amount is enough to require the blessing even though it is insufficient to satisfy a person’s appetite. Why is this “satiety”? In Rabbi Hiyya’s homily, “satiety” emerges as a technical term, not necessarily referring to an experience of physical fullness. He explains that if the person eating focuses attention on even a morsel and considers it his sustenance, then once he eats he is considered sated because he has mystically aligned his intention with the divine overflow that suffuses the food. Through the liturgical recitation of birkat ha-mazon, the diner’s soul encounters Divinity, in the fusing of human and divine intention (or more precisely, “will”).
Yet physical sensation is not entirely irrelevant; it is important as a contemplative cue:
דאפילו דלית קמי דבר נש אלא ההוא זעיר בכזית ולא יתיר הא רעותא דשבעא שוי עליה. ובגין כך ומשביע לכל חי רצון, כתיב רצון ולא אכילה. ועל דא וברכת, ודאי. ואתחייב בר נש לברכא ליה לקב”ה בגין למיהב חדוא לעילא.
For even if there is nothing in front of a person except a little bit—the size of an olive and nothing more—he has set the intention of satiety upon it. Therefore, “and sating the intention of every living thing”—it is written “intention” and not “appetite.”[23] Consequently, “you shall bless”—surely! A person is obligated to bless the blessed Holy One, in order to give joy above.”[24]
The satiety invoked by the verse, then, refers to a particular kind of mystical intention that actually generates a physical experience. Therefore, blessing is appropriate and required, and furthermore, such blessing delights God. The Zohar teaches about induced satiation, a bodily feeling of mystical fullness—contemplative application of mystical intention (kavvanah) to one’s meal results in both a unitive mystical experience and a physical sensation of satiation.
The Mechanism of Induced Satiation
What is the mechanism in Zoharic kabbalah that enables satiation by a morsel? In Steven Katz’s words, “beliefs shape experience, just as experience shapes belief.”[25] What is the underlying assumption that enables Rabbi Hiyya to revaluate a physical sensation as a spiritual one? The explanation lies in the textualization of the kabbalistic body, a kabbalistic phenomenon that has been examined extensively by Elliot Wolfson.[26]
The kabbalists correlate the Torah and its commandments with the human body, so that performance of a commandment results in an arousal of the corresponding spiritual aspect of one’s body.[27] The result in our case is that the kabbalist eats the tidbit (literally, olive-volume) before him and his visceral response, informed by his knowledge of rabbinic law, is to feel full.
The translation from physical experience to spiritual experience is mirrored by a translation from spiritual experience to physical experience. The morsel is a meeting point for God’s intention and human intention, with mystical convergence occurring in both soul and body. Food has “descended” and a blessing has “ascended,” resulting in the encounter in the word intention (ratson).
Confirmation for this reading comes from the Zohar’s use of the term “surely” (vadai). What appears to the casual reader to be merely rhetorical emphasis is employed throughout theZohar as a technical term that signifies the ontological crossing from human to divine realms.[28]
Reimagining Eating through Manna and Birkat Ha-Mazon
In this second text we see how the Zohar has taken a somewhat conventional exegetical dilemma—a gap between halakhic norm and peshat (plain meaning)—and turns it into an opportunity for mystical engagement in the ostensibly mundane act of eating. No longer is it only those who eat angels’ bread that unite with Divinity—the idealized Generation of the Wilderness—but the common person who aspires to discern the supernal within the worldly.[29]
To the extent that mysticism connotes bridging the chasm between divine and human realms, manna is a wonderful test case for illuminating the possibility of convergence between these domains, occurring within the very personhood and body of the mystic. To paraphrase Claude Levi-Strauss,[30] manna is good to think with: an instance of material that traverses the heavenly-earthly divide, leading ancient writers, rabbis, and kabbalists to ponder those two spheres and the means of dissolving their boundaries. But it is not only celestial food that excites the imagination of the authorship of the Zohar as it contemplates biblical narrative and strictures regarding eating. Even the familiar Grace after Meals is transformed into a vehicle for a psychosomatic ideal.
In the Zohar, key terms from the biblical text—rain, bread, heavens, satiation—are filtered through the medieval philosophical and kabbalistic traditions to produce teachings that invite readers to reimagine themselves through the simple daily act of eating. Indeed, it is this populistic desire to promote piety and devotion that led to the impulse to disseminate these esoteric teachings.
TheTorah.com is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
We rely on the support of readers like you. Please support us.
Published
May 30, 2018
|
Last Updated
June 16, 2024
Previous in the Series
Next in the Series
Footnotes
View FootnotesPublished
May 30, 2018
|
Last Updated
June 16, 2024
[1]
שמות טז:לאוַיִּקְרְאוּ בֵית יִשְׂרָאֵל אֶת שְׁמוֹ מָן וְהוּא כְּזֶרַע גַּד לָבָן וְטַעְמוֹ כְּצַפִּיחִת בִּדְבָשׁ.
Exod 16:31The house of Israel named it manna; it was like coriander seed, white, and it tasted like wafers in honey.
[2]
במדבר יא:זוְהַמָּן כִּזְרַע גַּד הוּא וְעֵינוֹ כְּעֵין הַבְּדֹלַח.יא:חשָׁטוּ הָעָם וְלָקְטוּ וְטָחֲנוּ בָרֵחַיִם אוֹ דָכוּ בַּמְּדֹכָה וּבִשְּׁלוּ בַּפָּרוּר וְעָשׂוּ אֹתוֹ עֻגוֹת וְהָיָה טַעְמוֹ כְּטַעַם לְשַׁד הַשָּׁמֶן.
Num 11:7Now the manna was like coriander seed, and in color it was like bdellium (oleo-gum resin).11:8The people would go about and gather it, grind it between millstones or pound it in a mortar, boil it in a pot, and make it into cakes. It tasted like rich cream.
On possible historical and naturalistic bases for the story, see Jacob Milgrom:
The manna has been identified with a natural substance formed in the wilderness of northern Arabia. ‘There forms from the sap of the tamarisk tree [Tamarix manifera] a species of yellowish-white flake or ball, which results from the activity of a type of plant lice (Trabutina manniparaandNajococcus serpentinus). The insect punctures the fruit of the tree and excretes a substance from this juice. During the warmth of the day, it [the substance] melts, but it congeals when cold. It has a sweet taste. These pellets or cakes are gathered by the natives in the early morning and, when cooked, provide a sort of bread. The food decays quickly and attracts ants. The annual crop in the Sinai Peninsula is exceedingly small and some years fails completely.’ If the identification is correct, its ephemeral nature and its undependableness—appearing irregularly and only for several hours each day—would have stamped it as supernatural, originating in heaven.
See Milgrom,The JPS Torah Commentary: Numbers(Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1990), 84. On account of the apparent correlation of the appearance of manna and the people’s vision of the Divine Presence, more colorful readings have suggested that the manna must have induced hallucinogenic experiences deriving from the psilocybin that can grow in fungus, possibly from grain that may have kept poorly in storage. See Dan Merkur,The Mystery of Manna: The Psychedelic Sacrament of the Bible(Rochester: Park Street Press, 2000), 1–4, 14–15.
[3] This translation follows the LXX, Vulgate, KJV, BDB, NIV, NRSV, ArtScroll, and is in the spirit of the kabbalistic interpretation to follow. NJPS translates the phrase ashero’s meal; Alter:princely bread; OJPS:bread of the mighty. Cf. Psalms 105:40. See also Septuagint on Psalms 78:25; Wisdom of Solomon 16:20; BTYoma75b; Nahmanides on Exodus 16:6;Zohar2:101b, 156b;ZH86d (MhN, Rut).
[4] In Exodus it says this explicitly:
שמות טז:להוּבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל אָכְלוּ אֶת הַמָּן אַרְבָּעִים שָׁנָה עַד בֹּאָם אֶל אֶרֶץ נוֹשָׁבֶת אֶת הַמָּן אָכְלוּ עַד בֹּאָם אֶל קְצֵה אֶרֶץ כְּנָעַן.
Exod 16:35And the Israelites ate manna forty years, until they came to a settled land; they ate the manna until they came to the border of the land of Canaan.
[5] In chapter 6, Jesus performs an Elisha-style miracle by making five loaves of barley bread feed a crowd of people, and the people are deeply impressed (vv. 1-14). The people then follow Jesus and he criticizes them for it:
26Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.27Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal.”
After a further back and forth, the people ask him for a sign to prove who he is:
30So they said to him, “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing?31Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'”
By invoking the manna of all things, the people give away that they want bread, and this leaves the door open for Jesus’ lesson.
[6] For more on this passage, see Geza Vermes, “‘He is the Bread’: Targum Neofiti Exodus 16:15,” inPost-Biblical Jewish Studies(Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1975), 139–46.
[7]Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael,Va-yhi(Petihta); trans. Jacob Z. Lauterbach (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1949),I, 171. See also Qumran CDC 6:4 “The well is the Law” as cited in Vermes.
[8] TheMekhiltacontinues with the claim of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai that such a situation is a prerequisite for real Torah study,
מכאן היה ר’ שמעון בן יוחאי אומר לא ניתנה התורה לדרוש אלא לאוכלי המן ושוין להם אוכלי תרומה
On the basis of this interpretation, R. Simon son of Yochai said: “Only to those who eat manna is it given really to study the Torah. Like them are those who eatTerumah.”
All forms of work are a distraction from Torah study, in R. Shimon bar Yochai’s opinion. It is likely not a coincidence that the Talmud recounts how this same sage was himself supported by a miraculous carob tree that allowed it to sit in a cave for years and study Torah with his son (b.Shabbat33b-34a). Moreover, the extension of the manna experience to that of eating Terumah, and the fact that this teaching was proffered by Shimon bar Yochai, the purported author of theZohar, lays groundwork for the expansion of manna-like experience of which theZoharteaches.
[9] He explains:
לפי שהדבר המתמיד הוא יותר מפליא מן הדבר שאינה מתמיד, כי אז לא יעלה על הדעת תחבולה שבה יתכלכל עם שמספרם קרוב לשני מליון אדם במשך ארבעים שנה מלא דבר כי אם ממזון מחודש שחדשו הבורא להם באויר
since something that is consistent is more wonderous than something that is not consistent, for then it cannot enter one’s mind that there could be a trick that allows around two million people to be fed for forty years from nothing, but it must come from food that is being created daily for them out of thin air.
The Hebrew is from the Kapih translation, p. 26.
[10]Sefer Zohar, the Book of Splendor, refers to the charming and seductive anthology of mystical and esoteric texts that stands as the central and often canonical “work” of Jewish mysticism. Written largely in late thirteenth-century Castile, much of the collection reads like mystical midrash, interpreting the Torah as a repository of divine code, even as God’s own body, to discern the hidden life of the Eternal One in the narratives, words, letters, and even cantillation notes of the Torah. The best recent overview of theZoharis Arthur Green,A Guide to the Zohar(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003). The standard edition of theZoharisSefer ha-Zohar(3 vols.), ed., Reuven Margaliot, Mossad ha-Rav Kook;ZoharHadash, ed., Reuven Margaliot, Mossad ha-Rav Kook. The most complete English translation of the Zoharic corpus is Matt, Wolski, Hecker,The Zohar: Pritzker Edition,12 vols (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003–2017).
[11] Academic scholarship uses the term Kabbalah narrowly to signify texts, theologies, experiences, and practices that begin to emerge in the late 12thcentury and are distinguished by the system ofsefirot—emanated gradients of Divinity. Kabbalah is often associated with mysticism but exceeds the boundaries of classical definitions of mystical concerns, specifically, union (or communion) with Divinity to include visionary experience, and esoteric treatments of Scripture, biblical commandments, and rabbinic literature. Indeed, figures in the kabbalistic tradition have often referred to their teachings asTorat ha-Sod, esoteric lore, indicating that Kabbalah is also concerned with the means of transmission of its teachings, and not only the content itself. In using the word “convergence,” I follow Adam Afterman, as a term that encompasses a range of possible meanings of the Hebrew worddevequt, itself often translated as “union” or more conservatively, “communion, cleaving, adhering.” See Adam Afterman,“And They Shall be One Flesh”: On the Language of Mystical Union in Judaism(Supplements to the Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy, Book 26; Brill: Leiden, 2016).
[12] All passages from theZoharare taken from the critical edition of theZoharcomposed by Daniel Matt (for volumes 1–9), accessible at www.sup.org/zohar.
[13] Neoplatonism originated as a school of interpretation of Plato, initiated by the 3rdcentury Egyptian philosopher Plotinus. It gained popularity in the medieval period among Muslims, then Jews, and finally Christians on account of its attractive presentations of classic theological themes, such as creation, prophecy, evil, and providence. In medieval Jewish thought, it is well represented in the thought of Abraham ibn Ezra, Judah Halevi, Maimonides, Nahmanides, as well as in kabbalah.
[14] The term ספירות first appears inSefer Yetsirah1:1, a text whose provenance remains enigmatic. Most recently it has been argued that it was written in the 7thcentury context of Syriac Christianity. Earlier opinions placed it in a 9thcentury Islamicate context, though a Second Temple provenance has also been put forth. InSefer Yetsirah,sefirotlikely signifies cosmic numbers, deriving from a medieval form of Pythagoreanism. See Tzahi Weiss,Sefer Yesirah and its Contexts, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018; Steven Wasserstrom, “Sefer Yesira and Early Islam: A Reappraisal,”The Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy3:1 (1993): 1–30; Yehuda Liebes,Torat ha-Yetsirah shel Sefer Yetsirah, Tel Aviv; Schocken, 2000.
[15] “Heaven,” from which the manna descends, is understood in theZoharas a code term for thesefirahcalledTif’eret, and from there it passes through the subdivine realm called “Garden of Eden.” On the supernal dew congealing and materializing into manna as it descends through the various rungs of the Divine Being, theZoharwrites elsewhere (3:208a):
ת”ח מנא דהוה נחית להו לישראל במדברא ההוא מנא הוה מטלא דלעילא דהוה נחית מעתיקא סתימא דכל סתימין, וכד הוה נחית הוה נהוריה נהיר בכלהו עלמין ומניה אתזן חקל דתפוחין ומלאכי עלאי, וכד הוה נחית לתתא ושליט ביה אוירא דעלמא אגליד ואשתני זיויה ולא הוה זיויה אלא כמא דכתיב (במדבר יא: 7) והמן כזרע גד ולא יתיר……
Come and see: The manna that descended for Israel in the desert—that manna came from dew on high, descending from the Ancient One, concealed of all concealed. As it descended, its light illumined all worlds, and the Apple Orchard and celestial angels were nourished by it. When it descended below, and was dominated by the world’s atmosphere, it congealed and its radiance changed, and its radiance was only as is written:The manna was like coriander seed…(Numbers 11:7), nothing more….
Trans. Daniel Matt,The Zohar: Pritzker Edition, Vol. 9, pp. 458–459.
[16] Within medieval kabbalah there are diverse theories about the construction of the human self and the relationship between body and soul, but in the Castilian kabbalah exemplified by theZoharthese are entities that are often not only separate but even warring. The body’s origins from a “putrid drop,” to use the Mishnah’s memorable coinage (Avot 3:1), often give theZoharcause to be cautious and vigilant about the body’s desires and potential for debauchery. TheZohar’s treatment here offers yet a different version of the body-soul relationship.
[17] On the purifying effect of the revelation at Sinai, see BTShabbat145b–146a, in the name of Rav Yosef: “When the serpent copulated with Eve, he injected her with זוהמא (zohama), slime [or: filth, lust]. Israel, who stood at Mount Sinai—their filth ceased.” See BTAvodah Zarah22b;Zohar2:87b; Moses de León,Sefer ha-Rimmon, 212.
[18]Zohar2:62b; trans. from Daniel Matt,The Zohar: Pritzker Edition, Vol. 4, 338. On manna in theZohar, see Joel Hecker,Mystical Bodies, Mystical Meals, Wayne State University Press (2005), 82–115. The moniker “Generation of Knowledge” serves the additional goal of depicting the desert generation as one that attained the highest rank among humanity, overcoming the taint that humanity incurred through the original sin of Adam and Eve. On the Generation of the Desert being “a Generation of Knowledge,” seeVayiqra Rabbah9:1 (traditional printing);Midrash Tanhuma6;Qohelet Rabbahon 7:23;Midrash Mishlei1;Bemidbar Rabbah19:3;Zohar2:62b;ZoharHadash53a; Moses de León,Sheqel ha-Qodesh, ed. Charles Mopsik, Cherub Press (Los Angeles: 1996), 79. On the great status of this generation, see alsoMekhilta de-Rashbi, Exodus 19:11; JTAvodah Zarah1:1, 39b;Vayiqra Rabbah13:2 (and parallels);Midrash Tehillim1:20; Isaac ibn Latif,Iggeret ha-Teshuvah,25;Zohar1:22a; 2:60a, 82a, 93b–94a; 3:22b, 181b, 287a; Melila Hellner-Eshed,A River Flows from Eden: The Language of Mystical Experience in the Zohar, trans. Nathan Wolski, Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2009, 86–93.
[19] See BTYoma75a: “For the righteous, [the manna] fell in front of their homes; the average ones went out and gathered it; the wickedwould roam around and gather it…. The righteous [experienced the manna] as bread; the average ones, as [dough of] cakes; the wickedwould grind it between millstones.”
[20]Zohar2:62b; trans. from Matt, ibid., 339.
[21] Rabbi Shimon is referring to Exodus 16:4: “so that I can test whether they will keep mytorahor not,” interpreting the verse to mean that the manna serves as a kind of divining rod, determining individuals’ spiritual fitness.
[22] See MBerakhot7:2; BTBerakhot20b; Maimonides,Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Berakhot1:1;Zohar3:244b (Raya Mehemna).
[23] “Intention” renders the termratsonin all texts here for the sake of the ease of the reader, though in some cases it would be more precisely rendered as “will” and in others as “desire.”
[24]Zohar2:153a–b; translation from Daniel Matt,The Zohar: Pritzker Edition, vol. 5, 395–396 (with minor modifications).
[25] See Steven T. Katz, “Language, Epistemology, and Mysticism,” inMysticism and Philosophical Analysis, ed. Steven T. Katz (Oxford University Press, 1978),30.
[26] See Elliot Wolfson,Language, Eros, Being: Kabbalistic Hermeneutics and Poetic Imagination, Fordham University Press, 2005, index, s.v. body, textual nature of.
[27] The rabbinic spark for this idea is found in BTMakkot23b: “Rabbi Simlai taught: 613 commandments were told to Moses—365 prohibitions corresponding to the number of days in the solar year, and 248 positive [commandments] corresponding to [the number of] a person’s limbs.”
[28] The synonymous termsvadaiandmamash, rendered as “surely, certainly, actually, precisely,” operate as technical terms that signal the transparency of the mundane world to the supernal world and, from a hermeneutical perspective, “an overlapping of exoteric and esoteric signification.” There are countless such examples. See, e.g.,Zohar1:50b, 82b, 85b, 93a, 94a, 105a, 140b, 145a, 191b, 196b, 240a, 245b, 249a; 2:33a, 60a–b, 61a–b, 62a, 121b 127b, 148b; 3:6b, 7a, 68b, 73a, 79b, 105b, 169b, 179b, 188b, 265a; Wolfson, “Beautiful Maiden Without Eyes:PeshatandSodin Zoharic Hermeneutics,” inLuminal Darkness: Imaginal Gleanings from Zoharic Literature, Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2007 (original publication 1993), 80–88.
[29] It is tempting to connect this to the contemporary practice of mindful eating, but it risks effacing the strangeness of what the kabbalists are doing. To be sure, it is mindfulness, but it is a much more mystically and ritually-informed mindfulness than the mindful eating taught in popular contexts today.
[30] In explaining why animals are chosen as totems, Levi-Strauss suggests that “… natural species are chosen not because they are ‘good to eat’ but because they are ‘good to think.’” See Levi-Strauss,Totemism, trans. Rodney Needham, Boston: Beacon Press, 1963, p. 89.
[1]
שמות טז:לאוַיִּקְרְאוּ בֵית יִשְׂרָאֵל אֶת שְׁמוֹ מָן וְהוּא כְּזֶרַע גַּד לָבָן וְטַעְמוֹ כְּצַפִּיחִת בִּדְבָשׁ.
Exod 16:31The house of Israel named it manna; it was like coriander seed, white, and it tasted like wafers in honey.
[2]
במדבר יא:זוְהַמָּן כִּזְרַע גַּד הוּא וְעֵינוֹ כְּעֵין הַבְּדֹלַח.יא:חשָׁטוּ הָעָם וְלָקְטוּ וְטָחֲנוּ בָרֵחַיִם אוֹ דָכוּ בַּמְּדֹכָה וּבִשְּׁלוּ בַּפָּרוּר וְעָשׂוּ אֹתוֹ עֻגוֹת וְהָיָה טַעְמוֹ כְּטַעַם לְשַׁד הַשָּׁמֶן.
Num 11:7Now the manna was like coriander seed, and in color it was like bdellium (oleo-gum resin).11:8The people would go about and gather it, grind it between millstones or pound it in a mortar, boil it in a pot, and make it into cakes. It tasted like rich cream.
On possible historical and naturalistic bases for the story, see Jacob Milgrom:
The manna has been identified with a natural substance formed in the wilderness of northern Arabia. ‘There forms from the sap of the tamarisk tree [Tamarix manifera] a species of yellowish-white flake or ball, which results from the activity of a type of plant lice (Trabutina manniparaandNajococcus serpentinus). The insect punctures the fruit of the tree and excretes a substance from this juice. During the warmth of the day, it [the substance] melts, but it congeals when cold. It has a sweet taste. These pellets or cakes are gathered by the natives in the early morning and, when cooked, provide a sort of bread. The food decays quickly and attracts ants. The annual crop in the Sinai Peninsula is exceedingly small and some years fails completely.’ If the identification is correct, its ephemeral nature and its undependableness—appearing irregularly and only for several hours each day—would have stamped it as supernatural, originating in heaven.
See Milgrom,The JPS Torah Commentary: Numbers(Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1990), 84. On account of the apparent correlation of the appearance of manna and the people’s vision of the Divine Presence, more colorful readings have suggested that the manna must have induced hallucinogenic experiences deriving from the psilocybin that can grow in fungus, possibly from grain that may have kept poorly in storage. See Dan Merkur,The Mystery of Manna: The Psychedelic Sacrament of the Bible(Rochester: Park Street Press, 2000), 1–4, 14–15.
[3] This translation follows the LXX, Vulgate, KJV, BDB, NIV, NRSV, ArtScroll, and is in the spirit of the kabbalistic interpretation to follow. NJPS translates the phrase ashero’s meal; Alter:princely bread; OJPS:bread of the mighty. Cf. Psalms 105:40. See also Septuagint on Psalms 78:25; Wisdom of Solomon 16:20; BTYoma75b; Nahmanides on Exodus 16:6;Zohar2:101b, 156b;ZH86d (MhN, Rut).
[4] In Exodus it says this explicitly:
שמות טז:להוּבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל אָכְלוּ אֶת הַמָּן אַרְבָּעִים שָׁנָה עַד בֹּאָם אֶל אֶרֶץ נוֹשָׁבֶת אֶת הַמָּן אָכְלוּ עַד בֹּאָם אֶל קְצֵה אֶרֶץ כְּנָעַן.
Exod 16:35And the Israelites ate manna forty years, until they came to a settled land; they ate the manna until they came to the border of the land of Canaan.
[5] In chapter 6, Jesus performs an Elisha-style miracle by making five loaves of barley bread feed a crowd of people, and the people are deeply impressed (vv. 1-14). The people then follow Jesus and he criticizes them for it:
26Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.27Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal.”
After a further back and forth, the people ask him for a sign to prove who he is:
30So they said to him, “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing?31Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'”
By invoking the manna of all things, the people give away that they want bread, and this leaves the door open for Jesus’ lesson.
[6] For more on this passage, see Geza Vermes, “‘He is the Bread’: Targum Neofiti Exodus 16:15,” inPost-Biblical Jewish Studies(Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1975), 139–46.
[7]Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael,Va-yhi(Petihta); trans. Jacob Z. Lauterbach (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1949),I, 171. See also Qumran CDC 6:4 “The well is the Law” as cited in Vermes.
[8] TheMekhiltacontinues with the claim of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai that such a situation is a prerequisite for real Torah study,
מכאן היה ר’ שמעון בן יוחאי אומר לא ניתנה התורה לדרוש אלא לאוכלי המן ושוין להם אוכלי תרומה
On the basis of this interpretation, R. Simon son of Yochai said: “Only to those who eat manna is it given really to study the Torah. Like them are those who eatTerumah.”
All forms of work are a distraction from Torah study, in R. Shimon bar Yochai’s opinion. It is likely not a coincidence that the Talmud recounts how this same sage was himself supported by a miraculous carob tree that allowed it to sit in a cave for years and study Torah with his son (b.Shabbat33b-34a). Moreover, the extension of the manna experience to that of eating Terumah, and the fact that this teaching was proffered by Shimon bar Yochai, the purported author of theZohar, lays groundwork for the expansion of manna-like experience of which theZoharteaches.
[9] He explains:
לפי שהדבר המתמיד הוא יותר מפליא מן הדבר שאינה מתמיד, כי אז לא יעלה על הדעת תחבולה שבה יתכלכל עם שמספרם קרוב לשני מליון אדם במשך ארבעים שנה מלא דבר כי אם ממזון מחודש שחדשו הבורא להם באויר
since something that is consistent is more wonderous than something that is not consistent, for then it cannot enter one’s mind that there could be a trick that allows around two million people to be fed for forty years from nothing, but it must come from food that is being created daily for them out of thin air.
The Hebrew is from the Kapih translation, p. 26.
[10]Sefer Zohar, the Book of Splendor, refers to the charming and seductive anthology of mystical and esoteric texts that stands as the central and often canonical “work” of Jewish mysticism. Written largely in late thirteenth-century Castile, much of the collection reads like mystical midrash, interpreting the Torah as a repository of divine code, even as God’s own body, to discern the hidden life of the Eternal One in the narratives, words, letters, and even cantillation notes of the Torah. The best recent overview of theZoharis Arthur Green,A Guide to the Zohar(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003). The standard edition of theZoharisSefer ha-Zohar(3 vols.), ed., Reuven Margaliot, Mossad ha-Rav Kook;ZoharHadash, ed., Reuven Margaliot, Mossad ha-Rav Kook. The most complete English translation of the Zoharic corpus is Matt, Wolski, Hecker,The Zohar: Pritzker Edition,12 vols (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003–2017).
[11] Academic scholarship uses the term Kabbalah narrowly to signify texts, theologies, experiences, and practices that begin to emerge in the late 12thcentury and are distinguished by the system ofsefirot—emanated gradients of Divinity. Kabbalah is often associated with mysticism but exceeds the boundaries of classical definitions of mystical concerns, specifically, union (or communion) with Divinity to include visionary experience, and esoteric treatments of Scripture, biblical commandments, and rabbinic literature. Indeed, figures in the kabbalistic tradition have often referred to their teachings asTorat ha-Sod, esoteric lore, indicating that Kabbalah is also concerned with the means of transmission of its teachings, and not only the content itself. In using the word “convergence,” I follow Adam Afterman, as a term that encompasses a range of possible meanings of the Hebrew worddevequt, itself often translated as “union” or more conservatively, “communion, cleaving, adhering.” See Adam Afterman,“And They Shall be One Flesh”: On the Language of Mystical Union in Judaism(Supplements to the Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy, Book 26; Brill: Leiden, 2016).
[12] All passages from theZoharare taken from the critical edition of theZoharcomposed by Daniel Matt (for volumes 1–9), accessible at www.sup.org/zohar.
[13] Neoplatonism originated as a school of interpretation of Plato, initiated by the 3rdcentury Egyptian philosopher Plotinus. It gained popularity in the medieval period among Muslims, then Jews, and finally Christians on account of its attractive presentations of classic theological themes, such as creation, prophecy, evil, and providence. In medieval Jewish thought, it is well represented in the thought of Abraham ibn Ezra, Judah Halevi, Maimonides, Nahmanides, as well as in kabbalah.
[14] The term ספירות first appears inSefer Yetsirah1:1, a text whose provenance remains enigmatic. Most recently it has been argued that it was written in the 7thcentury context of Syriac Christianity. Earlier opinions placed it in a 9thcentury Islamicate context, though a Second Temple provenance has also been put forth. InSefer Yetsirah,sefirotlikely signifies cosmic numbers, deriving from a medieval form of Pythagoreanism. See Tzahi Weiss,Sefer Yesirah and its Contexts, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018; Steven Wasserstrom, “Sefer Yesira and Early Islam: A Reappraisal,”The Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy3:1 (1993): 1–30; Yehuda Liebes,Torat ha-Yetsirah shel Sefer Yetsirah, Tel Aviv; Schocken, 2000.
[15] “Heaven,” from which the manna descends, is understood in theZoharas a code term for thesefirahcalledTif’eret, and from there it passes through the subdivine realm called “Garden of Eden.” On the supernal dew congealing and materializing into manna as it descends through the various rungs of the Divine Being, theZoharwrites elsewhere (3:208a):
ת”ח מנא דהוה נחית להו לישראל במדברא ההוא מנא הוה מטלא דלעילא דהוה נחית מעתיקא סתימא דכל סתימין, וכד הוה נחית הוה נהוריה נהיר בכלהו עלמין ומניה אתזן חקל דתפוחין ומלאכי עלאי, וכד הוה נחית לתתא ושליט ביה אוירא דעלמא אגליד ואשתני זיויה ולא הוה זיויה אלא כמא דכתיב (במדבר יא: 7) והמן כזרע גד ולא יתיר……
Come and see: The manna that descended for Israel in the desert—that manna came from dew on high, descending from the Ancient One, concealed of all concealed. As it descended, its light illumined all worlds, and the Apple Orchard and celestial angels were nourished by it. When it descended below, and was dominated by the world’s atmosphere, it congealed and its radiance changed, and its radiance was only as is written:The manna was like coriander seed…(Numbers 11:7), nothing more….
Trans. Daniel Matt,The Zohar: Pritzker Edition, Vol. 9, pp. 458–459.
[16] Within medieval kabbalah there are diverse theories about the construction of the human self and the relationship between body and soul, but in the Castilian kabbalah exemplified by theZoharthese are entities that are often not only separate but even warring. The body’s origins from a “putrid drop,” to use the Mishnah’s memorable coinage (Avot 3:1), often give theZoharcause to be cautious and vigilant about the body’s desires and potential for debauchery. TheZohar’s treatment here offers yet a different version of the body-soul relationship.
[17] On the purifying effect of the revelation at Sinai, see BTShabbat145b–146a, in the name of Rav Yosef: “When the serpent copulated with Eve, he injected her with זוהמא (zohama), slime [or: filth, lust]. Israel, who stood at Mount Sinai—their filth ceased.” See BTAvodah Zarah22b;Zohar2:87b; Moses de León,Sefer ha-Rimmon, 212.
[18]Zohar2:62b; trans. from Daniel Matt,The Zohar: Pritzker Edition, Vol. 4, 338. On manna in theZohar, see Joel Hecker,Mystical Bodies, Mystical Meals, Wayne State University Press (2005), 82–115. The moniker “Generation of Knowledge” serves the additional goal of depicting the desert generation as one that attained the highest rank among humanity, overcoming the taint that humanity incurred through the original sin of Adam and Eve. On the Generation of the Desert being “a Generation of Knowledge,” seeVayiqra Rabbah9:1 (traditional printing);Midrash Tanhuma6;Qohelet Rabbahon 7:23;Midrash Mishlei1;Bemidbar Rabbah19:3;Zohar2:62b;ZoharHadash53a; Moses de León,Sheqel ha-Qodesh, ed. Charles Mopsik, Cherub Press (Los Angeles: 1996), 79. On the great status of this generation, see alsoMekhilta de-Rashbi, Exodus 19:11; JTAvodah Zarah1:1, 39b;Vayiqra Rabbah13:2 (and parallels);Midrash Tehillim1:20; Isaac ibn Latif,Iggeret ha-Teshuvah,25;Zohar1:22a; 2:60a, 82a, 93b–94a; 3:22b, 181b, 287a; Melila Hellner-Eshed,A River Flows from Eden: The Language of Mystical Experience in the Zohar, trans. Nathan Wolski, Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2009, 86–93.
[19] See BTYoma75a: “For the righteous, [the manna] fell in front of their homes; the average ones went out and gathered it; the wickedwould roam around and gather it…. The righteous [experienced the manna] as bread; the average ones, as [dough of] cakes; the wickedwould grind it between millstones.”
[20]Zohar2:62b; trans. from Matt, ibid., 339.
[21] Rabbi Shimon is referring to Exodus 16:4: “so that I can test whether they will keep mytorahor not,” interpreting the verse to mean that the manna serves as a kind of divining rod, determining individuals’ spiritual fitness.
[22] See MBerakhot7:2; BTBerakhot20b; Maimonides,Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Berakhot1:1;Zohar3:244b (Raya Mehemna).
[23] “Intention” renders the termratsonin all texts here for the sake of the ease of the reader, though in some cases it would be more precisely rendered as “will” and in others as “desire.”
[24]Zohar2:153a–b; translation from Daniel Matt,The Zohar: Pritzker Edition, vol. 5, 395–396 (with minor modifications).
[25] See Steven T. Katz, “Language, Epistemology, and Mysticism,” inMysticism and Philosophical Analysis, ed. Steven T. Katz (Oxford University Press, 1978),30.
[26] See Elliot Wolfson,Language, Eros, Being: Kabbalistic Hermeneutics and Poetic Imagination, Fordham University Press, 2005, index, s.v. body, textual nature of.
[27] The rabbinic spark for this idea is found in BTMakkot23b: “Rabbi Simlai taught: 613 commandments were told to Moses—365 prohibitions corresponding to the number of days in the solar year, and 248 positive [commandments] corresponding to [the number of] a person’s limbs.”
[28] The synonymous termsvadaiandmamash, rendered as “surely, certainly, actually, precisely,” operate as technical terms that signal the transparency of the mundane world to the supernal world and, from a hermeneutical perspective, “an overlapping of exoteric and esoteric signification.” There are countless such examples. See, e.g.,Zohar1:50b, 82b, 85b, 93a, 94a, 105a, 140b, 145a, 191b, 196b, 240a, 245b, 249a; 2:33a, 60a–b, 61a–b, 62a, 121b 127b, 148b; 3:6b, 7a, 68b, 73a, 79b, 105b, 169b, 179b, 188b, 265a; Wolfson, “Beautiful Maiden Without Eyes:PeshatandSodin Zoharic Hermeneutics,” inLuminal Darkness: Imaginal Gleanings from Zoharic Literature, Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2007 (original publication 1993), 80–88.
[29] It is tempting to connect this to the contemporary practice of mindful eating, but it risks effacing the strangeness of what the kabbalists are doing. To be sure, it is mindfulness, but it is a much more mystically and ritually-informed mindfulness than the mindful eating taught in popular contexts today.
[30] In explaining why animals are chosen as totems, Levi-Strauss suggests that “… natural species are chosen not because they are ‘good to eat’ but because they are ‘good to think.’” See Levi-Strauss,Totemism, trans. Rodney Needham, Boston: Beacon Press, 1963, p. 89.
Prof. Joel Hecker is Professor of Jewish Mysticism at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. He received his Ph.D. in Judaic Studies from New York University in 1996, and his rabbinic ordination and a M.A. in Jewish Philosophy from Yeshiva University in 1990. He is the author of Volumes 11 and (with Nathan Wolski) Volume 12 of The Zohar: Pritzker Edition and is the author of Mystical Bodies, Mystical Meals: Eating and Embodiment in Medieval Kabbalah (Wayne State University Press, 200
Prof. Joel Hecker is Professor of Jewish Mysticism at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. He received his Ph.D. in Judaic Studies from New York University in 1996, and his rabbinic ordination and a M.A. in Jewish Philosophy from Yeshiva University in 1990. He is the author of Volumes 11 and (with Nathan Wolski) Volume 12 of The Zohar: Pritzker Edition and is the author of Mystical Bodies, Mystical Meals: Eating and Embodiment in Medieval Kabbalah (Wayne State University Press, 200
Related Topics:
Zohar
Manna
Birkat HaMazon
Allegory
Essays on Related Topics:
Prof. RabbiDavid Frankel
Prof.Yitzhak (Itzik) Peleg
Prof. RabbiMarty Lockshin
Prof.Tamar Ross
Symposium:More Responses
No items found.
