The Spanish Kabbalists, the Science of Semen, Pegam HaBrit and more Concepts are Born

While the Halachic world was evolving its definition of "Hashchatat Zera" and eventually  codifying it as law, the parrallel world of Kabballah was coming into its own as a major force in Jewish religious life.  We have already discussed the Chasidei Ashkenaz in France and Germany who were an important influence in the early "pre-Zohar" development of Jewish mysticism or Kabbalah. However, as great as the influence of the Chasidei Ashkenaz was, it is nothing compared to the influence of the Spanish Kabbalistic masters. This movement reached its apex with the publication of the Zohar by Rabbi Moshe de Leon in the late 13th century.  It would be impossible to overstate the sea change in Judaism that the Zohar was going to cause.

The subject of the true author and origins of the Zohar is not one I plan on dealing with here.  For our purposes, it is simply important to note that it was publicized in the late 13th century. For more on this subject, Rabbi Natan Slifkin has a few citations here that might help you begin to research the topic.  Today's post will be devoted to pre-Zohar Kabbalistic writings.  These were mostly works that began to appear in the 12th and 13th century Spain and were the milieu within which the Zohar appeared at the end of the 13th century.  The famous Kabbalistic scholars of this time in Spain that I will mention (or already have mentioned) in this blog include:

1. Rabbi Isaac the Blind (1160-1235) while he was a Rabbi in Provence, Southern France, he was very much in the Spanish "camp" being the son of the famous Ra'avad (yes, the same ra'avad who wrote the glosses on Maimonides' Mishna Torah), and Provence was close to Spain, geographically, culturally, and religiously
2. Rabbi Ezra ben Solomon of Gerona (mid-12^th century to 1245?) Student of Rabbi Isaac the Blind, possible author for many Kabbalistic texts of the period that are unattributed.
3. Rabbi Joseph ben Avraham Gikatilla (1248-1305?) (author of Sefer Ginat Egoz and others)
4. Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman (1194-1270), also known as Nachmanides, or the "Ramban" who was clearly the most famous of all of the Spanish kabbalists. He was probably the most important scholar that legitimized the study of Kabballah and brought it into the mainstream.  He flourished during the years immediately prior to the publication of the Zohar.  There is no evidence that he ever saw the Zohar, though there are certainly parallels between his writings and the Zohar.  While various traditions and stories abound about his possible involvement with the Zohar, there is no way to prove any of them correct.
5. Rabbi Joseph of Shushan (1260's? - 1340's?) who was a Castilian Kabbalist who almost certainly did not come from Shushan (in Persia) at all, and generally assumed to be one of the scholars involved in writing of or editing of the Zohar along with Rabbi Moshe de Leon
6. Rabbi Moshe de Leon (RMDL) (1240-1305) Most famous as the one who publicized the Zohar.  Many scholars attribute the authorship of the Zohar to him, and to the group of kabbalists who gathered around him. However, it was presented by RMDL as an ancient work written in the Tannaitic period by Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai.  

I am going to reference several Kabbalistic works of this period which have significant bearing on this subject.

Sefer HaBahir

This work is traditionally attributed to Rabbi Nehunia ben Hakaneh, a venerable sage from the Mishnaic period in the first century, hence it is also known as the Midrash Rabbi Nehunya ben Hakaneh. The Ramban accepted this identification of authorship of the Sefer Habahir. However, it first appeared in public in the Provence school of Kabbalists (remember how I told you before that the Provence school and the Spanish schools were closely related) sometime late in the 12 ^th century.  Some scholars have attributed its’ authorship to Rabbi Isaac the Blind, while others claim that it is based on pieces of earlier Kabbalistic works that go back at least to the time of the Geonim.

The Sefer Habahir does not discuss masturbation. However, it is nonetheless extremely important to understanding how the Kabbalah deals with the issue of ejaculation, insemination, and procreation.  The Sefer HaBahir, as you shall see, lays the foundation upon which almost all of “Zoharic” and “Lurianic” Kabbalah is built when it comes to the issue of the “male seed”.

In Kabbalistic thought, the acts of human beings reflect the spiritual realms above, and the most important manifestation of this is in the act of creation of a human being. When a man has intercourse with his wife, he is engaged in an act of creation.  While the soul comes from above, his acts are what brings that soul from God into this world.  The man is the giver, and the woman is the acceptor.  

The Sefer haBahir (In Piska 46, Abrams edition 1994) describes the semen as a product of the entire human body. This directly reflects the contemporaneous medical understandings of the origins of the sperm. His entire body produces seed, which is then coalesced in the brain, and then after it is all gathered into a seed and the soul is attached to the seed through his holy thoughts and intentions, it travels through the spinal cord, into the penis, and then into the receptacle, which is the woman’s vagina.  This is kabbalistic science of reproduction 101.

If he has holy and proper thoughts, than when the seed coalesces in his brain, it will be given a new holy soul by God, and that soul will be implanted into the woman to grow.  If he does not have holy thoughts that soul may be a reincarnation of someone who needs punishment, or an evil soul or something else.

This concept is very important to understand, as it is going to seriously affect how the “spilling of seed” is going to be dealt with in all subsequent Kabbalistic literature.  It is also fascinating how what as essentially a secular concept of understanding became a mystical concept with such power and influence over the Halacha.  The ideas expressed above have their origins in Hippocrates, Aristotle, Plato, Democritus, Galen, and other medieval scholars/philosophers/physicians who followed in their footsteps.

Iggeret HaKodesh

The Iggeret Hakodesh (IH) was an extremely important document that almost certainly arose sometime during this period in Spain, probably sometime during the 12 ^th century.  Its authorship has been variously attributed to the Ramban, Rabbi Joseph ben Avraham Gikatilla, Rabbi Ezra ben Solomon of Gerona, and others.  This letter was heavily influenced by the Kabbalistic beliefs about sexual relationships, and had a significant impact for many centuries to come.

Partly as a consequence of the understanding of sex that we described above from the Sefer HaBahir, the holiness of the sex act is obvious.  The author of the IH did not appreciate the austere and scientific attitude of the philosophers like Maimonides who felt that the act of sex was somehow a base and lowly act that may even have negative health impacts.  For a kabbalist, the act of intimate relations between husband and wife was purely holy and special, and should be treated as such.

However, as the seed coalesced in the brain, and was endowed with the soul from God Himself, it was considered crucial that only proper thoughts of holiness and love were present.  If one’s mind was full of bad thoughts and intentions, or if the relationship was improper, bad things would result.  The IH then makes a claim which doesn’t fit well with the Talmud, but fits very well with this understanding of the IH.

… (after explaining the holiness of a proper sexual act and the resulting seed with a holy soul) ... But when a person does not have proper heavenly intentions, that seed which is drawn from him is a putrid drop, and it is called destroying seed upon the land (as stated by the generation of the flood), and the entire resulting seed is for naught and it plants an asheira (an idol-tree) … because it is a deficient seed … and God has no part of this … (IH, in Kitvei HaRamban, Chavel edition page 326

This really changes the concept of “wasting seed’ as it understands that even in normal intercourse, with the wrong intentions, it would be considered “wasting seed” as well.  But more importantly, we can really start to understand why the later kabbalists were so against wasting seed.  If this seed was truly a product of the entire body endowed with a soul by God, it makes sense that they would consider “destroying” the seed to be a grave sin.  Furthermore, although most scholars don’t believe that the Ramban was the author of the IH, it is not surprising that both the IH and the Ramban understood that the was the sin of the generation of the flood.   If any improper sexual behavior is in the category of “wasting seed”, then when the Torah says that the generation of the flood was “hishchitu darkam” (corrupt ways) that this was in the Ramban’s Kabbalistic mind the same as saying that they wasted seed.

Furthermore, when the IH mentions the “putrid drop” he is clearly referring to the Mishna in Avot as follows:

Akavyah ben Mahalalel said: mark well three things and you will not come into the power of sin: Know from where you come, and where you are going, and before whom you are destined to give an account and reckoning. From where do you come? From a putrid drop … (Avot 3:1)

While this is a not specifically a halachic statement, it certainly does not sound like Akavyah ben Mahalalel had this lofty view of the holiness of semen like the Kabbalists were describing.  In order to answer this seeming contradiction, the IH tells us that it depends on your thoughts. If your thoughts are holy, the seed is holy, if your thoughts are impure, then it is a “putrid drop”  

Rabbi Joseph Gikatilla (RJG) and “Pegam HaBrit”

While RJG does not speak directly about the specific prohibition of “wasting seed”, he is the origin of another Kabbalistic concept which had much influence on the later Kabbalistic ideas regarding this subject.

In his work Sha’arei orah 24a-b, he introduces the Kabbalistic concept that eventually became called “Pogem Be’brit” or defiling the covenant.  This is the idea that when one commits a sexual sin, he is defiling the covenant which is represented by his circumcision. This idea had huge influence on later Chassidic thought, especially in that of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov. RJG applies this idea even to improperly touching oneself when urinating and more.

Rabbi Moshe de Leon (RMDL) and Rabbi Joseph of Shushan (RJS)

Both RJS and RMDL were involved in the group of Kabbalists from whom the Zohar emerged.  Obviously it was RMDL who ultimately brought the Zohar to the attention of the general public. In their own personal writings, both of them addressed the topic of wasting seed and RMDL devoted quite an extensive amount of writing to the subject. The take home message from their writings is that the topic of wasting seed in their writings went from being a side note regarding proper sexual behavior to being a full blown major subject whose importance and severity expanded into areas completely unimaginable in the corpus of Jewish literature in previous times.  RJS for examples lumped bestiality and masturbation in the same category of corruption, while RMDL devoted chapters of thought on all of the terrible consequences of the sin. 

Ultimately though, it was the book that these scholars revealed to the world that was going to change everything, the Zohar. We will deal with this in the upcoming post.