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409 THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

409

allegorists of the fourteeiitli century, never thought of allegorizing historical or legislative passages, and

instead contented himself with a philosophical expoProverbs and .Job. and that in a most conservative manner. Aconlrmporary. the Portuguese David b. Yom-Tob ibn Bilia. unconscious in his remote country of the conflict between philosophy and orthodo.xy. was alone at this period in giving an Allegorical Interpretation to the miracles and narratives of Scripture. curious fact, characteristic of the varied mental gifts of the Polish Jews, is that Moses Isserles, called I{jiina (N D1>. the greatest rabbinical authority of Poliind in the si.vteenth century, imitated the Provencal allegorists, some two hundred years after them, l>y allegorizing the Book of Esther. The qinirrel between Ahasucrus and Vashti is the conflict betweiMi Form and Matter in the universe, just as l^lato had presented the sjime opposition of existence as that of man and woman. The tive senses and the tiv<powers of organic life are symbolized for I.sserles in the ten sons of llanuin, who is himself the Evil Inclination (Commentary on KsiIk r, "Mehir Yayin'i. sition of

A

Though conservatism may thus be

siud to have vanquished philosophical allegorism in the fourteenth century and brought it to a Mystical halt, it could not prevent its develo])Allegorism. nient in another direction into that

mystical ailigorism, which in became the most prcdonunant melhod of

its

turn

liiblical "

interpretation. As far back as the " Scfir ha Bahir (first half of the twelfth cenluryl this tendency ha<l held sway in certain (pnirters. anil it has survived down to the latest cabali.stic work of modern Hasidim. The "'Bahir" is the oldest cabalistic w'ork of this kind. It says, "The earth was without form and void" (Gen. i. 2): the word "was" indicates that something was already existent: "void" also shows that there was a something; thus the preexistence of the universe before Creation is deduced from Scripture.

Though Nahmanides made onh' a scant use of allegorism in liis Bible commentary, he was the chief Talmudic authority of his age who with great insistence spoke a good word for it, and a pupil of his, Bahya b. Aslier, was the tirst to define the advantages of mystic allegorism over other modes of iiiterpntalion. While adnutting the merits of pm/itit (the literal meaning), of iyiiwz (i)hilosophical allegorism), and ilcnmh (exposi(ion), he claims thatonly in the path of the *<«/(( 'abala) is there light (Introd. to Pentateuch conuiienlary, begun in 1291). In hisconunentary he never fails to take cognizance of this mystical interpretjition thus he sees in the thra; festivals, the symbols of the three Sefirot, /««</ (love), ilin (justice), and rdhniiihii (mercy), the last of which estalilishes e(|uilibrium between the former two, which are nnittial opposites. In the deliverance of the Jews from Egypt, (Jod's love was displayed in the revelation upon iSinai, His mercy, the intermediary between justice and love; and on the festividof the Holy Spirit (Tabernacles), the Sefirali of din (justice) stood revealed, an emanation of hokmiih (wisdom). ("Conunenlarv, I)eut."e<l. Hiva di Trento, p -J.Wi.) The masterpiece of Jewish allegorism. anil next to Philo's writings the most interesting and most inlluenlial product of its kind, is the celebnited Zohar (Splendor), the gospel of Zohar. the Jewish mysticism of tlu' Middle Ages. It was this allegorical commentary upon thr Pentjiteuch that coined the Iitiii FaRDeS (DTID Panidise) for the four speeirs of Bn)lical inlirpnlation.fonningit from their initial letters. thusPushat



Allegorical Interpretation

meaning). Kemez (allegorical), Derush. (haggadic or lialakic interpretation), and Sod (mystic meaning). As secondary formsof these four, the Zohar mentions in a passage (iii. 'H)iii. ed. Amsterdam) the following .seven (1) literal meaning, (2) Midrash, (M) allegory. (4) philosophical allegory, ('>) numerical value of the letters,(6) mystic allegory, and (7) higher inspiralion. It may be remarked with regard to the " last that Philo likewise claims "higher inspiration (literal



for

some of his interpretations

(" I)e

Cherubim,"

i.

9,

Resting as it does upon rabbinical Judaism, the Zohar maintains the authority of the written word; but mysticism was already aware, at the time of the Zohar's origin, of its essential antjigonism to the si)irit of strict rabbiuisin, as app(?ars from the following classical passjige concerning the various methods of Scriptural in1-44; " l)e .'^onudis,"

terpretation "

i.

8, ti27).



Wo

unto the man who asserts that this Torah Intends to teitf only (-oiiintonpliirt' tlitntrs ami secular narratives for if this were so, then In the present limes likewise a Torah njlght be written with more atlrai-tive namitlves. In truth, however, the matter is thus The upper worUI ami the lower are e>,tahllshed upon one ami the same principle: in the lower world is Israel, In the upper world are the anpels. When the anffels wish to descend to the lower world, they have to don earthly t.'arnienls.



If this he true of the aDjfels. how much more wi of the Tomh, for whose .sake. Indeed, Inith the worlil and the angels were alike created and e.xlsl [an old .Mldnush : si-e (iinzberg, '' Monatss<-hrift," ISHS, p. .>«!]. The world could simply not have endured to |i"ik upon it. .Now the namitlves of the Torah are its k&tnienis. He who thinks that these ^niients are the Torah Itself de.senes to perish and have no share In the world to come. Wo unto the f(H)ls who liHtk no further when they see an ele^rant nd)e More valiiahle than the garment is the iMHly which <-arrles It, and more valuable even than that is the soiil which animates the iMHiy. fools see only the garment of the Torah, the more intelligent si^e the IwKly, the wise seethe s<iul. Its pniper iM'Ing, and in the Messlainc time the ' upper soul ' of the Torah I

will stand

revealed" (Zohar,

Hi.

I.'iS,

l.-^SynS).

This classical passage reads almost like a declaration of war against nibbinism. whose haggadic and lialakic interpi-elalion is designated "body." or substiince by the nibbis them.selves (.Vb. iii. 'iS) and by the Zohar is as it were travestied, being General a body without soid. Characteristic of Alleg-oriza- the Zohar is the fact that it provides a tion of general allegorizalion of the precepts the Law. of the Law which heretofore had been attempted only in scattei'cd instances. The following is the characteristic elucidation of the pas.sage in Ex. xxi. 7, concerning the Jewish woman sold as a slave; "

When Gml, who In Ex. iv. 3 Is called K"N, the man, sells his Is, the holy soul— for a slave— that Is, sends her Into the material world— she shall not go out as the men-servants do. liod (ti.sires that when she leaves this world and her state of servitude In IL, she should go fri>m It fns> and pun*, ami noi after the manner of slaves, lailen with sin ami tniusi^Tfsston : in daughter— that

manner only can she Ik' reunited with lier heavenly Fattier. however, 'she plea.se not licr ma-st«T,' so thai she i-an not with him owing to Inipurity and sinfulness '(hen reihM'iued stiall he let her that l.s, iiian must ilo |H>nance and UlN'rate the .s<iul from the punishments of hell, so that she shall not * be solil unto a strange nation,' the evil angels." this If.

1m'

unit4l

W

' :

Next to the Zohar. mention nuist be made of the mystic idlegoiiial commentaries of Mkx.mikm di Kkc.vnati, about i:i'20, the first writer to mentiou the Zohar; of the books " Peliah " and " Kanali " see probably of the fourteenth century, anliK.x.Mi nibbiniial works in the form of a commentary on the Biblical accouni of ('niilion and of the "Zioni," by Menahrm b. Zioii of Spiver. beginning of the fifteenth century. The allegorism of the.se works is entirely di'iived from the Zohar. Kxleiisive use

—

—



of cabalistic allrgorisin was likewise nuide by S>loinon Kphntim Leiiczyz (end of the sixteenth centurv). who applied it even to rabbinical precept.s. This hoinilrlii- appliititioii of allegorism was quiti' favored by the Polish "darshanim." or preachers.