D. Falk, 2002
In addition to the following
readings below, check out E. Segal’s site: http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~elsegal/Rels463/
, especially the link for Merkabah
Mysticism.
In the year that King Uzzi'ah
died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up;
and his train filled the temple. 2 Above him stood the seraphim; each had six wings: with two he
covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. 3 And
one called to another and said:
"Holy, holy, holy
is the LORD of hosts;
the
whole earth is full of his glory."
4 And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. 5 And I said:
"Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes
have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!"
6 Then flew one of the seraphim to me, having in his hand a burning
coal which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 And he touched my mouth, and said:
"Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your
sin forgiven." 8 And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send, and who
will go for us?" Then I said, "Here am I! Send me."
1.1.2.
Ezekiel’s
Vision of the Chariot Throne. Ezekiel 1:1-14, 22-28; 3:12-13 (RSV)
In the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month, as I was among the exiles by the river Chebar, the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God. 2
On the fifth day of the month (it was the fifth year of the exile of King Jehoi'achin),
3 the word of the LORD came to Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chalde'ans by the river Chebar; and the hand of the LORD was upon him there.
4 As I looked, behold, a
stormy wind came out of the north,
and a great cloud, with brightness round about it, and fire flashing forth
continually, and in the midst of the fire, as it were gleaming bronze. 5 And from the midst of it came the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance: they had the form of men, 6 but each had four faces, and each
of them had four wings. 7 Their legs were straight, and
the soles of their feet were like the sole of a calf's foot; and they sparkled like burnished bronze. 8 Under their wings on their four sides they had human hands. And the four had their faces and their wings thus: 9 their wings touched one another; they went
every one straight forward, without turning as they went. 10 As for the likeness of their faces, each had the face of a man in front; the four had the face of a lion on the right side, the four had the face of an ox on the left side, and the four had the face of an eagle at the back. 11 Such were their faces. And their wings were spread out above; each creature had
two wings, each of which touched the wing of
another, while two covered their bodies. 12 And each went straight forward;
wherever the spirit would go, they went, without turning as they went. 13 In the midst of the living creatures there was something that looked like burning coals
of fire, like torches moving to and fro among the living creatures; and the fire was bright, and out of the fire went forth lightning. 14 And the living creatures darted to and fro, like a flash
of lightning. . . .
22 Over the heads of the living creatures there was the likeness of a firmament, shining like crystal,
spread out above their heads. 23 And under the firmament their wings were stretched out straight, one toward
another; and each creature had two wings covering its
body. 24 And when they went, I heard the sound of their wings like the sound of many waters, like the thunder of the Almighty, a sound of tumult like the sound of a host; when they stood still, they let down their wings. 25 And there came a voice from above the firmament over their heads; when they stood still, they let down their wings.
26 And above the firmament over their heads there was the likeness of a throne, in appearance like
sapphire; and seated above the likeness
of a throne was a likeness as it were of a human form. 27 And upward from what
had the appearance of his loins I saw as it were
gleaming bronze, like the
appearance of fire enclosed round about; and downward from what had the appearance of his loins I saw as it were the appearance of fire, and there was brightness round about him. 28 Like the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud on the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness round about.
Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD. And when I saw it, I fell upon my face,
and I heard the voice of one speaking. . . .
3:12 Then the Spirit lifted me up, and as the glory of the LORD arose from its place, I heard behind me the sound of a great earthquake; 13 it was the sound of the wings of the living creatures as they touched one another, and the sound of the wheels beside them, that sounded like a great earthquake.
1.1.3.
Dead Sea
Scrolls
Songs of the Sabbath
Sacrifice:
See http://www.mystae.com/restricted/reflections/messiah/xsongs.html
1.1.4.
Esoteric
Teachings. Hagigah 2:1
[from E. Segal, http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~elsegal/Rels463/TalmudicMysticism.html]
Mishnah Hagigah 2:1
The laws of incest may not be expounded before three
persons,
nor the
Account of the Creation before two,
nor the
Chariot before one
unless the
person is wise and able to understand on his own.
Anyone who meditates upon four things, it would be
preferable for them if they
had not come into the world:
what is above
what is below
what is before
and what is after.
And anyone who has no regard for the
honor of their Creator, it would be preferable
for them if they
had not come into the world.
Tosefta Hagigah 2:1
"The laws of incest may not be expounded before
three persons"
--however they may be
expounded before two
"Nor the
Account of the Creation before
two"
however it may be expounded before
one.
Palestinian Talmud Hagigah
2:1, 77a
"The laws of incest may not be expounded before
three persons"
Rabbi Ba in the
name of Rav Judah:
This is the view of Rabbi Akiva,
however according to Rabbi Ishmael... he teaches the
matter.
This can be deduced from the
fact that Rabbi 'Ami was sitting and teaching "There is an admonishment
against the active partner as well as against the
passive partner."
This proves that the law
follows Rabbi Ishmael.
"Nor the
Account of the Creation before
two"
Rabbi Ba in the
name of Rav Judah:
This is the view of Rabbi Akiva,
however according to Rabbi Ishmael they
expound the matter.
This can be deduced from the
fact that Rabbi Judah ben Pazi
sat and expounded "In the beginning the
world consisted of water in water."
This proves that the law
follows Rabbi Ishmael.
"Nor the
Account of the Chariot before
One"
Is this also the view of
Rabbi Akiva?
It is the view of all, in
order that one should know how to have regard for the
honour of one's Creator.
Did not Rav say: "A person
may not speak against his teacher unless he has observed and served him"?
How should he behave? In the
beginning his teacher introduces the
beginnings of verses and he confirms it.
Rabbi Hiyya in the
name of Rabbi Johanan: Rabbi had an experienced
student, and he expounded one lesson in the
Account of the Chariot, which did not agree
with Rabbi's understanding; and he was stricken with leprosy.
Babylonian Talmud Hagigah 11b
...Rav Ashe says: What does "The
laws of incest may not be expounded before three persons" mean? --The secrets
of the laws of incest may not be expounded
before three persons.
What is the reason? --It
stands to reason: When two who are sitting before their
teacher, one will be discussing it with his teacher while the
other is paying attention to them.
But if there are three, then
one will be discussing with the teacher while the
other two are discussing with one another,
and they will not know what their
teacher said. This might lead them to permit a
prohibited sexual relation...
Babylonian Talmud Hagigah
13a
Rabbi Hiyya taught: But the
headings of chapters may be transmitted to him.
Rabbi Zera said: The headings of
the chapters may be transmitted only to the
head of a court and to one whose heart is anxious within him.
Others say: Only if his
heart is anxious within him.
Rabbi 'Ami said: The mysteries of the
Torah may be transmitted only to one who possesses five attributes:
“The captain of fifty,
and the
honourable man,
and the
counsellor,
and the
cunning artificer,
and the
eloquent orator” (Isaiah 3:3).
1.1.5.
Sefirah Yetzira
[from E. Segal, http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~elsegal/Rels463/Yetzirah.html]
Chapter 1
1. With 32 wonderous paths of
Wisdom engraved Yah, the
Lord of Hosts, [God of Israel, the Living God,
King of the Universe, Almighty God, merciful
and gracious, High and Exalted, dwelling in eternity, whose name is Holy, and
created His universe with three books, with text (Sepher),
with number (Sephar), and with communication (Sippur).
2. Ten Sefirot of Nothingness plus twenty two
[foundations] letters: Three Mothers, Seven
Doubles, and Twelve Elementals.
3. Ten Sefirot of Nothingness: The number of the
ten fingers, five opposite five, with a single covenent
precisely in the middle, like the
circumcision of the tongue and the
circumcision of the membrum.
4. Ten Sefirot of Nothingness: Ten and not nine;
ten and not eleven. Understand with Wisdom, and be wise with Understanding.
Examine with them and probe them,
make a thing stand on its essence, and make the
Creator sit on his base.
5. Ten Sefirot of Nothingness: Their measure is
ten which have no end. A depth of beginning, a depth of end; a depth of good, a
depth of evil; a depth of above, a depth below; a depth east, a depth west; a
depth north, a depth south. The singular Master, God faithful King, dominates them
all from His holy dwelling until eternity of eternities.
6. Ten Sefirot of Nothingness: Their vision is
like the "appearance
of lightening", their limit has no
end. His Word in them is "running and returning". They rush to his
saying like a whirlwind, and before His throne they
prostrate themselves.
7. Ten Sefirot of Nothingness: Their end is embedded
in their beginning, and their
beginning in their end, like a flame in a
burning coal. For the Master is singular, He
has no second. And before One, what do you count?
8. Ten Sefirot of Nothingness: Bridle your mouth
from speaking and your heart from thinking. And if your heart
runs, return to the place, as it is written, "The Chayot running and returning" (Ezekizl 1:14). Regarding this
covenant was made.
9. Ten Sefirot of Nothingness: One is the
Breath of the Living God, blessed and benedicted be the Name of the
Life of worlds. Voice, Breath and Speech. This is the
Holy Breath (Ruach HaKodesh).
10. Two: Breath from Breath. With it engrave and
carve twenty-two foundation letters - three, Mothers,
seven Doubles, and twelve Elementals - and one Breath is from them.
11. Three: Water and Breath. With it engrave and carve chaos and void, mire
and clay. Engrave them like a garden plot,
carve them like a wall, cover
them like a ceiling.
12. Four: Fire from water. With it engrave and carve the
Throne of Glory, Seraphim, Ophanim, holy Chayot, and Ministering Angels. From the
three establish His dwelling, as it is written, "He
makes His angels of breaths, His ministers from flaming fire" (P salms 104:4).
13. Five: With three of the simple letters
seal "above". Choose three and place them
in His great Name: YHV. With them seal the
six extremities. Face upward and seal it with YHV.
- Six: Seal "below".
Face downward and seal it with YVH.
- Seven: Seal "east".
Face straight ahead and seal it with HYV.
- Eight: Seal "west".
Face backward and seal it with HVY
- Nine: Seal "south".
Face to the right and seal it withn VYH.
- Ten: Seal "north".
Face to the left and seal it with VHY.
14. These are the Ten Sefirot of Nothingness. One is the
Breath of the Living God. Breath
[from Breath], Fire [from water, and the extremities], up, down, east, west, north and south.
Chapter 2
1. Twenty-two
foundation letters: three Mothers, seven
Doubles, and twelve Elementals. The three Mothers,
AMSh, their
foundation is the pan of merit, the
pan of liability, and the tongue of decree
deciding between them.
2. Twenty-two letters: Engrave them,
carve them, weigh them,
permute them, and transform them,
and with them depict the
soul of all that was formed and all that will be formed in the
future.
3. Twenty-two foundation letters:
They are engraved with voice, carved with breath, and placed in the
mouth in five places: AChHO, BVMP, GYKO, DTLNTh, ZSShRTz.
4. Twenty-two foundation letters:
They are set in a circle as 231 Gates. And this is the
sign: There is no good higher than delight (ONG), and there
is no evil lower than plague (NGO).
5. How? Weigh them and transpose them,
Aleph with each one, and each one with Aleph; Bet with each one, and each one
with Bet. They repeat in a cycle. Therefore, everything formed and everything
spoken emanates in one name.
6. From substance out of chaos and make
nonexistence into existence. Carve great pillars out of air that cannot be
grasped. This is the sign: One forsees, transposes, and makes all creation and all words
with one Name. And a sign of this: Twenty-two objec ts in a single body.
Chapter 6
1. Three are the fathers
and their offspring, seven are the
planets and their hosts, and twelve are the
diagonal boundaries. And the proof of this,
true witnesses, are the Universe, the
Year, and the Soul. He decreed Twelve, (Ten),
Seven and Three and He a ppointed them
in the Teli, the
Cycle, and the Heart. The three are fire,
water, and breath: fire above, water below, and
breath, the decree that decides between them.
A sign of this is that fire upholds water.
Mem hums, Shin hisses, and Alef
is the decree that
decides between them.
2. The Teli in the
Universe is like a king on his throne, the
cycle in the Year is like a king in the
province, the Heart in the
Soul is like a king in battle.
"Also every desire, one opposite the other
was made by God" (Ecclesiastes 7:14).
Good opposite evil, good from good, evil from evil. Good makes evil recognizable, and evil makes good recognizable. Good is kept
for the good, and evil is kept for the
wicked .
3. Three: Each one stands alone. Seven are divided, three opposite three,
with a decree deciding between them. Twelve stand in war: three who love, three who hate, three who give
life, and three who kill. The three that love are the
heart, the ears and th e mouth; the
three that hate are the liver. the gall bladder, and the
tongue. And God, the fathful
King dominates them all. One over three, three
over seven, and seven over twelve, and all of them
are bound, one to another.
4. And when Abraham our father gazed, he
looked, saw, delved, understood, engraved, carved, permuted and depicted, and
he was successful. And the Master of all,
Blessed be He, revealed Himself to him, and took him in His bosom, [kissed him
on the head, and called him, "my Beloved"]. He made a covenant with him
between the ten toes of his feet-this is the
covenant of circumcision-and between the ten
fingers of his hand-this is the covenant of the
tongue. He bound the twenty-two letters to his
tongue and re vealed their
foundation. He drew them in water, burned them
in fire, agitated them
with breath. He ignited them with seven
planets, and directed them with twelve
constellations.
Aramaic Demon Bowls:
http://www.lib.umich.edu/pap/magic/def2.html
http://www.lib.umich.edu/pap/magic/def2.display.html
http://www.lib.umich.edu/pap/magic/def1.html
http://www.lib.umich.edu/pap/magic/def1.display.html
1.3.1.
R. Hanina b. Dosa. Bavli Taanit 25a
[A famous miracle-working rabbi of the first
century CE.]
On one Sabbath eve at twilight [R. Hanina]
saw his daughter sad. He said to her: "Why are you sad?" She replied:
"I exchanged my vinegar can for my oil can, and I kindled the
Sabbath light with vinegar (and it will be extinguished)." He said to her:
"My daughter, why should this trouble you? He who commanded the
oil to burn will also command the vinegar to
burn." The vinegar burned all day until after Havdalah
(the end of the
Sabbath)
Once Hanina's wife said to him:
How long are we to go on suffering so much: He replied: "What shall we
do?" She said, "Pray that some of what is stored up for the
righteous in the world-to-come be given you
here and now." He prayed, and [from above] there
emerged the semblance of a hand which gave him
a leg of a golden table. That night in a dream he saw each of the
other righteous men [in the
world-to-come] dining at a table with three legs but he and his wife were
dining at a table with only two legs. So he said to his wife: Are you content
to have all of the righteous dine at
three-legged tables, will you and I dine at a table with one of its legs
missing?" She said: "What shall we do? You have no choice but to pray
that the leg be taken away from you." He
prayed and it was taken back. The sages taught: The latter miracle was greater
than the former; for we have a tradition that
Heaven gives but never takes back.
[cited from http://www.jhom.com/topics/miracles/ben_dosa.htm#7]
1.3.2.
R. Yohanan b. Zakkai.
[Yohanan ben
Zakkai was a leading rabbi of the
late 1st c. CE, who helped reconstruct Judaism after the
War with Rome]
A heathen once asked Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai: These things you do
appear like acts of witchcraft. You bring a red heifer, slaughter it, burn it,
beat it down to a powder, then take the
ashes; and if one of you is defiled by a dead body, you sprinkle two or three
drops and say to him, You've been cleansed.
Said Yohanan to the
heathen, Has a demonic spirit ever taken
possession of you?
The heathen replied, No
Yohanan said to him, have you
ever seen anyone possessed by a demonic spirit?
Indeed the heathen
replied
What do you do in such a case, Yohanan
asked him. The heathen said: we bring certain
roots, kindle them, let the
smoke rise under him; then we spray water on the
demonic spirit and it flees.
Said Rabban Yohanan
to him: Why don't your ears listen to what your own mouth is saying? That
demonic spirit is the spirit of uncleanness
as it is written, "And also I will remove from the
land the prophets and the
unclean spirit,"
When the heathen
took off, Yohanan's disciples said to him: Master,
him you could put off with a straw argument; what have you to say to us
however?
Yohanan said to them:
By your life! It is not the corpse that makes
unclean, and it is not the waters that make
clean. But this all is a decree of the Holy
One, blessed be He. The Holy One, blessed be He,
declared, I have proclaimed a statute, I have decreed a decree, and you are not
permitted to transgress what I have decreed. "This is the
ritual law that the Lord has commanded"
[from Judah
Goldin, The Magic of Magic and Superstition;
cited from http://www.mtholyoke.edu/~cemulshi/whatis.html]
[A rabbi of the 2nd
c. CE. By demonstrating his power over a demon, he is granted his
request of the emperor to repeal
a law against the Jews]
Once the kingdom issued a decree
not to observe the Sabbath, not to circumsize the sons, and
to have relations with menstruating women... They said: Who will go to abrogate
the decrees? Let Rabbi Simon go since he is
learned in miracles... He was greeted by [the
demon] Ben Tamalyon: Do you want me to come with you?
Rabbi Simon wept and said: How is it that the
maidservant of Father Abraham's household had
an angel come three times and I not once; let the
miracle come by any means. The first one he came to was the
daughter of the emperor. When he came there,
he said: Ben Tamalyon leave!,
Ben Tamalyon leave! And as he was called, he left. He
was told: request whatever you want. Go to the
storehouse and take whatever you want. He found the
document, took it and tore it up.
[cited from http://faculty.biu.ac.il/~barilm/exorcism.html]