One o f the main exponents of the new Kabbalistic ideas in the early stages of the tradition was Isaac ‘the Blind’ (from the Aramaic, Saggi-Nehor, meaning,
paradoxically, ‘full of light’) (1165-c.l235).^^ Among the intellectual achievements for which he is noted, Isaac, who was one of the main recipients of
For an extensive analysis o f the concepts o f Isaac the Blind, see Scholem, Origins, pp. 251-309, and for biographical details, see the introduction to The Early Kabbalah, by J. Dan, p. 31. The latter presents two texts from the school o f Isaac the Blind (pp. 71-85): ‘The Mystical Torah -
the Provençal revelations, appears to have been the first person to use the term ‘Kabbalah’ to designate an esoteric tradition involving the passing down of sacred information ‘in whispers and in secret’ (Scholem, p. 261). It was also Isaac the Blind who created and developed the notion of ‘En-Sof or God as
infinity beyond human comprehension, a concept he made great use o f in his highly influential commentary on the Sefer Yetzirah}^ In this work Isaac
describes the unfolding of the divinity from boundless infinity into creation in terms o f thought and language. The three stages of the process are constituted by the Infinite ( ‘En-sof), thought and speech. These represent respectively the
ineffable essence o f the divinity, the higher spiritual realms which are intelligible to the mind and the higher senses, and the lower realms which are perceptible to the physical senses (Scholem, p. 265). The final stage of the divinity’s self revelation, the realm of speech (dibbur), is identified with the seven lower
sephirot. He calls these lower essences both dibburium and debharim, that is,
simultaneously words and things, reinforcing the notion central to the Kabbalah that the creation is literally the utterance of the divinity (Scholem, p. 265).
In accordance with the Sefer Yetzirah, Isaac also presents Hokhmah, the
sephirah o f wisdom, as the ‘beginning of being’ and the ‘beginning o f the dibbur’: the point from which all the sephirot proceed in a clear chain of emanations (Scholem, p. 277). The paradox of an eternal-contingent divinity remains intact, however, for though its unfolding takes place through emanation, each given thing or letter nevertheless comprises all ten sephirot in ever-new configurations so that the whole is still present in every part (Scholem, p. 278).
Through contemplation of these different configurations of the sephirot, and the myriad of interconnections that harmoniously compose the fabric o f the created world, the mystic can, according to Isaac, connect with the essences underlying reality that serve as channels linking God to his creation. This act of contemplation he describes as an inner listening and an inner sight, both o f which come from the heart rather than the mind:
From the inner spiritual essences which are not apprehensible [by the senses], but visible to the heart, he has chiseled, and there emanated from them, material [essences] which are apprehensible.^^
As we saw in the philosophical tradition, the reference to the heart indicates that love is considered the means of travelling between the different dimensions of reality.
Isaac attaches particular importance to the contemplation of exterior things in order to reach their interior, itself a notion that recurs repeatedly both in the philosophical tradition and in the work of those authors following in the Jewish tradition who directly precede Montaigne and Charron. The idea is conveyed through the use of analogies taken from the Sefer Yetzirah such as the
following:
The paths [of the Sophia] are like the threads of the flames which are the paths for the coals, and through the flames man can see the coal [which is at their base] in the manner o f a skein, for by following the thread, he arrives at the place of the skein. Similarly, man finds through the leaves, boughs and branches, and the numerous trunks, the conduits [the cavities of the sap] which lead to the essential and to the subtle reality of the root, invisible on account of its subtlety and inwardness.^®
See Scholem’s section, ‘Isaac’s Doctrine o f the ‘En-Sof and the Sefiroth’, pp. 261-89. Isaac’s Commentary on the Sefer Yetzirah, cited in Origins, p. 280. Scholem’s brackets. Isaac’s Commentary, Scholem, Origins, pp. 281-82. Isaac is here drawing on Chap. I, verse 7 o f the Sefer Yetzirah (Kaplan, p. 57).
In the Théologie naturelle, Sebond takes up the tree analogy used here and
describes the hidden and self-revealing divinity in strikingly similar terms:
L ’estre du monde divisé en quatre marches nous estant tresnotoire et tresmanifeste de soy, nous a conduit à la cognoissance de l’autre estre, qui nous estoit occulte, et avons trouvé infaliblement que l’estre du monde est produit et vient du non-estre, et qu’il y en a un autre qui est le vray estre, subsistant par soy mesme, non produit du néant ny d’autre chose. Ainsi l’estre de Dieu semble proprement la racine, et celuy du monde le tronc, les branches et les feuilles de l’arbre. Car tout ainsi que l’une partie de l’arbre paroist au dessus de la terre, et l’autre est cachée au dessous, et que ce qui se voit est nourry et engendré par ce qui ne se voit pas: tout de mesme en va il à nos estres, l’un nous est descouvert, multiplié en rameaux et fleurs, en feuilles et en branches: l’autre produisant et engendrant est uniforme et caché, (fols. 22^-^)
Sebond explains that this ‘example’ or analogy is incomplete since the root is a piece o f the tree while God is not a piece of anything and concludes this passage by saying that ‘par la cognoissance du monde nous avons eschellé jusques à la cognoissance de Dieu’ (fol. 22'').
For Isaac the Blind, contemplation (hithbonenuth) involves the attainment
of knowledge or wisdom by means o f a gradual ascension o f the chain of emanations that constitute the divinity’s self-revelation and through the perception o f all things in one another. He describes the cosmic stages of being as a magnetic chain that causes everything to rise above itself under the influence of the divine whole so that the end o f things is enclosed in their beginning (Scholem, p. 290). This image of a magnetic chain is remarkably similar to Plato’s description o f divine inspiration in his Ion through the metaphor o f iron
rings linked together by the force o f a magnet. As we shall see later, Montaigne makes significant use of this metaphor in the Essais, its influence reverberating
through the work of Charron as well.^^ Isaac describes the magnetic attraction in question as an act of vision and communication, reinforcing the notion of the divinity permeating and sustaining the universe by virtue o f its ubiquitous consciousness:
The vision is the meditation of one thing out of the other [...]. Every cause is taken up and rises and then looks down from a cause that is higher than itself [...]. Everything is in the other and is in communication with the other
Another aspect of Isaac’s work that can be found in Sebond is the emphasis on man’s special role in the divine process which honours him with a direct connection to the higher realms and with titles such as ‘great seal’ or ‘quintessence of all creatures’ But, as in the Théologie naturelle, the claim that
man is supremely connected to his creator is tempered and qualified by the fact that when debhequth or cleaving to God occurs, what takes place is not a unio but
a communio, in which the boundary separating humanity and divinity remains
entirely intact.^^ For Isaac, as for Maimonides, the spiritual work of the mystic in his perception of the divinity in all aspects of the created world must be complemented by moral activity. While humans are incapable of knowing the commandments intellectually, they are capable of a mystical experience of the divine by living their lives in accordance with divine law. As Scholem says, according to Isaac,
Man is [...] unable to plumb the depths of the commandments of the Torah, which appear to have a fixed dimension and end [...], for the more For the use o f this metaphor in Montaigne, see below, Chapter 4, section 5. For its presence in Charron’s philosophy, see Chapter 8, section 5.
Isaac’s Commentary, cited in Scholem, p. 290. See Scholem, p. 290.
See Scholem, p. 302. See also the linguistic analogy that Sebond uses to describe the comm union o f humanity and divinity in Christ which maintains the boundary between the two opposing but complementary parts o f his being (fol. 349').
he turns his mind to its contemplation the further the commandment expands, like the contemplative thinking of man himself. It seems that Isaac is saying that in fulfilling the commandments man advances from the limited to the unlimited and the infinite. The activity of man in the accomplishment o f the Torah converges, therefore, in the experience of the mystic, with the ascension o f his contenmlative thinking. The two spheres are not separated. (Scholem, p. 306) ^