We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Over a period of several centuries, the classical Kabbalists developed a rich body of myth and ritual which articulated a new vision of the Sabbath. Several outstanding examples of this are the re-imaging of the Sabbath as a mystical marriage ceremony, a day on which the divine lovers re-unite; the Sabbath as a cosmic Axis, around which Time is organized and through whose channels the week is ennobled and blessed; and the Sabbath as a festival of spiritual restoration, whereby the Jew is graced with an additional pneuma, the Sabbath-soul, enabling him to participate more fully in the mysteries of the divine world. The Sabbath is thus experienced as a multi-leveled process of renewal, whereby Divinity, Time, and Person-indeed the Cosmos as a whole-are transformed and brought near their ideal state.
As we shall see, the mystical Sabbath is a complex melding of tradition and innovation: although the rabbinically ordained praxis was retained, its underlying meaning was significantly altered, recast in line with sefirotic symbolism and distinctively mystical concerns. For example, in the fiery crucible of the Kabbalistic imagination, the traditional blessing over the wine becomes a mythic representation of Shekhinah and the Holy One's “coronation,” while the three Sacred Meals serve as occasion to partake in the divine Sabbath and to invest the lower worlds with supernal blessing. The Kabbalists transform the Rabbinic Sabbath into a mystery rite; it is a celebration of cosmic renewal, a pilgrimage to the heart of being.
The purpose of this chapter is to classify, describe, and interpret the key mythic motifs of the Kabbalistic Sabbath, paying close attention to the course of their historical development. To provide a broader context for these themes, we will first outline some of the major elements of the pre-Kabbalistic Sabbath and briefly compare mizvat Shabbat among the Rabbinic Sages and their Kabbalistic descendants.
SECTION ONE: AN HISTORICAL OVERVIEW
The Sabbath in Antiquity
Israel's enduring love affair with the Sabbath is first attested in the Biblical corpus. Its authors accorded Shabbat both universalsacramentaP and national-social significance, linking the institution with two of the pivotal moments in “Sacred History,” Creation and the Exodus from Egypt.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
