Daphna Arbel (read by Robin Griffith-Jones)

Moshe Idel and Religious Experience in the Hekhalot Literature

Moshe Idel’s research features an open methodology – a pluralistic/interdisciplinary approach

His work is  representative of a new scholarly view of Judaism – based on experiential orientation

The focus of his research principally covers Judaism of the 4^th to 9^th century – the Hekhalot period (a.k.a. merkabah mysticism)

Idel doesn’t subscribe to evolutionary development of religion. His focus is on the interplay of experiential orientations in different schools of Judaism.

Merkabah Mysticism presents a continuous circulation between divine and human – an open circuit between heaven and earth – the possibility, or reality, of  interaction through open channels between the worlds

Unio mystica

The participation of humans in the divine being is the subject of many of Idel’s studies. Gershom Scholem argues that humans are not able to experience union with God in merkabah mysticism. Idel challenges these conclusions – he warns that we should not marginalize unio mystica. There is a certain theological perspective that ignores possibility of union. However, 3 Enoch (a hekhalot text) describes the transformation of Enoch into Metatron – this should be understood as an example of unio mystica – union with Enoch and angel Metatron.

Idel has been criticized for using later texts and Neo-platonic views as evidence for unio mystica. He believes that study of unio mystica should focus on types of experience – forms of experiencing the divine. Enoch’s transformation is a form of unio mystica even if it is not specifically a union with God. Enoch becomes similar to God – his bodily transformation allows for access to the presence of God and some kind of connectivity to Him. Various forms function differently in different situations, but should be seen as types of the same motif.

Ascent to Heaven is usually referred to as an ascent of the soul,  but Idel argues that it should be seen as ascent of the body (albeit perhaps the spiritual body). The corporeal body remains in a special stance on earth, while the “spiritual body” ascends.  Both spiritual and corporeal are involved (this involves certain practices).

Idel also emphasizes the experiential aspect of magic. Rabbi Akivah obtains secret names in heaven that have magical uses. The magical and experiential are linked together. Practice allows adept to travel to heaven and magical aspect involves bringing down knowledge with magical power.

Rabbi Ishmael felt that he had entered a new dimension while pondering “secrets” of Torah.

Moshe Idel’s research helps establish the significance of experience in the Hekhalot literature.

Religious Experience in Early Judaism and Early Christianity — Sunday 9am Session

Frances Flannery, James Madison University

Ascents, Apocalypses, and Neuroscience: Moshe Idel and the Study of Religious Experience

This unit/section is of an interdisciplinary nature. It was organized to provide a forum for scholars researching a wide variety of topics in biblical studies using diverse methods drawn not only from biblical studies but also various other fields, including anthropology, archaeology, sociology, neuro-biology, and neuro-psychology.  These diverse approaches are bound together in one endeavor: to take seriously the articulation of ancient authors’ experience of the divine [see Francis Flannery, et al., eds., Experientia, Vol. 1, SBL, 2008]

This endeavor has to be rooted in texts – but it doesn’t end there.  We must go beyond the text, but always be rooted in it. We are attempting to study the people who wrote these texts and had real religious experiences. Don’t be limited to just the text – these authors put ritual/experience into their texts. Why would they do this? Why preserve ritual in texts?

These experiences are not just obviously real but also powerful and transformative for those experiencing them.

Moshe Idel’s study of ascent (see Moshe Idel, Ascensions on High in Jewish Mysticism, Central European Univ. Press, 2005) helps contribute to this section’s goals.

The Goals of this Section:

1. Beyond fields – Idel traced ascents across many fields and traditions – using a broad ranging approach – he approaches Jewish kinds of mysticism
2. Beyond text (yet rooted in texts) – analyze using comparative materials – looks at individual accounts of ascent, then draws modest conclusions (ascent of soul/spiritual body) – allows accounts to stand for themselves, not commenting too much on, not judging – pays attention to technique and practice – study of Abilafia, esp. sensory experiences
3. Beyond a single methodology – use interdisciplinary methodologies (also employing sociology, anthropology, neuro-psychology, etc.) – Methodological eclecticism

• • Theological approach
  • Historical approach (anthropological, archaeological, sociological)
  • Psychological approach
  • Textual literary approach
  • Comparative religions approach (Eliade, Chicago group)
  • Ritualistic/ technical
  • Phenomenological approaches
  • Cognitive approaches (human creation in religion, structuralism, social memory)
  • Perspectivism – opposite of comparative religions (compare differences)

Idel has made great contribution to ritualistic studies. See his Ascensions on High. He talks of how rituals are related to cognitive aspects of religion or related to bodily experience — mind and body, tradition and rationality. The whole religious experience involves all of these.

When working towards this endeavor, there is a need for coherence among techniques

Idel used neuroscience to examine the kabbalah – especially the experience of seeing a second body or seeing one’s own body and a second body. TPJ (temporoparietal junction)– seems to be the part of the brain that is stimulated during these experiences. Brain stimulation is related to ritual, which is related to technique, which is related to mystical expression. There is a relationship between these.

It appears that a reduction in oxygen to brain can produce some of these feelings/perceptions described.

All this helps make a coherent case for mystical experiences as actual human experiences. We can know that humans produced these texts and that they shared the same physiology as we do.  Mysticism is not just symbolic language.

4. Beyond [Gershom] Scholem –- ecstatic kabbalah is not just “symbolic” –- The Myth and Ritual School should be called “Myth and Symbolic” school.  We can now see that its not all symbolic –- we emphasize connectivity between human and God, not a symbolic gap between mankind and Deity. Idel emphasized the experiential aspects of ritual – allegories, divine names, and experiences in Kabbalah.  He argues that the performative aspect of kabbalah has been virtually ignored  – its not just an abstract system. We have been looking in the wrong place to understand kabbalah.

We may conclude that mysticism is not an irrational enterprise.  Its  not really ineffable.

5. Beyond Semeia 14 – [SBL publication by John Collins] that gave definition of literary genre called apocalypse — but this is not sufficient definition for apocalypticism as the  performative aspect is often lost in analyses.  Daphna Arbel (Beholders of Divine Secrets: Mysticism and Myth in the Hekhalot and Merkavah Literature, Albany NY: State University of New York Press 2003) emphasizes the experience of entering presence of God.

We can move beyond Semeia 14. Idel’s methods for mysticism should be applied to apocalypticism –- apocalyptic texts should be seen as having an experiential underpinning. The religious experience of the authors should be taken seriously. Social memory – what is author experiencing when he/she speaks as Enoch? Is eschatology really the central point?

Apocalypticism should be subset of the visionary genre –- it emphasizes connectivity to divine world and overcoming the gap between divine and mundane.

(As always, I am responsible for the contents of these notes. They should not be taken to represent exactly what the presenter said verbatim.)

[For more from this presenter, see Frances Flannery-Dailey, Dreamers, Scribes, and Priests: Jewish Dreams in the Hellenistic and Roman Eras (Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism, 90; Leiden\Boston: Brill Academic Publishers, 2004).