Friday, September 25, 2020

The Zohar and Lurianic Kabbalah

The influence of the Zohar on the future attitude of Jewish religious thinking regarding masturbation would be impossible to overstate.  I struggled for a while trying to decide how to present this material in a blog post, as the Zohar devotes an immense amount of attention to this subject.  I decided to give brief summaries of the basic concepts found in the Zohar, and I quoted the sources for those who want to do more research on their own.  To translate and quote each idea would make this a very long post indeed.

The Zohar's teachings on the subject of spilling seed is to be understood as a direct result of how the Zohar understands procreation in general.  Most importantly, it is based on the way the Kabbalists explained the origins of semen, and the process of bringing a new soul from the spiritual world into the physical world. I recommend that you review my summary of the Sefer HaBahir in the last post.  Everything else flows from there.  

No Seed is ever a "Waste"

Perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of the approach of the Zohar is the Zohar's rejection of the idea that masturbation is prohibited because of "wasting seed". The Zohar attaches such an intense importance to the act of procreation, that it would be impossible to assume that when one ejaculates that nothing important is going on. since the seed is endowed with a soul, it can't be that it is just being wasted.  Instead, the Zohar introduces an entirely different concept. When one ejaculates in the context of normal vaginal intercourse with his spouse, the soul that his seed is endowed with is holy, and implants in his wife to develop into a holy child.  However, the Zohar teaches, that when one masturbates, or has any other sort of prohibited sexual intercourse, the "soul" endowed in his semen is an evil spirit.  Although these evil spirits may not be visible to the naked eye, they indeed are created and they accompany this person throughout his life and indeed even after his death.   This has many important ramifications that we shall discuss.

The Evil Spirits Haunt Their "Creator" 

The Zohar describes in several places the punishments in store for one who ejaculates in any context other than "normal" intercourse with his spouse (see Zohar 2:263b for example)  These evil angels have become his tormentors, and they will haunt him forever. So the act of ejaculation always creates a spiritual being, it just depends on the individual if that will be a holy being or an evil one.  

Note how different this is from the term Rashi used in the "Rashi on the Rif" that we quoted earlier.  There he wrote that "wasting seed" that could have potentially been a child is destructive because it is "wasted." This sounds like a potential human being has been lost, but nothing else was created in its' stead.  However, the Zohar is more concerned about the actual evil creations that the spilled seed is responsible for creating.

Masturbation Becomes One of the Arayot

Another result of the Zohar's conception of ejaculation, is the reclassification of masturbation in the category of one of the forbidden sexual relationships.  The Zohar spiritualizes the act of illicitly ejaculating semen that is not in the context of "normal" procreative intercourse with a spouse.  Since all such acts create evil spirits and demons, they are all similar sins.  For example, in Zohar 2:264a it is lumped together with bestiality, forbidden relationships, and more.

No Path for Repentance

In several locations, the Zohar makes an extraordinary and frightening claim, and unlike all other sins, masturbation is unique in that the perpetrator is denied the ability to repent.  This conclusion follows from the Zohar's understanding of this act.  Since each "seed" is a potential holy child, when has has the wrong intentions and spills the seed, that child is therefore "killed" and in its' stead an evil angel is born.  How could there ever be penance for such an act? In the Zohar 1:219b it is explicitly stated that for this sin alone, there is no repentance available.  Indeed, the violator is even worse than one who murders another person, for which there may be repentance available.  As he is killing his own children!  The Zohar uses this identical language in Zohar 2:3b to describe an abortion, indicated that the Zohar equated the two.  Interestingly, this is the only reference in the entire Zohar to abortions.  (See my previous posts regarding the comparison between "wasting seed" and abortions.)

If this idea sounds remarkable to you, let me emphasize that the Zohar asserts this claim in several places, including at length in Zohar 1:61b-62a.  However, in Zohar 2:214b, the Zohar seems to state that repentance is possible, though there the reference is to the sin of "Pegam HaBrit" (which we first saw introduced by Rabbi Joseph Gikatilla) which includes sexual sins other than masturbation as well.  Regardless, the fact remains that in several places the Zohar stated unequivocally that Teshuva - repentance is impossible.

Hotza'at Zera Becomes More Inclusive

Just as the idea of Pegam HaBrit found its' way into the Zohar, so did the idea expressed in the Igeret haKodesh that Hotza'at Zera Le'Vatalah could refer to any type of intercourse that isn't proper, even if it is normal vaginal intercourse. (see Zohar 3:90a).  If the intentions aren't proper, or the relationship is inappropriate, evil spirits are created instead of a child, and one is guilty of spilling seed.

Creating Holy Angels 

This idea of the Zohar does explain one conundrum that was a problem when we explained Rabbeinu Tam earlier on.  If "wasting seed" is a problem because a potential child is being "destroyed, then how can any intercourse be permitted when a child cannot result?  How could one have sexual relations with one's spouse if she is pregnant or postmenopausal for example? If you recall, Rabbeinu Tam explained this by differentiating between "normal intercourse" and "not normal intercourse", but this still left us wondering why that would be. 

However, the Zohar has a convenient explanation for this.  Just as when one "spills seed" he creates spiritual demons that he cannot see, so to when one has appropriate "normal" intercourse with one's spouse, they create holy angels that cannot be seen.  So any intercourse that is appropriate is never a "waste".  (See Zohar 3:167b - 168a).

There are many other ideas expressed by the Zohar on this topic, but I think we should move on to the next major step in the history of the influence of Kabbalah on the laws of spilling seed.  That step is the established of the next great Kabbalistic movement, that of Lurianic Kabbalah in Safed.  

The Mystics of Safed and the Canonization of the Zohar

Tragically, not long after the publication of the Zohar, the Jewish world was crushed by the horrific tragedy of the Spanish inquisition and the expulsion from Spain. Of the Spanish Jewish refugees, some eventually made their way to Safed in the Galilee region of Israel. Along with the refugees also went the wisdom of the Spanish kabbalists, especially the book of the Zohar. In Safed the school that became known as the Lurianic school was to become the dominant force in Jewish mysticism until the Hassidic movement in Eastern Europe in the 18th century.  Among the key figures in this school were none other than Rabbi Shlomo Alkabetz (1500-1576, the author of the famous Lecha Dodi sung in synagogues on Friday night),  Rabbi Moshe Cordovero (1522-1570, the teacher of Rabbi Isaac Luria and considered the founder of the Lurianic school), Rabbi Isaac Luria (1534-1572, also known as the Arizal, perhaps the most famous of the Safed Kabbalists and after whom the Lurianic school was named), and  Rabbi Chaim Vital (1542-1620, the Arizal's most important disciple, and the one who recorded in writing the teachings of the Safed school).

It is not necessary for us to delve deeply at this time into the philosophy and teachings of the Lurianic school.  Regarding the issue of masturbation specifically the Lurianic school continued to develop the same basic themes that we mentioned in our discussion of the Zohar.  However, what the Lurianic school did accomplish was that the Zohar became established in the Jewish canon of standard rabbinic texts. The scholars of Safed were responsible for making the Zohar accepted almost universally in the rabbinic world as a work with origins as ancient as the Mishna and Talmud, rather than a product of medieval Spain.

Among all of the famous scholars of this period in Safed, the most important figure for the purposes of our investigation, is Rabbi Yosef Karo (RYK) (1488-1575), the author of the Beit Yosef and Shulchan Arukh. These Halachic works, perhaps with the exception of Maimonides Mishnah Torah, had more influence on the development of Halacha than any other work in Jewish history.  Rabbi Yosef Karo was also a Kabbalist of note, and absorbed the Lurianic system of Kabballah directly from its' masters in Safed.  

RYK brought the Zohar to bear directly on his Halachic treatment of the topic of spilling seed.  However, before we see how, we will need to leave the Kabbalistic universe and go back to the parallel Halachic universe that we left behind a few posts ago.  We have to follow the Halacha through the Rosh, the Tur and then we will see how the Beit Yosef took the Halachic world of the Tur, and the Kabbalistic world of the Zohar and brought them together. 


 


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