It seems like your quote from Rav Hirsch undermines the main point of your article. Your point seems to be, this content is flawed in its origin and has very little meaningful ideas to teach. Rav Hirsch is saying that such ideas do have merit but only when understood properly; problems begin when they are misunderstood and taken as mechanistic instead of symbolic. In other words, you and rav hirsch end up in similar places - rejecting the importance of modern kabbalah - but for very different reasons.
The content that's potentially flawed that I'm focusing on in this particular post is the interpretive thoughts of the Ari and his students (rather than Zohar or other similar documents). I didn't intend to include Zohar itself with the psychedelic criticism (although, of course, I've got plenty of other critical thoughts about Zohar).
You're correct that R' Hirsch doesn't explicitly criticize Zohar. But I think it's a reasonable reading of his words to conclude that he *was* criticizing sources like Eitz Chaim both in their accuracy and overall theological assumptions. I think that's a good fit with the main thrust of my post.
I've also long assumed - without proof - that Hirsch's words: "Had it been correctly comprehended, it might perhaps" suggest that his conclusion is that the true meaning of Zohar is now permanently lost.
Debating whether Rabbi Chaim Vital wrote Toras Emes or apikorsis is way above my paygrade so I won't touch that topic. What I can do is offer with relative certainty what Vital's kabbalistic writings weren't. They weren't ramblings of someone suffering from dementia, they weren't written during a psychotic episode, and they weren't a result of hallucinations.
Let's start with dementia. Vital stopped editing his kabbalistic works, I believe, when he was only 62 years old, long before dementia typically begins. He lived for another 16 years without showing any signs of cognitive decline. Dementia is a degenerative descent that people recognize. We all saw that with Joe Biden. Surely, if Vital suffered from that, people would've noticed and had him resign as a dayan. However, that never happened. He remained a respected dayan and community leader, I think, until he passed away.
Next, psychosis. True clinical psychosis is characterized by cognitive disintegration, and disorganized thought and speech. Etz Chaim is the exact opposite. Whatever it is, kosher or otherwise, Eitz Chaim is not simple. It is almost an encyclopedia of metaphysics or advanced cosmic calculus. A mind undergoing a psychotic break I believe is incapable of producing that level of complexities.
Finally, hallucinations. The ultimate proof that Vital was in complete control of his faculties is that he quarantined his actual hallucinations (induced by sleep, food, and social deprivation) inside a separate personal diary called Sefer HaChezionos, while keeping his kabbalistic writings strictly isolated inside Etz Chaim. He kept those two separated like basar v'chalav. Someone lacking mental control would lump those together into one big book of teyruvos, not create a great wall of separation between kabbalah and personal visions.
You wrote that Eitz Chaim requires "external references with which readers are expected to be familiar", but later you concluded that a lack of obvious logic equals a "hallucinogenic flavor." If I'm understanding you correctly, and please correct me if I am not, you're saying that when I am not familiar with a topic, my lack of understanding dictates that therefore the topic must somehow be hallucinogenic. If that is what you mean, I would respectfully disagree and conclude that my lack of understanding might say more about me than it does about the topic I don't understand. Let me illustrate my point.
L'havdil, consider Freddie Mercury's lyrics: "Water babies singing in a lily pool delight, blue powder monkeys praying in the dead of night." L'choyrah, a casual reader might conclude Mercury was tripping on psychedelics when he wrote those bizarre lines. But he wasn't. That imagery of "water babies" was lifted directly from Charles Kingsley's classic 1863 Victorian children's book, while "powder monkeys" was naval slang for boys carrying gunpowder on 18th-century warships.
The point is, writing style doesn't prove hallucination. Just as Mercury used his sober intellect to stitch together historical and literary references, so too Vital plausibly used his Talmudic training to map out complex cosmic stuff. Just because the connection between "11 incense ingredients" and "the kings of Edom" reads like a hallucination to an outsider, such as myself, doesn't mean it didn't make perfect sense to men that cross-referenced them. I'm ignorant of powder monkeys and 11 herbs and spices. I can conclude that the writers were flying on drugs, or I can do a deep dive into those references to learn what they actually mean.
>>> "You wrote that Eitz Chaim requires external references with which readers are expected to be familiar, but later you concluded that a lack of obvious logic equals a hallucinogenic flavor...you're saying that when I am not familiar with a topic, my lack of understanding dictates that therefore the topic must somehow be hallucinogenic."
That's more or less what I said, yes, although with a caveat. It's not that in the absence of background information we should assume the worst. It's that the *existence* of multiple sources doesn't *prove* coherence. Of course, it doesn't rule it out either.
I think it's also worth noting that - to my knowledge - neither the Ari nor R' Vital published anything in their lifetimes. According to Gershom Scholem, the writings we have that were attributed to both were prepared and published by R' Vital's son, Shmuel (who was apparently a close associate of Shabbatai Tzvi)
I appreciate the clarification! I would even concede that the Mercury example is inconclusive. As you pointed out, it serves as enough proof to raise doubt but not provide definitive proof in either direction.
FWIW, the reason those lyrics immediately came to mind was only because for many years, I imagined him writing down what he saw right in front of his own eyes: fictional creatures composed of colorful ingredients come to life. Completely drug-induced visions. I've experienced similar hallucinations while on opiod pain meds. So, concluding that Mercury's lyrics were created under hallucinogens all made sense to me. However, years later I discovered that Mercury's lyrics weren't visions in front of his eyes, but rather well-researched descriptions that fit his song's storyline. It was my own ignorance of "blue powder monkeys" that led me to wrongly assume drugs, while in reality, it was just a literary genius at work. Thus, when you tried to postulate that Vital's works seem hallucinogenic, the first thing that popped into my mind was when my similar suspicion of blue powder monkeys got debunked.
So, your point stands with regards to high art lyrics, but I'd say it's still not applicable in Vital's case, because no one hallucinates and writes complex metaphysics. That's never happened. Plus, we have documentation that he separated his hallucinogenic dribble into his own diary, and kept it basar here, chalav there. Thus, my original point stands in that a mind experiencing cognitive decline or disintegration, or hallucinations, is incapable of reaching and maintaining that extreme level of intricacy over decades of work.
As a big picture takeaway, I appreciate what you are trying to do. By pointing to a potential mind deficiency or an altered state, you are trying to find a way out from calling Vital a heretic. It's a form of giving him benefit of the doubt, and I respect that. However, I just don't see mental deficiency being a fit in his case, based on the advanced cosmic calculus of Etz Chaim. I know that's not what you want to hear, though.
Furthermore, I'll even concede that there is reason to believe that for the past 400 years, many sages considered Vital kosher simply because they didn't actually know what he wrote, or because they themselves were elderly and lacked the cognitive energy to critically challenge it. Institutional deference is a powerful thing. Many rabbis likely rubber-stamped Etz Chaim based purely on Vital's stellar reputation as a dayan, without ever parsing the dense text themselves. If there was cognitive decline during the last 400 years, it's much more likely to have occurred in the later generations who blindly accepted the text without reading it, rather than in the man who systematically built it.
Finally, bringing Scholem into the mix is a great catch, because his research into how those manuscripts were handled is fascinating. With all due respect, forgive me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that you might be confusing Vital's son with that son's followers? Schmuel Vital lived from 1598 to 1677. He was already an elderly rabbi in Cairo by the time Shabbatai Tzvi's movement erupted in the mid-1660s. Scholem usually links the Sabbatean crossover to the generation of editors who came *after* Schmuel.
Really enjoying this back-and-forth, thanks for engaging!
You could prove your "blue powder monkeys" theory by showing a clear and compelling connection between a sample of R' Vital's pairings that's more than just "you could possible say this" but more "this is obviously the explanation". But until I see some of those connections, I'll remain open to my own narrative.
Gershom Scholem established the relationship during Shmuel Vital's years in Cairo in the early to mid 1660s. Scholem claims that Vital's patron in Cairo was also the major supporter of Shabbatai Tzvi and Nathan of Gaza.
Sir, you seem to be saying until proof otherwise emerges, you maintain that it's possible that Vital hallucinated. If so, if I may, that sounds as if you are applying the hamotzi mechavero alav hara'ayah thing completely backward.
Vital has a chazakah of possessing a stable mind. If you want to teach otherwise, then you must bring the conclusive hara'ayah. Your personal narrative doesn't flip the burden of proof over to Vital's readers to prove the author was sober. The default assumption is that his readers lack the necessary expertise to prove or disprove anything, and not that the author suffered from severe sleep deprivation or hallucinations.
"The default assumption is that his readers lack the necessary expertise to prove or disprove anything, and not that the author suffered from severe sleep deprivation or hallucinations."
Exactly! Which is why - in the absence of evidence - I refuse to assume *anything* about the coherence of the writings. All possibilities are open.
It seems like your quote from Rav Hirsch undermines the main point of your article. Your point seems to be, this content is flawed in its origin and has very little meaningful ideas to teach. Rav Hirsch is saying that such ideas do have merit but only when understood properly; problems begin when they are misunderstood and taken as mechanistic instead of symbolic. In other words, you and rav hirsch end up in similar places - rejecting the importance of modern kabbalah - but for very different reasons.
The content that's potentially flawed that I'm focusing on in this particular post is the interpretive thoughts of the Ari and his students (rather than Zohar or other similar documents). I didn't intend to include Zohar itself with the psychedelic criticism (although, of course, I've got plenty of other critical thoughts about Zohar).
You're correct that R' Hirsch doesn't explicitly criticize Zohar. But I think it's a reasonable reading of his words to conclude that he *was* criticizing sources like Eitz Chaim both in their accuracy and overall theological assumptions. I think that's a good fit with the main thrust of my post.
I've also long assumed - without proof - that Hirsch's words: "Had it been correctly comprehended, it might perhaps" suggest that his conclusion is that the true meaning of Zohar is now permanently lost.
Debating whether Rabbi Chaim Vital wrote Toras Emes or apikorsis is way above my paygrade so I won't touch that topic. What I can do is offer with relative certainty what Vital's kabbalistic writings weren't. They weren't ramblings of someone suffering from dementia, they weren't written during a psychotic episode, and they weren't a result of hallucinations.
Let's start with dementia. Vital stopped editing his kabbalistic works, I believe, when he was only 62 years old, long before dementia typically begins. He lived for another 16 years without showing any signs of cognitive decline. Dementia is a degenerative descent that people recognize. We all saw that with Joe Biden. Surely, if Vital suffered from that, people would've noticed and had him resign as a dayan. However, that never happened. He remained a respected dayan and community leader, I think, until he passed away.
Next, psychosis. True clinical psychosis is characterized by cognitive disintegration, and disorganized thought and speech. Etz Chaim is the exact opposite. Whatever it is, kosher or otherwise, Eitz Chaim is not simple. It is almost an encyclopedia of metaphysics or advanced cosmic calculus. A mind undergoing a psychotic break I believe is incapable of producing that level of complexities.
Finally, hallucinations. The ultimate proof that Vital was in complete control of his faculties is that he quarantined his actual hallucinations (induced by sleep, food, and social deprivation) inside a separate personal diary called Sefer HaChezionos, while keeping his kabbalistic writings strictly isolated inside Etz Chaim. He kept those two separated like basar v'chalav. Someone lacking mental control would lump those together into one big book of teyruvos, not create a great wall of separation between kabbalah and personal visions.
You wrote that Eitz Chaim requires "external references with which readers are expected to be familiar", but later you concluded that a lack of obvious logic equals a "hallucinogenic flavor." If I'm understanding you correctly, and please correct me if I am not, you're saying that when I am not familiar with a topic, my lack of understanding dictates that therefore the topic must somehow be hallucinogenic. If that is what you mean, I would respectfully disagree and conclude that my lack of understanding might say more about me than it does about the topic I don't understand. Let me illustrate my point.
L'havdil, consider Freddie Mercury's lyrics: "Water babies singing in a lily pool delight, blue powder monkeys praying in the dead of night." L'choyrah, a casual reader might conclude Mercury was tripping on psychedelics when he wrote those bizarre lines. But he wasn't. That imagery of "water babies" was lifted directly from Charles Kingsley's classic 1863 Victorian children's book, while "powder monkeys" was naval slang for boys carrying gunpowder on 18th-century warships.
The point is, writing style doesn't prove hallucination. Just as Mercury used his sober intellect to stitch together historical and literary references, so too Vital plausibly used his Talmudic training to map out complex cosmic stuff. Just because the connection between "11 incense ingredients" and "the kings of Edom" reads like a hallucination to an outsider, such as myself, doesn't mean it didn't make perfect sense to men that cross-referenced them. I'm ignorant of powder monkeys and 11 herbs and spices. I can conclude that the writers were flying on drugs, or I can do a deep dive into those references to learn what they actually mean.
>>> "You wrote that Eitz Chaim requires external references with which readers are expected to be familiar, but later you concluded that a lack of obvious logic equals a hallucinogenic flavor...you're saying that when I am not familiar with a topic, my lack of understanding dictates that therefore the topic must somehow be hallucinogenic."
That's more or less what I said, yes, although with a caveat. It's not that in the absence of background information we should assume the worst. It's that the *existence* of multiple sources doesn't *prove* coherence. Of course, it doesn't rule it out either.
I think it's also worth noting that - to my knowledge - neither the Ari nor R' Vital published anything in their lifetimes. According to Gershom Scholem, the writings we have that were attributed to both were prepared and published by R' Vital's son, Shmuel (who was apparently a close associate of Shabbatai Tzvi)
I appreciate the clarification! I would even concede that the Mercury example is inconclusive. As you pointed out, it serves as enough proof to raise doubt but not provide definitive proof in either direction.
FWIW, the reason those lyrics immediately came to mind was only because for many years, I imagined him writing down what he saw right in front of his own eyes: fictional creatures composed of colorful ingredients come to life. Completely drug-induced visions. I've experienced similar hallucinations while on opiod pain meds. So, concluding that Mercury's lyrics were created under hallucinogens all made sense to me. However, years later I discovered that Mercury's lyrics weren't visions in front of his eyes, but rather well-researched descriptions that fit his song's storyline. It was my own ignorance of "blue powder monkeys" that led me to wrongly assume drugs, while in reality, it was just a literary genius at work. Thus, when you tried to postulate that Vital's works seem hallucinogenic, the first thing that popped into my mind was when my similar suspicion of blue powder monkeys got debunked.
So, your point stands with regards to high art lyrics, but I'd say it's still not applicable in Vital's case, because no one hallucinates and writes complex metaphysics. That's never happened. Plus, we have documentation that he separated his hallucinogenic dribble into his own diary, and kept it basar here, chalav there. Thus, my original point stands in that a mind experiencing cognitive decline or disintegration, or hallucinations, is incapable of reaching and maintaining that extreme level of intricacy over decades of work.
As a big picture takeaway, I appreciate what you are trying to do. By pointing to a potential mind deficiency or an altered state, you are trying to find a way out from calling Vital a heretic. It's a form of giving him benefit of the doubt, and I respect that. However, I just don't see mental deficiency being a fit in his case, based on the advanced cosmic calculus of Etz Chaim. I know that's not what you want to hear, though.
Furthermore, I'll even concede that there is reason to believe that for the past 400 years, many sages considered Vital kosher simply because they didn't actually know what he wrote, or because they themselves were elderly and lacked the cognitive energy to critically challenge it. Institutional deference is a powerful thing. Many rabbis likely rubber-stamped Etz Chaim based purely on Vital's stellar reputation as a dayan, without ever parsing the dense text themselves. If there was cognitive decline during the last 400 years, it's much more likely to have occurred in the later generations who blindly accepted the text without reading it, rather than in the man who systematically built it.
Finally, bringing Scholem into the mix is a great catch, because his research into how those manuscripts were handled is fascinating. With all due respect, forgive me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that you might be confusing Vital's son with that son's followers? Schmuel Vital lived from 1598 to 1677. He was already an elderly rabbi in Cairo by the time Shabbatai Tzvi's movement erupted in the mid-1660s. Scholem usually links the Sabbatean crossover to the generation of editors who came *after* Schmuel.
Really enjoying this back-and-forth, thanks for engaging!
You could prove your "blue powder monkeys" theory by showing a clear and compelling connection between a sample of R' Vital's pairings that's more than just "you could possible say this" but more "this is obviously the explanation". But until I see some of those connections, I'll remain open to my own narrative.
Gershom Scholem established the relationship during Shmuel Vital's years in Cairo in the early to mid 1660s. Scholem claims that Vital's patron in Cairo was also the major supporter of Shabbatai Tzvi and Nathan of Gaza.
Sir, you seem to be saying until proof otherwise emerges, you maintain that it's possible that Vital hallucinated. If so, if I may, that sounds as if you are applying the hamotzi mechavero alav hara'ayah thing completely backward.
Vital has a chazakah of possessing a stable mind. If you want to teach otherwise, then you must bring the conclusive hara'ayah. Your personal narrative doesn't flip the burden of proof over to Vital's readers to prove the author was sober. The default assumption is that his readers lack the necessary expertise to prove or disprove anything, and not that the author suffered from severe sleep deprivation or hallucinations.
"The default assumption is that his readers lack the necessary expertise to prove or disprove anything, and not that the author suffered from severe sleep deprivation or hallucinations."
Exactly! Which is why - in the absence of evidence - I refuse to assume *anything* about the coherence of the writings. All possibilities are open.