Cognitive Dissonance and the 'Wisdom' of Kabbalah

We have historical and modern precidents for the 'cognitive dissonance' when faced with Kabbalistic speculation. The wisdom of Kabbalah is not innate to it as a subject, and certainly not necessarily contained within the one who studies it. The 'grafted on' division between so called 'practical' and 'theoretical' should be enough to alert us to 'uncertainty', in similar vein the superimposition, and indeed dominance of Lurianic Kabbalah over previous schools of thought, notably Gikatilla and Codovero to name but two examples, never mind the side branch headed by Abraham Abulafia:-

"... one image was one likeness; I saw and I thought to differentiate between them, and I saw them connected to each other, [....] Thus, no man can distinguish between the two united things, when one is the other..."

Abraham Abulafia; The Book of the Sign [Sefer Ha-Ot]

This quote warns us succinctly of the 'mental gymnastics' necessary to extract or even approach the Kabbalah, its 'wisdom' or otherwise hanging in the balance between understanding and understanding, polarities of 'position' which are the very undermining of the cognitive process needed to confront the 'singularity' inherent in this 'wisdom'.

“One thing is concealed within another...This refers to the concept of 'clothing' [Halbashah] discussed in the Kabbalah. This phenomenon is perfectly evident as it manifests itself in man's soul. For example, when a father chastises his son, love is the active power, for the father does what he does only because he loves his son. Yet while love is the active power on the hidden plane, our eyes see only the fathers surface anger or hatred, because he puts on an outer face of rage. There are many similar examples. But sometimes what is inside and what appears on the surface are not opposites. It is just that what is hidden may be a deep thought which the owner does not want to reveal, and accordingly he outwardly acts in a different way, and this is all that is revealed to those who see him.”

Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto 138 Openings of Wisdom; Opening 10

Not only does RamChaL [Luzatto] warn us here of our apprehension of 'concepts' such as Sefirot, but conveys to us a salutary warning about the nature of Kabbalah itself, and certainly its praxis and interpretation. Indeed RamChal chides the reader all the way through this book that the imagery and 'certainty' of the 'wisdom' is always undermined in the 'mind' of man echoing Abulafia cited above.

“THE DESIRE FOR TRUTH is a natural trait of the intelligent soul that exists in every one of us. Any normal, healthy person, then, will make the utmost effort to reveal the true nature of anything he observes and banish falsehood to the fullest extent of his abilities.

Now, if the truth in all matters would be self-evident, we could gain wisdom by simple observation. The more we observe the world around us, the wiser we would be. But whether we consider the observer or what he observes, we see that this is not so. For, in fact, the truth about any object has to do with many different logical aspects, both intrinsic and external. For example, the shape of a table and its measurements, length, width and so forth, are intrinsic aspects of the table. The use, worth, and age of a table are external aspects.

To complicate matters even further, not all aspects are equally apparent...”

So opens RaMChaL's masterful “The Way of Reason”, which along with “The Book of Logic” and “The Book of Words” furnish us with an essential 'grounding' upon which to base a tentative approach to Kabbalah. We ignore these 'warnings' at our peril, and, as I have said, we have historical precedent for this. Always waiting in the wings is the ever present, creeping and insidious 'Hellenic Gnosticism' whose power is fed through 'anthropomorphic' delusion, and wily manipulation of the innocent, undermining all faiths by design since the time of Shabbatei Zevi and before.

“For example in a memo from Spartacus to Cato, which was from Weishaupt to lawyer Zwack, dated March 17, 1778, Weishaupt sets down a blueprint for engaging in espionage. In the writings of Zwack were the plans for a womens liberation movement. Zwack states “it should consist of two classes: virtuous and the freer-hearted (ie, those who fly out of the common tract of prudish manners)... proper books must be put into their hands, and such as are flattering to their passions.”

To Eliminate the Opiate: Volume One Rabbi Marvin S. Antelman 1974

“Groundless hatred is as wicked as idolatry, adultery and murder combined”

(TB Yoma, 9b) op.cit quote p.13 (Something our modern society could start to remember)

Rabbi Antelman highlights for us (back in the 1960's and early 70's before the craze of current 'conspiracy theory' ideology) the historical reality of Weishaupt and his colleagues, who are known by the blanket name “Illuminati” but in reality were the disciples of Jacob Frank who single handedly shows us the most salutary lesson in misreading the Lurianic Kabbalah and a sufferer of 'free-thought' Gnosticism.

The history of Frankism, which has undermined Roman Catholicism, Islam and Judaism alike is too complex to be dealt with here, but I wanted to share some small snippets of cognitive dissonance which an undisciplined mind can glean from the Talmud and the Zoharic accretions given form by naïve Messianic desperation, ignorance and lack of caution.

“I have not come to uplift, I have come to destroy and debase everything until it has sunk so low that it cannot sink any lower,

The road to the abyss is terrifying and fearsome. Even our father Jacob was afraid of it and did not dare to step on the heavenly ladder. It consists of two converging parts that meet at the bottom, one part leading upwards , and there is no ascending without descending first. So the world was to wait for another Jacob”

“ ...And as I stand before you, ignorant and crude – I have been chosen, for I am the darkness out of which light emerges!

It has been said: “A star came forth out of Jacob.” This star has existed from the earliest beginning and has been falling lower and lower ever since. All vile and heinous things are in its power, and it is the gate through which I shall lead you.”

Jacob Frank quoted in “The Militant Messiah or the Flight from the Ghetto: The Story of Jacob Frank and the Frankist Movement; Arthur Mandel 1979 p.37-39

The last quote could be put in a more recent figure's lips without any modification and we would realise the general root for this type of thinking. Frank's followers in the insidious manipulation of all major faiths found themselves a fertile ground among the “virtuous and the freer-hearted (ie, those who fly out of the common tract of prudish manners)” to quote from above, the self perpetuated growth of an Adolf Hitler and his founding 'Theosophists of the 'Thule Order' – the underpinning of which was Kabbalistic (both Christian and Jewish) misinterpretation, and manipulation again in “naïve Messianic desperation, ignorance and lack of caution.”

The mind grasps for 'knowability' and has no place for 'data' that will not categorize, it searches for 'connection' illusory or real to pin the data / G_d to the idea which is carried not by truth but the demiurgic nature of the human soul. The halakhah pins the formic speculations in order through its barrier rigidity that subversive elements seek to circumvent at a moments discomfort - this 'war' between removal of pain and comfort is the economic fuel for much of modern lives turmoil - again engineered from Franks interpretation of the illusion of good and evil.
Those who have stayed with me this far will notice that 'illusion of good and evil' perhaps would seem to imply that the author of this snippet is bereft of moral certitude and indeed could be levelled to have 'sympathy' with the extremis of Frank and his followers, however in this final paragraph I will try to explain why this is not the case.

Good and evil must be illusions of man because it is fundamental to our faith that G_d is one. Singularity has no place for duality, this is the logical basis for the notion of the Tzimtzum (explored elsewhere), these terms used in Kabbalistic speculation should always raise alarm bells if we do not divorce ourselves from the so-called 'evident' in the concept. The narrative of the 'contraction' conjures in us, if we do not guard against it, a 'picture' of 'division', and 'past'/'future' state which implies a (G_d forbid) 'withdrawal' and division of G_d. This is not the case. The Tzimtzum's 'formative' structure is drawn from logical necessity only, there is no Tzimtzum that can be imagined, or divorced from the logical necessity. It would be wrong to equate 'Tzimtzum' with Cosmology on a 'like-for-like' basis modelled in an ill-informed Kabbalistic interpretation or a 'popularist' scientific interpretation. The Tzimtzum is the 'intellectual' model that is necessary to understand plurality in the creation itself, not because it is correct but rather because in using it, it 'can' (given the necessary discipline) correctly teach us about the thought processes necessary to truly approach the singularity.

Without these tools we would suffer the fate of the famous Talmudic episode concerning the three who took the journey outlined in Merkavah Mysticism of raising ones consciousness to the 'throne' an antecedent to later Kabbalistic 'amplification'. This 'logical' model allows us to 'see; that the notion of 'good' / 'evil' is the product of duality and therefore has no place in the singularity, and that it is a 'structure' again of the Tzimtzum, in this it is handy to use an analogy its not 'perfect' but it illustrates in 'fairytale' form the manner of thinking that 'carries' this concept.

Consider a 'soap bubble' – it is maintained by three things the tensile strength of its 'skin' the soap, the inner pressure that keeps it from collapsing and the outer pressure that seeks to crush it. Now extrapolate the labels in the Tzimtzum model. The Soap is Chessed the 'allowance' principle that maintains its existence with no past, present or future, only a timeless moment of 'let there be...” an utterance mediated by the sequence of Creation, itself a tautology of the necessity of the singularity to encompass all that has, will or is in existence (see Chaim Vital). Any lack in the singularity including the 'absence' of the Creation violates the unity because it cannot contain any absence in actuality or possibility. The force from the 'outside' the Tzimtzum (equivalent to air pressure in our bubble model) is TRUTH - the singularity which cannot tolerate duality, this is the nullifying 'ohr' of the Ein Soph the naked singularity which is utterly beyond the conception of a 'dulaistic' framework of mind. Individuality is impossible within singularity, time ceases in singularity, there can be no state changes past/future, no possibility of any 'change' whatsoever, which is why the logical construct of the Tzimtzum is maintained through 'logical carriers', timeless, frozen, language from moment to moment from within the Tzimtzum and in no moment whatsoever outside it.

Indeed the notion of Tzimtzum could, at a stretch, be considered a synonym for time itself. So what is the inner force holding the Tzimtzum bubble, it is the notion of FALSITY all that is not true but rather 'dualistic' in nature. This either /or if not maintained by strictly controlled balance is in danger of 'over-inflating' the skin so-to-speak, rupturing Chessed which the prophets of old have long warned us of. The Tzimtzum must be crushed by the truth which is the only way of not rupturing Chessed, an over inflation of Tzimtzum is a titanic shattering of vessels worthy of any Lurianic metaphor. This is my point; although I can spin here a metaphorical tale it has to be dismantled concurrently with being assembled in the mind of the true Kabbalist, a task beyond me. This banishing of 'conceptualisation is similar to a Tzaddik who eradicates evil in his heart (more later) the Kabbalist can only exist in our thought through the conceptions others ascribe to him, the Luria/Vital fulcrum is an excellent example, for how could a true 'singularity' of thought be maintained otherwise. The banishing of Shekinah is not a literal one, but a conceptual one of the thought process to provide its own Chessed for its ability to manifest between the 'forces' so-to-speak. The Kabbalist has eradicated duality of thought and exists in the timeless state of no-thing - only truth, in this they are extremely rare individuals. Bearing this in mind we have now revealed the difficulty for the rest of us – the inner state has to be achieved before any conceptions can form, in a sense one must learn the language before one can speak, in this though it is not possible to 'learn' Kabbalah' in a formal sense, that would be impossible, like G_ds nature it can only be done through negation or rather what it is not.

If a book (or this paper) is considered about Kabbalah, then it deals not with Kabbalah, but rather a 'pocket' of duality, since its existence is predicated on a time change in the Tzimtzum which is not part of the truth and is Q.E.D false. Hence Wittgenstein's maxim holds true “...what we cannot speak, we must pass over in silence..” the true Kabbalah is not 'hidden' it is silent.”

Good and Evil are products of duality and register in the conceptions of Man and not in G_d. The Torah demonstrates the lie that if you know the knowledge of good and evil you will be as gods, you will rather, in your demiurgic quest become bound by either/or, and time in a quest to provide words for the wordless and suffer the consequence of the linguistic manifestation and categorisation of good/evil. If you are a seeker you will find not the truth, but the truth you seek, in doing that you will be motivated not by singularity but by the two tongued Serpent of doubt and illusory resolution, you are not a Kabbalist you are a Weishaupt a Hitler, a Frank - those who grasp half the argument and use it to crush the other. In doing so, they are maintaining Tzimtzum in balance, under the threatening Shepherd Amalech, who will rise in pure falsity to resist the pressure of truth. All is truth and we hang in the balance day by day, but in the failure to teach and spread Torah to the nations we give more power to Amalech and the imbalance puts strain on the Tzaddiks and the Kabbalists alike, and the Tzimtzum hangs between reconcilliation with Truth = Meshaich or the rupture of Chessed in a pressure of falsity - all will be two unless we learn to be one, and recognize and remember the Talmudic dictum:-

“Groundless hatred is as wicked as idolatry, adultery and murder combined (Yoma, 9b)”

and stay Adams choice....

[Image by Shraga]