Perhaps the most important practice of the Kabbalah and certainly the practice by which the Ecstatic Kabbalists are defined is meditation. According to the Ecstatic Kabbalists, meditation was the method used by the ancients to attain prophetic union, which, as Maimonides explained, was a consequence of Divine favour bestowed upon the individual who had perfected himself, or herself, in his mental, imaginative and moral faculties. (Guide for the Perplexed Part 2 chs. 32 & 36)
For the Ecstatic Kabbalist, prophecy was not a matter of foretelling the future, as the Bible itself indicates, ““How can we know the word that the Lord has not spoken?” If that prophet will speak in the Name of the Lord and that thing shall not occur… with willfulness has the prophet spoken.” (Deut. 18:21-22, Artscroll). In other words, foretelling the future is simply a means to distinguish between the true and the false prophet. Nevertheless, even the false prophet is recognised as a prophet, his error is overstepping his bounds and in attempting to pass off his own opinion as God’s.
Furthermore, on account of the varying degrees of prophecy, as describe by Maimonides in his Guide for the Perplexed (Part 2 ch. 37), and given the discrepancy between the numbers of prophets which scripture records and the handful of prophets who were actually named, it is reasonable to assume that most prophets were “prophets unto themselves”, e.g., they were not sent on any “missions”; rather, the natures of their prophecies were for the purpose of self-perfection and spiritual enlightenment (Mishneh Torah, Yesodei HaTorah, ch. 7).
As can be gleaned from the writings of the Ecstatic Kabbalists, whether explicitly or implicitly, the Prophetic Path is divided into the following stages:
- Mindfulness;
- Concentration;
- Quiescence;
- Introversion;
- Silence;
- Divine Inspiration; and
- Prophecy.
The Meditative Stages of the Prophetic Path
The first stage of the meditative path in the Ecstatic Kabbalah is designated by the Hebrew term Hazkarah, literally “remembrance”. Contextually, Jewish tradition invariably associates all incidents of remembrance with an accompanying verbalisation; it is found that whenever there is an injunction to remember something, its remembrance is always determined by its verbal articulation. It is in this accord that the term Hazkarah is used homonymously to mean both “remembrance” and “verbal articulation.”
Hazkarah is used in the Ecstatic Kabbalah specifically in regard to the verbal articulation and remembrance of God’s names, and is equivalent to the Arabic word dhikr, which is used in Sufism to describe the equivalent practice of meditation on the names of God. Generally, it used to describe the practice of any mindful activity, in the same manner that the Sanskrit word smrti, “memory,” is interpreted as “mindfulness” within the Buddhist Noble Eightfold Path. This linguistic feature of these languages serves to extend the historically oriented word in the English language to the present tense.
Mindfulness is the point of origin of all further developments in the methods of the Ecstatic Kabbalah because it roots the mind in a state of spontaneous awareness. It is from this receptive state of mind that the Kabbalist reconfigures the mind into an active state of Concentration, designated by the Hebrew term Devekut (lit. “adhesion”).
This concentrated configuration leads to a resonant focusing of all attention and total absorption in the object of concentration, which subsequently results in a state of near perfect internal Quiescence, or Hishtavut to use the Hebrew designation (a word which denotes reflexive-equilibrium, i.e., a steady mental attitude). As with mindfulness, Quiescence is in the nature of the goal of the Ecstatic Kabbalah; though unlike mindfulness, which is a stable yet dynamic state, Quiescence is denoted by a certain poise and is thus qualitatively more sublime than Mindfulness.
Even so, Quiescence is a relatively artificial state, just as a ball balancing on the top of hill is an artificial stillness requiring only the slightest nudge destabilise. Therefore the Kabbalists progress a stage further where the equilibrium is shattered in order to bring the mind to a still lesser degree of movement; this is the practice of Hitbodedut or Introversion. In this practice, the mind is drawn into an ever expanding web of complexity with each new configuration deepening the absorption by recruiting successive quanta of attentive potential; eventually the mind reaches a cognitive threshold and seizes up, those faculties of consciousness which were utterly consumed with activity suddenly disengage and absolute Silence ensues.
This Silence, or Demamah in the Hebrew, is a state of primordial presence, embryonic in its character. It is thus that the Hebrew word Demamah also represents a catalogue of other elemental meanings, earth, blood, imagination, and perhaps most significantly, “likeness”, as in “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Genesis 1:26, Artscroll).
These five stages are those which are under the Kabbalist’s direct control, and reaching the most receptive of states, ultimately, in Silence, the Kabbalist now awaits Divine grace to inject him with its Inspiration and illuminate his consciousness. If the Kabbalist-Prophet is then able to maintain sufficient passivity during this experience (without being jolted back into ordinary consciousness) the "Divine Inspiration" will spill over into full blown prophecy, which is the introduction to supreme infinite reality.
The Nature of Prophecy and the Immortality of the Soul
The Ecstatic Kabbalists make it clear that prophecy is a process of deification: “He has felt the Divine touch and perceived its nature, it seems right and proper to me and to every perfected man that he should be called “master” because his name is like the "Name of his Master," be it only in one, or in many, or in all of his names. For now he is no longer separated from his Master, and behold he is his Master and his Master is he; for he is so intimately united with Him, that he cannot by any means be separated from Him, for he is He.” (Abraham Abulafia, Sefer haYashar) and “She [the soul] will cleave to the Divine intellect, and it will cleave to her, and she and the intellect become one entity, as if somebody pours out a jug of water into a running well, that all becomes one.” (Isaac of Acre, Otzar Haim)
The prophetic state is also the cause of the soul’s immortality in the world to come: “its ultimate aim is the reason of the life of the "World to Come." This aim is the union of the soul, by this intellection, with God, may He be blessed, for ever and ever and eternally, and that thing is called the “image of God” and His likeness, “will live in man everlasting life without any limit, like the life of the Creator, which is their cause.”” (Abraham Abulafia, Hayeh HaOlam HaBah)
Sources:
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia, Moshe Idel.
Studies in Ecstatic Kabbalah, Moshe Idel.
28 Jewelled Crown, Daniel Gigi.
Daniel Gigi - Daniel Gigi is a UK based psychotherapist, meditation teacher, and author. He began the practice of meditation at the age of 14, at which ...
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