JEWISH MYSTICISM

 

Hymns, Blessings and Songs

 

                        Thanksgiving Hymn

 

I, the Master, Know Thee O my God,

by the spirit which thou hast given me,

and by Thy Holy Spirit I have faithfully hearkened

to Thy marvellous counsel.

In the mystery of Thy wisdom

Thou hast opened Knowledge to me,...[1]

 

                        The Blessings

 

May He make you holy among His people, and an [eternal] light [to illumine] the world with knowledge and to enlighten the face of the congregation [with wisdom]![2]

 

                        Songs of the Sage

 

...praises. Benedictions for the King of glory. Words of thanksgiving in psalms of... to the God of Knowledge,...[3]

 

For our purpose, then, Jewish mysticism can be defined as that aspect of the Jewish religious experience in which man’s mind is in direct communion with God...

 

Jewish mysticism is sometimes equated with Kabbalah..., but this identification is neither accurate nor particularly helpful. The Kabbalah was indeed produced by mystics, and it contains both the fruit of profound religious meditation and the instruments used by later mystics to attain their aim of encountering God. However, there were many mystics who flourished before the Kabbalistic era and the Kabbalah deals with many matters that are not mystical.

 

Jewish mystics tended to be reticent about their own mystical experiences... At all events, direct, mystical testimonies on the part of Jewish mystics, of the order, say, of St. John of the Cross, and St. Theresa among the Christians and Rumi among Muslims, are exceedingly hard to find.[4]

 

Whatever the reason, the extreme rarity of personal mystical testimonies is a fact of Jewish literature. Yet here and there, such testimonies are found and they provide a fascinating glimpse into an aspect of Judaism that is frequently ignored completely.[5]

 

In Beth-El[6] joy was attained by no artificial means, but by silent meditation, by introspection in an atmosphere in which music blending with men’s thoughts, induced a forgetfulness of externals. Each man’s eyes were turned inwards. Seeking to mine the wealth of his own soul he found there the soul of the universe. Amazed at his own discovery of this hidden treasure the mystic pursues his course upwards until he attains the ecstasy that brings him to the mystery of creation, where sits Joy enthroned. In a silence in which alone the soul may meet its God,...[7]

 

 

Qumran and Mystical Knowledge

 

This work is the First Complete Translation and Interpretation of 50 Key Documents Withheld for Over 35 Years. As first translations, for this reason alone, we should take an interest in these documents. They date from the second century B.C.E. to 70 C.E. and predate the greater part of early Christian writings. They are of extreme interest to both Jewish and Christian scholars. However, why were they “Withheld” for so long, or rather, why were they “Withheld” at all?

 

The suppression of these particular documents seems to be selective. From their content, much of it Mystical, something can be judged of the attitude of the suppressors.

 

Among the documents in the present collection are several of the most sublime and incredible beauty. The Hymns and Mysteries in Chapter 7 are examples, as are the visionary recitals in Chapters 1, 2, 3, and 5. In fact, the visionary nature of the Qumran corpus is much underestimated. Texts of this kind border on what goes on in Judaism under the name of Kabbalah, and indeed it is difficult to see how there cannot have been some very direct relationship albeit an underground one. In addition the allusions and ideas contained in the documents of this collection hang together to an astonishing degree. Correspondences are precise; vocabulary clusters, regular. The ideas and images move so consistently from document to document as to awe the investigator. Everything is so homogenous and consistent that there can be little doubt that what we have before us is a movement and the archive, its literature.[8]

 

These “Uncovered” documents demonstrate the early Jewish acceptance of the importance of ‘Gnosis’ in the Mystery of the Knowledge of both one’s self and God.

 

Texts

Now, hear me, all my sons, and I will speak about that Wisdom which God gave me... (2) For He gave me the Knowledge of Wisdom and instruction to teach all the sons of Truth... (18)Bring forth the Knowledge of your inner self...[9]

 

A Knowing man will bring forth Wisdom.[10]

 

He will make known to you His great Name and you will know Him,..[11]

 

 

Jewish Gnosticism

 

The Light which illumined their [Gnostics] spiritual being was the ‘Knowledge of God’, and through that inner perception they could become the Sons of God. It was a direct revelation from heaven, unlike the kind of book-learning or instruction by rote by which we might understand ‘knowledge’... The technical term for this kind of special revealed ‘Knowledge of God’ in religious writing is the Greek word gnosis, from the verb gignosko, ‘know’, and we shall meet it very often in our inquiry, along with the related ‘gnostic’, a term used to denote those religionists who claimed to find in such mystically revealed knowledge the path to salvation.[12]

 

To ‘know’ God, in this special, mystic sense, was to know oneself.[13]

 

The Children of Light,... were able to recognise the truth, and, given the means and opportunity, could allow the divine element in their constitution to return to God and, if only for one fleeting ecstatic moment, receive the ‘vision of Knowledge’ and know themselves as sons of God, of one essence with the Father.[14]

 

First they must know themselves and express their true nature through their faith in the Redeemer.[15]

 

To be himself, man must first know himself. An Arabian gnostic philosopher named Monoimus is cited by the third century Church Father Hippolytus as saying:[16]

 

“Abandon the search for God and the creation and other matters of a similar sort. Look for Him by taking yourself as the starting point. Learn who it is who within you makes everything his own and says, ‘My God, my mind, my thought, my soul, my body.’ Learn the sources of sorrow, joy, love, hate. Learn how it happens that one watches without willing, rests without willing, becomes angry without willing, loves without willing. If you carefully investigate these matters you will find Him in yourself.”[17]