In Defense of Tohar Hayihud (www.mesora.org/ToharHayihud.pdf)
Rabbi Moshe Ben-Chaim
Rabbi Michael Tzadok,
Why is it that kabbalists resort to name calling, instead of offering reasoned proofs for their opinions? Can it be that proof and reason are not engaged in kabbalistic notions? Calling Tohar Hayihud's author an ignoramus makes it appear that this is all the kabbala camp can throw at those who disagree. For even greater sins, Moshe Rabbenu never called Pharaoh an ignoramus. Moshe dealt with facts, reality and reason.
Rabbi Michael Tzadok, as you claim "Tohar Hayihud" is written by an ignoramus, you should have an easy time disputing his rejections against Zohar and kabbala, and I await your response. But in fact, the author mostly cites great minds throughout the ages who denounced Zohar…I'd like to read your dispute against the following Sages and Rabbis…
The wise author of Tohar Hayihud cited kabbalistic ideas of polytheism which surfaced in Provence in the form of "The Book Bahir" which the kabbalists falsely attributed to Rabbi Nehunya ben Hakkanah. They called it the “Midrash of Rabbi Nehunya ben Hakkanah" (and it is by this name that Ramban refers to it in his Torah commentary). Its appearance evoked violent opposition. Rabbenu Meir ben Shimeon (the Meilli) of Narbonne (1190-1263), author of the Sefer Ham'Oros on the Talmud, and the teacher of Rabbenu Manoah of Narbonne (author of Sefer Hamenucha on Rambam's Mishneh Torah), was an elder colleague of Ramban. Both were pupils of Rabbenu Nathan ben Meir. With the approval of his uncle, the great Rabbenu Meshullam, author of the Sefer Hahashlamah, Rabbenu Meir wrote, as follows (his entire epistle, pp 8-12, www.mesora.org/ToharHayihud.pdf):
"I shall record here, the words of the letter that I wrote some time ago to refute the words of those who speak perversion about God and about the sages who walk in the path of the unblemished Torah and those who revere Hashem. They (i.e., those who speak perversion) are wise in their own eyes, invent ideas and incline toward heresy. They imagine they are bringing proof for their views from the statements of Aggadoth that they interpret according to their [heretical] error. God forbid! The intent of the Sages who made those statements was not in accord with their view and intent (i.e., not in accord with the view and intent of those who incline toward heretical error). May God approve our effort for good, and may He grant us proper instruction.
It is wrong to associate with God anything else; for it is improper to associate creature with its Creator, [created] substance with Him Who formed it, what has been originated with the Originator, and to say that His Unity is not absolute but that together with them, all is one. For all that is and exists beside Him, He created them and brought them into existence out of absolutely nothing pre-existent -- from the smallest creature to the greatest. "And whoever associates the name of God with something else will be uprooted from the world" (Sanhedrin 63a). This is the proper Emunah (Faith) for all Israelites of religion to believe.
Whoever strays from this is a denier and a heretic. What need is there for lengthy discussion of the opinions of the fools who direct all their prayers and blessings to divinities who, they, say are created and emanated, who have a beginning and end. For they say in their foolishness that whatever is called "first" and "last" has a beginning and an end, and it is written (Isaiah 44:6): "I am the first, and I am the last, and beside Me there is no God." So have we found in one of the books of their error (i.e., of their heresy) which they call Bahir and so too have some of our scholars heard from their mouths. They have said that one should pray in the day to one created divinity and at night to another divinity who is superior to the former, but who is likewise created, and on Holy Days to yet another."
Rabbenu Meir also wrote:
"We have heard that a book has been composed for them which they call Bahir ('Bright') mentioned above, in which they see no light. This book has come into our hands, and we have found that they attribute it to R. Nehunya ben Hakkanah. God forbid! It is utterly untrue! That righteous man never stumbled by means of it, and was not numbered with the transgressors. The language of that book and all its terms indicate that it is by one unacquainted with literary form and style. It contains words of heresy and denial in many places.
Moreover, we have been told that they have forged the signatures of many scholars of this land, who really did not sign (to endorse Zoharic/kabbala)."
Kabbala cites the order of the progressive emanation of the ten Sefiroth, generally presented by the kabbalists as follows: Kether, Binah, Hokhmah, Gevurah, Hesed, Tifereth, Hod, Netzah, Yesod, and Malkhuth, also called Shekhinah. According to Zohar III, llb, 70a: "He is they, and they are He." The author of Tohar Hyihud states that the similarity between Christian trinitarianism and Sefirotic kabbalism has not gone unnoticed, as might be seen from Responsum 157 of Rivash [R. Isaac ben Shesheth (1320-1407) the illustrious talmid of RaN (Rabbenu Nissim), and one of the principal sources of the Shulhan Arukh]. Rivash quotes his great teacher, the famous and illustrious RaN (Rabbenu Nissim), as saying explicitly:
"Much too much did Ramban commit himself to believe in the matter of that kabbalah."
Rivash also stresses that RaN said this "explicitly". Rivash does not disagree with his great teacher. As a matter of fact, RaN's uncompromising criticism of Ramban's belief in the kabbalah is quoted by Rivash immediately after Don Yoseph ibn Shoshan's apologetic explanation of the Sefirotic intentions of kabbalistic prayer.
Rivash also said:
"I have also informed you that my teacher Harav Rabbi Peretz Hakkohen never at all used to speak or think of those Sefiroth. I also heard from his mouth that Harav Rabbi Shimshon of Chinon (the author of Sefer HaKerithuth), who was greater than all others of his generation used to say: I pray with the intent of this child, i.e., in rejection of the opinion of the kabbalists, who pray sometimes to one Sefirah and sometimes to another Sefirah, according to the subject of the prayer ... And all this is a very bizarre thing in the eyes of those who are not kabbalists as they are, and they (i.e., the non-kabbalists) consider this a belief in dualism (i.e., belief in two or more deities). I once heard one of the philosophical (i.e., non-kabbalistic) persons denigrate the kabbalists by saying: "The Christians believe in trinity, (i.e., the union of three), and the kabbalists believe in the union of ten [Sefiroth]."
A more recent condemnation of kabbalism is the detailed and documented The Book of the Wars of the Lord of R. Yahya ben Shelomoh Alkafih, Chief Rabbi of Sana, capital of Yemen (Jerusalem 1931). Without having seen the Epistle of Rabbenu Meir quoted above, Rav Yahya Kafih raises the same objections to kabbalism, some almost verbatim. He also adds other objections:
"God forbid that any Jew should believe that R. Shimon ben Yohai or any other of our Sages believed in such things: to exchange Hashem our God, Who "made known His ways unto Moses, His deeds unto the children of Israel" that He is "Merciful and Compassionate, Slow to anger and Abundantly Kind etc." (Psalms 103:7-8), [to exchange Him] for an impatient alien divinity (Ze'er Anpin); and to combine and associate with Him five Partzufim (configurations) whose very existence has not been demonstrated, and to call them "Hashem our God;" but Hashem the true God Whose existence has been demonstrated by many sound and strong proofs, as Rav Saadyah Gaon wrote in his Book of Beliefs and Opinions and [as wrote] the author of The Duties of the Heart, and Rambam in the Guide of the Perplexed and in Mishneh Torah, [Him] we should forsake and abandon and say [of Him] that He has no Name, and that we should serve [instead] the Partzufim (Configurations) and the Forms that, according to him (i.e., the author of the Zohar), were created and developed from Him! ... The goal of our Holy Torah is to distance us from the belief in idols, whether they be physical or spiritual, and to know that Hashem He is God; there is none else beside Him."
Rav Yahya Kafih continues:
"These words of the author of Kiesay Eliyahu stand in contradiction to the words of Rambam in the Mishnah Commentary, in Mishneh Torah and in the Guide of the Perplexed; in contradiction to the words of the saintly author of the Duties of the Heart in the Gate of Unity, and Rav Saadyah Gaon in the Book of Beliefs and Opinions and the Rokeah who wrote that God's Oneness is not like that of one of a pair, nor one of a species (or: kind), nor like that of one man who is divisible into many units, nor like the oneness of a simple physical entity which is susceptible to ongoing subdivision. For God, blessed be He, is One, Whose Oneness is uniquely incomparable.
Kiesay Eliyahu also writes that En Sof (the Infinite) is the Soul of [the Sefirotic Configurations, Partzufim], Attik and Arikh Anpin, Abba and Imma, and Ze'er [Anpin] and his Female (Mate). But our aforementioned Rabbis wrote that God is not a physical entity, nor a force in a physical entity! According to him (i.e., Kiesay Eliyahu ), however, God is a force in a physical entity."
"Kiesay Eliyahu also writes that Arikh Anpin and Abba and Imma preceded (i.e., in the process of emanation) Ze'er Anpin, who is our God (according to Kiesay Eliyahu), and that the latter (Ze'er Anpin) is called the son of Abba and Imma. But our Rabbis z"l said that God is Eternally Pre-Existent to all else that exists, and that all else that exists is not eternally pre-existent."
"The belief of kabbalism includes the following four views concerning which our Rabbis have declared that whoever believes thus has no share in the World to Come:
1) A multiplicity of divinities: En Sof, Adam Kadmaah, Adam Kadmon, Attik, Arikh Anpin, Abba and Imma, Ze'er and his Female Mate; 2) these entities are rarefiedly corporeal, namely [they are] light and En Sof is the Soul of these corporeal entities; 3) Divine Service is not to the First Cause, called En Sof by the kabbalists, but to Ze'er Anpin, who is the last of these [emanated] causes; 4) he (Ze'er Anpin) is an intermediary who draws down the influence from the higher entities which are: Attik, Arikh Anpin, Abba and Imma, and he is in turn the father of Kether of [the world of] Beriah, in the [emanated ] unfolding of the worlds, according to their opinion. God save us [from such views]!"
From Tohar Hayihud:
"Anti-kabbalists see the attribution of the Zohar to R. Shimon ben Yohai as a fraudulent fabrication, an example of pseudepigraphy. Even the Chassam Sofer, who was not an anti-kabbalist, said to the students of his Yeshiva that of the vast Zohar only a small portion that would make up a very small book of few pages, is attributable to R. Shimon ben Yohai. (Quoted by talmidim of the Chassam Sofer, as stated by Gaon haRav Eliezer Lippman Nizetz, "Mei Menachot", daf 43 ammud 2)
An even stronger statement is found by Rav Eliezer Pilklush, the outstanding talmid of the Nodeh BeYehudah, and subsequently the Rav of Prague:
"I swear by Hashem's Torah that in the Zohar there are many forgeries and destructive statements that have been added. One page of the Talmud Bavli [containing] the discussions of Abaye and Rava is more holy than the entire Zohar -- the [authenticating] seal of R. Shimon ben Yohai is not affixed to them (i.e., to the words of the Zohar). ... Anyone with half a mind must admit this, for a number of Tannaim and Amoraim are mentioned who lived many years after R. Shimon ben Yohai ... [This has been] explained by the Gaon Rabbi Yaakov Emden who declared that [unidentified] hands have been at work on it (i.e., the Zohar)."
Rabbi Michael Tzadok, it is these Sages and Rabbis who view Zohar and kabbala as polytheism and heresy. The author of Tohar Hayihud (www.mesora.org/ToharHayihud.pdf) is not alone, as he quotes the Rivash, RaN, Meilli, and R. Alkafih. Having called the author of Tohar Hayihud an ignoramus, it is clear that you are the one who is ignorant, for he was citing others, yet you chose to attack him, and not the Rivash, RaN, Meilli, and R. Alkafih. So, you either did not read Tohar Hayihud, which makes your attack on the author foolish; or you read it and forgot what you read, again making your opinion valueless. Tohar Hayihud is truly a treasure. I am happy to have helped this work reach 30,000 people. And I continue to meet intelligent people who are starting to abandon Zoharic kabbala beliefs which they held on to, only because they were raised that way; not because they thought about it's views.
It is clear, Zohar and kabbala have been viewed as heretical ever since they were written. The Sages' and great Rabbis' arguments against Sefiroth as polytheistic, and against Zoharic kabbala, are reasonable arguments. But one cannot say this about those attempting to defend Sefiroth. It appears that kabbalists yearn to deify man, viewing Zoharic kabbala followers as infallible. Such kabbalist notions are not agreeable to the mind, and do not derive from the Tzelem Elohim granted to us by God; no reasoning is seen in their positions. This is because one cannot defend a view of God as divisible, for God is unlike His creations, that are divisible, as Maimonides teaches in his 13 Principles, and as taught by all our sages, and by God: "To what shall you equate Me, so that I shall be similar". (Isaiah 40:25) God clearly states He is not related to His creation. Maimonides teaches, since God is unlike anything He created, He is unlike their properties, such as division. Thus, God cannot be divided among His creations, that part of Him is in something else, or that He has parts.
Torah is about arriving at truth. The path to truth must be based on reason, intelligence, and proofs. Reason, proof and Toras Moshe Rabbeinu do not share Zohar's Sefiroth and emanations theories, but they tell us that we have one God, about Whom we know nothing, and we are therefore wise not to suggest matters from our imagination, as polytheists and kabbalists do. We are wise to follow God's words: "To what shall you equate Me, so that I shall be similar". (Isaiah 40:25)
Suggesting what Zoharic kabbala does, violates God's words, and human reason.